Our family began reading through Luke the other day. I hadn’t planned it this way, but we are now moving through Luke, having just finished Acts. I always was rather backward! One advantage I anticipate is that we will now be reading Luke in the light of Acts, instead of Acts in the light of Luke, and I hope to see more connections between the two books because of that.

In this morning’s reading, we looked at Luke 1:39-45. My daughter noticed (rightly!) the contrast between Mary’s faith and Zechariah’s doubt. Have you seen that? In 1:11-20, Gabriel appears to Zechariah, a priest who was righteous and blameless (1:5-6). All the same, when it came down to it, Zechariah was hard pressed to believe (pisteuw, 1:20) that Gabriel’s words would be fulfilled (plerow, 1:20).

Immediately after the account of Zachariah and Elizabeth, we see an account of Gabriel appearing to Mary–what has become known as the Annunciation. When Mary travels to see Elizabeth (and with Zachariah still mute!), Elizabeth is filled with the Spirit and blesses Mary: “Blessed is she who believed (pisteuw, 1:45), for there will be a fulfillment (teleiwsis, 1:45) of those things which were told her from the Lord.

“Fulfill” (1:20) and “fulfillment” (1:45) are not lexical cognates, but they are conceptually related. And in the bigger picture of the narrative accounts, the contrast seems clear: both Zachariah and Mary are visited by Gabriel, in both cases a miraculous conception is announced, but where Zachariah (as pious as he is) doubts, Mary responds in faith. “The contrast with Zechariah could scarcely be more stark.” (Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, 96)

Peter Williams has a very thorough review of NA28 at the new book review site, Marginalia.

As a “review of books” (not, it is insisted, “a publication of book reviews”), Marginalia commends itself as well-conceived.  Consider John Barton’s excellent guide to “the art of the book review” or T. M. Law’s “new norm for the academic book review.”  I look forward to the fruit of this site.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 33,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 8 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.

Grammar nerd alert!

I still remember learning that the name “Jesus” (and as I later learned, “Moses”) merely took an apostrophe at the end to become possessive, as opposed to the typical apostrophe-s (‘s), due to the multiple repetition of the “s” sound.  So, proper form was Jesus’ instead of Jesus’s.  Interestingly, at least one grammar book I studied many years ago indicated that “Jesus” and “Moses” were pretty much the only exceptions to the general “apostrophe-s” rule, although I suppose other words/names with a repeated “s” sound at the end would have been grudgingly admitted as well (e.g., “Xerxes”).

Lo and behold, I find in the gold standard Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition, 2010; 7.16) that I’ve been shamefully negligent in my apostrophe use!  Turns out that the general apostrophe-s rule “extends to proper nouns, including names ending in s, x, or z.”  The 15th edition of Chicago (2003) didn’t use “Jesus” or “Moses” in their list of examples, but there it is, clear as day, in the 16th edition:

Jesus’s adherents

But that’s not all!  This simple corrective to my usual use of apostrophes caused me to stumble upon something jaw-dropping.  In a striking change from former practice (15th edition), Chicago now makes only two specific exceptions in “for . . . sake” expressions.  Only “for goodness’ sake” and “for righteousness’ sake” may use an apostrophe instead of an apostrophe-s because of euphony.  And many a sin has used euphony as an excuse!  In the 15th edition (7.22), however, an additional exception was specifically noted:

for Jesus’ sake

But now!  Ah, now that is no longer an exception.  Indeed, specifically listed (with no justification!) in the 16th edition (7.20), we have

for Jesus’s sake

It’s a conspiracy, I tell you!  Do you see it?  Whereas “Jesus” was formerly categorized with “goodness” and “righteousness,” now the name appears alongside “expedience” and “appearance”.  I kid you not—look it up yourself!

I suspect I’m onto a good dissertation topic possibility.

The 28th version of Nestle-Aland, Novum Testamentum Graece is being rolled out, although it apparently isn’t available for purchase in the US at the very moment.  It touts “over 30 modifications in the main text” of the general epistles based on the Editio Critica Maior  on the Catholic Epistles published a few years back.  I found that the NA-28 text is available at the edition’s website, and a very helpful list by Michael Hanel of BibleWorks that highlights the changes in the NA-28 from the NA-27.

Some convicting words from our friend Charles Spurgeon:

…master those books you have. . . . Little learning and much pride come of hasty reading.  Books may be piled on the brain till it cannot work.  Some men are disabled from thinking by their putting meditation away for the sake of much reading. . . . Books on the brain cause disease.  Get the book into the brain, and you will grow. . . . In reading books let your motto be, “Much, not many.”  Think as well as read, and keep the thinking always proportionate to the reading.

Difficult advice to heed in a Ph.D. program, but challenging nonetheless!

I just started in on Peter Leithart’s Deep Exegesis, and found some thought-provoking material on Bible translation.  He is considering the sort of language that translations use when they bring Scripture over into another tongue, and his take on the matter is not a positive one; in his view, “translation is a key symptom of our willingness to emasculate our own Scriptures” (3).  He walks the reader through translations of Psalm 23 in the KJV and The Message, and concludes that “the KJV can be faulted for being more formal than the original Hebrew and earlier English translations . . . , but the slanginess of The Message is no solution.  The “most crucial difference” between the two, as Leithart sees it, “is a difference in authority: which language, which idiom, determines the rendering of the Hebrew into English?”  In the KJV, “the Hebrew text forces itself on the English,” bringing the translators to “enlarge not only the language but also the conceptual apparatus of English speakers” (4-5).  On the other hand, “for The Message . . . contemporary English dictates what the Bible may or may not say” (5).

To put it a slightly different way, “the goal of Reformation and post-Reformation Bible translators was always to carry over as much of the original text as possible into the target text”; “they did not believe that the Bible needed to adjust to our prior concepts and institutions.” (6).  But for many modern-day translators, “the idioms and cadences, the rhetoric and the tropes, the syntax and the vocabulary of the original have been reduced to mere vehicles for communicating that message. . . . We substitute, add, or subtract words to make the Bible sound normal.  We change idioms to be more familiar. . . . We fiddle with the Bible’s rhetoric so that it fits our rhetoric, rather than letting the Bible’s rhetoric shape ours.”

The Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism (JGRChJ) has been produced for something like twelve years, and I’d never heard about it until I stumbled across it this last week.  It is an electronic journal with the stated approach of publishing “only the highest quality articles that examine the ways in which the Greco-Roman world was the world of the New Testament and early Judaism.”  Edited by Stan Porter, it includes submissions by scholars such as Craig Keener, Craig Evans, David Instone-Brewer, Chrys Caragounis, and numerous others.  The latest one or two journals is available online, and articles from previous issues are only listed and abstracted (not available online), as they are published in a printed annual volume a year or two after being published online.

Here is the abstracted contents of the earliest volume available online, volume 7 (2010):

7.1	The Development of Style (Fifth Century BCE to Second Century CE) and the Consequences for Understanding the Style of the New Testament Craig A. Smith Sterling College, Sterling KS, USA There has been very little consideration given to the impact and consequences of writing style on the New Testament writings. This article is a push against this reality. There are three aims in this article. First, it will show how literary style developed over the period of time from the fifth century BCE to the second century CE, thereby providing a context for understanding literary style. Secondly, the reader will see how this development of style impacts the examination of style in the New Testament. Thirdly, 2 Tim. 4.1-8 is used as an example of how an understanding of style affects the interpretation of a New Testament text.
7.2	One God Supreme: A Case Study of Religious Tolerance and Survival Michael Meerson Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA The paper discusses an important Hellenistic inscription that was found on Mount Gerizim in Samaria, Israel. First, the paper analyzes the corpus of inscriptions with invocations to qeo\j u9yi/stoj and ei[j qeo/j (both posing a similar problem), trying to find out a social and cultural message in one’s choice to address the god with a name fitting both the Jewish and the pagan worship. After that, the paper attempts to date the inscription and to put it in a cultural and architectural context of Mount Gerizim, the focus of spiritual values for Samaritans.
7.3	The Pillars and the Right Hand of Fellowship in Galatians 2.9 Craig S. Keener Palmer Theological Seminary, Wynnewood, PA, USA In Gal. 2.9, the Jerusalem pillars entered an agreement with Paul by giving him ‘the right hand of fellowship’. This brief article surveys evidence involving agreements with the right hand, and also the figurative use of ‘pillars’ as images of strength, to explore more fully the sorts of connotations that Paul’s Galatian audience may have heard in both images.
7.4	The Nativity Cave and Gentile Myths Craig S. Keener Palmer Theological Seminary, Wynnewood, PA, USA How would Gentiles have heard the early Christian tradition of Jesus’ nativity in a cave, and Hadrian’s subsequent ‘defilement’ of that site with a sacred grove? This article briefly surveys some relevant or potentially relevant pagan analogies.
7.5	Ancient Patterns of Reading: The Subdivision of the Acts of the Apostles in Codex Sinaiticus Greg Goswell Presbyterian Theological College, Melbourne, Australia The 42 numbered chapters and 27 kephalaia present in Codex Sinaiticus (fourth century) for the Acts of the Apostles give the contemporary reader access to ancient patterns of reading the book of Acts. The kephalaia take the form of running titles at the top of columns (titloi). The presupposition behind this study is that the breaking up of a long narrative text into smaller units is a significant factor that shapes readerly perceptions. The kephalaia of Sinaiticus give special prominence to certain persons, events and themes in Acts. The uncovered modes of reading sometimes challenge contemporary notions about Acts and even provide (what are to us) new exegetical insights.
7.6	The Concept of Atonement in the Qumran Literature and the New Covenant Jintae Kim Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, Lynchburg, VA In the New Testament, we find the fusion of the concept of atonement with the concept of eschatological forgiveness as promised in Jeremiah’s new covenant prophecy in connection with the atoning death of Christ (Lk. 22.20; 1 Cor. 11.25; Heb. 8.6-13; 9.15-28; 1 Jn 2.2, 12-14). Focusing on the peculiar use of the phrase h#dxh tyrbh in the Qumran literature, this paper will demonstrate that this way of interpreting Jeremiah’s new covenant is built upon a Jewish eschatologizing of forgiveness as evidenced at Qumran, where the community identified itself both as the new covenant and the true temple with spiritual sacrifices.
7.7	The Politics of Ephesians and the Empire: Accommodation or Resistance? Nijay K. Gupta and Fredrick J. Long Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, KY Despite the trend to interpret New Testament texts as containing some form of imperial critique, the letter to the Ephesians is dismissed as advocating accommodation to empire. The charge is that the letter is escapist, emphasizing spiritual foes, and maintains the Roman status quo in its household code. However, particular language in Ephesians reveals a resistance to earthly ‘demonized’ powers and challenges imperial prerogatives through trumping and subverting them. God’s example of rule and living in Christ critiques imperialism. Furthermore, the household code promotes mutual submission and equal regard of respective members. When Ephesians is read within its own socio-political and religious context, clear signs of resistance to the empire are detected, possibly even involving confrontation of ‘the deeds of darkness’. Key Words: Ephesians, Pauline Theology, Imperial Criticism, Household Codes, Roman Empire
7.8	Note on Athens: Do 1 Corinthians 16.15 and Acts 17.34 Conflict? Craig S. Keener Palmer Theological Seminary, Wynnewood, PA, USA In contrast to those who argue that 1 Cor. 16.15 rules out the possibility of earlier converts in Athens, Athens was a ‘free city’, hence not officially part of the province of Achaia during this period. Key words: Acts 17.34; 1 Cor. 16.15; historiography; Athens; Achaia; free cities
7.9	The Plausibility of Luke’s Growth Figures in Acts 2.41; 4.4; 21.20 Craig S. Keener Palmer Theological Seminary, Wynnewood, PA, USA Analogous periods of intensive growth attested for new religious movements render Luke’s reports of the church’s growth (Acts 2.41; 4.4; 21:.20) more plausible than is often assumed. Indeed, far from being absurd, Luke’s figures appear modest in comparison with significant growth rates in much of global Christianity and other mass movements today. This is not to deny that Luke may have preferred higher estimates where available, or to presume that careful statistics were kept. But concrete arguments against high figures for the Jerusalem church (addressed in this article) are not compelling, so if we have other reasons to respect Luke’s historiography, these reports remain plausible. Keywords: Acts 2.41; Acts 4.4; Acts 21.20; church growth; Jerusalem church; Luke’s historiography
7.10	Acts 10: Were Troops Stationed in Caesarea during Agrippa’s Rule? Craig S. Keener Palmer Theological Seminary, Wynnewood, PA, USA Haenchen questions Luke’s report about the conversion of the Gentile Cornelius, contending that the narrative occurs during Agrippa’s reign (41–44 CE) and that no Roman soldiers were stationed in Caesarea during this time. Haenchen’s argument is, however, difficult to defend. First, we cannot be certain as to the time frame of the events described. Secondly, Josephus explicitly refers to auxiliaries of the Roman army in Caesarea during this period. Thirdly, some argue that Cornelius was retired anyway. Of these arguments, the most important is the second from Josephus. Key words: Acts 10; Cornelius; centurion; Agrippa

Well, pretty much all of last month’s reading corresponded with my class reading assignments and projects.  As usual!  Along with general reading for hermeneutics (Lee, Frei, Hirsch) and a seminar on faith and scholarship (D’Elia, Carson), I also had the following projects: a presentation on prayer in the Pastoral Epistles, a presentation on 1 Corinthians 7:1-7, and a paper on social-scientific criticism focusing on Bruce Malina (Neyrey’s article in Blackwell gives an excellent summary of the discipline).

10/30/12  Ferguson, Everett. “Topos in 1 Timothy 2:8.” Restoration Quarterly 33 (1991): 65-73.

10/28/12  McKee, Elsie. “Calvin and Praying for ‘All People Who Dwell on Earth.’” Interpretation 63 (2009): 130-40.

10/27/12  John A. L. Lee, A History of New Testament Lexicography, Studies in Biblical Greek 8 (New York: Peter Lang, 2003).  Highly recommended.  I’ll never look at an entry in a Greek lexicon in the same way after having read Lee.  He has an intimate knowledge of the entire tradition of Greek lexicons produced over the centuries, and shows the deficiencies inherent in various editions and methodologies.  The book ends with over 100 pages devoted to case studies where the major lexicons are flat-out wrong in certain instances, usually because they are relying on their predecessors.  That is, someone made a fundamental definitional error years and years back, and that error has been uncritically reproduced (not just mechanically, but conceptually) through the stream of lexicons that followed because new editions did not revisit the original work that was done.

10/26/12  I. Howard Marshall on 1 Timothy 2:1-8 in The Pastoral Epistles, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999), 415-35.

10/25/12  Frei, Hans.  The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative.  New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974.

10/23/12  Henry, Carl F. H.  ”Narrative Theology: An Evangelical Appraisal.” Trinity Journal 8 NS (1987): 3-19.

10/18/12  Hirsch, E. D. Validity in Interpretation. New Haven: Yale, 1967.

10/16/12 Neyrey, Jerome H.  “Social-Scientific Criticism.”  Pages 177-191 in The Blackwell Companion to the New Testament.  Edited by David E. Aune.  Chichester, U.K. and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.

10/15/12 Tidball, Derek J. “On Wooing a Crocodile: An Historical Survey of the Relationship between Sociology and New Testament Studies.” Vox Evangelica 15 (1985): 95-110.

10/15/12  Malina, Bruce J.  “Bible Study and Cultural Anthropology: Interpreting Texts Fairly.”  Pages 1-27 in The The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology. Revised edition.  Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1993.

10/15/12 Barton, Stephen C.  “Social-Scientific Criticism.”  Pages 277-289 in Handbook to Exegesis of the New Testament.  Edited by Stanley E. Porter.  New Testament Tools and Studies XXV.  Leiden: Brill, 1997.

10/15/12 DeSilva, David A.  “Embodying the Word: Social-Scientific Interpretation of the New Testament.”  Pages 118-29 in The Face of New Testament Studies: A Survey of Recent Research.  Edited by Scot McKnight and Grant R. Osborne.  Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004.

10/14/12 Horrell, David G.  “Whither Social-Scientific Approaches to New Testament Interpretation?  Reflections on Contested Methodologies and the Future.”  Pages 6-20 in After the First Urban Christians: The Social-Scientific Study of Pauline Christianity Twenty-Five Years Later.  Edited by Todd D. Still and David G. Horrell.  London and New York: T&T Clark, 2009.

10/14/12  Bruce J. Malina, “The Social Sciences and Biblical Interpretation,” Interpretation 36 (1982): 229-42.  A programmatic statement of social-scientific interpretation of Scripture by one of the foremost practitioners of the methodology.  Argues that social-scientific criticism is necessary for proper interpretation of Scripture.

10/10/12  D. A. Carson, The Intolerance of Tolerance (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012).

10/8/12  John D. D’Elia, A Place at the Table: George Eldon Ladd and the Rehabilitation of Evangelical Scholarship in America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).  See this post.

10/5/12  Ciampa, Roy E.  “Revisiting the Euphemism in 1 Corinthians 7.1.”  Journal for the Study of the New Testament 31 (2009): 325-38.

10/2/12  Gordon Fee, “Preaching Apocalyptic?  You’ve Got to Be Kidding!”  Calvin Theological Journal 41 (2006): 7-16.

A post by Nijay Gupta caught my eye today.  He had the joy of seeing the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit in Philadelphia (as I did in Minneapolis awhile back — great exhibit!), and the added bonus of hearing John Collins speak on Qumran.  Nijay reported one intriguing point by Collins as follows:

Collins does not believe that the scrolls should be linked in their entirety to the Qumran community. He thinks it unlikely (perhaps even impossible) for one small community to have had such a massive library. He argues that at the time of the Jewish war, when the Roman victory was imminent, Essenes brought their collective works (from all over) to the most remote location (Qumran) and eventually hid their collection in the nearby caves.

Now, I had never thought of it in quite that way.  But it makes eminent sense.  Masada near the Dead Sea was the last holdout so far as fortresses went, and the isolation of nearby Qumran makes Collins’s hypothesis quite plausible.  This assumes, of course, that Qumran was a community of Essenes, but if it was (and I tend to think so), it was certainly not the only place they lived, according to Josephus: “They have no one certain city, but many of them dwell in every city” (Jewish Wars 2.8; here’s Josephus on Jewish sectarians).  The Roman invasion took time–it was not exactly a blitzkreig–and the transportation of treasured documents to a safer haven where they would remain under the watchful eye of a remote Essene community would have been, I would suppose, easily achievable.  Josephus’s description of the Essenes as spread across the land need not, I think, demand that Qumran as “one certain city” would be ruled out as an Essene community — it may be that it was too small to be considered a city in Josephus’s thinking.