A task for you
So, I thought I'd make a start and ask you all to join in. I'll post my fragmentary list, with some reasons, either in comments here or on your blog (in which case please place a comment with a link to the post here, so that I can gather the posts into a full listing in a future post. Nominate places giving a short description of your reasons.
First some ground rules:
- though we must end up with a list of ten we can discuss more places before we narrow the list
- the list is fosused on enriching understanding of the Bible
- places should be either of great historical or geographical significance
- we will need a balance of places of significance for the Jewish/ChristianHebrew Bible, and also the Christian New Testament, as well as those that illustrate the geography of the land
- the surrounding geography will form part of the virtual visit, so below I suggest Megiddo in part because of its location.
My first suggestion- Megiddo: (a) geographically significant to explain the Plain of Jezreel (b) significance of trade routes (c) site of battles including (?) the one talked about in Revelation in the NT (d) Iron Age administrative centre (e) importance of water supply (f) gate complex and (g) Bronze Age cultic site.
Labels: 1sam, 2sam, bible, internet, teaching
¶ 8:56 AM
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In "Why So Reticent, Boaz?: Boaz's (In)action from an Identity Perspective" Peter H. W. Lau of Sydney University presented a reading of the book of Ruth that analysed Boaz' behaviour from a Social Identity Theoretical perspective. Using this grid enabled Peter to describe clearly the issues involved and throw considerable light of some of the gaps that we as listeners to the story are obliged to fill.
Next, Sunwoo Hwang of the University of Edinburgh offered a clear and organised discussion of "Bêtî in 1 Chronicles 17:14: Temple or Kingdom?" and in doing so drew my attention also to the interesting differences between not only 1 Chron 17:14 and its presumed source in 2 Sam 7:16, but also between the LXX and MT.
Rachelle Gilmour of the University of Sydney presented a lively and engaging analysis of "Suspense and Anticipation in I Samuel 9" and in doing so added still more to my appreciation of this most entertaining and rich passage. (For my take on the passage before Rachelle's paper listen to my 5 minute talks "Humour in the Bible: Part 1: Introducing Saul and Humour in the Bible: Part 2: Still Introducing Saul, incidentally there really are other 'casts in the Humour in the Bible series!
Labels: 1chron, 1sam, 2sam, audio, bible, ruth, sbl
¶ 5:23 PM
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The result is that I have updated the general manual and stylesheet: Writing for Hypertext Bible Commentary - which starts from the concept of a "hypertext" commentary and moves on to the details of format and working of the HBC_ series. I have added Using KompoZer to prepare HBC_ to explain how to do it in practice. Both can be accessed from the project opening page.
PS: I forgot to say, my reason for posting this here is to encourage you to look at one or both of these documents and make any comments that could help refine or improve them. If you would rather email than comment here please send to tim@carey.ac.nz
Labels: bible, biblical.studies.online
¶ 4:32 PM
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This could be great news for projects like PodBible.mobi (making the PodBible audio Bible podcasts available to mobile phone users).
However, I have two questions you might be able to answer for me:
- What mobile phones can or can't play AMR files? So if you have a phone can you try downloading this AMR file and seeing if it plays, and report the make, model and result below, please!
- What exactly are the licensing issues with AMR there is a link on the Wikipedia site to an VoiceAge legal page, but I go cross-eyed trying to find out what that means for ordinary non-commercial users. Any comments on that would be helpful too!
Labels: audio, bible, mobile, podcast
¶ 8:06 AM
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Gsm format is worth a look. I think most mobiles support it and it could be converted on the fly on the server by using sox (providing your host has it installed).
What you need is an application that offers the user different file formats which are generated on the fly by the server, taking all the hard work away from conversion.
I imagine this is fairly straight forward, unfortunately I don't have the technical ability.
By 
Graham Doel, at
June 15, 2008 7:06 PM
I am a total beginner when it comes to audio formats for mobiles, as best as I can make out from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_Multi-Rate
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_file
It sounds to me as if maybe AMR is a form of GSM??? For this project we do not really have any one who can easily organise clever file format conversion on the fly, so we are likely to have to do the conversions manually or using batch files, so I'm keen to get the "right" format when we start.
With AMR I can even use a the lowest quality setting, and get something that sounds better than a phone call where the chapter is only 160KB which would be a tiny download for 3.5 minutes of audio!
By 
Tim, at
June 15, 2008 7:34 PM
The Hebrew word for foot is רגל (regel). Like "hand," most of the time regel means exactly what you think it should mean, the things at the lower end of your legs that you put in shoes and stand on. For the record, at least in Rabbinic Hebrew, regel sometimes also means "leg."And begins his case with Ezekiel 16:25. Now, evidently this verse is concerned with sex, so obviously "feet" here do not mean what is at the bottom of ones legs, but rather what is between them ;-0
Or does it... If instead of assuming a euphemistic use of רגל why not just assume that רגל means "leg" here, as it does in 1 Sam 17:6 and as Rashi, and various later translators and commentators have thought it does here?
Having failed to convince me that his first example requires a euphemistic reading Duane passes on to Judges 3:24. I discussed this at some length in my first post, now I would just add that (as Rashi again noted) "Targum Jonathan renders עָבִיד צוֹרְכֵיה (doing his needs), i. e., moving his bowels" this does not require an equation of feet with anything other than "feet", but does seem to me to suggest possibly anachronistic forms of clothing. Actually, the more I look at this passage the more puzzled I become. Everyone seems agreed that the mention of "covering his feet" is a reference either to urination or to defecation. Yet the location in which Eglon is "covering his feet" is the (same?) "upper room" in which in v.20 he received Ehud - was the Moabite king in the habit of inviting guests into his toilet?
Duane's example from 2 Kings 18:27 is thoroughly convincing. Here the Hebrew text of the Bible reads that the besieged Judeans will be doomed:
לֶאֱכֹ֣ל אֶת חֲרֵיהֶם וְלִשְׁתּ֛וֹת אֶת־שֵׁינֵיהֶם
The Masoretic scribes found this a little too explicit, so for both terms they suggested alternative "readings":
"to eat their own dirt, and drink the water of their feet"
The trouble with this for my purposes is that all it demonstrates is that by the time of the Masoretes "feet" had possibly come to have a euphemistic meaning of the sort proposed. There is according to Duane no clear cut example in Ugaritic (which anyway uses a word that is not a cognate of רגל. And: "I was unable to find and did not look too diligently for examples in Akkadian or Egyptian."
It still seems to me that the case for a common euphemism רגל = sexual organs is simply unproven. Biblical scholars should stop appealing to this supposed euphemistic use until there is better evidence to support it for biblical Hebrew. (That it existed later I do not dispute. The example above is (almost) enough to convince me ;-)
Labels: 1 Kings, bible, biblical.studies, ezekiel, isaiah, judges
¶ 7:26 PM
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Tim
Thanks for the engaging discussion. If I were to write those posts again, I would no doubt see them differently in some details, but I do remain convened that feet/legs sometimes means something other than feet/legs. You have convinced me that my Ezekiel 16:25 example is weaker than I had thought at the time. And I'm a little more confused about what "covering his feet" means than I once was. As you might guess, I object to the use of the word "unproven." Rather, I take it that you think it unlikely that רגל was regularly used as a euphemism in Biblical Hebrew. I no doubt think that it is more likely that it was than you do. These days, I would much rather speak in terms of probability and synthesis of evidence and let the logicians and the mathematicians have their "proofs." I sometimes wonder if there is purposeful ambiguity in some of these passages. The Ruth example comes to mind. Anyway, one thing that you and Sean-the-Baptist will likely find, as I have, is that these post will become among the most often linked to from Google searches.
By Duane Smith, at
June 12, 2008 5:45 AM
If one understands it in the sense of mathematical "proofs" then the word was very badly chosen, sorry! I had in mind the image of a law court, which is where I come across the form "unproven" (I think). All I meant was that if instead of doing as generations of biblical scholars have done, and assuming there is a common euphemism feet = sex organs, but rather regards this as a novel reading whose probability has to be demonstrated then the case is (I think) still "unproven", that is there is not enough evidence to convict ;-)
Though if there was such a usage, then in the Ruth example it would certainly add to the general air of innuendo in that chapter!
By Tim, at
June 12, 2008 6:29 AM
The Hebrew has gone out of proper word order (at least on my computer screen).
By N T Wrong, at
June 13, 2008 9:14 AM
Hi, Milord Wrong, at a guess you are using Internet Explorer, at least to reproduce the problem I had to fire IE up as in Firefox everything was fine. At a guess FF is more tollerant and IE stricter or something about Unicode RTL. In any case I have - I hope - got it all orderly in both browsers.
Thanks for pointing it out. I also fixed the quote that had the line breaks as a bonus extra!
Now all it needs is someone using a Mac to still find problems to really make my day ;-) and I thought that Unicode would solve all this "problems with Hebrew on the web" stuff.
It does... BUT only when all the programs play nicely by the (same) rules.
By Tim, at
June 13, 2008 9:48 AM
It all looks good now (and I am using IE). Thanks.
I've just given up on the Aramaic (square script) font, and stick to transliteration. I'm sick of finding that words have changed places when I open up a Word doc that had been saved before. And if I save a Word doc as a pdf, often the Aramaic font flips around again. You don't get those problems with transliteration.
On a more substantial note, my interest was piqued by this topic - not only for the obvious and banal reasons - because I once tried to pursue the idea that one the sources in the David & Goliath story involved Goliath being struck in the goolies - a comic below-the-belt hit that fits well with David's general character in Samuel. I might revisit it.
By N T Wrong, at
June 14, 2008 10:47 AM
Let me be clear on what I am claiming; it is very modest indeed. The strongest thing I want to say is that the "hand" has been used as a euphemism or, perhaps better, metaphor for penis or phallus from time to time in human history. While I think that it was a widespread usage in the Northwest Semitic world, I have not proven that.I think this is a careful and accurate conclusion, each of the examples is a strong one, where almost any reader will suspect that the word is being used euphemistically. But they are too few to demonstrate a regular usage.
The follow-up post A Euphemism for Pudenda deals with the evidence for "feet" as a euphemism. I will return to that post when I next have time for blogging.
Labels: bible, biblical.studies, isaiah
¶ 9:08 AM
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Hi, I saw this on Goodacre's blogroll and thought I'd drop by.
There is a chapter about euphemisms in "Ancient Israel: The Old Testament In Its Social Context", Philip Esler being the editor. I read it many months ago so I can't provide any useful details; I only remember it taking on a couple of ANE laws about crushing testicles.
By J. Archer, at
June 11, 2008 12:49 PM
Thanks, our library doesn't have the book - on order I hope, but perhaps I missed it - so I'll get it on ILL. It is not (as I think I suggest at least in my reply a minute ago to Duane's comment above) that I am quite convinced that there was not such a euphemistic usage, rather that no one has taken the trouble to convince me there was, so I'd rather assume there was not till the case is made!
By Tim, at
June 12, 2008 6:42 AM
On Deut. 11.10: the point is exactly that the Promised Land will be naturally fertile and thus will not require irrigation by other means (of course the language is symbolic, irrigation is as necessary there as in Egypt in reality). Tim asks 'in Egypt is most irrigation done by peeing?' - well no, but neither is there literal milk and honey flowing in Israel-Palestine, and perhaps good deal more irrigation took place by this means than by carrying water on your foot (images of hopping with a bucket attached anyone?)But why interpret the language as "symbolic" whatever that means here, I had assumed that even read as a euphemism the use was intended literally.
Irrigating with the feet would then refer to the habit of opening and closing irrigation ditches using the feet. While I cannot really see how the euphemistic reading works, in the promised land water falls from the sky, while in Egypt humans had to pee to water the ground - presumably entailing frequent trips to the irrigation ditch to drink...
On Ruth we basically agree - except whether Boaz' "feet" are literal or euphemistic (I still wonder at the plural euphemism here?).
On Is 6:2 Sean brings up the topic of ANE iconography, as Jim Getz said in a comment on a post: Another "Feet" Euphemism in the Hebrew Bible? on this topic on Shibboleth I think I was convinced by Keel's identification of the Seraphim here with Egyptian uraus snakes, my copy of Keel is at college, so i can't check, but I do not remember these snakes as having prominent phalluses which might need covering to preserve Hebrew modesty! On Is 7:20 I am quite willing to agree thsat ritual humiliation is in view, and that a euphemistic reading is possible. But when the "head to foot" shaving seems to cover that pretty comprehensively I do not see the need to invent a new "euphemistic" reading. (And that is really my point, I believe that those who repeat conventional wisdom and claim a common euphemism in Biblical Hebrew "feet" = "phallus" need to provide some evidence to support this view. And where simply reading "feet" as "those two things we walk on that stop our legs fraying at the ends" works fine then they have NOT provided such evidence EVEN IF "phallus" works just as well.
Result, I am still unconvinced that this particular item of "popular wisdom" has a leg to stand upon! Sometimes in the Bible, when you read "feet" they do simply mean "feet", now on the basis of Ugaritic evidence one might I think (someone could ask Duane about the abnormally interesting uses of "finger" in those texts, and perhaps also look at Hebrew Bible texts like 1 Kings 12:10).
Labels: 1 Kings, 2sam, bible, biblical.studies, isaiah, ruth
¶ 6:08 PM
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That is that the word for feet רַגְלָיו sometimes refers to what we might politely call 'other parts of the (male) anatomy'.I have never really been convinced by the claim. Sean cites the following passages as the best evidence for this supposed usage (the order is mine, as are the comments in straight type):
Exodus 4.25 But Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched Moses’ feet with it, and said, “Truly you are a bridegroom of blood to me!”
Now why on earth would one suppose that "feet" here is a euphemism - after all no euphemism was used for "foreskin" עָרְלַת seems explicit enough.
Deuteronomy 11.10 For the land that you are about to enter to occupy is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sow your seed and irrigate by foot like a vegetable garden.
In Egypt is most irrigation done by peeing? No wonder they brewed so much beer! Or maybe the small earth dams on irrigation ditches are quite easily broken by foot?
If this one is a euphemism, does it not remove all the tension from the chapter where the most significant "gap" the hearer must fill is: "Did they or didn't they?" there is plenty of other innuendo in the chapter to build up the tension, without this (possible, maybe) one.
Isaiah 6.2: Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew.
Really? Now why should face and feet not simply mean face and feet? Please explain!
Isaiah 7.20: On that day the Lord will shave with a razor hired beyond the River—with the king of Assyria—the head and the hair of the feet, and it will take off the beard as well.
Hairy feet or hairy [euphemism]? Which is more plausible? Though I suppose if the euphemism is for the whole genital area, this one might make sense.
Judges 3.24: After he had gone, the servants came. When they saw that the doors of the roof chamber were locked, they thought, “He must be relieving himself (literally 'covering his feet') in the cool chamber.” cf. 1 Sam. 24.3
At first sight, this one is good! In this sample I am almost convinced, there is a good case to answer, though why "covering his feet" should be a euphemism for peeing, and not merely another example of the rather gross schoolboy humour of the passage I am unclear.
2 Samuel 11.8 Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house, and wash your feet.” Uriah went out of the king’s house, and there followed him a present from the king.
Could be a euphemism, but then it could be that the sentence is euphemistic even if the "feet" are literal. "Wash your feet" = "make yourself at home"...
So, in the end, what evidence is there for this conventionally supposed common euphemism? Two cases where you might argue with some strength that reading euphemistically is the "best" reading, a couple more where it might just be possible but overall I'd say: No case to answer. In the Bible feet are just that. And Eglon as well as excessively fat, and greedy, also was known to his servants as having a poor aim. As the sign in our downstairs loo read for a while (we had teenage boys in the house) "We aim to please. You aim too, please!"
Labels: 2sam, bible, biblical.studies, deuteronomy, exodus, isaiah, judges
¶ 10:35 AM
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The chapters are podcast using PHP to read the directories and create both the RSS feeds and the corresponding web pages. So... what I need is someone who can help me create a blog using the same (sort of?) mechanism.
If you know someone who might (a) be interested in helping and (b) might have the necessary skills please let me know!
Labels: audio, bible, digital, internet
¶ 5:58 PM
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Sadly this does not work for blogger :( so I can't demonstrate it here, but you can see it at work here http://asiabible.wordpress.com/ so, if you have a WordPress blog, how about it?
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Oh, yes it works like this:
- Jer 31:31-34
- Amos 1:1
- 1 John 3:16
Labels: bible, bibleref, biblical.studies.online
¶ 3:04 PM
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Now he's trying to convince us that this format could be a good way to spread the Bible.He convinced me to spend a while playing with 3GP, if I cut the frame rate to slideshow proportions (just 1fps) and keep the audio low (but not too low) I can fit a whole short Psalm with pictures into less than 400KB. Judge for yourselves if it is worth it (just remember I spent more effort on the technical side than choosing photos - so there are lots of cute kids ;-)
Here is the 3gp version of Psalm 67 at only 368KB, and the WMV Psalm 67 at 1.97MB with much better picture quality to demonstrate what you lose in making it quite that small for a phone. (and a Flash version of Psalm 67 for Maccies at "only" 2.57MB!)
Labels: bible, mobile, psalms, video
¶ 2:27 PM
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Bravo Tim - your are a mobile wizard !!!
By Bob MacDonald, at
May 2, 2008 4:20 PM
Really cool. Welcome to the 21st century.
By David Ker, at
May 6, 2008 8:52 PM
BTW Ker not Kerr.
By David Ker, at
May 6, 2008 8:54 PM
Aaagh, I must NOT rely on my memory, especially not for names!
By Tim, at
May 7, 2008 6:29 AM
There is an RSS feed, for compulsive Bible Mappers (like me) to keep up with all the questions and answers or new maps that people upload.
I have only one problem with the system, since I was already a PBWiki user I cannot seem to get added to the BibleMapper Wiki to actually write anything, even a plea for help! And I have one... Somehow, even though I have un- and re-installed the program I cannot select things like rivers, I just get an hour glass and the program hangs for a few moments before continuing as if I had never tried to use the select tool. I wanted to use it to (a) try out David's helpful answer and (b) once I had mastered it document it with screenshots to make it easier for beginniers... Now I'll just have to ask the question here, and email Mark to see if he has a magic key to let me in to the Bible Mapper Wiki ;-)
< wicked > I wonder if Jim will overcome his Wiki phobia enough to use this one? < /wicked thought >
BTW if you do not subscribe to David Instone-Brewer's superb Tyndale Tech Briefings - DO! This time he covers Bible maps and mapping with a really useful summary of much of (the best of) what is available.
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wicked man.... it's not phobia, it's disdain.
;-)
By Jim, at
April 24, 2008 12:25 PM
Hi, Tim. Mark here. Since you already had a PBwiki account, all you needed to do was contact me via the "Contact the Owner" link at the bottom of the front page. You are now officially a "Writer" for the site!
By mgvh, at
April 25, 2008 7:31 AM
Thanks, Mark, it was not obvious that that was what I needed to do. I am away with no Internet till Monday (Friday is a holiday here :) so I'll try again then...
By Tim, at
April 25, 2008 7:43 AM
BTW, once you post your question about the rivers on the wiki, I will try to provide additional info, perhaps even a video. In the meantime, try CTRL-F to Find and then right-click to edit the river.
By mgvh, at
April 25, 2008 8:04 AM
Deuteronomy, Ezekiel, Jeremiah and Job. Only a few of the Psalms and parts of Proverbs were assigned." so even back in the "good old days" when men were men and everyone a speedreader with no TV to watch or Internet to play with they only actually managed to read some good chunks of the Bible, and I bet less good students (even back then) managed to scrape by reading only bits of the books actually assigned ;)
Charles Halton also chipped in, admitting: "I don’t have good resolution yet." to the problem of "the ratio of primary and secondary readings".
I do!
Do not set the Bible as required reading. If your students do not read the Bible for themselves, or at least listen to the podcasts, then they really have little interest in the subject, so leave those students to flounder!
Actually seriously, there is no way to set reading the whole Bible as required reading, so set and use only small chunks, and make talking about them so interesting that students will want to read more... as always in teaching we need to remind ourselves that "sugar catches more flies than vinegar."
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"Ancient times"???
By Duane Smith, at
April 17, 2008 3:39 AM
Ah, well, I think you mentioned '64, now I am celebrating my 60th birthday and I was a mere stroppy schoolboy in '64...
By Tim, at
April 17, 2008 7:58 AM
Now, as well as not reading the WSJ, I also do not read this sort of Magazine. The mags I do read I scan, when I meet a full page of text, like this, I scan it for nuggets and then flip on - incidentally forwards, since I read mags, like Hebrew Bibles from right-to-left ;) If this Bible's intended audience read mags the way I do, they won't get quite (what I'd assume) the intended effect of
the opening of Joshua! Andrew links this to the Samuel
Pepys blog:
The Bible Illuminated is an example of a range of classic texts that are attracting new audiences through modern methods of storytelling.The diary of Samuel Pepys has been turned into a blog, with daily entries corresponding to the 17th-century original, at www.pepysdiary.com. The creator, British actor Phil Gyford, says the site gets around 35,000 unique visitors each month. "I thought I'd like to read the diaries, but the 10 volumes were a daunting prospect,"he says. Transmitting it as a blog "seemed obvious," he says.Now, it seems to me too, "obvious" that Pepys diary would make a good blog, the form and medium "fit". But I am not convinced that either the new Swedish Bible Magazine, or the earlier Teenage Mag versions, do fit form and medium to the content and genres of the Bible. Now, Joshua is not a good text for my argument, since narrative can perhaps be effectively transposed into very different forms and still "work", but imagine one of Paul's letters... One big glossy picture, and one page of Pauline prose... Yawn! As you know I prefer the audio route... (to check it out try some of the recent Romans from PodBible). ¶ 12:30 PM
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I read magazines back to front as well--it must be the Hebrew influence...
By Charles Halton, at
April 15, 2008 12:58 PM
No, just natural, we are rtl people stuck in a ltr world, just watch the other people in a Dr's waiting room 63% read the mags "from the back"!
By Tim, at
April 15, 2008 2:16 PM
 You’re St. Melito of Sardis! You have a great love of history and liturgy. You’re attached to the traditions of the ancients, yet you recognize that the old world — great as it was — is passing away. You are loyal to the customs of your family, though you do not hesitate to call family members to account for their sins. Find out which Church Father you are at The Way of the Fathers! |
No, there are worse things than being unknown, being "known" for a start - would you want to be "known to the police"? Or as Saint Paul (to make this a genuine 10 caret biblioblog post ;0 said: "Being unknown people, everyone has heard of... (2 Cor 6:9)
¶ 10:07 AM
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Congratulations, Tim! Melito was great! His "On Pascha" is a classic of the early church. With some consternation, I turn out to be a Tertullian.
By mgvh, at
January 11, 2008 11:49 AM
You reminded me about this, but that's weird--I'm Melito as well!
By 
zephyr, at
January 11, 2008 7:22 PM
I expect there are a lot of us, the unknown saints outnumber the stars by quite a bit ;-) Still it's good to know I'm in good company!
By Tim, at
January 12, 2008 6:35 AM
I haven't explored the map modules in the PC Bible software I use, I doubt it is as good as Accordance, though years ago Logos Bible Atlas software was a great addon. Now however, the maps and especially the wire frame "3D" ones look very dated. So I use another standalone program, Bible Mapper by David P. Barrett you can download and use the basic program freely, though there is a small (currently US$35) charge for adding some useful features. I think David's tool produces good-looking maps easily and quickly, though like Accordance it would need export to Photoshop (or GIMP or whatever) if you wanted to add semi-transparent layers.Mark at the really useful Biblical Studies and Technological Tools blog has posted on this a few times recently, he is presenting on the topic at BibleTech08 an event I'd have loved to be at, his posts are worth looking at:
Oh, and here's a short video that shows that I can't use graphics programs as well as Chris, and suggests that I must take all the advice and start outsourcing myself to India. (Rather than transporting myself to Sri Lanka.)
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I just went to Bible Mapper and discovered that it is no longer available for download or support. :-(
By Judy Redman, at
January 12, 2008 6:06 PM
That's very sudden, I checked the site when I made the post. Since it mentions nothing about the licence changing I could make a CD and post it to you by snail if you wanted to try it.
By Tim, at
January 12, 2008 6:24 PM
Just watch the video, and then ask yourself:what allows these people to get away with such a con?
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Yuk. No answers, just disgust.
By Nichthus, at
December 17, 2007 9:13 AM
oh man, you're right. it is disgusting.
By , at
December 17, 2007 11:40 AM
- Text, canon, and the woman caught in adultery why the two least sexy branches of biblical studies matter ;)
- Cliché Theology: Joshua 11:1-9 sometimes a cliché is stylistically and/or theologically necessary!
- Ezra and the foreign wives which contained some material related to the post below on (Ana)Baptist hermeneutics.
Labels: audio, bible, language, reading, text criticism
¶ 7:36 AM
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Q's first post examines, briefly and pointedly, how an historico-critically minded scholar approaches Scriptural contradiction: A fundamental problem: and three attempts at a solution (BTW I have, you, my attentive reader, will be aware broken the cycle, there is no exclamation point in the title of this post, if I can only repeat that feat you may be reassured that swathes of purplish prose are less likely to be unleashed, even in this period of post-marking euphoria. Since it does contain punctuation, you may be justified in expecting a return to more habitual doubt and double-mindedness...)
Labels: bible, interpretation, pentateuch
¶ 11:58 AM
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There's a lot more that could be said on the topic of humor (Note: please change the misspelling in your post title).
Luther said that the Devil hates to be laughed at. Irony, hyperbole and lampoon are all used by Jesus for humorous effect but it's not always easy to catch that in translation.
By lingamish, at
October 6, 2007 5:15 PM
"Humor" is a small town Suceava, in Romania, I believe it is best known for its monastery, but fail to understand its relevance to this post.
By Tim, at
October 7, 2007 9:07 AM
Biblioblogger of the month
As Jim reported:
"Alan Bandy was [the]victimsubjectinterviewee for the September Biblioblogger of the Month.
Biblical studies as an international discipline
Jan Pieter van de Giessen emailed me "I think it would be nice giving some attention to nonEnglish Biblical Studies blogs". I thoroughly agree. However, there are some problems. All of us are busy, blogging is relegated to odd moments or the "small hours of the night", and many English-speaking biblical studies bloggers have not had the advantage of living or working much in other languages. Thankfully, Jan Pieter himself, Jim West (as multilingual a polymath as even John Hobbins could wish!) and others have nominated a number of posts.We should be grateful to them for their nominations mentioned in the "sections" below.
JP proposed a couple of items that I found difficult to place, Jona Lendering writes about Synesius of Cyrene in Eenoprecht onoprechte bekeerling: Synesios van Cyrene (deel 4) and Mark's new (first post 18th) TheologicalGerman/Theologisches Deutsch a site for reading and discussing theological German, with its sister site Celucien's Theological French/Français théologique which is also brand new, and looks to be planning to start from the very beginning - with the "French alphabet"!Jim also mentions a new Swedish blog Exegetisk Teologi when I looked (25th) it only had one post [Update: sorry, I don't know what happened here, put it down to being overworked and underpaid;-) there are dozens of posts.], Bilder på kung Herodes stenbrott, since this "Kredit till Dr Jim West, som på Biblical studies mailinglista, tipsade om detta", we at least know how the polymath knows of this new blog, though I am not at all sure how he discovered "Little Ho" or his post 駱駝穿過針眼 about the Camel and the eye of a needle! I suspect that humour aside, Little Ho's post on the Local (Christian) Publishing Industry 本地出版業 may be more relevant to this carnival. (NB. beware Google language tools which translated the first post's title as "Camels crossed eye")
Bible in General
Dale has a post on trusting the bible? with some interesting responses to a lecture by Bishop Spong which claimed that"The Bible is not the solution - it's the problem." Meanwhile Mark gave his students a simple test, and as a result laments The state of Bible Knowledge Today! I wonder, looking at his diagnosis framed in terms of failures of the Kiwi churches to engage with the Bible whether US students would actually do anybetter… or has the problem a different cause? (Me, I'm still shocked that anyone in an NT class would still think the book of Elijah was written by Paul ;-0Meanwhile Matt's Bible Films Blog looks set to become an encyclopedia of Bible-related filmography, with this month among others entries Golgotha - Additional Comments (which are longer than the average blog review)!
Richard had a post that reached from the priestly code to Luke, via the prophets I will gather the lame, the outcasts and the afflicted whose title explains its range!
Susanne really started something (while I was away holidaying in Thailand :) and technically falling outside this carnival's territory - being dated 31st Aug) with her Psalm 68 Part l In this post she inevitably opened up questions about God's name as well as the interesting psalm itself. So then the ball began rolling - with just a little pushing from Lingamish ;) I'll try to list all the posts (but please excuse me if I missed yours, or better still tell me and I will add it):
1st
Susanne: Psalm 68
Part 2
2nd
Psalm
68 Part 3
3rd
Lingamish: "This psalm is the most difficult of all psalms to understand and interpret." he must think higher of my capacities than I do, since he then emailed me to get involved in interpreting it ;-)
John at ancient hebrew poetry: