Ancient Hebrew Poetry

Obama’s Niebuhrian Modesty

Obama has made history twice now, since he is, as Andrew Ferguson of The Weekly Standard pointed out, the first Democratic president in 40 years to deploy a sizable number of troops to a war zone. Not once but twice. The last Democratic President to repeatedly escalate a war was Lyndon B. Johnson. The decision cost Johnson the possibility of a second term in office.

Here I Stand: What it means to be a Paleo-Protestant

Why would anyone want to be an evangelical Protestant, with deep roots in the heritage of the Reformation? Not a liberal Protestant, whose roots have been redirected to draw nourishment from whatever tide of saltwater has just washed in, but an evangelical Protestant, who reads the old confessions of faith, from the Nicene Creed to the Heidelberg Confession, treats them as wells filled with the purest of fresh water, and says, without irony or dissimulation, “This I believe”?

It’s a long story, like all good stories are. Sit down for a few minutes. Drop everything and listen. I will open a window for you, into a world you hardly know.

More mindless crap from very smart people with Ph.D’s

Haim Shore is at it again. The Energizer bunny. He and his sidekick Yehuda Radday harnessed the power of statistics and garbage–in garbage-out computer programs more than once to demonstrate, first of all, something many scholars are relatively confident about on the basis of referential content and intuitive measures of style alone: that Isa 1-39 and 40-66 come from different epochs and therefore, different authors, a fact compatible with the diverse stylistic profiles of the parts.

Tawil’s Assyriological Commentary on the Lexis of Biblical Hebrew: A Review

I am grateful for the long-awaited publication of Hayim ben Yosef Tawil’s An Akkadian Lexical Companion for Biblical Hebrew: Etymological-Semantic and Idiomatic Equivalents with Supplement on Biblical Aramaic (Jersey City: Ktav, 2009). The volume is clearly a labor of love, a pioneering effort in what is still a virgin field of inquiry. The volume bills itself as a systematic evaluation of “the parallels and cognates between these two branches of the Semitic family of languages” (ix). It comes with the highest possible recommendations: on the back cover, Moshe Bar Asher, William Hallo, and Peter Machinist all sing its praises.

Go ahead and buy it if you haven’t already (if you are an SBL/ASOR/ETS member, you can order it from Eisenbrauns through Dec 31 for $70.20, an unbeatable price). It’s impossible not to learn a thing or two from virtually every one of its xxiv + 503 pages.

Diachrony in Ancient Hebrew

It is largely true that ancient Hebrew texts cannot be dated on the basis of linguistic criteria. Non-linguistic criteria are far more helpful than linguistic criteria in the “dating game.” Nonetheless, when non-linguistic criteria are applied evenhandedly, and the majority of text blocs in the Hebrew Bible are dated accordingly, it becomes possible to delineate a history of the Hebrew language applicable to the periods in question. Diachronic distinctions within ancient Hebrew are possible if the following assumptions are made:

Another Look at Proverbs 27:17

Text criticism (TC) is a discipline founded on a hermeneutics of suspicion. TC of the Hebrew Bible looks for, and evaluates, grounds for departing from a received text, on the basis of the inherent ambiguities of the case, and/or other textual witnesses, and in conjunction with clear lines of argument. The “inherent ambiguities of the case” are often major, once the vocalization of the received text is stripped away. But TC must also, if it is sound, look for, and evaluate, grounds for retaining the received text. At journey’s end, the hermeneutical circle is set aside, and a solution embraced.

On Friends, Proverbs, and a Dinner at SBL-New Orleans

It was a pleasure to share an evening of fine food and conversation with blogging friends and others at the Deutsches Haus on the last day of SBL-New Orleans, Monday November 23rd. About a fifth of the top 50 bibliobloggers participated: you know who you are. The other ten bloggers present at the dinner might not be in the top 50, but that’s only because they have yet to be discovered by their intended readers. Brandon Wason and I are thankful for the support of many bloggers in the effort to make biblioblogs.com a hopping place in the near future. More on that soon.

Biblical Terms for the Language of the Land of Judah

Hebrew as a term for the language of the land of Judah first turns up in the Greek prologue of Ben Sira composed at the beginning of the first cent. bce. Given that the Tanakh is written in it, it became known in Jewish tradition as לשון הקדש the holy tongue. Hebrew (עברית Ivrit) would seem to be a term designed to recall עבר Eber (Gen 11:14), the remote ancestor of the tribes of Israel united, at least eventually, by a national language, literature, and script to which the term Ivrit is applicable.

A Plea for a Broad Definition of Ancient Hebrew

Ancient Hebrew (עברית עתיקה Ivrít atiqá) is a conventional designation for the language in which the Hebrew Bible is composed. To be clear, not all of התנ״ך ha-Tanakh – an acronym composed of the first letter of the titles of its successive parts: תורה Torá, נביאים Neviím, andכתובים  Ketuvím – is written in Hebrew. Ezra 4:8-6:18; 7:12-26, Dan 2:4b-7:28, Jer 10:11, and a phrase in Gen 31:47 are written in ancient Aramaic (ארמית עתיקה Aramít atiqá), the lingua franca of a cross-section of the ancient Near East in the neo-Assyrian, neo-Babylonian, and Persian periods.

Why educational blogging has a huge price tag

I know there are people who like free online resources and blogging because they’re free. But that way of thinking depends on a number of false assumptions. It is as wrong-headed and short-sighted as the mantra that education, including a college education, should be free for everyone (including those who can afford to pay for some or all of the real costs: go here for the terms of the debate). The fact is, education is not free. The only questions are: how much, and who pays for what.

A Thanksgiving Psalm

Praise of God’s providence soaks the lines of Psalm 65, a paeon of thanksgiving in a time of abundance. Despite the difficulties of the hour, we live in a time of great prosperity. According to the psalm, were it not for divine atonement, the fallout of our misdeeds would overwhelm us. Below the jump, text and translation.

Cooking the data: why the name of climate science is damaged

Climate science continues to gather an ever-increasing amount of data and to analyze that data in increasingly refined ways. But are climatologists capable of making reliable long-term predictions? Claims to the contrary notwithstanding, there is no good evidence that they are.

Back from SBL-New Orleans

I had a great time at SBL-New Orleans. I drove back and forth from Wisconsin, a 16-hour drive one way. It gave me the time I wanted to chat with my 15 year old daughter Betta who came along on the trip. The bad thing about having a car in New Orleans is that parking is a mess downtown. I got towed once and thereby made a $150 contribution to the “Indigent Legal Defense Fund.” Can I write that off on my taxes? I think I will.

Why pastors do not visit enough

The most common complaint pastors hear is that they do not visit enough. If a pastor (priest, rabbi) is responsible for 6000 souls, the whole idea of being on a first-name basis with the membership, of visiting in good times and bad, is out of the question. But if a pastor is responsible for a membership of 500, as I am, the old parish model of a minister who actually ministers to a flock is not out of the question. On the other hand, there are sociological obstacles to overcome. Below the jump, an article I wrote for my church’s newsletter on the topic. I hereby grant permission to any and all pastors, priests, and rabbis to cut-and-paste as needed.

Ancient Hebrew Poetry: Understanding Compositional Technique is Important

The objection will be raised: is it really possible to get students interested in the nuts and bolts of ancient Hebrew poetry? Who cares enough about the contours and craft of that poetry to want to come to a clear understanding of its ground rules? Poetry, yes, everyone likes how it sounds. Poetry theory, that’s for the birds.

Teaching Ancient Hebrew Poetry: Key Definitions

In the context of teaching the poetic texts of the Hebrew Bible, it helps to work with transparent definitions of poetry and features thereof. Furthermore, it is worth expounding and illustrating a working hypothesis relative to regularities in ancient Hebrew verse, even when scholars endlessly argue, as biblical scholars do, about the exact conventions the corpus of poetry under study conforms to. The endless arguments should not be allowed to obscure a firm datum: Hebraists are in general agreement about the basic conventions that regulate ancient Hebrew poetry, an evident fact once it is observed that the identification of and scansion of biblical Hebrew poetry offered in recent translations such as NJPSV, NRSV, REB, NAB, NJB, and ESV overlap to a very large degree.

Places to eat in New Orleans for SBL attendees

Life is short, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. With that in mind, if in New Orleans, it makes sense to savor the local cuisine. Here is my recommendation.

The Very Best Online Resources for Students of Biblical Hebrew

Five resources are particularly useful.

Two Questions to Live by in the Hebrew Bible

All of the questions in the Hebrew Bible are formulated in medias res: in the middle of a story yet unfolding.

The Severe Love of God in the Hebrew Bible

Prov 3:11-12 lifts up the theme of the severe love of God. Ps 139:23-24 is the prayer of one who is overwhelmed by God's knowledge of his person, who welcomes God's testing of his thoughts nonetheless. Series introduction here.

Hoping against all odds in the Hebrew Bible

The Latin expression is spes contra spem: hoping in the absence of manifest grounds for hope. The theme is frequent in the Bible.  Ps 130:7a + 131:3; 130:7b-8 may illustrate. Ps 130 begins with "Out of the depths I call to you" (de profundis). Ps 101:1-2 below the jump is the prayer of one who brings law and order to his domain every day, but is bereft of God's presence. Series introduction here.

Abortion Rights: No Longer the Defining Principle of Feminism?

Judith Warner’s most recent column ends up posing that question. As she notes, even among liberal Democrats, abortion was regarded as a “critical issue” by only 8 per cent of those asked in a recent Pew survey. It’s as if the growing number of restrictions on induced abortions is not what feminists are inclined to want to change.

Properly qualifying the doctrine of inerrancy

Darrell Pursiful tries his hand at it here, and arrives at a carefully argued moderate position. Pursiful is a bridgebuilder in search of common ground between Christians of various persuasions, evangelical, Catholic, and beyond. It will be noted that the good people of First Baptist Church in Forsyth, Georgia were treated to a presentation very much indebted to the discussion of inerrancy within the blogging community.

Why the Vatican did not go far enough in its welcome to Anglo-Catholics

Dan Martins lays out the reasons here. HT: Darrell Pursiful

Sola gratia in the Hebrew Bible

According to the instructional literature of the Hebrew Bible, the book of Proverbs in particular, the smart person has a modest estimate of his own abilities, and a high estimate of God's ability  to make things go well or badly. When all is said and done, God's grace alone, sola gratia, is the foundation of a person's expectation of a positive future. Prov 3:7; Ps 91:1.4a; and Ps 30:7-8 cover this ground. Series introduction here.