Ancient Hebrew Poetry

A Reader’s Guide to Psalm 137

As Eugene Peterson put it, Psalm 137 is the scandal of the Psalter. At the same time, the raw hate of the psalm’s conclusion takes us to that subterranean location where the foundations of justice are exposed.

In life, in the psalms, hate, retribution, and justice are inextricably woven together. It’s not just 137 that is “spoiled” by its conclusion. So is 139. Or perhaps we are the spoiled ones, not the psalms. What does it mean to offer up hate and hope for retribution in prayer?

The English Standard Version makes its debut in Germany

That’s right. A bilingual English-German edition of the Bible (without Apocrypha) is about to be published by Germany’s premier publisher of Bibles, the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft. It is announced here. The ESV will appear alongside of the 1984 revision of Luther’s classic translation. The choice is understandable. The ESV, not the NRSV, is the English equivalent of the 1984 revision of the Lutherbibel.

A first reading in Marxism for students of the Bible

Marxism, historically speaking, has failed humankind egregiously. Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism, and Maoism have turned out to be a tissue of false promises. In terms of social and economic realities, the tragedies the movement has brought upon the earth have succeeded in making the capitalist beast look good by comparison. Capitalism has proven capable of integrating within itself elements of socialism. In practice, the reverse has revealed itself to be impossible.

Truth is not halfway between anything

 "All vistas close in the unseen – no one doubts it – but Helen closed them rather too quickly for her taste. At every turn of speech one was confronted with reality and the absolute. Perhaps Margaret grew too old for metaphysics, perhaps Henry was weaning her from them, but she felt that there was something a little unbalanced in the mind that so readily shreds the visible. The business man who assumes that this life is everything, and the mystic who asserts that it is nothing, fail, on this side and on that, to hit the truth. “Yes, I see, dear; it’s about halfway between,” Aunt Juley had hazarded in earlier years. No; truth, being alive, was not halfway between anything. It was only to be found by continuous excursions into either realm, and though proportion is the final secret, to espouse it at the outset is to insure sterility."

On Experts in the Field of Biblical Studies

Nicholas Kristof has just written an excellent piece entitled “Learning How to Think.” It is full of lessons for anyone trying to figure out who to listen to and what credence to give to a particular theory in the field of biblical studies.

However, when all is said and done, I disagree with Kristof. He wants to point us in the direction of some experts rather than others. That is a lost cause.

Rachel Elior responds to a critique of her Qumran hypothesis

Prof. Elior proves her mettle once again by responding online to online discussion of her proposals. On this blog, she comments (retouched for ease of comprehension):

Homosexual Rape as a Metaphor for Imperialism

As I’ve pointed out before, scathing denunciations of Babylonian imperialism soak the pages of the book of Habakkuk. The final oracle of a series, Hab 2:15-17, is the most hard-hitting of all. Translations, however, are coy about the text’s allusions. An excellent case can be made for the conclusion that Hab 2:15 describes Babylonian foreign policy, invasive and brutal as it was, as homosexual rape. The oracle in Hab 2:6b-8 starts the anti-Chaldean series off:

Critical Reviews of Crossley’s Age of Terror

Chris Zeichmann (nice summary of the book; sympathetic but not a-critical); Loren Rosson (fair and balanced); my favorite, however, is by Leonard Ridge. I quote: “Crossley . . . shoves reality into the dirt and pounds it to within an inch of its life. When the screed is over, we're left feeling raped, having endured 199 pages, ultimately, for what? A crash course in Political Correctness 101? How to be good little anti-Zionists?”

What’s Wrong with N. T. Wrong’s Anti-Imperialism

The most vital form of biblical criticism has always been Sachkritik, that is, straightforward engagement, disagreement not excluded, with the substance of a biblical text. After all, if it is not possible to challenge the truth claims of a biblical text, honest engagement with the text is precluded.

If overt disagreement with the text is not an option, even if we disagree with the text’s claims, we will pretend that we don’t.

That is why I like discussing the Bible with N. T. Wrong. He is not averse to Sachkritik.

A Deluge of Self-Criticism

Self-criticism, no doubt, is a sign of spiritual and intellectual health. Evangelicals, since they have come of age, are, no less than others, subject to periodic fits of self-examination. I gave some examples in a recent post. Among liberal Protestants, Drew Tatusko has been unsparing in criticism directed inwards (here; here; and here – he also points out that one of the premises of evangelical self-criticism, its coming collapse, is pure hooey). Not to be outdone, Archbishop of Denver Charles Chaput lays it on thick vis-à-vis his world, that of Roman Catholicism. A few years ago, Ismar Schorsch delivered a withering commencement address at Conservative Judaism’s flagship institution, the Jewish Theological Seminary of New York. A key graph of that address is still worth repeating. So is its revision by a thoughtful Matt Borus: