Ancient Hebrew Poetry

A Comparison of Doubly and Triply Attested Synoptic Tradition (Part 1)

At the bottom of this post, the extant traditions and a reconstructed source are given in extenso. This post covers Mark 1:16-18 // Matthew 4:18-20.

The relative unimportance of the questions biblical studies likes to address

The important things we believe or disbelieve, the truth of confessions of faith such as “Jesus is the light of the world” or “the entire Torah [from Moses to Moses via Aqiba, down to the present day] was given by God to Moses on Sinai,” are not dependent on Jesus having spoken of himself in those terms, or on Moses being able to understand the inner connection between the Torah associated with him in the Pentateuch and that same Torah as understood by Akiva.

A Hypothetical Common Source of Matthew, Mark, and Luke

The Synoptic Problem is to New Testament studies what the problem of the sources and composition of the Primary History (Genesis through 2 Kings) is to the study of the Hebrew Bible: an intellectual adventure of the first order. If you are unable to describe the theories for sale and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses, if concepts like the Covenant Code, D, P and H Torah; the double tradition, the triple tradition, the Minor Agreements, and Q are unknown quantities to you, you cannot claim to be a specialist in the fields.

The Greek Style of the Gospel of Mark

Carl Conrad has this to say on the subject:

Why the confirmation of Francis Collins to head the NIH is a good thing

The US Senate has confirmed Francis Collins to head the National Institutes of Health by a unanimous vote. Among believers and atheists alike, Collins is best known for his book entitled The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (New York: Free Press, 2006). As Lisa Miller puts it:

The BAS 2009 Award for Best Scholarly Book in the Field of Archaeology

Judges Jodi Magness, Ann Killebrew, and Steven Ortiz made a praiseworthy choice (go here for the announcement). The winner: Avraham Faust’s blockbuster entitled Israel’s Ethnogenesis: Settlement, Interaction, Expansion and Resistance (now available in paperback). Faust’s work is a splendid antidote to both minimalist and maximalist approaches to the archaeological and biblical record. The essay shatters the pretense of minimalists who drive a wedge between the archaeological record and interpretation thereof that establishes a positive correlation with traditions of the Bible.

New Family Pictures

At ISBL in Rome, I remember introducing myself to another scholar. “I’ve heard that name before,” she said. “I do have a blog,” I noted, trying to be helpful. “That’s right,” she said. “I visit it. I love the family photos.” Here are four photos from this summer. I’ve added them to the sidebar as well.

Psalm 1:5-6: Exegetical Notes

The wicked in judgment will not stand. The reference is to the judgment phase of a trial. במשפט in the judgment = in judicial proceedings is a securely attested idiom: Pr 18:5; Lev 19:15, 35; Deut 1:17 – the last passage is telling:

Psalm 1:3-4: Exegetical Notes

He will be like a tree planted by channels of water where he will yield his fruit in season; whose foliage will not fade, and all he does will thrive. He is spoken of, not she, as elsewhere in this Psalm, per the usual in ancient literature, and in modern literature until recently. The use of the third masculine pronoun foregrounds but does not limit the application of the psalm to those of masculine gender. The tree and the individual who is faithful to יהוה merge in the course of the simile. My translation seeks to bring that out. In a parallel passage, the tenor-vehicle distinction is likewise blurred. The tree is personified:

A Style-Sensitive Translation of Luke 1:1-4

What would happen if the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek of the Bible were translated with the goal of transferring to a receptor language the flavor of its various parts in terms of style and register? If that were done, the gospel of Mark would come across as plain-speaking and a bit choppy, the gospel of Luke as relatively refined, Isaiah and Job as magnificent poetry, Qohelet as written in a style that gives form to its writer’s dyspepsia, the letters of Paul, as replete with difficult, dialectical argument. Revelation would come across as borderline ungrammatical in several passages; the rough patches in Ezekiel, too, would stand out in translation.