Ancient Hebrew Poetry

Another Look at Genesis 1:11

    The difficulties of Gen 1:11 in the received text tend to be smoothed over in translation. A comparison of the Hebrew with three well-known translations bears this out.

Innovative Methods of Interactive Online Study

    For a Religious Studies and Anthropology course on the subject of the Bible and its history of reception, I require students to read online essays and interact with them on comment threads. I go back and forth with students on the threads. They go back and forth among themselves. I am not the first instructor of letters and science to make interactive online study a core requirement for a university course. I am certain I will not be the last. The upsides are enormous.

N. T. Wright rebukes Barack Obama

    The gist of Tom Wright’s rebuke, like that of Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, is simple enough. It might be put this way. Obama’s decision to bring Osama bin Laden to justice by assassinating him in front of his family amounts to a repudiation of everything Obama was supposed to stand for: an end to the prosecution of war outside of judicial constraints, and an end to the notion that the United States stands above the law as one assumes the Geneva Conventions stipulate.

NIV 2011 Isaiah 19:16 is a Weak Translation

    Doug Magnum of Biblia Hebraica is not happy with claims NIV 2011 makes for itself. NIV promotes itself as being "easy to understand, yet rich with the detail found in the original Scripture." Magnum counters:

Why NRSV encounters resistance among Catholics

   The copyright owner and driving force behind the New Revised Standard Version (1989) is the National Council of Churches (USA), an organization dominated by Protestant denominations with liberal leadership and a more conservative rank and file. It is perhaps not too much to say that NCC’s most enduring legacy is not in the realm of church politics but in that of Bible translation. A Bible translation is, of course, a political act. NCC’s RSV (1952) made a large splash in the English speaking world. NRSV (1989) has also found broad acceptance among those who are neither liberal in theology nor Protestant by confession.

Why Businessmen Need Philosophy

    That’s the title of a recently released book. The subtitle: “The Capitalist's Guide to the Ideas Behind Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.” It does not surprise me that Rand’s style of atheism slash libertarianism is all the rage among young people and free-floating adults who imagine themselves to be rugged individualists.

Agency in the Book of Ruth

    The Jewish Publication Society is sponsoring a laudable initiative. On June 7, JPS will be tweeting the entire Book of Ruth using the hashtag Div#Torah with the hopes of tweeting #Torah to the top ten on Twitter. For more information, go here. This is also a way for JPS to spread the word about the forthcoming JPS commentary on Ruth by Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Tikva Frymer-Kensky (z'l). The commentary is bound to be excellent given the caliber of its authors. Frymer-Kensky and Eskenazi are top-tier Bible scholars from whom one can always learn.

The Beauty of Holiness

    In the Bible, divine holiness and beauty are encountered in the sanctuary; in the New Testament, in the person of the Messiah. “One thing I ask of YHWH; / that shall I seek; // to dwell in the house of YHWH / all the days of my life; // to gaze upon the beauty of YHWH, / and inquire in his temple” (Psalm 27:4). “Ascribe to YHWH, O divine beings; / ascribe to YHWH glory and strength. // Ascribe to YHWH the glory of his name; / prostrate before YHWH in the splendor of the sanctuary” (Psalm 29:1-2). “But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw everyone to myself" (John 12:32).

God in the Dock: Reflections on the Book of Job

    The book of Job goes like this. A prologue introduces the book’s readers to Job and describes decisions made in a parallel universe, that of a celestial court in which YHWH holds ultimate power (chs. 1-2). The heart of the book consists of a series of dialogue cycles between Job and three friends in which Job appeals to YHWH for vindication (chs. 3-31), followed by YHWH’s responses to Job’s appeals and a brief response by Job (chs. 38-41; 42:1-6). Speeches by a young interloper, Elihu, serve as a kind of intermezzo before YHWH’s responses to Job (chs. 32-37). An epilogue ties up all the loose ends of the book (42:7-17).

Civil Religion: The Speeches of Barack Obama

    The American sociologist Robert N. Bellah is best known for his description and analysis of “American civil religion.” For an excellent example of Bellah’s analysis, go here. Civil religion is a sort of meta-religion in which God is invoked and concepts of right and wrong derived from religious tradition assumed. Allegiance to God and country go hand in hand in civil religion. Some people don’t like civil religion, but for most US citizens, the following words remain a cogent synthesis of the American project: “one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.”