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Over the coming weeks, I plan to write a series of posts that outline some background issues that seem particularly relevant for New Testament interpretation. Of the numerous points of historical background that could be included here, four dimensions of the period leading up to the turn of the era will initially receive attention. These background dynamics will include: (1) the Greek conquest and its continuing effects, (2) the Maccabean revolt and the Hasmonean period, (3) the Roman conquest, and (4) sectarian developments within Judaism. As the series grows, if other areas suggest themselves as being particularly salient, thoughts about additional topics will certainly be welcome.

See Kümmel 139. Please see the symbol key for an explanation of the diagrams in this post series.

In this post:[caption id=“attachment_2014” align=“alignleft” width=“80” caption=“Werner Kümmel”] [/caption]

For the past several weeks, I have been working on some reasonably substantial changes to the site that should make it more useful and beneficial. With these changes completed and my comprehensive exams on the horizon (in both a hermeneutical and a temporal sense), I hope to begin regularly posting again quite soon. For anyone who may be interested, the following are among the most significant of changes to the site:

See Baird 305; Kümmel 148–49. Please see the symbol key for an explanation of the diagrams in this post series.

[caption id=“attachment_2065” align=“alignleft” width=“80” caption=“William Baird”] [/caption] [caption id=“attachment_2014” align=“alignleft” width=“80” caption=“Werner Kümmel”] [/caption]

A while back, I mentioned that Mark for Codex Sinaiticus had been digitized and made available online. The Codex Sinaiticus Project website now reports that “[f]rom 6 July 2009, the Codex Sinaiticus website features all extant pages of the Codex.” In addition to the page images, which have been available for some time at the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts, the Codex Sinaiticus Project website allows users to modify lighting options and view transcriptions and translations for the manuscript.

http://evepheso.wordpress.com/2009/07/03/aspect-aktionsart-one-more-time-part-ii/

Blass’s discussion slightly earlier [§56.1 – 1898, MacMillan, trans. H. St. J. Thackeray] affirms, perhaps slightly more explicitly, that the Greek tenses express time relations “absolutely, i.e. with reference to the stand-point of the speaker or narrator, and not relatively, i.e. with reference to something else that occurs in the speech or narrative” (italics added).

Blass’s subsequent discussion of the present in direct and indirect discourse (§56.9) also seems to illustrate your point about his view of the Greek tenses: “In the N.T. the use of oratorio obliqua is certainly not favored, and that of oratorio recta predominates; but it is noteworthy that subordinate sentences after verbs of perception and belief are assimilated to oratorio recta, and the tenses therefore have a relative meaning” (italics added). Blass then cites Matt 2:22 and John 6:24. In these cases, then, the tense in the quoted discourse is relative with respect to the writer who reports the discourse and absolute (see §56.1) with respect to the person(s) reported as constructing the discourse originally.

The bookshelf has a new section on faith and scholarship, which (for starters) includes the following works:

[caption id=“attachment_2085” align=“alignleft” width=“80” caption=“Philip Davies”] [/caption] [caption id=“attachment_2137” align=“alignleft” width=“80” caption=“George Marsden”] [/caption] [caption id=“attachment_2136” align=“alignleft” width=“80” caption=“Mark Noll”] [/caption]

In his Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision, N. T. Wright reflects:

It is really high time we developed a Christian ethic of blogging. Bad temper is bad temper even in the apparent privacy of your own hard drive, and harsh and unjust words, when released into the wild, rampage around and do real damage. . . . [T]he cyberspace equivalents of road rage don’t happen by accident. People who type vicious, angry, slanderous and inaccurate accusations do so because they feel their worldview to be under attack. Yes, I have a pastoral concern for such people. (And, for that matter, a pastoral concern for anyone who spends more than a few minutes a day taking part in blogsite discussions, especially when they all use code names: was it for this that the creator God made human beings?) ( Wright 26–27; cf. Köstenberger, “Internet Ettiquette”; Köstenberger, “Internet Ettiquette, Part 2”).1

Paul J. Silvia teaches psychology at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. In
How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing, Silvia chiefly pleads with his readers to set aside specific, regular blocks of time for writing and to adhere steadfastly to this schedule ( 16–17). “The secret,” he says, “is the regularity, not the number of days or the number of hours [allotted for writing]” ( 13). Silvia argues that observing such a regular writing schedule will allow an author to produce better material more efficiently ( 1). “More efficiently” does not, of course, necessarily indicate that all academics should publish a large quantity of material; those whose interests lie elsewhere can still use a regular writing schedule to produce the quantity of literature that they wish. Thus, Silvia suggests that a more accurate title for the volume would be How to Write More Productively During the Normal Work Week with Less Anxiety and Guilt, but he humorously recognizes that such a title may well have inhibited book sales ( 130).

In preparing for another revision of the Theological Writing Handout, I am rereading William Strunk and E. B. White’s little classic, The Elements of Style. The fourth edition contains a forward by Roger Angell, White’s stepson, where Angell recalls the following pattern of behavior from his stepfather:

The next revision of the Theological Writing Handout is now available, and it can be previewed and downloaded below. As always, comments identifying errors or suggesting improvements are welcome. For anyone who may be interested, a change log from the previous version (0.4.1) is also available.

[scribd id=15866483 key=key-20poma272lcpzlvx7mlj]

Scott Crider teaches in the English Department at the University of Dallas. His book, The Office of Assertion: An Art of Rhetoric for the Academic Essay ( affiliate disclosure), is intended to provide an introduction to “the classical art of rhetoric and composition” (xi). While providing this introduction, Crider specifically seeks to argue that rhetoric is, as a liberal art, a noble pursuit and to improve the readers ability to write academic prose (2).

Over the past several weeks, I’ve become convinced that the Παραλειπόμενα page would be more serviceable as a post category. Below are the current παραλειπόμενα not also included in other posts; a complete selection of the παραλειπόμενα can be obtained by clicking the παραλειπόμενα category link.

1. ὁ δὲ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς· διὰ τοῦτο πᾶς γραμματεὺς μαθητευθεὶς τῇ βασιλείᾳ τῶν οὐρανῶν ὅμοιός ἐστιν ἀνθρώπῳ οἰκοδεσπότῃ, ὅστις ἐκβάλλει ἐκ τοῦ θησαυροῦ αὐτοῦ καινὰ καὶ παλαιά ( And he said to them, “Therefore, every scribe who has been taught for the kingdom of the heavens is like a man who is a master of a house, who brings forth from his storeroom new and old things”; Matt 13:52)
2. “[I]t is better for [people] to find you [O God] and leave the question unanswered than to find the answer without finding you” ( Augustine 1.6; affiliate disclosure).
3. “If you can’t imagine how anyone could hold the view you are attacking, you just don’t understand it yet” ( Weston 6; affiliate disclosure).
4. “I have never been able to give myself the comfort which some devout believers seem to derive from a contemptuous attitude toward men on the other side of the great debate; I have never been able to dismiss the ‘higher critics’ en masse with a few words of summary condemnation” (J. Gresham Machen, quoted in Baird 352; affiliate disclosure).
5. עשות ספרים הרבה אין קץ ולהג הרבה יגעת בשר ( Of the making of many books there is no end, and much study is the weariness of the bones; Eccl 12:12).
6. “We do God’s work for our brothers and sisters when we learn to listen to them. So often Christians, especially preachers, think that their only service is always to have to ‘offer’ something when they are together with other people. They forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking. Many people seek a sympathetic ear and do not find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking even when they should be listening. But Christians who can no longer listen to one another will soon no longer be listening to God either; they will always be talking even in the presence of God. The death of the spiritual life starts here, and in the end there is nothing left but empty spiritual chatter and clerical condescension which chokes on pious words. Those who cannot listen long and patiently will always be talking past others, and finally no longer will even notice it. Those who think their time is too precious to spend listening will never really have time for God and others, but only for themselves and for their own words and plans” ( Bonhoeffer 98; affiliate disclosure).
7. καὶ ἐδικαιώθη ἡ σοφία ἀπὸ τῶν ἔργων αὐτῆς ( And wisdom is justified by her deeds; Matt 11:19).
8. “The New Testament is concerned with proclamation. It is a Kerygma, the loud cry of a herald authorized by a king to proclaim his will and purpose to his subjects. It is Euangelion, good news, sent to those who are in distress with the promise of deliverance. It is the Word of the Lord—and in the East a word is no mere vibration in the atmosphere, it is a living power sent forth to accomplish that for which it is sent” ( Neill and Wright 448–49; italics original; affiliate disclosure).
9. “[T]he hermeneutical task involves both distance, in which account is taken of the particularity of the text, and also a progress towards as close a fusion of horizons with the text as the relation between text and interpreter will allow” ( Thiselton 440; emphasis original; affiliate disclosure).
10. ὁ ἀφʼ ἑαυτοῦ λαλῶν τὴν δόξαν τὴν ἰδίαν ζητεῖ ( He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; John 7:18).

Zotero is a bibliographic and research management addin for the Firefox web browser. The latest test release, 2.0b3, succeeds Zotero 1.5b2.1 with some substantial improvements, particularly by increasing Zotero’s flexibility and usefulness for research collaboration among several, different Zotero users.

I just received an email confirmation that my paper, “Jeremiah 9:23–24 and Rewritten Bible: A Window on Paul’s Hermeneutic,” has been accepted for this year’s national ETS meeting in New Orleans. A brief abstract follows:

The genre of rewritten Bible was reasonably common in the Second Temple period. Although rewritten Bible did not fully substitute for Israel’s scripture, this genre still provides evidence for biblical interpretations that were current in the Second Temple period. It also facilitates a greater understanding of how these interpretations could be employed in various contexts. Two Pauline texts in which the rewritten Bible tradition provides such assistance are 1 Cor 1:31 and 2 Cor 10:17, which both cite Jer 9:24. In this case, reading Jer 9:24 in concert with the rewritten Bible tradition, such as the one that the Targum of the Prophets exhibits, sheds light on Paul’s text and on the hermeneutical approach that he exhibits toward Jer 9:24 as he attempts to speak to the unique challenges of the Corinthians’ situation.

In reading Roland Deines’ essay in Second Temple Judaism (“The Pharisees Between ‘Judaisms’ and ‘Common Judaism’”), I came across the following, astute paragraph:

If it is correct that it was particularly halakah that constituted Pharisees as Pharisees, it is also true that it constituted Essenes as Essenes and Sadducees as Sadducees. The same can be said regarding the other Jewish groups that existed prior to 70. This explains why the differences and even antagonism between these three basic movements (which included diverse elements within themselves) did not lead to the complete suspension of religious association within Judaism, whereas the association with early Christians broke off quite soon. All three Jewish movements oriented themselves basically around the Torah as the center of individual and national Jewish existence. In this system the Messiah was subordinated to Torah. For Christians, on the other hand, Christ became the center of individual as well as communal existence. In him, a person’s profound relationship with his own nation was expanded to an eschatological and thus at the same time universal horizon. The final breakdown came when the soteriological marginality of the Torah in relation to Christ could no longer be overlooked in the course of generational change. Even where Torah was observed with sincerity in Jewish-Christian congregations, it had still lost its absolute, eschatological dimension. It had, even in these congregations, reached its τέλος in Christ ( 499–500; italics added).

[caption id=“attachment_1423” align=“alignleft” width=“80” caption=“D. A. Carson, Peter O’Brien, and Mark Seifrid”] [/caption]If first-century Judaism had a different shape than much New Testament scholarship has traditionally assumed, then an understanding of the New Testament’s—and especially Paul’s—negative critique of Judaism, as well as the positive, doctrinal affirmations predicated to some degree upon this traditional view of Judaism, may need to be revised. The direction this revision has taken based on the trajectory Sanders set in the last portion of Paul and Palestinian Judaism ( 431–556), 1 provides the impetus for the Justification and Variegated Nomism set ( Carson, O’Brien, and Seifrid 5). This set attempts to determine “whether ‘covenantal nomism’ serves us well as a label for an overarching pattern of religion” in Palestinian Judaism ( Carson, O’Brien, and Seifrid 5).

The New Perspective on Paul has its beginnings in what N. T. Wright has called “the Sanders revolution.”

See Kümmel 327. Please see the symbol key for an explanation of the diagrams in this post series.

In this post:[caption id=“attachment_2014” align=“alignleft” width=“80” caption=“Werner Kümmel”] [/caption]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upGCMl_b0n4&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0]

By S. M. Lockridge

Thanks to Michael Bird for the reminder about this clip.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6_Qa-HnaYg&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0]

Lyrics by Bernard of Clairvaux, music by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Despite the imperial connection that might have been expected to promote the Latin tongue, “[e]ven after Rome became the world power in the first century BCE, Greek continued to penetrate distant lands. (This was due largely to Rome’s policy of assimilation of cultures already in place, rather than destruction and replacement.) Consequently, [when Pompey conquered Palestine in 63 BC ( Ferguson 411) and] even when Rome was in absolute control [under Augustus in 31 BC-AD 14 (cf. Ferguson 26–30)], Latin was not the lingua franca. Greek continued to be a universal language until at least the end of the first century” ( Wallace 18). Moreover, when one considers the strong Jewish presence in Palestine, it becomes clear that Hebrew and Aramaic would constitute important languages in the Palestinian milieu (cf. Poirier 55).

Early Holtzmann Late Holtzmann

See Kümmel 151–55. Please see the symbol key for an explanation of the diagrams in this post series.

In this post:[caption id=“attachment_2014” align=“alignleft” width=“80” caption=“Werner Kümmel”] [/caption]

The linguistic situation in Palestine during the first century AD was, to say the least, quite complex because it involved interaction among four different languages—namely, Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. The presence of other languages is also apparent, and although few individuals were probably fluent in three or more of these languages, many were probably bilingual ( Poirier 56). In seeking to understand this multi-faceted situation, our strategy will be to handle the less common languages first and proceed to the more common ones. Although language distribution “varied almost personally” ( Poirier 56, quoting Barr 112), of primary concern will be the question: Which language(s) held vernacular or nearly vernacular status?

John Dyer has developed an online reader’s Bible, primarily as a pedagogical tool, that will allow customized output of text, vocabulary, and morphology.

For instance, with just a few clicks and keystrokes, here’s a version of Gal 3:15–16 showing vocabulary that occurs 50 or fewer times in the New Testament.

Keeping the New Testament Greek, attributive adjective “position” classifications straight in one’s head can be challenging, but here is a short summary (see Porter 117):

1. Article-adjective-substantive (e.g., ὁ ἀγαθὸς ἄνθρωπος),
2. Article-substantive-article-adjective (e.g., ὁ ἄνθρωπος ὁ ἀγαθὸς),
3. Substantive-article-adjective (e.g., ἄνθρωπος ὁ ἀγαθὸς),
4. Adjective-substantive or substantive-adjective (e.g., ἀγαθὸς ἄνθρωπος or ἄνθρωπος ἀγαθὸς).

In contrast to these four basic patterns, the potentially legitimate structure article-adjective-article-substantive (e.g., ὁ ἀγαθὸς ὁ ἄνθρωπος) is not used ( Mounce §9.12).

See Kümmel 149–51. Please see the symbol key for an explanation of the diagrams in this post series.

In this post:[caption id=“attachment_2014” align=“alignleft” width=“80” caption=“Werner Kümmel”] [/caption]

Over at Evangelical Textual Criticism, Peter Head just posted about a monastery excavation that links the origin of Codex Sinaiticus to Jerusalem.

If this provenance is correct, then it does, of course, constitute a substantive piece of evidence for a wider geographic distribution of the Alexandrian text type than is sometimes assumed.

I recently found a thread on the Zotero forum that mentions the PDF XChange Viewer, which is supposed to allow users to markup PDF files.

Especially if you use Zotero, you may want to use PDF XChange as your default PDF browser plugin. After installing PDF XChange, you may still need to do the following:

See Kümmel 146–48. Please see the symbol key for an explanation of the diagrams in this post series.

In this post:[caption id=“attachment_2014” align=“alignleft” width=“80” caption=“Werner Kümmel”] [/caption]