The warrior

Lawson Stone, of Asbury Seminary is doing a 365 day project: one photo per day. That's no big deal, except it is a self-portrait and usually contains some good insight. Today's rings very true for me. Here's a snippet:

The uninitiated, the new student in a biblical studies program, seminary, or young scholar, encounters a gaggle of disconnected methods, a cacophony of voices, and a chaos of ideological values, typically supported by the power and resources of the scholarly guild, tenure review committees, and major publishers. It confuses, but it also dazzles and hypnotizes. The literary critic and philosopher George Steiner has pilloried the tribalized academy as “…covens which celebrate this or that rite of explication.”

And, we might add, eager for new initiates. The student began simply enough with a love for God and his word and a desire to study scripture responsibly, rigorously, and faithfully. But now she feels an undertow, a pull toward the fashions, predilections and preoccupations of the academy. A new acculturation begins to take place, the desire to please a particular professor, to appear on top of the latest trends, current, relevant…to whom?

Then there are the insistent demands of a church that is all too often in the tank with popular culture and impatient with analysis and reflection in its rush to be relevant. We demand that God speak to our problems right now, and any explanation of the Bible that isn’t “practical” is rejected. The concept that we might need to set our needs and agendas aside and simply listen to God…who does that? But in fact, if I don’t think the Bible applies to my life, maybe it is my life that is in the wrong place!

<idle musing>
Do read the whole thing; very insightful. Biblical studies can indeed be a dangerous place...
</idle musing>

The hound of heaven

Ok, I was hoping to post a review of Augustine and the Jews, but I ran out of time. Maybe tomorrow or Friday; if not, then it will be done while I am on vacation. Meantime, I started reading Oswalt's The Bible Among Other Myths. Here's a brief snippet from it:

When we ask the Israelites where they came up with these fantastic concepts, they tell us they did not “come up” with them. They tell us that God broke in upon their lives and dragged them kicking and screaming into these understandings. They tell us that they did their best to get away from him, but that he would not let them go. He kept obtruding himself into their lives in the most uncomfortable ways.—The Bible Among Other Myths, page 17

<idle musing>
Augustine called the Holy Spirit the “hound of Heaven.” He doesn't let us go, but chases us, woos us, pursues us to the depths of our being; he never lets us go. Praise God for that!
</idle musing>

A bit of perspective

"The empire, neither demonic before 312 [the date of Constantine's "conversion"] nor holy thereafter, lacked any absolute religious significance. And events whether positive (such as the universal proclamation of the gospel) or negative (famine, earthquake, or the fall of Rome) were eschatologically opaque: they could not be matched with scriptural prophecy to indicate anything of the divine plan. However certain in their faith, Christians could never be certain of their circumstances. For the period of time that stood outside the biblical canon, history's patterns and the ultimate significance of events, like God's standards of justice, were occultissimi [most hidden] as well."—Augustine and the Jews, pages 342-343

<idle musing>
Would that some of our modern "prophecy experts" would learn from Augustine! Why do we not heed the cry of Jesus that no one knows the day or the hour except the Father? Oh wait, I know, it's because we want to be God and know all things! Genesis 3 again; I might have guessed it. :(
</idle musing>

Free will

"But will operated with extreme internal constraints. The will as now constituted—as Augustine argued brilliantly when explicating Romans 9 to Simplicianus; as he demonstrated brilliantly in his narration of his own past in the first eight books of the Confessions—is undermined by its own self. Conflicted, ineffectual, this will is indeed "free"—no star or demon or external power compels it—but it is free only to sin. Absent grace, the best that a person can do is to want not to sin, though he cannot not sin.—Augustine and the Jews, page 277

<idle musing>
I don't disagree with this. But, I do disagree about the extent of grace; Augustine believed in apportioned grace. I believe in free grace—free to all, free from limits, free!
</idle musing>

Mosquitoes!

Bugs haven't been much of a problem this year; it has been quite dry; the garden hasn't suffered, though because of the drip irrigation. But, the rain 2 weeks ago sure changed things!

For the last few days, you can't hardly walk outside without being accosted by mosquitoes. I have started wearing long pants and a rain jacket while working in the garden. They bite right through a regular shirt; the nylon jacket seems to stop them. But, my hands and head are getting attacked continually while I am working.

Debbie read somewhere that Bounce™ sheets work for repelling insects, so she has started attaching the sheets to herself. Last night, she had one pinned in her hair, one on each sleeve, and one on her belt loop. It looked pretty funny—and she still got bit!

It reminds me of living in the north woods! But, "count it all joy..." keeps coming to mind.

New monthly sale at Eisenbrauns

Another back-to-school sale this month. Here's the blurb from BookNews:

BookNews from Eisenbrauns

As school starts again this fall, I'm sure many of you have read the Beloit College "Mindset List" (http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/2013.php). They missed one very important item this year: Waltke & O'Connor's "Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax" has always been the standard by which other Hebrew grammars are judged.

In keeping with that theme, Eisenbrauns is offering you savings of 10-50% on Hebrew and Ugaritic resources for the entire month of September.

As always, all sales on this web sale are final; no returns will be permitted. Offer good only on orders placed at www.eisenbrauns.com through September 30, 2009.

To easily access all the sale items, please visit:
http://www.eisenbrauns.com/pages/SPECIAL
================================================================
"Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax"
by Bruce K. Waltke and Michael Patrick O'Connor
Eisenbrauns, 1990. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 0931464315
List Price: $59.50 Your Price: $41.65

"Beginning Biblical Hebrew"
by Mark D. Futato
Eisenbrauns, 2005. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 1575060221
List Price: $44.95 Your Price: $31.47

"A Grammar for Biblical Hebrew"
by Choon L. Seow
Abingdon, 1995. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 0687157862
List Price: $36.00 Your Price: $23.40

"A Guide to Biblical Hebrew Syntax"
by Bill T. Arnold and John H. Choi
Cambridge University Press, 2003. Paper. English.
ISBN: 0521533481
List Price: $19.99 Your Price: $15.99

"Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar: Edited and enlarged
by E. Kautzsch; Second edition"
Edited by E. Kautzsch
by William Gesenius
Clarendon Press, 1910. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 0198154062
List Price: $69.95 Your Price: $55.96

"A Biblical Hebrew Reference Grammar: With minor revisions"
Edited by Christo H. Van Der Merwe, Jackie A. Naude, and Jan H. Kroeze
Biblical Languages: Hebrew - BLH 3
Sheffield Academic Press, 2002. Paper. English.
ISBN: 1850758565
List Price: $72.00 Your Price: $50.40

"The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon with an
appendix containing the Biblical Aramaic: Coded with the
numbering system from "Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible""
by Francis Brown, et al.
Hendrickson Publishers, 1995. Cloth. English and Hebrew.
ISBN: 1565632060
List Price: $34.95 Your Price: $20.97

"A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament"
by William L. Holladay
Eerdmans, 1971. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 0802834132
List Price: $40.00 Your Price: $24.00

"Dictionary of Basic Biblical Hebrew: Hebrew-English"
by Shlomo Karni
Carta, Jerusalem, 2002. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 9652204986
List Price: $24.95 Your Price: $19.96

"Ezra-Nehemiah: Biblia Hebraica Quinta"
Edited by David Marcus
Biblia Hebraica Quinta - BHQ 20
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft Stuttgart, 2006. Paper. Hebrew.
ISBN: 3438052806
List Price: $98.00 Your Price: $63.70

"General Introduction and Megilloth: Biblia Hebraica Quinta"
Edited by Adrian Schenker, et al.
Biblia Hebraica Quinta - BHQ 18
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft Stuttgart, 2004. Paper. Hebrew.
ISBN: 3438052784
List Price: $98.00 Your Price: $63.70

"Proverbs"
Edited by J. de Waard
Biblia Hebraica Quinta - BHQ 17
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft Stuttgart, 2008. Paper. Hebrew.
ISBN: 9783438052773
List Price: $98.00 Your Price: $63.70

"Deuteronomy"
Edited by Carmel McCarthy
Biblia Hebraica Quinta - BHQ 5
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft Stuttgart, 2007. Paper. Hebrew.
ISBN: 9781598561982
List Price: $99.00 Your Price: $64.35

"Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia: Large Format"
Edited by K. Elliger and W. Rudolph
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft Stuttgart, 1987. Cloth. Hebrew.
ISBN: 3438052180
List Price: $79.99 Your Price: $47.99

"Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia: Paperback Edition"
Edited by K. Elliger and W. Rudolph
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft Stuttgart, 2001. Paper. Hebrew.
ISBN: 3438052229
List Price: $34.99 Your Price: $26.24

"Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia: Small format"
Edited by K. Elliger and W. Rudolph
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft Stuttgart, 1987. Cloth. Hebrew.
ISBN: 3438052199
List Price: $69.95 Your Price: $41.97

"Konkordanz zum hebraischen Alten Testament"
by Gerhard Lisowsky
Edited by H. P. Ruger
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft Stuttgart, 1958. Cloth. Hebrew and German.
ISBN: 343805230X
List Price: $84.99 Your Price: $67.99

"Biblical Hebrew in Its Northwest Semitic Setting:
Typological and Historical Perspectives"
Edited by Steven E. Fassberg and Avi Hurvitz
Eisenbrauns, 2006. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 1575061163
List Price: $49.50 Your Price: $34.65

"Dialect Geography of Syria-Palestine, 1000-586 BCE"
by W. Randall Garr
Eisenbrauns, 2004. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 1575060914
List Price: $47.50 Your Price: $28.50

"Untersuchungen zur verbalen Valenz im biblischen Hebraisch"
by Michael Malessa
Studia Semitica Neerlandica - SSN 49
Van Gorcum, 2006. Cloth. German.
ISBN: 9023242408
List Price: $85.00 Your Price: $68.00

"The Verbless Clause in Biblical Hebrew: Linguistic Approaches"
Edited by Cynthia L. Miller
Linguistic Studies in Ancient West Semitic - LSAWS 1
Eisenbrauns, 1999. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 1575060361
List Price: $49.50 Your Price: $29.70

"Hebrew Verse Structure"
by Michael Patrick O'Connor
Eisenbrauns, 1997. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 0931464021
List Price: $59.50 Your Price: $29.75

"Biblical Hebrew and Discourse Linguistics"
Edited by Robert D. Bergen
SIL International, 1994. Paper. English.
ISBN: 1556710070
List Price: $42.00 Your Price: $33.60

"Ugaritic Textbook: Grammar, Texts in Transliteration,
Cuneiform Selections, Glossary, Indices"
by Cyrus H. Gordon
Analecta Orientalia - AO 38
Biblical Institute Press / Editrice
Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 1998. Paper. English.
ISBN: 8876532382
List Price: $128.00 Your Price: $115.20

"A Basic Grammar of Ugaritic Language
with Selected Texts and Glossary"
by Stanislav Segert
University of California Press, 1984. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 0520039998
List Price: $70.00 Your Price: $63.00

"Ugaritic Grammar"
by Daniel Sivan
Biblical Encyclopaedia Library - BEL 9
Bialik Institute, 1993. Paper. Hebrew.
List Price: $32.00 Your Price: $25.60

"Ugaritische Grammatik"
by Josef Tropper
Alter Orient und Altes Testament - AOAT 273
Ugarit-Verlag, 2000. Cloth. German.
ISBN: 3927120901
List Price: $100.00 Your Price: $80.00

"Ugaritisch: Kurzgefasste Grammatik mit Ubungstexten und Glossar"
by Josef Tropper
Elementa Linguarum Orientis - ELO 1
Ugarit-Verlag, 2002. Paper. German.
ISBN: 3934628125
List Price: $24.00 Your Price: $19.20

Sound familar?

"...any male member of the cural class from whatever religious or ethnic group would have been educated within and would have reaped the benefits of a purely pagan curriculum. Despite traumatic episodes of earlier pagan hostility, then, and despite the vituperation heaped upon civic celebrations and entertainments by their own church leaders, Christians, like Jews, accommodated themselves to majority culture, evidently with much less difficulty than some of their leaders would have liked. That is because majority culture, in many ways, was their culture. All of these people were themselves Romans."—Augustine and the Jews, pages 95-96

<idle musing>
The more things change, the more they stay the same...change the name from Roman to whatever culture you're in, and you get the same results.
</idle musing>

Define Consumer Christianity

Out of Ur ran a contest of sorts last month. They requested that people define or provide illustrations of "consumer christianity." They posted the results today. Some of them are quite funny, in a sad sort of way. Definitely take the time to read them.

Persecution

Another snippet from Augustine and the Jews, this time about persecution of the Christians:

We are so accustomed to "knowing" that Rome persecuted ancient Christians that we can fail to see how odd, unprecedented, and anomalous such a persecution, in such a society, actually was. Pragmatic religious pluralism had long characterized ancient Mediterranean kingdoms in general, the Roman Empire in particular. (No one wanted to have to deal with an angry god.) To understand the sources of this unhappy social innovation—the invention of religious persecution—we need to recall what concerned ancient people when they engaged in what we think of as "religious" activities. Ethnicity and antiquity; the standing obligations to one's own gods; the importance of communal cult acts, of showing and being seen to show respect; the premium placed on maintaining the pax deorum, the concordat between heaven and earth that guaranteed the well-being of city and empire: These are the considerations that mattered to them. Cult, the ancients assumed, made gods happy; and when gods were happy, humans flourished. Conversely, not receiving cult mad gods unhappy; and when gods were unhappy, the made people unhappy.

The problem with gentile Christians, then, in the view of the pagan majority, was not that these people were "Christian," but that they were "gentile," or rather that they were still "pagan"...Gentile Christians became the objects of local resentments and anxieties precisely because they were deviant pagans, refusing to honor the gods upon whom their city's well-being depended. In consequence, when things went wrong—as things tend to do—gentile Christians were easily, readily blamed...Divine anger would affect everybody. In brief, ancestral obligation, not particular beliefs—what people did, not what they thought—was what mattered.—pages 86-87

<idle musing>
I fear I might have cut too much out. I hope that makes sense to you. Atheism is what Christians were accused of—not in believing in no god, but in not honoring all gods!
</idle musing>

More about gods

Another selection from Augustine and the Jews. Speaking about Paul's view that the other gods are subservient to the true God:

But Jewish apocalyptic convictions, such as Paul expresses to his communities, represent an extreme attitude toward foreign gods and thus are by definition exceptional. On a day-to-day basis, for Jews as well as for others, what mattered was deciding how to deal with the gods of outsiders while dealing with their humans as well. This was a practical question: Any god by definition was more powerful than any human, and gods as a group tended to be incensed when slighted. In general, most people opted for a sensible display of courtesy, showing and (perhaps just as important) being seen to show respect. Such courtesy went a long way toward establishing concord both with other gods (who, if angered, could be dangerous) and with their equally sensitive humans.—pages 10-11

<idle musing>
Sort of like avoiding breaking a mirror, or not letting a black cat cross your path, or...you know the kinds of things I'm talking about. Rule 1: Don't tick off the gods. Rule 2: If you do, get it right, now! Or you might not be around to find out why they got mad.
</idle musing>

The ancient world

A few selections from Augustine and the Jews over the next few days, then—hopefully!—a short review.

...the existence or nonexistence of the gods of outsiders (those of a different genos or natio) was not at issue. Ancient people generally assumed that various gods existed, just as their humans did. When these gods, with their humans, were encountered, various kinds of recognitions and acknowledgments might occur. When Alexander conquered Egypt, for example, a priest of the god Ammon greeted him as Ammon's son. Deified himself, Alexander was depicted on coins in gorgeous Hellenistic profile, the ram's horns of the Egyptian deity growing out of his head. As culture encountered each other, their gods might be identified with, associated with, or assimilated to each other. Thus the Roman Jupiter took on characteristics of the Greek Zeus; statues of the Roman Minerva replicated aspects of Athena; indigenous Semitic gods (such as Ba'al shamim, "lord of heaven") gained currency by being present under Olympian names ("Zeus"). When different peoples clashed, their gods were imagines as fighting, too. But this was not always the case. The Romans, ever practical, bagan sieges by addressing the presiding deities of the enemy. Through rituals of evocatio ("calling out"), the Romans summoned the city's gods ot come over to them, promising in exchange for victory to respect and to continue their cult.—pages 8-9

<idle musing>
If there is one thing that people need to realize when studying the ancient world, this is it. The gods were/are real to these people. They have an affect on what you are, what you do, etc. These are not theoretically constructed deities for the sake of theological argument. They are real, and can really mess you up if you tick them off! Don't ever forget that!
</idle musing>

Thought for today

Actually, this might be a thought for a lifetime...I was recently sent a copy of John Oswalt's The Bible Among Other Myths to review (thanks, Emily!). I haven't really started reading it yet; I'm just finishing Augustine and the Jews—a very good book, by the way; watch for more soon :) Anyway, I was looking at the introduction and this hit me:

...the idea that this world is not self-explanatory and that revelation from beyond it is necessary to understand it is profoundly distasteful to us humans. It means that we are not in control of our own destiny or able to make our own disposition of things for our own benefit. This thought, the thought that we cannot supply our ultimate needs for ourselves, that we are dependent on someone or something utterly beyond us, is deeply troublesome.

<idle musing>
Yep!
</idle musing>

New sale at Eisenbrauns

Hey! There's a new sale at Eisenbrauns! Yep, 10 days of marvelous savings on Hittite, a language dear to my graduate studies :) Details are here

The price of books

Josh bemoans the high price of books, which prompted me to respond. The comments go back and forth. Jim West picked up the post, prompting both Josh and I to respond.

What can I say? As I pointed out in a comment on Josh's post, there are two basic pricing models in the academic publishing business right now. One is aimed at the library market, with a limited number of sales and a high cost per book. The other model prices the books more moderately and aims to sell more books at a lower income per book. The European publishers have generally opted for the first model. The American publishers have generally (but certainly not all!) opted for the latter model.

The part that is frustrating to me is that Oxford, especially, has opted to use the higher price model, but then gone with print-on-demand technology. The advantage is no inventory. The disadvantage is that the hardcover books all look bad and the binding is not signature bound, but rather perfect bound.

Print-on-demand is a higher cost per piece (about 2-3 times traditional printing), but you don't have to carry a large inventory, thus allowing a publisher to keep older, lower demand books in print. Eisenbrauns uses print-on-demand for older books, but only in paperback.

So, vent away about the price of academic books. I agree with you, which is why Eisenbrauns has chosen to price books more moderately. Maybe, if you cry loud enough, the publishers who have chosen the library model will listen. I hope so.

Bonhoeffer, Life Together

Scot McKnight has a good post on Life Together and Prayerbook of the Bible today.

I must admit, it is one of my favorite Bonhoeffer books. Do yourself a favor and read, not just the post, but the whole book.

Vocation versus job

Very nice little blurb (it's not really a blog, so is it a post?) today at Stone's Fence about how the word vocation has changed its meaning over the years. I'll let Lawson tell it in his own words:

Time was, all Christians regarded their work as a divine calling. Maybe not a calling to the ministry of word, order, and sacrament, but a calling all the same. It’s why we called is a “vocation.” The word means “calling.” We quit a “job” once we don’t need the money it provides. But do we ever “quit” a calling?

I doubt it.

I wonder how many Christians in so-called “secular jobs” seriously subscribe to the old protestant notion that any and all honest work done for God’s glory is, in fact, a sacred calling? Done not only to support ourselves and to have enough to share with others in need, but also done out of a sense that in some very vital way, God has given us this thing to do. However trivial it might seem, however non-religious, however tedious…it is both his burden on us and his gift to us.

<idle musing>
Yes. No matter what you are doing, it is a sacred calling—if you are a Christian, that is. Nothing is a "higher calling." Nothing is a "lower calling." They are simply different callings.
</idle musing>

What's in a name?

<idle musing>
I've been wondering this for several years now. It just doesn't make sense to me and I don't mean any disrespect to people who do it, but why do some spell God as G-d?

I know it is out of respect and that it is supposed to be a carry-over from not pronouncing the tetragrammaton (YHWH). But, wouldn't it make more sense to write L-RD (small caps)? After all, we don't see in the Hebrew bible:
בְּרֵאשִׁית, בָּרָא אלִֹהים, אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם
That is, 'elohim without the vowels. God is just a generic, as is 'elohim. YHWH is the name of God, so maybe we should write JSS for Jesus—at least if you are a trinitarian :)

The Greek LXX translators had various circumlocutions; some used paleo-hebraic letters, others wrote κυριος (KURIOS), others wrote...I've forgotten now, but I'm sure someone will remind me in a comment (or I'll remember at about 2 AM tomorrow). The Vulgate used dominus, and the English Bibles have traditionally rendered YHWH as LORD with small caps. So, why G-d?
</idle musing>

Harvest time

Whew! It was a busy weekend, garden-wise. We froze beans, made more bread & butter pickles (8.5 quarts), dried peaches, made applesauce (1/2 bushel=18 pints), pickled beets (disappointing crop this year), made more rhubarb jam (11 half-pints—I really like this stuff!), stewed tomatoes (only 4 quarts so far) and pulled a good percentage of the onions (we really like onions).

Because of the cool summer, the tomatoes are just getting started. The cherry tomatoes have just started going nuts this last week, with the other ones slowly following. I suspect that this week, if it gets hot like it is supposed to, will cause a large harvest. Watch me fall behind in canning them :)

Oh, I almost forgot, the green peppers are doing well, too. I have been using them in bread & butter pickles, but now we will start to dry those for use this winter.

With all that, we still managed a nice bike ride Sunday evening (about 29 miles). Just don't ask what time we finished with the canning and drying...

Interview

There is a very nice interview with Helen Brown of Accordance posted on the Hebrew and Greek Reader blog.

I especially like this one:

17. Any long-term projects in the works you can tell us about?

I could, but I would have to kill you afterwards. ;-) We do not like to market vaporware. We only announce our new features and projects when they are about ready for release.

<idle musing>
I first met Helen in my first year at Eisenbrauns. I was still figuring out what I was doing—keep the comments to yourself!—when I met her at the IOSOT meeting in Leiden, at the reception in the museum. A customer of theirs, a well-known Hebrew professor in England, was having trouble with something. She asked him if he had the computer with him; he did. For the next half-hour she walked him through the whole thing right there off to the side during the reception. Nice customer service, but that is just who Helen is.

Just another one of the reasons I like Accordance.
</idle musing>

Coptic, anyone?

I collect grammars. I have mentioned that before. One of the many languages I have a grammar for is Coptic. I have looked at it many times since I got it 3-4 years ago. The thing that scares me about it is that it looks too much like Greek. The alphabet is the Greek alphabet plus some letters; there are lots of Greek loanwords in the vocabulary. But, it isn't Greek syntax or grammar; it is Egyptianish. Now, one set of languages I avoided in graduate school was Egytian, so I get a bit nervous about being serious about Coptic. Besides, I need another dead language like I need another hole in the head or zucchini squash :)

All that to say that Eisenbrauns is offering a new 10-day Back-to-School sale on Coptic. For the next 10 days, you can save 10-40% on some basic resources. Go here to get some goodies. That way they can sit on your shelf while you contemplate learning the language :)

Spell checkers

I love spell checkers in e-mail—they are great for a laugh sometimes. I should start a list, but this one today was great.

I was sending an e-mail to a customer who is going to be teaching Akkadian using the Hammurapi stela. In the reply, typed Hammurapi also. I expected the spell checker to complain, after all, most popular books spell it Hammurabi, with a -bi instead of a -pi reading on the final sign. Well, it complained, but the suggested substitute was "Samurai" Huh? Wrong area of the world, let alone wrong time period...

Rain

We have had a very dry July and August—until yesterday. The creek that runs past our house had shrunk to a mere trickle about 2 inches deep and a foot across—until yesterday.

Yesterday, we received 5.5 inches of rain in about 22 hours. But, the ground was so hungry that there are virtually no puddles. Of course, not all of it soaked in; some of it ran off. I checked the creek last night, before it was done raining, and it had swollen to the tops of its banks. It had become a 5 feet deep, 15-20 foot across, swiftly flowing creek that would be difficult to ford. When we took our walk later, under umbrellas, we crossed the bridge and heard the wonderful sound of water flowing strongly under it. I missed that sound.

Our garden soaked the rain up like a sponge. We had added about 6 inches of composted leaves in the spring; that compost is always thirsty.

Because the temperatures stayed warm, the tomatoes are finally starting to ripen. I picked a few Big Girls, two Beefsteak, a couple of Romas and quite a few cherry tomatoes. We have two different kinds of cherry tomatoes this year: the normal small ones, and then some that I call cherry tomatoes with an attitude. They are about twice the size of normal cherry tomatoes; I sliced some of them into thirds and used them on my sandwich—fresh whole wheat bread with homemade pickle relish and a slice of cheddar cheese. Life is good :)

Preach? Or announce?

A while back, actually way back in December/January, I posted some excerpts and thoughts on the book To Preach or Not to Preach?. Just a week or two ago, Alan Knox did a series on the Greek verb κηρύσσω, commonly translated "preach." His conclusion was that the verb is more accurately translated "announce." I'll let him say it in his own words:

In three posts, I’ve looked at the use of the term κηρύσσω (kērussō – usually translated “preach”) in the Old Testament. I’ve explained why it is important for us to study the meaning of words in the Old Testament, especially in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. I’ve posted all passages in the Old Testament and the non-canonical books which include the term κηρύσσω (kērussō). I’ve concluded that in these passages, the meaning of the term is closer to the English verb “announce” than to any of the definitions of the English word “preach”.

He then proceeds to look at the works of Josephus and Philo, who lived in the same general time period as the New Testament was composed, to see if the word had changed in meaning. His conclusion: Nope.

<idle musing>
Hmmm. Does that line up with the arguments in To Preach or Not to Preach?, or not? I'll give you a hint: Yes! It's always nice to see scholars agree on something :)
</idle musing>

Thought for the day

I'm quite far behind in reading blogs, not just books, so I just saw this nice little snippet on Ted Gossard's blog, from last week:

The narrow gate is not, as so often assumed, doctrinal correctness. The narrow gate is obedience- and the confidence in Jesus necessary to it. We can see that it is not doctrinal correctness because many people who cannot even understand the correct doctrines nevertheless place their full faith in him. Moreover, we find many people who seem to be very correct doctrinally but have hearts full of hatred and unforgiveness. The broad gate, by contrast, is simply doing whatever I want to do.—Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy, 275.

<idle musing>
Amen! Reminds me of the final toast in C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters wherein Screwtape muses on the irony of extremely evil people being blended with those who thought they were fine to produce a bouquet that delighted him...
</idle musing>

Watermelon!

We are growing watermelon this year. I haven't tried to grow it for a long time, but we figured, "Why not?" The vines certainly took off and filled their area and some nice looking watermelons developed. About 1.5 weeks ago, we tried one...bummer, it wasn't ripe.

Last night, we summoned up our courage, along with Jim and Shannon, and tried again. Perfection! It was a delicious 15-20 pound, round, red, tasty, juicy, sugary mess to eat, but definitely worth growing :)

I'm looking forward to the other ones.

idle musings

<idle musing>
I haven't had much time to read lately; the garden is taking a good bit of time. Last night I canned 18 pints of bread and butter pickles; Monday night 5 quarts of dilly beans. That takes a chunk of your night away :)

Summer finally arrived over the weekend, with temperatures in the high 80's F and humidity to match. Good for the tomatoes; bad for physical labor.

I was hauling wood chips on Saturday to make a trail in the woods. Sunday, I took apart our 8' x 12' sandbox. The cats had turned it into a litter box :( That's a lot of sand to move, especially by hand with a spade and wheelbarrow. The whole thing was complicated by the nearby Maple tree deciding that the sandbox was for its roots. I suppose riding 40+ miles in the morning against a stiff wind didn't help...

On other notes, I saw a flier last Friday that was trying to guilt-trip people into getting their pets neutered/spayed. They claimed that a cat has 12 kittens per year and lives about 9 years, with the result of several thousand offspring. I don't know how they got that number, but you know the old saying about statistics...

My experience is that a cat might have two litters of 6 cats each per year. But, so far we have had 0, 1, and 1 as survivors in the 2 years we have lived here. We started with 2 cats, now we have more, but not the 144 that they claimed after 2 years...

And, speaking of misuse of statistics, did you see the cover of Time Magazine this week? It says that exercise doesn't make you lose weight. Folks, weight isn't the problem; fat is. I weigh more than I have at anytime in my life; I also am in better shape than anytime since high school when I was swimming on the swim team. My resting heart rate is in the low 50's; I can do 50 push-ups, etc. The bottom line is that muscle weighs more than fat.

Of course, the article qualifies stuff, but the bottom line is exercise without diet change won't help much. And, the part that most people still don't get, is that diets don't work! Covert Bailey preached that for years on PBS and in his books, but people still don't get it. Change what you eat to be more vegetables and fruits; cut out the fast food. Drop the corn syrupy soft drinks; add milk and water. As an aside, we drink about 5-6 gallons of milk per week between the two of us; I drink 2 liters of water at work per day.

Boy, what a rambling post...
</idle musing>

New sale 10-day sale

Eisenbrauns continues the back-to-school sale with Aramaic and Syriac. Save from 15-50%; details here.

Honest scrap award

Mike at ΕΝ ΕΦΕΣΩ nominated me for the honest scrap meme. I'm not quite sure why it's scrap, but here we go:



"…supposed to tell you 10 HONEST things about myself and then nominate 7 other blogs that I think deserve to receive the Honest Scrap Award."

1. Seems most start out with the vehicle they drive; I drive a 1995 Geo Metro 4 cylinder. It's the only car I have ever purchased new. It gets between 40 and 57 mpg; try finding a new car that is under $15,000 that matches that in the U.S.

2. Continuing in the "normal sequence:" TV? What's that?

3. Now the diversity begins... I was born on the plains of Minnesota, but was raised in northern Wisconsin.

4. I have been married to the same person for 30 years, 11 months, and 29 days (does that work out to August 12, 1978?).

5. I ride my bicycle to work almost every day—11 miles round trip. Yes, even in the winter, and even when it was -20 F last winter :)

6. I once could read about 8 ancient languages; now I struggle with keeping 3 of them up. But, I never got above a "C" in high school English and barely survived my final year of it. I didn't learn English grammar until I took (and taught) Latin.

7. I am an introvert. Before we got married, I would hide in a corner at family gatherings and read a book. Actually, I did it until quite recently.

8. I love gardening and wish I could have a greenhouse.

9. I used to run IT at a company and had something like 10 or so computers on a home network; I would test things there so I wouldn't crash the network at work. My kid's hated it :) I don't currently own a computer, or have Internet access at home...

10. I strongly dislike cell phones. I didn't have one until I needed to get one for conferences at work. It is a prepaid one, and I don't know the number, so don't ask.

Tag yourself...I can't think of anyone right now. Besides, this is my lunch hour, and I want to go read a book and take a nap :)

Another excerpt

I think I am going to have to buy this book. I received another excerpt from it today. Here's some snippets from it:

Manipulation, threats of divine retribution, the micromanaging of people’s lives and morality, judgmentalism, paranoid insecurities, obnoxious self-righteousness: we can lay all these crimes at the feet of many of Christianity’s proponents, from the Roman Curia to the most protesting of Protestants. Yet, all of these are mere symptoms of a deeper illness. As Jesus said, the real sickness is hypocrisy.

Much of Christianity (and its leaders, I might add) is more concerned with protecting its position and power than caring for people. As such, it suffers from a crisis of credibility: it offers a false image of the God it represents. Granted, we can bring our individual and collective beliefs and practices under the lordship of Christ, and we who call ourselves Christians should do exactly that. But we must be quick to accept that even something we label “Christian” or “Christianity,” if it is not submissive to the words and ways of Christ, must be recognized for what it is: a damnable lie. Even Christianity can become idolatry.
---
Again, Jesus came to reform nothing. He came to set the world on fire. This realization, that following Jesus and practicing Christianity are not always identical, turns up the heat on those of us who have done our religion’s heavy lifting over the years. But when confronted by this Jesus, are we willing to change our conclusions about faith, about what it means to be Christian, about what it means to be “saved,” about most everything we have built our lives around and upon? Are we willing to change our minds? If we cannot change our minds, we cannot change anything.

Change is hard, especially for Christians. We are about as inflexible a species as they come. Certainly, many of the faithful are all too happy with this assessment, equating rigidity with orthodoxy. I’m not so sure about that.
---
Facing truths that do not fit into the framework of our truth, our “biblical worldview,” is nothing new, not in Jesus’ or Galileo’s day, and not in our own. What do we do when we encounter such truth? Typically, we reject it. We refuse all things that do not suit our perspective, labeling it sacrilege, just as the religious leaders in Jesus’ day did. Do not misunderstand me. I am not one who thinks that one truth is as good as another as long as sincerity is involved. I define truth not as a bullet list of talking points, drafted and adopted statements, or even age-old creeds. Truth is a person, Jesus, and we must pursue him.

Still, most of us in the Jesus camp tend to think that truth is locked in a dusty footlocker and stuffed underneath the church altar. It is a fixed, hard as stone list of propositions without adjustment, no matter what Galileo’s telescope or anybody else’s research says.
---
Launch into an examination of all that is locked away in that musty church locker and you might get accosted by the establishment. Start assailing the flawless truths of your church and you may find yourself seated next to Galileo at a heresy trial or next to Jesus at a Pharisaic dinner of inquisition. But do not be afraid. Truth can take it, at least those truths worth holding on to. Anything that cannot take it should be discarded anyway.

By the way, after this dual encounter with his nation’s religious leaders, we never find Jesus attending the synagogue services again. Never.

Who could blame him?

<idle musing>
Wow! The guy is too honest, isn't he? I especially like this line: "I define truth not as a bullet list of talking points, drafted and adopted statements, or even age-old creeds. Truth is a person, Jesus, and we must pursue him." That sums up my theology very well; Jesus has to be the center of everything we do.
</idle musing>

Psalm 12

Ran across this the other morning:

Help, LORD;
for there is no longer any that is godly;
for the faithful have vanished from among the sons of men.
Every one utters lies to his neighbor;
with flattering lips and a double heart they speak.
May the LORD cut off all flattering lips,
the tongue that makes great boasts,
those who say, "With our tongue we will prevail,
our lips are with us;
who is our master?"
"Because the poor are despoiled,
because the needy groan,
I will now arise," says the LORD;
"I will place him in the safety for which he longs."
The promises of the LORD are promises that are pure,
silver refined in a furnace on the ground,
purified seven times.
Do thou, O LORD, protect us,
guard us ever from this generation.
On every side the wicked prowl,
as vileness is exalted among the sons of men.—Psalm 12 (RSV)

<idle musing>
Seems that describes our culture right now, doesn't it? But then, it probably has described every culture at some point; Genesis 3 is definitely all-pervasive :(

Why is it that the poor ("needy" in RSV) are always looked down on, but God holds them in high esteem? It must just be another example of how we get things backwards...
</idle musing>

Love is the key

A good post at The Heresy about Majoring on the Majors. Short, but sweet on what we should major on (but don't):

As someone with an affinity for biblical theology I get very excited when I see themes pop up in scripture, especially themes that transcend different authors and types of literature.

Love is a very big deal.

In all my ministry training love isn’t mentioned much. In all the books I’ve read and conferences I’ve attended love isn’t a big theme. Even with the missional movement and organic church movement I don’t believe love is a big theme. I think some people in these movements do love a lot. I believe simpler forms of church make it easier to love.

I wonder if all the tension over missional/attractional is something of a red herring. Maybe our churches aren’t growing (or multiplying) because that is our goal and we know very little of sacrificial love.

<idle musing>
The last sentence says worlds; maybe if our goal weren't to grow and multiply, but instead to love God and others...It is God's church, after all. It seems he should be able to grow it without us getting in the way with our own methods. Maybe we should try letting him love through us.
</idle musing>

Legalism

I get lots of e-mails. Some I even read :) Actually, I get lots of e-mails from other publishers, hoping we will sell their books. Some are a good fit for Eisenbrauns, other aren't. They aren't bad books, in fact some are very good books; they just don't fit our market. Today I received one of those. Here's a brief snippet from the book they were offering me:

Question: Why won’t some people go to church?

Answer: Because they have been to church.

Jesus intentionally broke the rules and customs of the religious establishment of his day, not for the sake of rebellion, but to reveal how preposterous it was to hold to meaningless rules. Strict legalism that misses the point of God’s grace and freedom in Christ is more than preposterous. It is grotesquely sinful...

The practice of following an ordered [synagogue] liturgy is not unlike the average Protestant or Evangelical attending Sunday services at a local church. Even in the free-group churches of my childhood where we did not have written orders of worship, we knew what was appropriate and inappropriate. In those churches, having a preset order of worship, even a sermon title, was an act of heresy that quenched the Holy Spirit’s freedom. Still, we all knew the order of events, even the exact moment when old Mr. Scott would commence to shouting hallelujahs on the third verse of “Amazing Grace.” These traditions were not written down, but they never changed.— Leaving Religion, Following Jesus, Ronnie McBrayer

<idle musing>
Ah yes! Our old friend the legalist coupled with his best friend, tradition. What a straitjacket we make for ourselves. The good news is Christ has set us free!
</idle musing>

Books-obsolete?

More e-reader fun from Unshelved:

Eisenbrauns August sale

Back-to-school—already! As usual, Eisenbrauns is offering a back-to-school sale. For the month of August, it is Akkadian and Sumerian stuff. Over 40 titles at 10-30% off. The complete list is here

Akkadian and Sumerian not your style? How about a sale on Greek stuff for the next week? Try that on for size here

Portable reading devices

Saw this on an e-mail list I'm on:



That's what we do at Eisenbrauns, for more than 34 years now.

The url for the original is http://twitxr.com/richrennicks/updates/236399/ which I can't get to embed properly :(

Serving the king

Nice thoughts by Ted Gossard yesterday about a Christian and wordly kingdoms. Here's a snippet to whet your appetite:

It's not just about Christian pacifism, or nonresistance. It's -more to the point- to what and to whom we belong. God is our King. And we in Jesus are part of the kingdom of God made known and spelled out in the good news/gospel of Jesus.

So it's an identity issue. And then the question comes just how much, or to what extent we can be identified with our various nations, as the new Israel scattered throughout the earth. That is not an easy question, and both individual Christians, as well as churches will vary on their answers, or practice, even within the peace churches.

<idle musing>
Well said. As Christians our first loyalty is always to the King of kings. He cites Bonhoeffer as a good example of that.
</idle musing>

Book or Kindle?

I found out about a fun little video series being done by a bookstore in San Francisco today. They are doing a ten-day Smackdown between the Kindle™ and the Book™. Today was day two, but you really should start with day one (each one is about 3 1/2 minutes long):

Bicycling violence

A co-worker forwarded this to me yesterday:

Police say firefighter Charles Diez was upset that a man was riding a bike with his 3-year-old son on a busy street so shot the cyclist in the head. The bullet embedded itself in the rider's helmet.

<idle musing>
There are other links to the story with more details, but the bottom line is that the assailant had a gun in his pocket and used it. So much for southern hospitality.

I have been chased off the road on my bike by vehicles, but at least no one has drawn a gun on me yet!
</idle musing>

The violence of religion, or not

I enjoy reading other publisher's blogs. Some are obviously official blogs and treated as such. Others are more informal and allow you to see a bit of what their lives are like. One of the blogs I enjoy is Andy Le Peau's from IVPress. Today, he had an interesting little factoid in his continuing quest to stamp out modern myths. This one was the myth that religion has caused more death and wars than anything else. He responds:

It's somewhere between 160 and 190 million--and almost all for political, not religious, reasons. Ideology in the twentieth century was a much more deadly force than religion ever was. Fascism, communism and racially motivated genocide all went on rampages of horrific proportions.

<idle musing>
Interesting, isn't it? I need to remember that for the future. This goes hand in hand with an article I was reading in Harper's about genocide in World War II Poland. Total Depravity, how true you are, and all pervasive, too.
</idle musing>

Apologetics?

Robin Parry has an interesting idea today when engaging in discussion with someone who disagrees with you:

The person who has an objection to your beliefs (your theology or to Christian faith itself) is a human being in God's image. God loves them and values them. They deserve to be treated with kindness and respect. They are not stupid. Their motives may be good (in part, at least). Their objection may have merit and it certainly deserves to be taken seriously. Even if sin is involved in the objection and in their inclination to hold it, let s/he who is without sin cast the first stone.

<idle musing>
Hmmm...treat people like humans? What a novel idea! Act like a Christian in daily life and not just on Sunday morning? Unheard of! The next thing you know people might actually be attracted to Christianity!
</idle musing>

Beer drinkers beware

OK, I said I wouldn't be quoting from the gardening book that Debbie gave me. I won't, but I will paraphrase a recurring statement.

Each month has specific sections; one is "Pests" which includes bugs, animals, and diseases. One of the recurring problems in the summer months is slugs. His recommendation: stale beer. Apparently there is something in beer that attracts them, but that's not the part that is interesting. He says you need to capture them early in the morning, "before they sober up and go home."

Remember that, all you drunkards out there! Especially if you are a slug :)

New books

Updated: fixed the title of the first book (thanks to Jim West for pointing it out)

I love my job! Today, three new books arrived that I personally found very interesting. Your mileage may vary :)

First, totally unexpected; in fact, the price isn't even set yet:

The Palace of King David
Excavations at the Summit of the City of David: Preliminary Report of Seasons 2005-2007
Shoham Academic Research and Publication, 2009
100 pages + numerous full color pictures,
Paper
ISBN: 9789659029952
Price not set
www.eisenbrauns.com/item/MAZPALACE

Finally arrived from Belgium:

A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint
This complete lexicon supercedes its two earlier editions (1993; 2002).
by T. Muraoka
Peeters Publishers, 2009
xl + 757 pages, English and Greek
Cloth
ISBN: 9789042922488
List Price: $138.00
Your Price: $128.34
www.eisenbrauns.com/item/MURLEXICO

And this one from SBL, a lot thicker than I thought it would be:

Letters from the Hittite Kingdom
Writings from the Ancient World Society of Biblical Literature - WAWSBL 15
by Harry A. Hoffner Jr.
Society of Biblical Literature, 2009
468 pages, English
Paper
ISBN: 9781589832121
List Price: $45.95
Your Price: $39.06
www.eisenbrauns.com/item/HOFLETTER

Theology and life

Alan Knox has a good comment on biblical theology:

Someone who does not offer grace and forgiveness to others does not understand the grace of God regardless of what they say or teach about God’s grace. A person who does not accept others as they are does not understand how God has accepted us in Christ, regardless of what they say about salvation by grace and not by works. Someone who does not share his or her life with other brothers and sisters in Christ in intimate fellowship and community does not understand discipleship, regardless of what they profess about the importance of the Great Commission. Our theology is demonstrated in the way we live our lives, not in what we say or write.

This distinction between theoretical theology and practical theology is a false distinction as far as Scripture is concerned. According to Scripture, it is impossible to know God (theology) without it affecting your life (practice). So, a biblical theology is a practical theology. A theoretical theology that does not affect a person’s life is not a biblical theology.

This is somewhat in line with something that Nick posted the other day:

I'm intrigued…by the way that Paul addresses the Corinthians as “those sanctified in Christ Jesus” (TNIV) when he knows the mess that they’re involved in and he knows that he’s about to rebuke them. It certainly makes me want to think twice before I utter something like, “so and so might be saved, but they aren’t sanctified.”

<idle musing>
Personally, I think the distinction is artificial; a creation for the sake of our compartmental minds that love to count "conversions." Numbers on a blackboard, but no changed life doesn't equal salvation as it is seen in the New Testament... go ahead, take aim and fire at me :)
</idle musing>

More Garden stuff

Renee asked in a comment if it was OK to have "godly envy." I doubt it, but the garden is doing very well. Tomatoes are starting to turn white before they turn red; I can't wait. Meanwhile, the cucumbers are going wild; the beans are prolific; the raspberries are bearing well for being a new patch.

I cut the last of the lettuce 2 weeks ago and planted more beans in their place. Japanese beetles were starting to attack the beans and raspberries (I don't use pesticides), so I got a pheromone based trap a week ago Saturday. I had to change the capture bag already on Monday—that's only 10 days! It was heavy with beetles. The new bag is already getting full, and the leaves on the beans and raspberries are no longer lace. Those things really work, and no poison involved.

Here are a few pictures for your enjoyment. Oh, and be sure to check out the profile picture on the blog, too. It isn't snow anymore :)

Looking Northeast; in the foreground is tomatoes and cucumbers. The raspberries are toward the back:



Looking North. The new row of beans is just starting to emerge on the right; note the drip irrigation tube:



The watermelon patch:



The herb garden. The dill is really doing well—and I've been using it :)

New Eisenbrauns sale

We have another 10 day sale going on. This one is for all of you Akkadian lovers (yes, all 2 of you!).

Here's your chance to get the five volumes in the State Archives
of Assyria Cuneiform Texts series at a 20% savings. To sweeten
the deal, I've thrown in 5 titles from the State Archives of
Assyria Studies series at 20% also.

As always, all sales on this web sale are final; no returns
will be permitted. Offer is good only on orders placed at
www.eisenbrauns.com through July 29, 2009.

To go directly to the weekly sale, click on this link:
http://www.eisenbrauns.com/pages/NEWSLIST
============================================================

"The Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh"
by Simo Parpola
State Archives of Assyria Cuneiform Texts - SAACT 1
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 1997. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9514577604
List Price: $44.00 Your Price: $35.20

"The Standard Babylonian Etana Epic: Cuneiform Text, Transliteration, Score, Glossary, Indices and Sign List"
by Jamie R. Novotny
State Archives of Assyria Cuneiform Texts - SAACT 2
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 2001. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9514590473
List Price: $39.00 Your Price: $31.20

"The Standard Babylonian Epic of Anzu: Introduction, Cuneiform Text, Transliteration, Score, Glossary, Indices and Sign List"
by Amar Annus
State Archives of Assyria Cuneiform Texts - SAACT 3
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 2001. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9514590511
List Price: $44.00 Your Price: $35.20

"The Standard Babylonian Creation Myth: Enuma Elish"
Edited by Philippe Talon
State Archives of Assyria Cuneiform Texts - SAACT 4
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 2005. Paper.
English and French.
ISBN: 9521013281
List Price: $44.00 Your Price: $35.20

"Evil Demons: Canonical Utukku- Lemnu-tu Incantations"
by M. J. Geller
State Archives of Assyria Cuneiform Texts - SAACT 5
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 2007. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9789521013317
List Price: $77.00 Your Price: $61.60

"The Use of Numbers and Quantifications in the Assyrian Royal Inscriptions"
by Marco de Odorico
State Archives of Assyria Studies - SAAS 3
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 1995. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9514571258
List Price: $64.00 Your Price: $51.20

"Nippur in Late Assyrian Times, c 755-612 B.C."
by Steven W. Cole
State Archives of Assyria Studies - SAAS 4
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 1996. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9514572866
List Price: $54.00 Your Price: $43.20

"References to Prophecy in Neo-Assyrian Sources"
by Martti Nissinen
State Archives of Assyria Studies - SAAS 7
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 1998. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9514580796
List Price: $54.00 Your Price: $43.20

"Die Annalen des Jahres 711 v.Chr."
by Andreas Fuchs
State Archives of Assyria Studies - SAAS 8
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 1998. Paper. German.
ISBN: 9514584104
List Price: $49.00 Your Price: $39.20

"Grammatical Variation in Neo-Assyrian"
by M. Luukko
State Archives of Assyria Studies - SAAS 16
Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project - NATCP, 2004. Paper. English.
ISBN: 9514590597
List Price: $75.00 Your Price: $60.00

Is cyber-space real?

Nice thoughts on how “real” cyberspace is by Ben Myers.

If you want to insist that such an avatar could never be the “real you”, then you might consider how the “real” self is manifest in various day-to-day relationships. In our differing roles and relationships, we all deploy various personae or avatars: I have one persona at an academic conference, but quite another when I’m talking with my one-year-old son, and a different one again when I’m talking with a close friend, or with my employer. Which of these is the “real” self? Isn’t the self precisely an assemblage of such avatars, without the guarantee of any deep underlying essence?

and, a little later on:

At a 1964 Halloween concert in Carnegie Hall, Bob Dylan offered the humorous remark: “It’s Halloween. I have my Bob Dylan mask on. I’m masquerading.” Is not every self an assemblage of such masquerades? Do we need to imagine the self as some deep underlying essence? Is the self not rather simply the continual surfacing of one’s being into material relations with others?

<idle musing>
All I can say is that if this is the cuttings from the forthcoming talk, what he kept must be pretty good! By all means, read the whole thing; it isn't very long.
</idle musing>

Garden goodness

Over the weekend, I managed to get a good bit of gardening done. We froze green beans and some sweet corn; made dill pickles and pickled some chili peppers. I made some more rhubarb jam, modifying the recipe a bit. I'm still not satisfied with it, but another try might make it.

I pulled a beet that had gotten huge, boiled it, and ate it. The rest of the beets are still too small to make beet pickles out of yet. Maybe next weekend.

We continue to pick raspberries, but because the patch is new, there aren't enough to freeze or make jam out of.

Jim and Shannon picked wax beans and canned 12 quarts. Shannon also gave us a nice blueberry jam she had made. It was really good with homemade yogurt.

All in all, a very productive weekend. The tomatoes are still at least a week or two away. The green peppers are starting to be close to ready and my second planting of green beans is looking very healthy.

The end of church as we know it?

Nice look at how technology is changing the church over at The Jesus Creed. Here's a snippet to whet your appetite:

The virtually-connected church now has on-line access to the finest teaching and preaching imaginable, accessible at their convenience, 7 x 24 x 365. Of what value is physically proximate information (e.g., stage-centric pastor) when the average person can now access the best sermons, preaching, teaching, and cross-referenced commentary on-line?

Finding better information elsewhere, the virtually-connected community will restructure their physical gatherings to really connect and be present with each other - like they do on-line all week long. When this happens, pastors can step off the stage and be released to really pastor. Gifted teachers (who may or may not have pastoral gifts) can teach in smaller groups where true interactivity can take place. Intimate, organic F2F gathering becomes the central focus, not a mid-week breakout session.

<idle musing>
Wow! Imagine that! The church actually becoming a church again! Who would have believed it. OK, pardon the sarcasm. I certainly hope and pray that he is correct.
</idle musing>

Geek at heart

I guess I'm just a geek at heart. Today I received a link to the original Apollo 11 mission. They are playing back in real time the audio of the mission. Too cool! I have it running in the background.

I was 13 at the time of the original mission. That July I was in Farragut State Park in Idaho--along with 34,000 other Boy Scouts for the 1969 National Jamboree. Since Neil Armstrong was an eagle scout, there was a lot of excitement. I don't remember all the details, but I do remember that he sent along a radio greeting to us from the moon. I also remember seeing very grainy footage projected onto a huge screen one of the nights. This was long before Jumbotrons™, but it was thrilling to look above us at the moon and think that what we were seeing in front of us was actually going on above us.

Promise? Well, maybe...

When we first got married (over 30 years ago now), we had a nice poster with Isaiah 30:15 on it. It had a nice forest scene, designed to get you to relax. You probably know the verse: "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength."

Of course, the context tells a different story:

These are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to listen to the LORD's instruction. They say to the seers, "See no more visions!" and to the prophets, "Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions. Leave this way, get off this path, and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel!" Therefore, this is what the Holy One of Israel says: "Because you have rejected this message, relied on oppression and depended on deceit, this sin will become for you like a high wall, cracked and bulging, that collapses suddenly, in an instant. It will break in pieces like pottery, shattered so mercilessly that among its pieces not a fragment will be found for taking coals from a hearth or scooping water out of a cistern." This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: "In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it. You said, 'No, we will flee on horses.' Therefore you will flee! You said, 'We will ride off on swift horses.' Therefore your pursuers will be swift! A thousand will flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you will all flee away, till you are left like a flagstaff on a mountaintop, like a banner on a hill."—Isaiah 30:9-17 (emphasis mine)

<idle musing>
Isn't it interesting how we pick and choose? The context is anything but promising! But, the verse (actually the snippet of a verse) is found on many plaques and posters. Now, if you read further, there is a promise of restoration—there almost always is—but it is based on repentance.

Things haven't changed much, have they? We still are looking for prophets of prosperity and wealth—just don't confront us with our sins, it isn't nice! God, on the other hand, is always trying to get us to face ourselves, but not to condemn us. His goal is to deliver us! He wants to set us free from our small-mindedness, our pre-occupation with ourselves, our worship of non-deities. May he succeed!
</idle musing>

Gardening in Indiana

Debbie bought me a neat book the other day: Month-By-Month Gardening in Indiana. I had gardened in Minnesota for years, and Kentucky before that, but my knowledge wasn't always transferring very well. This book will definitely help!

I remember when we first moved here, calling up and looking to pick raspberries at the end of July—that's the common time in Minnesota. The woman laughed and said they had been over with for weeks. How was I to know that July 1 is the beginning of raspberries? Oh well, I am enjoying reading the book. Just don't expect many quotes from it, though :)

Thought for today

We need leadership to make sure we don’t accept everything as truth and to make sure we don’t spin our wheels thinking there is no truth. There are things, some are Christian doctrines like the atonement and bodily resurrection and the trinity—and others are Christian practices like nonviolence and enemy love and compassion for the poor and hospitality to the stranger—these are things we cannot lose or else we lose the essence of Christianity. Christianity is not just a set of doctrines nor is it just a set of practices but it is these actions and practices that ensure we remember the Story, and that we remember Jesus, literally so that we continue to embody the Spirit of Jesus, and to be the fragrance of Christ in the world, so that folks come to know God’s saving grace."—Shane Claiborne in Follow Me to Freedom: Leading as an Ordinary Radical, forthcoming from Regal.

A new blog

Steve Wiggens, former editor at Gorgias, has started a new blog. I like the title: Sects and Violence in the Ancient World: Topics on the Old Testament and religion and culture of the ancient Near East. He has 4 real post so far, reflecting his interest in Ugarit, especially.

Add him to your blogrolls and RSS feeds if you are interested in the ancient Near East.

Though for today

"We need to sift through the dirt of history to find the gems, no matter what tradition we come from. Part of my frustration with the Methodist tradition that I was raised in was that I began to read John Wesley and I began to fall in love with his life, writing and teaching… and it put me at odds with many of the things I saw in Methodism today. I mean it had a fiery beginning, that’s why there is fire wrapped around the cross in the Methodist symbol – fire and cross – if we’re not careful the only place the fire will remain is on the cover of the hymnal and the pages of the past. We can’t forget our histories and the men and women who made it. I’m not talking about war heroes, but church heroes, heroes of the cross. Talk about John Wesley – there’s a radical leader. We cannot forget these folks from the past. Methodists need to read Wesley again. We need to take the best that our little part of Church history has. We need the fire of the Pentecostals. We need the roots of the Catholics and Orthodox. We need the sharp thinking of the Episcopalians and mainliners. We need the politics of the Anabaptists, the grace of the Quakers. And we need to confess the dark sides of church history, where our denominations justified slavery with the bible, where we baptized the crusades and militaries, where we killed each other over theology. True leaders are able to see the good and the bad… to confess the bad and try not to repeat it, and to celebrate the good and try to reproduce it."—Shane Claiborne in Follow Me to Freedom: Leading as an Ordinary Radical, forthcoming from Regal.

<idle musing>
Amen! Good preaching!
</idle musing>

Garden goodness

Last night, after a nice bike ride, I went to the garden. I expected to find a few green beans ready to pick, some raspberries, and some lettuce. Boy, was I wrong!

I had checked the beans on Tuesday; there were some that looked like they would be ready on Thursday. I couldn't check them on Wednesday because it rained—just enough to get the leaves wet. In case you don't know, you don't want to touch bean plants when the leaves are wet; it causes leaf wilt.

Anyway, I ended up filling to overflowing a dish pan full of green beans. If I had known there were that many, I would have skipped the bike ride; that extra hour sure would have come in handy last night. Instead, I snapped them, blanched them, and froze them. I did get to use the new Seal-a-meal™ that Debbie's parents gave me last fall. Sweet little machine; I certainly wouldn't have bought it, but I like using it :)

We just got a notice that the blueberries are ready for picking this weekend, so tomorrow I plan on picking about 30 pounds. More freezing—and I get to use the sealer again!

Final reflections

Just a few thoughts on Walton's The Lost World of Genesis One.

I like his presupposition that the Genesis creation account is functional, not material. But, I don't think he adequately defends it. I am told that the forthcoming book from us at Eisenbrauns will remedy this. But, until I read that, I must say that he leaves too many hanging arguments. I am attracted to it, but not thoroughly convinced.

I am convinced that his argument that we have pushed God to the margins by making him a “god of the gaps” is very true. He is not the only person arguing this, but he does a good job of highlighting why and how it happened.

I also think that his reservations about concordist readings of the Bible are correct. You can't take an ancient text—any ancient text—and read it on modern terms. You have to read it as an ancient text, knowing that you will have to stretch to get into the mind of the author, knowing that his/her world view is significantly different than your worldview.

<idle musing>
Of course, for that matter, communication between people here and now is subject to the same caveat! We all come to every situation with presuppositions and emotional baggage that make clear communication difficult. Communication is work! Or at least clear communication is—all the result of the fall. Genesis 3 is behind everything if you look.
</idle musing>

New sale at Eisenbrauns

Jim was at the RAI this week (I hope you had a chance to see him if you were there), and it put me in a Mesopotamian kind of mind, which was reflected in the last sale. This week, I continue along the same lines by offering you the chance to save 50-70% on selected Nuzi and Ebla titles.

Here's the list of titles, which you can order by going here:

"In Honor of Ernest R. Lacheman on His Seventy-fifth Birthday, April 29, 1981"
Edited by Martha A. Morrison and David I. Owen
Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians - SCCNH 1
Eisenbrauns, 1981. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 0931464080
List Price: $69.50 Your Price: $27.80

"General Studies and Excavations at Nuzi 9/1"
Edited by David I. Owen and Martha A. Morrison
Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians - SCCNH 2
Eisenbrauns, 1987. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 0931464374
List Price: $79.50 Your Price: $31.80

"Joint Expedition with the Iraq Museum at Nuzi VII: Miscellaneous Texts"
Edited by Ernest R. Lacheman and Maynard P. Maidman
Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians - SCCNH 3
Eisenbrauns, 1989. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 0931464455
List Price: $59.50 Your Price: $23.80

"The Eastern Archives of Nuzi and Excavations at Nuzi 9/2"
Edited by Ernest R. Lacheman, Martha A. Morrison, and David I. Owen
Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians - SCCNH 4
Eisenbrauns, 1993. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 0931464641
List Price: $79.50 Your Price: $31.80

"General Studies and Excavations at Nuzi 9/3"
Edited by David I. Owen and Ernest R. Lacheman
Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrians - SCCNH 5
Eisenbrauns, 1995. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 0931464676
List Price: $79.50 Your Price: $31.80

"Eblaitica: Essays on the Ebla Archives and Eblaite Language, Volume 1"
Edited by Cyrus H. Gordon, Gary A. Rendsburg, and Nathan H. Winter
Eblaitica: Essays on the Ebla Archives and the Eblaite Language - EEEAEL 1
Eisenbrauns, 1987. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 093146434X
List Price: $45.00 Your Price: $22.50

"Eblaitica: Essays on the Ebla Archives and Eblaite Language, Volume 2"
Edited by Cyrus H. Gordon and Gary A. Rendsburg
Eblaitica: Essays on the Ebla Archives and the Eblaite Language - EEEAEL 2
Eisenbrauns, 1990. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 0931464498
List Price: $45.00 Your Price: $22.50

"Eblaitica: Essays on the Ebla Archives and Eblaite Language, Volume 3"
Edited by Cyrus H. Gordon and Gary A. Rendsburg
Eblaitica: Essays on the Ebla Archives and the Eblaite Language - EEEAEL 3
Eisenbrauns, 1992. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 0931464773
List Price: $45.00 Your Price: $22.50

"Eblaitica: Essays on the Ebla Archives and Eblaite Language, Volume 4"
Edited by Cyrus H. Gordon and Gary A. Rendsburg
Eblaitica: Essays on the Ebla Archives and the Eblaite Language - EEEAEL 4
Eisenbrauns, 2002. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 1575060604
List Price: $49.50 Your Price: $24.75

Five Influential Primary Sources

Updated
Nick tagged me on a strange meme. Here are the rules:

1. List the 5 primary sources that have most affected your scholarship, thoughts about antiquity, and/or understanding of the NT/OT.
2. Books from the Bible are off limits unless you really want to list one, I certainly will not chastise you for it.
3. Finally, choose individual works if you can. This will be more interesting than listing the entire corpus of Cicero as one of your choices.

That's a tough one, so I have been mulling it around in my mind for a few days—I bet Nick thought I was ignoring him :) So, here's my best guess on influential primary sources:

1. The Toothache incantation in Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament. I remember the first time I read it; I couldn't fathom why the incantation went all the way back to creation. But, it helped me understand (I think!) how the ancient mind worked.

2. The Kumarbi Cycle in Hittite. A fascinating Hurrian creation myth that almost certainly influence Hesiod, and therefore the Greek world.

3. The plague prayers of Mursili. The concept of guilt and repentance because of a plague brought back from Egypt is (at least to my knowledge) unique in the non-Israelite world.

4. The Aeneid, especially the underworld scene. In order for Aeneas to enter the underworld, his pilot has to die. The concept of substitutionary death found there led me to look for it in other places, as well.

5. Not sure what to put here, there are several that fight for the spot, but I would have to say the Didache wins. I remember reading it for the first time in a Baker reprint of the Lightfoot translation. Then, I remember reading it in Greek the first time. The other day, I sat down and read it again in Greek just for the fun of it...

OK, whom to tag...Nick already tagged some I would have, but here we go:
Jim West (just because I know he hates memes), Charles Halton, Duane our abnormally interesting friend, John Hobbins, and how about Jay at mu-pad3-da. If anyone else wants to participate, please do so and leave a comment letting me know.

The true meaning of the text

I missed this as I was extracting citations from Walton's The Lost World of Genesis One:

The truest meaning of a text is found in what the author and hearers would have thought.—The Lost World of Genesis One, page 43

<idle musing>
I would say that this sentence is the underlying foundation of exegesis. We are interested in what the text meant, so that we can apply it to today—without distorting what it is saying. Allegorical and analogical interpretations do violence to the text—but now we enter the realm of philosophical presuppositions and metaphysics :)

But, for a different take on this, see Kevin Edgecomb's post:

Firstly, what is the result of finding the primary and only valid meaning of a text in the distant past, through whatever means? Does it not render all other readings “invalid” or “inaccurate”? Does this not also immediately render the text itself dead, and no longer to speak with a living voice to any community? Secondly, doesn’t such an approach itself also come to be deadened by this methodology? Finding no living voice in opposition to its theoretical constructions of meaning, it is unimpeded in its approach to the text, and finds only deadness reflected back upon it, because it will find nothing else. There is no living interaction. The results of the experiment are predetermined by the experiment. In this case, the approach, partaking as it does of a number of presuppositions, is limited in its conclusions.

Hmmm...what do you think? I think we are on the same page, just different emphases; I said the primary meaning, but not only meaning. Kevin emphasizes the ongoing interaction with the text throughout history. But, am I right?
</idle musing>

The sum of it all

“It is important that we teach empirical science and that we teach it well. But empirical science is not an education unto itself that can serve all the needs of society or that can serve as the sum of one's education. The physical sciences are only one branch of education, and we dare not isolate them from the humanities or elevate as self-contained”—The Lost World of Genesis One, pages 160-161

<idle musing>
This is most emphatically not what we see in education today! There is a strong emphasis on the physical sciences at the expense of the humanities. Every time I read C.S. Lewis' Abolition of Man, I am amazed at his prophetic vision of society.

We need to rediscover the humanities. We need to teach people that there is more than the physical; that materialism isn't the only philosophical system. Humanity was made for a higher calling than to become a consumer!
</idle musing>

Free! I'm free at last!

I just looked at my student loan balance:

Past due amount: $0.00
Late fee(s): N/A
Other charges: N/A
Present amount due: $0.00
Pay this amount: $0.00

In fact, they owe me $1.54.

Outstanding principal balance: $-1.54
Accrued interest: $0.00
Total amount outstanding: $-1.54

The original loan was consolidated in early 1989, to be paid back by 2019. Ten years early! Praise God for his faithfulness in allowing us to pay it off 10 years early.

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming...

The sinlessness of Jesus

I just received four new books from Paternoster and was glancing through them. This little snippet from Tempted for Us caught my eye. From the conclusion:

I have argued that the humanness of Jesus’ sinlessness makes him richly relevant for us. Jesus’ reliance on empowering grace is more plausible than relying on inherent deity because this explanation fits the New Testament accounts of his temptations and his practical value as the reasonable pattern for others (with his full, credible empathy). Because Jesus has redeemed his people from slavery to sin and sent them the Holy Spirit, believers stand in nearly the same relation to temptation as Jesus had with the same empowering grace available to enable their faithful obedience to God. Thus, the empowering grace that was effective for his victories over temptation seems to be the same help of the Holy Spirit that is promised for believers. The Holy Spirit’s role in the hypostatic union enabled God the Son to enter temptation as a man because he was kept from knowing for certain he was immune to sin. God’s provision of aid for Jesus allowed him to experience temptation in a way that constituted him empathetic for others who must struggle in the same human terms that he did. The model of his life for others is as a peer, not merely as the ideal because he limited himself to the resources that God likewise makes available to Jesus’ followers. His empathy is credible because the transcendent security of his sinlessness was inevitable but not automatic. Jesus had to fight sin on the same basis that we do.—page 315

<idle musing>
The empowering presence of God via the Holy Spirit. Amazing, isn't it? We sell God so short and don't allow him to do all he wants in our lives.
</idle musing>

Humanity's role in the world

Yesterday I quoted from The Lost World of Genesis One about God's role in the world. Today, let's look at humanity's role:

In the ancient Near East people were created as slaves to the gods. The world was created by the gods for the gods, and people met the needs of the gods. In the Bible God has no needs, and his cosmic temple has been created for people whom he desires to be in relationship with him. In modern materialism people are nothing but physical forms having no function other than to survive. The theology of Genesis 1 is crucial to a right understanding of our identity and our place in the world.—The Lost World of Genesis One, page 149

<idle musing>
Our theology has a direct effect on how we live. Actually, our theology dictates how we live. I'm not talking about our espoused theology, but our actual one. People can talk a nice theology, but looking at their lives will show you what their actual theology is. As a theology professor once said, “Everyone has a theology. The only choice is between a good theology and a bad theology.”

Personally, I want to live a theology that reflects a belief in a transcendent God who is also intimate, loving, caring, and life transforming. I believe that is also a biblical theology.
</idle musing>