2018-07-05T13:21:32-04:00

The Golan Heights are at present occupied by Israel, but they used to belong to Syria and Jordan. Biblically this area is important because over here on this side of the lake was Gerasa territory, and Gadara village, and one or the other is the locale where Jesus exorcised the man who had a legion of demons in him. Here’s the view looking towards the lake from the Golan…. The Israelis have been busy bees over here since they took the land, planting crops, setting up vineyards, building homes, strengthening defenses etc. If it were me, I would not be eager to live on the border with Syria!

2018-07-05T12:34:27-04:00

Certainly one of the most tranquil and beautiful sites near the Sea of Galilee is the so-called Mt. of Beatitudes. We honestly do not know exactly where Jesus taught the beatitudes, but the indications are it was somewhere bigger than this locale, since there was a large crowd involved. It doesn’t much matter, this is a fine place to contemplate the meaning of Jesus’ counter intuitive eschatological beatitudes. Here’s the view….. The Franciscans and other Catholic orders do nice work with the flowers and landscaping. In case you are wondering, you are looking at bougainvillea, flame trees, and roses of various sorts.

We decided to do our reflecting on the beatitudes under this beautiful tree…. There are so many things one could say about these beatitudes. In the first place Jesus is largely talking about things that are not yet true, but one day will be true when the Kingdom comes fully on earth— the mourning will be fully comforted then, the meek shall inherit the earth then, and so on. There are two Matthean beatitudes which speak to the present however– for instance the poor in spirit are said to be in possession of the divine saving activity of God=kingdom now. In the present dominion/kingdom means the incursion of the divine saving activity (‘if I by the finger of God cast out demons, then…..’) in the future Jesus is talking about a place which can be entered, obtained, inherited. Lastly, note that Jesus is talking about the reversal of normal expectations— the last shall become first and blessed, and so on.

2018-07-05T10:46:16-04:00

Certainly some of the most dramatic two chapters in the Bible are 1 Kings 18-19– the story of Elijah’s triumph over the prophets of Baal, and the aftermath, involving a flight to Mt. Horeb. Mt. Carmel today has a nice monastery on top, and a great view of the Jezreel valley. Here’s the statue of Elijah in the act of dispatching some false prophets…. And here’s the overlook of a hazy Jezreel valley…. There are caves found here where the prophets may have hung out.

Haze is a theme of this post, because next we will take a little ride on the Sea of Galilee…. You can just see the cliffs of Arbel in the distance. This shot shows the Jesus boat museum, which we will explore in the next post.

In the distance one can see the Mt. of Beatitudes and under that plastic is growing banana palms. There is always a fishing demonstration about how the ancients would have done it on these little jaunts on the Sea of Galilee…. here’s the demonstration….., a small circular net with weights around the perimeter. Here’s the mooring rope as well.

2018-07-03T11:17:56-04:00

The Athens museum has a wonderful Egyptian section. There was considerable cross-fertilization between the Cycladic islands, Mycenae in the south of Greece, and Egypt, sometimes by way of Crete. This is evident from the syncretistic statues of the sphinx, but with the head of a Greek kore (boy). This does not support a theory that Greek culture came from Egyptian culture which in turn is said by some tendentious scholars to have come from sub-Saharan African cultures. No, Egyptian culture was a culture unto itself, and it was highly evolved even before Greek culture had demonstrated much.

Here are some of the Egyptian things found in the museum….

For example notice the false doors into a Pharonic tomb….. This was to prevent grave robbing. Here are some canopic jars into which human entrails would be placed to save them for the afterlife. The Egyptians had a more robust theology of the afterlife than the Greeks, and among other things they believed ‘you can take it with you’, hence Pharaoh’s being buried with their clothes, food, dog, chairs etc.

Reading the pictographic language of hieroglyphics is interesting (thank you Rosetta stone), for example in this picture, offerings of animals are being made to a beautiful female deity (perhaps Hatchepsut) and notice the feathers… the symbol for truth or acting with authenticity. The young man is a sincere or true believer.

Mummy cases are often spectacular….. And here is the latest in divine fashion….our tatoo artists have nothing on the ancients…..

In a society that was largely illiterate or semi-literate, scribes played a crucial role…..among other things, they prepared all kinds of documents, and did inscriptions on stones too…..including gravestones…

Notice the inkwell in the shape of a scribe prepared to write….

There were several ancient Egyptian languages (because of course they didn’t speak in a pictographic language like hieroglyphics), one of which was demotic, and another became what we call Coptic When the Hellenization process came to Egypt, the Egyptians adapted the Greek alphabet, but continued to speak demotic, and they even used Greek characters to write demotic in due course. There were many kinds of precious stones and jewels in Egypt— there was of course marble, granite, alabaster, lapis lazuli, and I could go on…..

Carvers of granite and other such stones seem to have worn special gloves to do their work….. And the results were often spectacular—- here’s an image of Sekmet…

Grave robbing was a constant problem, and so beyond false doors into tombs, there were also dramatic symbols guarding the dead, and their precious objects….

2018-04-24T08:23:02-04:00

(Yes that’s me in the hot seat of a vintage Sting Ray)

Recently my friend Larry Hurtado commended the Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek (ed. F. Montanari), and with good reason. It gives coverage other dictionaries don’t both from classical Greek literature and the early church fathers as well as the LXX and the NT itself. Now Brill books are hardly ever cheap, but you know the old saying— you get what you pay for. That is very often true when it comes to resources to study the Bible. Beware of stuff that is free on the Internet— a lot of it is not worth the pixels it’s printed on your screen with. Which is why most people need a guide to what’s worth investing in, and what isn’t. This dictionary however is definitely worth it because of its coverage, which is often much broader than BDAG and other similar resources. I paid about $150 for the hardbound edition, and it is totally worth it. It will be my go to resource for the foreseeable future. In my next post, I will demonstrate with an example. Stay tuned.

2018-03-21T21:01:22-04:00

Here’s an important post by friend and colleague Larry Hurtado, and a reference to an important new work on the earliest papyri of John’s Gospel…..

Early Textual Transmission of the Gospel of John
by larryhurtado
I’m pleased to learn of the publication of an important study of the earliest extant evidence for the textual transmission of the Gospel of John: Lonnie D. Bell, The Early Textual Transmission of John: Stability and Fluidity in its Second and Third Century Greek Manuscripts (Leiden: Brill 2018). The publisher’s online catalog entry is here.

We have more early manuscript evidence for the Gospel of John than any other NT writing, including remnants of manuscripts dated to the third century, and in some cases the second century. I’ve referred to Bell’s study in earlier postings, e.g., here. Using an innovative approach that allowed him to measure the extent and nature of textual variation among the earliest witnesses to GJohn, Bell demonstrates that they exhibit an impressive stability in the transmission of this text.

Indeed, in another innovative step, Bell also compares the extent and nature of textual variation in these early witnesses to GJohn with the manuscripts of the 4th century and later, and the result is that the earliest witnesses compare quite favorably with the later ones.

So, against the oft-repeated claims of a “wild” and “chaotic” state and transmission of the text of the Gospels in the second century, Bell’s study piles up a considerable body of data showing otherwise. I think that it should now be noticed by anyone interested in the early textual transmission of NT writings.

The volume is a revised version of Bell’s PhD thesis completed here in Edinburgh. It’s another of the many excellent PhD studies completed here over the last twenty years or so. Congratulations, Lonnie!

2018-03-14T13:04:16-04:00

The Great Church was fundamentally committed to the defense and promotion of the doctrinal mainstream, defined in ever more precise terms. Wholly new concepts of orthodoxy became commonplace, together with new vocabularies. It was around 200 that the brilliant African theologian Tertullian (c.160-220) first applied the Latin word trinitas to the Christian deity. As with the poor Quartodecimans, those who espoused yesterday’s normality suddenly became today’s heterodoxy.

A brief summary of this era would include the following “firsts” – the innovations and breakthroughs – all from that short period around 200:

*Scale and Diversity: The church’s vast geographical scale demanded a much greater recognition of linguistic and cultural diversity, beyond the original Greek and Aramaic. For the first time, Latin and Syriac became vehicles of major Christian writing and thought.

*A World Church: Despite its growth, the church retained its sense of common identity, as manifested by the first great councils.

*Planting Roots: Globalization coincided with localization. As the churches developed local roots, they no longer relied on itinerant leaders and immigrants. Victor, whom I have already mentioned as the Roman Pope of the 190s, was the first holder of that office to speak Latin.

*As a dubious blessing of this trend, the church’s very first anti-Jewish polemic in Latin appeared a year or two after 200.

*Authority and Tradition: In the extensively preserved Christian discourse and debate of this era, arguments repeatedly relied on church tradition and long authority, exactly the characteristics of an institutionalized church rather than a sect.

*Hierarchy: Although bishops and clergy are recognizable in earlier eras, their roles and functions now become much more standardized and formalized. They become the crucial transmitters and guarantors of tradition and authenticity. Victor may have been the first Roman Pope to act as a bishop, rather than the chair of the governing board of the local congregation.

*Institutional Life: churches and bishoprics now became corporate property-owning institutions, vastly increasing the material concerns at issue in any theological debates.

*Clergy and Laity. It was precisely around 200 that we find the first evidence of clergy as a distinct profession or caste, a textbook sign of the distinction between a sect and a “church.” That concept in turn consigned the rest of believers to the category of “laity”, literally just “the people.”

*Priesthood. The theory of Christian clergy as priests originates in this era, with all the Old Testament implications of that term, and all the theological implications of that insight.

*Christian Identity: The Easter controversy was the clearest example of a newly assertive Christian identity and ideology separate from Judaism. Meanwhile, it was also around 200 that Jewish thinkers took their own steps to a new distinct identity with the maturity of Rabbinic Judaism.

*Creating Catholic Theology. Around 200, Tertullian creates the language of later Catholic theology in a wide range of matters, notably including the concept of clergy, and of clerical celibacy. His writings gave later Latin-speakers a firm theological foundation both in language and concepts.

*Church Order: These years mark a new sophistication in Christian liturgy and devotional practice, and more formal rituals. Several surviving texts demonstrate the near-obsessive concern with “Church Order,” with its assumptions about formality, hierarchy, and the specialized roles of the emerging clerical caste.

*Eucharistic ideas in particular became central to spiritual power and prestige, with shared communion the essential criterion for church membership.

*Cultural Genesis: The volume and diversity of Christian cultural and literary contributions grow massively in these years, suggesting a whole new scale of intellectual engagement. Christian musical culture and hymnody also originate at this very time.

*Engagement with Mainstream Culture: Only in this era could Christian thinkers, for the first time, engage in serious debate with the pagan cultural mainstream, through sophisticated apologetics, and the emergence of distinctively Christian philosophy. These efforts manifest a new social confidence, and new class pretensions.

*Engagement with Political Power: Tentatively at first, Christians first began to appear among ruling elites, and even included in their ranks the king of a state, the borderland of Osrhoene.

*Theology, and the Great Leap Forward: The need to participate in mainstream intellectual life revolutionized Christian theological discourse, demanding a new rigor in theological categories, and in turn provoking the debates that so agonized the Great Church over the following three centuries. These divisions were especially evident in concepts of the Trinity, and of the person of Christ.

*Exploring the Christian Scriptures: From earliest times, Christians had been deeply engaged in scriptural exegesis and commentary, but with reference to the Old Testament. From the end of the second century, the focus shifted to the newly-defined New Testament, with the first pioneering commentaries on books in that collection, and intense debates about the proper contents and limits of Christian scripture.

So many critical components of later Christian thought, life, writing, culture and devotion – so many ideas, arguments, institutions, and genres – have their roots in this effervescent period.

So prolific are the changes of this era, and so far-reaching, that it demands to be recognized as one of the most significant turning points in the formation of Christianity. It was at least equal in importance to the far better-known era of Nicea, when the range of possible historical outcomes was far narrower than in the earlier period. The period around 200 was a time of near-infinite possibilities, on matters far broader than something as specific as the date of Easter. Indeed, so much of what the Council of Nicea debated reflected issues that had arisen about 200.

Scholars have long recognized the pivotal importance of some of the thinkers of this era, especially Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria, but new (and indeed very recent) discoveries and insights have vastly enhanced our knowledge of these years. We know much more than we did about the Gnostics and Sethians, about the pagan world, and indeed about the mainstream church itself – and scholarship has boomed. The more we discover, the more vital these transition years appear.

In terms of that Christian story, the years around 200 marked the end of the beginning. More on this in coming posts.

2018-03-23T08:47:25-04:00

Here is an excellent post by Larry Hurtado, which I am reposting here….. See what you think. BW3

On Representing the Views of Others
by larryhurtado
The following exhortation about representing the views of others is primarily directed to students and younger scholars. One of the aims I’ve striven for over the 40+ years of my scholarly work has been to represent the views of other scholars fairly, and especially those views with which I take issue.

I owe a good deal of my concern in this matter to my PhD supervisor, Eldon J. Epp. In the interview in which I approached him about commencing PhD work, I remember him emphasizing one thing: I didn’t have to agree with his views, but he wouldn’t tolerate the misrepresentation of the views of those whom I might engage in my research. And one of the deepest satisfactions for me over the ensuing 40+ years is that I can’t recall an accusation that I distorted or treated unfairly another scholar’s views.

But I’ve had to work at this, for the temptation to exaggerate or caricature views that you disagree with is very real, and no one is immune to it. Especially in my early years of scholarly work when I was still “learning the ropes,” one measure I took was this: When I wrote a review of a book, I’d send the review typescript to the book’s author with a note that the review was forthcoming in a given journal. I’d typically write that, although I couldn’t expect the author to agree with my critique, I hoped that the author would recognize his/her views as I stated them. It was a discipline: If I hesitated about handing the review to the book’s author, then I should consider whether there was something in the review that was excessive or unfair.

Over the years since then, when I’ve focused on the work of a particular (living) scholar, I’ve typically sent my critique or engagement to him/her before submitting it for publication, inviting that scholar to point out any significant misrepresentation of him/her. For example, my chapter on “Q” in my book, Lord Jesus Christ, is a close engagement with some of Kloppenborg’s well-known work on that topic. So, I sent the draft of the chapter to him, asking him to help me avoid any misunderstanding or misrepresentation of his views. Gentleman that he is, John dutifully read the chapter carefully, and assured me that it was an accurate description of his views (though he didn’t necessarily subscribe to my own).

In another instance, I recall inviting Adela Yarbro Collins to comment on my engagement with one of her views. In that case she felt that I hadn’t represented her view fairly. So, I modified what I wrote to take account of her complaint.

So, I’ve not been magically free from the danger of misrepresentation of others. That’s why I’ve taken these steps to avoid it in publications. And my advice to students and younger scholars is to take a similar approach. I often told my PhD students that it wasn’t necessary or wise to exaggerate or distort the views of others in order to make their own case for their views. It wasn’t necessary to run down the work of previous scholars in order to justify their own work. All that was needed was to demonstrate some further contribution that their own work made to the subject, whether correcting, or supplementing, or reinforcing, or extending our understanding of it.

2018-03-10T11:39:13-05:00

[picture courtesy of CNN]

The Plutonium in Hierapolis is an important site for those interested in studying the nature of ancient Greco-Roman religion. I’ve posted on it before, and indeed that particular Plutonium (named of course after Pluto, the god of the underworld) features in my novel Papias and the Mysterious Menorah, which you might enjoy. The drawing above is an archaeologist’s reconstruction of what the Plutonium must have looked like in the first century A.D. when Christians (including Philip and his prophesying daughters) lived there, and Papias was a ‘shepherd’ of the flock, being a bishop in Laodicea and Hierapolis it would appear. The latest archaeological work at the site involved scientific testing of the atmosphere in the Plutonium itself. As it turns out, there is a very high concentration of C02 being emitted from a crack in the earth down in the lower regions of this Plutonium. The ancients believe there were various gates into the Underworld, this being one, but what made this site a tourist attraction of sorts, is that priests and others would demonstrate the power of Pluto by sending birds etc. into the underground chamber, and they would be found dead thereafter. This could be called the ancient equivalent of a hell fire sermon, meant to demonstrate to the living that there really was an afterlife to be feared. Here is all that is left of the Plutonium today….

[picture courtesy of CNN]

The site was rediscovered in 2013 by an Italian archaeologist, and exploration and testing of it has been going on since then. In the CNN article about the exploration and testing (which can be found here— https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/09/world/mystery-gates-to-hell-hierapolis/index.html), Hardy Pfanz, who is actually a vulcanogist (a man who studies volcanos) did the testing and has some theories as why humans might survive a journey into this CO2 chamber, but not animals. Here is a quote from the article—-“Using a portable gas analyzer, Hardy Pfanz and his team of volcanologists found CO2 at levels ranging from 4-53% at the mouth of the cave, and as high as 91% inside — more than enough to kill living organisms.”

Hardy notes: “Problems for mammals (including humans) start way below 5% CO2,” Pfanz told CNN. “A longer stay at 7% and more leads to sweating, dizziness, tachycardia (elevated heart rate) etc. A further increase would lead to asphyxiation due to the lack of oxygen and due to acidification of the blood and the body or brain cells.”
So it’s no wonder the animals that entered the cave came to a swift end. During the research period alone, Pfanz says they found several dead birds, mice and more than 70 dead beetles.

Both Strabo and Pliny the Elder visited the site in antiquity and commented on the vapors emerging from the place. Hardy noticed that the concentration of CO2 was especially high at dusk and at dawn. He theorizes it affected animals more quickly because they were lower to the ground, and CO2 is a heavy gas. Lamps found down in the grotto show that the ancients had rituals down in the cave, perhaps at night. In any case, this study shows that there were natural causes for the effects of the chamber on animals and humans, and alas, it was not the god Pluto luring them to their deaths, it was the gas carbon dioxide.

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