That would be our rank among the Biblioblog top 50 for May.
As for why we’ve been silent for half a month: it started out as us taking some time to relax after the semester. Before we knew it, however, we were busy again. I have been busy with ministry work and reading 1 Samuel, and Mandy has been busy with a Summer I class. We’re both hoping to carve out more time for blogging in the near future (I know; promises, promises), so hopefully updates will be a bit more regular in the future.
Calvin already posted his end of semester summary, so I figured I’d copy him and give some thoughts on my classes.
Epigraphic Hebrew – This independent study with Tom Petter was great fun (especially since Calvin and I were able to work on it together). It also connected to History of Israelite Religions a little bit, since I did my paper for that class on the Kuntillet ‘Ajrud inscriptions, which we translated for this class. I always enjoy it when my classes seem to fit together well, as it cements what I’m learning.
History of Israelite Religions – Calvin has sort of already beat me to the punch since we took three classes together this semester. However, I too enjoyed this class at Boston University. My paper on Asherah in the Kuntillet ‘Ajrud inscriptions was nothing new, but I learned a ton and enjoyed researching it. I think I have now read or skimmed almost all of the major scholars (with works in English) who discuss this issue, which makes me feel good.
Greek II – What else is there to say, other than this was the second half of Greek? As I’ve mentioned before, Greekand I are not good friends, but we force ourselves to get along out of necessity. And it’s a good thing, because between Interpreting the New Testament, two NT exegesis courses, and Intermediate Greek, all classes I need to take within the next year, Greek and I are going to be seeing a lot of each other.
Old Testament Poetical Books – Calvin gave a good summary of the class itself, but I, of course, had a different paper topic. I chose Lamentations 2:18-22, and only wish I could have had more time to go even deeper than I did. My paper was just a little under 50 pages, and that was only scratching the surface. Lamentations is my new favorite book of the Bible, and I’m looking forward to doing more work with it in the future. Don’t be surprised if you see posts on Lam. 2:18-22, or Lamentations in general, showing up frequently this summer.
Thus ends two years here at GCTS. I have one more to go, and can’t believe how fast it’s gone!
Last Monday I turned in my final essay for this semester. For the past week I have relaxed by playing video games (a pastime that is notably, and sadly, absent from my life during the semester), reading fiction (David Coe is my newest find), and otherwise taking things easy. Normally at the beginning, middle and end of a semester I talk about what classes I am taking/took and share some of my thoughts on them. Here is my mid-semester summary for Spring 2009. Generally my thoughts at the semester mid-point have carried through to the end of the semester. My specific thoughts follow.
Epigraphic Hebrew – Wow. That’s all I can say about this course (an apparent lie, since I go on to type a paragraph about the course). Tom Petter was great to work with. Having an introduction to inscriptional Hebrew under my belt is great. To top it off, the class was fun as well. The class mostly consisted of translating various inscriptions (including the Mesha Stele). Dr. Petter also expected that Mandy and I would spend some time doing additional research on the various inscriptions. This added to the workload, but payed off by giving a much fuller picture of the current scholarship on various inscriptions (e.g. Kuntillet Ajrud). This was my favorite class over the past semester.
History of Israelite Religions – Much of what I said at the mid-point still holds true for this course. I learned quite a bit, it was fun, and taking a class at Boston University was a different experience. To some extent all this class did was show me how broad, diverse, and multifaceted the study of Israelite Religions really is. This is a good thing, though I might have preferred a more chronologically oriented introduction to Israelite Religions, I also realize that such an approach has its own difficulties. We basically worked our way through Ziony Zevit’s The Religions of Ancient Israel, and then spent some time with Jon Berquist’s Judaism in Persia’s Shadow. The course was a seminar, so each class session included a presentation or two by students. Normally I’m a huge fan of this type of learning. In this case I might have preferred a little more lecture from the professor. Either way, this class was fun, I learned a great deal, and I started to develop a relationship with Dr. Botta which has opened the possibility of taking Middle Egyptian next year (more on that in a subsequent post).
Old Testament Poetical Books – This is the standard GCTS intro to the poetic corpus (for those not in the know: Psalms, Proverbs, Qohelet, Job, Lamentations and Song of Songs). Since Job is one of my research interests, and a book that I find absolutely fascinating, the course was fun. My final paper, an exegetical study of Job 5.2-7, ended up just shy of 50 pages–so I certainly had the chance to engage with the material. To some extent I feel bad for Dr. Stuart, who has a whole class’ worth of papers to grade. As I said at the mid-semester mark, I would have preferred the class to be a little more demanding, but even so the translation we did was helpful when combined with the classroom discussions of Hebrew grammar. I would have preferred more of such discussions, but I’ll take what I can get.
Targumic Aramaic – This class was my least favorite of the semester. This isn’t to say the course was horrible, but one of my classes has to be my “least favorite.” The class is exactly what the title suggests: Targumic Aramaic. After working my way through a grammar, I translated around 15 chapters of Aramaic. I think I have a fairly decent handle on Targumic Aramaic after this course, though my vocab needs expansion.
In the process of writing an exegesis paper on Lamentations 2:18-22 this past semester, I came across an intriguing book: Daughter Zion Talks Back the Prophets: A Dialogic Theology of the Book of Lamentations, by Carleen R. Mandolfo.
I did not have the chance to read the book thoroughly in the course of writing my paper, but what I did read interested me enough that after turning in my paper, I returned the library’s copy and ordered my own, which just arrived. I hope to be able to read completely and review the book sometime this summer.
I also hope to be able to devote a little more time to blogging in general, now that summer is here. I will be taking 3 classes throughout the course of the summer: Interpreting the New Testament, Gospel of John, and Contemporary Theology and Theologians. None of these are my area of study (darn degree requirements), but I expect I’ll find them at least mildly entertaining. Maybe I’ll at least get some blogging fodder out of them!
This post is dedicated to my mother, who is, quite possibly, the best mom on the planet (though my mother-in-law also deserves a shout-out for raising such a great girl).
I think it probably goes without saying that parents have a huge influence upon their children, either positively or negatively. In my case, both my parents had a very positive impact on my life. In fact, the reason that I am pursuing a graduate degree in Biblical studies, and will hopefully be pursuing a PhD one day is my mother’s influence.
If you were to meet my mom, you would find a Christian woman who’s passion for the past twenty-four years of her life has been raising three sometimes-cantankerous boys. My mom constantly encouraged me to read my Bible, to pray, and to perform other Christian disciplines. She told me that when I grew up I could do whatever I wanted, from being a garbage man (an aspiration of mine when I was younger) to an astronaut. This is, perhaps, not that different from what other parents tell their children. When I had a question about something I read in the Bible, or life in general, my mom always did her best to answer my question, or to point me towards an answer.
This ability and encouragement to question is one of the prime motivators behind my entry into the professional world of biblical studies. Because my mother, alongside other important figures in my life, taught me to question, I now have a great desire to ask questions. Of course, at times my mother might prefer that I ask fewer uncomfortable questions, or at least question the Bible less–but that’s part of being a parent, I suppose. You do your best, and eventually unleash your progeny upon the world.
So, my mother taught me to question things, and that influence has led me into the world of biblical studies. Now, I question all kinds of things, and–in the words of a professor–I get my answers from the Bible. Of course, I also often question the Bible, probing its depths. To me biblical studies is largely about the back and forth dialectic of question and answer.
So, here’s to you mom–even if my questions sometimes make you nervous.
I was perusing Walter Brueggemann’s Reverberations of Faith today while doing some research for the “theological context” section of an exegesis paper I’m writing. I came across the following quote (from pg 235) that I think does a good job of summarizing the ethical outlook of the wisdom literature, especially Job and Qohelet (aka Ecclesiastes).
The wisdom tradition attests that all of the data is not in, and therefore ethical judgments and conclusions are endlessly provisional and open to reformulation.
The interpretive practice of the wisdom teachers, taken up by scribes, has given Judaism…enormous interpretive vitality that knows that the truth of life is hard work that requires ongoing discernment, fresh imaginative articulation, and receptivity to matters that may challenge and veto old statements. The process of transmitting wisdom to the next generation provides a model for education as monitoring disciples. Education on this horizon is not the importation of data, but socialization into an ethical perspective rooted in the theological reality of God’s ordering of creation.
I have no idea if I will be able to work this into my paper somehow, and so I thought that I ought to at least post it here.
James McGrath has an amazing carnival up. I highly recommend you take a look at it. At this rate, I’ll be reading biblioblogs for a full week after I finally finish finals!