Mandy and I have not fallen off the edge of the planet, regardless of what the total lack of updates here at The Floppy Hat might imply. I have finally managed to rouse myself from blogging silence due to a comment on one of Charles’ posts. Truth be told, between finishing our final semester at GCTS, applying to PhD programs (more on that in a subsequent post), work and a few other responsibilities we have both been too busy to blog. But, I hope to make an effort to blog in spite of the fact that I have no time for such. Besides, after several months of not blogging I have a fair amount of thoughts I’d like to put onto the digital page.

It is the time of the semester when I normally give an update about how classes are going. So, here goes:

Epigraphic Hebrew – I’m still a little amazed that I even have the opportunity to take such a class at a seminary. I’m really enjoying it. So far we’ve translated the Mesha Inscription (technically Moabite, I suppose, but hardly that different from Hebrew), several of the Arad letters, the Gezer Calendar, and a couple of the inscriptions from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud! It has been an absolute blast. My only compliant is that we’re reading the inscriptions in transliteration. My preference would be to have a decent paleo-Hebrew font that was used, and I can’t really see an excuse for not having such a thing given the prevalence of Unicode today, but I digress.

Targumic Aramaic – This is going well. I’m far slower in translating than I would like, but I’m improving with time. Partially the issue at this point is forcing myself to knuckle down and do the work. I’m not enjoying this class nearly as much as Epigraphic Hebrew, but its still good, and I’m learning quite a bit.

Old Testament Poetical Books – This is the standard exegesis course in the poetry of the Hebrew Bible here at GCTS. On the one hand it’s always good to translate some more and talk about various issues of Hebrew Grammar. I’m enjoying that aspect of the class, even though I might prefer to translate more Hebrew each week.

History of Israelite Religion – This is a Boston University class, and I’ve learned quite a bit so far. We actually listened to a visiting lecturer present some fascinating research on “Divinized Demons and Demonized Devinities” in Ancient Egypt. My paper for the course is on the place of Job in Israelite Religion. It’s coming along nicely, after a bit of a bumpy start. So, overall this has been enlightening.

It’s that time of the semester again. I need to start thinking about what classes I’ll be taking over the summer and the fall. It’s also time for my normal round up of how my current classes are shaping up, but that will have to wait for another post. So, here are my tentative thoughts for this coming summer and fall. I’d love your thoughts on any classes (or types of courses) that I might want to be sure to add, since this is my last year of work on my MA.

Full Summer:
-A Semlink (GCTS’ distant ed) to cover either A) an ethics elective or B) a World Missions or Evangelism elective.
-Readings and Research course; these courses are basically a way to deal with a topic or section of Scripture that GCTS does not normally deal with in classes. I’m currently exploring possible topics, and would love suggestions.

Summer II (mid-June ’til mid-July):
-Gospel of John; this is an NT exegesis course. For my MA in Biblical Languages, I’m required two NT exegesis courses.

Fall 2009:
-Literature of Ancient Israel; Dr. Machinist is scheduled to offer a seminar on a book of the Bible this Fall (though I’m not sure which book as of yet). He was on leave this year, and so I didn’t have the chance to take a course with him. I really want to take that opportunity.
-Advanced Hebrew Grammar; This is a course that Mandy and I will be taking as a directed study with Dr. Tom Petter. We’re both really looking forward to it. To some extent we’re serving as guinea pigs as he develops these courses (epigraphic Hebrew this semester, Hebrew grammar next semester). This will also mean we’ll have over four years of formal classroom education in Hebrew.

The following are classes I’m not 100% sure I’m taking (and, to be honest, I can’t take all of them):
-Old Testament Prophetical Books; this is being offered by Donna Petter in the fall, and since her dissertation focused on Ezekiel, I thought that it might be an interesting course to take with her. It’s also one of the courses that my adopted advisor has recommended I take before graduating, so if I’m going to take it, nows the time.
-History and Archaeology of the ANE; This course is taught by Tom Petter. Again, this is one that my advisor has recommended to me. Mandy took this our first semester here and learned a ton. I’m sure I would learn a lot…but…ya know…pottery. *shudder*
-Exegeting the OT: Theology of the Divine Presence; This is a new course (as far as I know) that is being offered by Donna Petter. I just think the idea of the divine presence is fascinating, especially in regards to divine favor/anger. In addition, the Ark narrative in Samuel is fascinating, and I would hope that such a passage would come up in this class.
-Akkadian; This is a single semester introduction to Akkadian grammar. We don’t learn the signs, and learn very little vocab. Mandy has already taken it. I wouldn’t mind an intro to another semitic language, and Akkadian is certainly something I’ll have to tackle eventually (unless I can manage to sneak around it by taking Egyptian). The cons are that this course is offered on Wednesday evening, and that I’m honestly not sure how well I’ll know Akkadian after one semester…I suspect not too well.
-Biblical Global Justice; this one being offered by Borgman. I’ve never taken a class with him, so that might be interesting. This would also be an ethics elective, and I do need one of those before I graduate. So far there isn’t a correspondingly interesting course being offered in the spring. I might also be able to write my paper on something interesting….like justice in the Book of Job. Maybe.
UPDATED-05-03-09
-Middle Egyptian I; I have just learned that there is a possibility that I could take Middle Egyptian I this fall, and then Middle Egyptian II this spring at one of the BTI schools. This seems to me to be an amazing opportunity. However, it would probably require travel down to Boston on a second day of the week, unless I were to forget about the seminar with Machinist next semester. So, I’m very much interested in your thoughts on how I should proceed here.

As you may have noticed, I’ve listed 7 classes for the next semester. I can’t take that many. I’d prefer to take only 4, especially since I’ll be tackling a course at Harvard (or another BTI school, if I take Middle Egyptian I). However, either in the Fall or Spring I’ll have to take five courses in order to graduate, so I suppose one is as good as the other. I’d love to hear your thoughts on which classes seem best from your perspective.

As if a lack of funding wasn’t bad enough, Chris Brady has to go and make me even more depressed.

In seriousness though, Chris draws attention to a few good points in his lengthy quotation. One follow-up question though–what about those of us who really, really don’t want to do anything else? I mean, those of us who know that getting a job isn’t guaranteed, who know that times may be tough, but at the same time really want to pursue a PhD in the humanities anyway?

Perhaps we’re just crazy.

This morning, as I was reading through the various blogs I subscribe to, I came across Duane’s recent post regarding Brandeis. After glancing at the Boston Globe article, I reported the information to Mandy. Her reply? “Well, that’s not encouraging.”

No, no it’s not. As two students who will be applying to PhD programs this fall, such news is not comforting to us. I know that we are not the only ones, and perhaps by the time schools are making their selections for fall 2010 things will be slightly better. Even so, its rather disconcerting when schools are laying off researchers, or asking the government for money, or selling art collections. The situation is further complicated for Mandy and I since we would very much like to both be accepted into the same program. In fact, aside from some schools that are near enough for one of us to go to one, and the other to the other, it’s pretty much a requirement for us to get into the same program. Not a good time at all to be a student applying to PhD programs.

After delivering the off the cuff comment above, Mandy came up with this: “Hey Calvin, it could be worse.” I looked at her quizzically, “Yeah–we could be looking for jobs right now.” She is, of course, absolutely right.

Calvin and I attended the national SBL meeting for the first time this year, and I had a blast. We live about an hour and a half from Boston, which made it ultra-convenient – though a very early start every morning. John Hobbins crashed at our place, and we had fun chatting with and getting to know him better.

Obviously, I sat through a ton of papers. Many were terribly boring, but there were also quite a few that were really profitable or interesting. Here are some of the session/paper highlights for me:

Saturday (As a side note, Saturday started off a little rocky for us. Our train on the Blue Line broke down and we were left waiting at Airport station in the blustering cold for 30 min before someone decided to tell us that the line had been shut down and no other train would be coming to get us. Thanks, MBTA! Your efficiency in dealing with unexpected situations is indescribable. To top that off, in the middle of the first paper below, the fire alarm went off on our floor. Whew. What a morning!)

Pentateuch Section, 9-11:30
The Angel Marriages (Genesis 6:1-4) and the Greek Framing of the Primeval History, by Andreas Schuele, Union Seminary Richmond.
Good presentation, and interesting content. There is, of course, a lot out there comparing the Hebrew Bible to Mesopotamian, Canaanite, and Egyptian mythology. However, not so much with Greek.

Pentateuch Section, 4-6:30
Bits of Bethel Cult behind the Golden Calf Complaint, by Daniel Fleming, New York University
Again, nice presentation quality, easy to listen to. The general consensus is that the HB tends to smooth over the reality of Israelite religion. Here, Fleming argues that we can see some of the historical memory of real cultic practices coming through the text.

Sunday

Book of Psalms Section, 9-11:30
The Most Important Text in the Bible and a Theology of the Psalms, by J. Clinton McCann, Eden Theological Seminary
Really, this whole section was decent, but this paper in particular caught my attention because it dealt with one of my favorite Psalms, Ps 82, and postulated on its theological import for the rest of the Bible.

Biblical Hebrew Poetry Section, 1-3:30
Patterned Language, by Frederic Clarke Putnam, Philadelphia Biblical University
Putnam’s presentation of the material was phenomenal. I wouldn’t have been able to fall asleep if I had tried. He was by far the best presenter out of all I listened to, in the quality and animation of his presentation. You couldn’t help but get excited about his paper! And, of course, the content was really fascinating, and hard to describe succinctly.

Women in the Biblical World Section, 4-6:30
Regulations Regarding the Purity of Priests’ Wives in Leviticus 21, by Hilary Lipka, University of California, Los Angeles
This was another section that was quite good as a whole, with some crazy but interesting stuff and mostly attention-keeping presentations. However, for some inexplicable reason, I found this particular presentation to be really interesting in content. Purity laws are not usually something I go for, but whether it be that the presenter just did a really good job of putting together the material, or something else – I really enjoyed this one.

Monday

Israelite Religion in Its West Asian Environment Section, 4-6:30
Divvying up the Divine Council: A New Perspective on the structure of the Divine Council in the Hebrew Bible, by Ellen White, University of St. Michael’s College
I have this sort of crazy obsession with the divine council in the HB, so this was a great presentation for me. I hope that I’ll get to hear further development on this topic from her next year.

Tuesday

Wisdom in Israelite and Cognate Tradition Section, 9-11:30
This whole section was phenomenal. It fit together really well and kept me awake (most of the time). The papers presented were:
Character Formation and Community Ethics in Canaanite Literature, by Richard S. Hess, Denver Seminary
Positive and Negative Human Types in the Egyptian Wisdom Literature, by Nili Shupak, University of Haifa
Character Formation and Community Ethics in Mesopotamian Wisdom Literature, by Alan R. Millard, University of Liverpool

There’s an overview of my favorite papers. Of course, I sat through a ton more and there were others that were mildly interesting as well, but didn’t make the top of the list. I was going to write a little about how my time was spent outside of sessions, but I will save that for another post as this is getting quite lengthy.

N.T. Wrong just posted a helpful piece clarifying the reasoning behind each label. As I guessed, it seems to be based mainly on one’s view of and approach to the Bible. After reading over the list, I can agree that both Calvin and I (and thus The Floppy Hat) would fall under “Fairly Conservative” under this criteria at least.

I would like to point out, however, that our bookshelves contain books by FF Bruce, N.T. Wright and James Dunn, books with chapters by Marcus Borg…and a plethora of other books that span the entire liberal/conservative spectrum whose authors weren’t specifically mentioned. Since we went to a very conservative Bible college, naturally our bookshelves have many relics from that period of time. Our library has been expanding quickly to the left as we collect more books. Either way, we like to be well read outside our own theological persuasion in both directions.

Conceding that labels can at the least be helpful in understanding how one is viewed by those outside of one’s own perspective, I am in the end mostly relieved that we didn’t fall under very conservative (rightly so).

We are both looking forward to N.T. Wrong’s mysterious Nov. 1 post which will shed light on the reason behind his original post.

There have been some posts spawned by N.T. Wrong’s recent list of bibliobloggers, which sorts various biblioblogs based on specialization and rates them on the liberal/conservative scale. So, I thought I’d speculate on our label: “Fairly Conservative.”

As others have already done for their respective labels, I immediately began speculating as to what we have written that could have garnered The Floppy Hat to be labeled “fairly conservative.” My initial reaction was to be affronted, as “conservative” has very negative baggage attached to it in my mind. But as Jay already mentioned, labels are subjective. I rather like to think of myself as falling somewhere in a nice middle location (perhaps the conservative liberal?). Of course, who doesn’t want to believe that they fall in the middle?

So, after my knee-jerk reaction, I realized that perhaps the very fact that we call ourselves Christians, affirm the Apostle’s Creed, and believe that Scripture is sacred places us more on the conservative side. If those are the criteria, I can’t disagree. However, I know of many, especially within the circles in which we run, who would disagree with the assertion that we are conservative. I would say I have a “high view of Scripture,” which Calvin says is a rather ambiguous statement, to which I say…exactly! Which, in my mind, makes me a little less conservative and a little more liberal. On the other hand, the very fact that I can still worm my way into saying that, to many others, makes me conservative. (Or maybe it’s just that we go to a conservative seminary.)

This just goes to show that labels, in the long run, are really mostly useless except to those who already share your definitions, as they are all in the eye of the beholder.

This post almost received the title “We’re not dead yet!” and indeed, neither Mandy or I are anywhere near death. Ugaritic exams simply cut into one’s blogging time. Regardless, Earl has a question on writing a Master’s Thesis. His thinking was generated by Dr. Stackhouse’s recent post. There are a few comments on Stackhouse’s blog, and Earl mentions one in particular. To be fair, Earl is into that theology stuff, so his is hardly a biblical studies degree–but I doubt that the fields are so different that the question doesn’t apply to those of us in biblical studies.

I’m certainly no expert on such things. All of the Hebrew Bible faculty here at Gordon-Conwell are of the opinion that it doesn’t help you get into a PhD program, and that further course work is probably more valuable to the majority of students. At this point, I seriously doubt that I will write a thesis (though I can’t speak for Mandy) for my Master’s work. I can certainly see the value of it, and I’d love to write one, but it is an issue of time; at this point I simply think additional course work would be more beneficial to me.

Calvin and I are soon going to begin a joint series, and we wanted to do a post explaining a bit about what we are going to be doing and why.

In a little under a year, we’ll begin applying to Ph.D programs. We’ve compiled a rather large list of potential programs, and this new series will be a “Survivor,” of sorts, to determine the best Ph.D programs for us. We’re putting our thoughts into writing so we’ll be able to narrow down our choices to a reasonable number of programs to which we will actually apply. We’re also hoping that if there is anyone reading who would have first-hand information on a particular program that we review, they’ll chime in with thoughts of their own. The information that we gather for each program will be posted in a fairly standard format.

If anyone else is in a similar situation as us, we would certainly be happy if our series helped that person out as well.

So, with no further ado, we’ll begin by listing the contenders, in no particular order (drum roll):

• Johns Hopkins University
• University of Pennsylvania
• University of Michigan
• Hebrew Union College
• Penn State
• University of Wisconsin
• Yale University
• Brandeis University
• Harvard University
• Catholic University of America
• University of Toronto
• New York University
• Notre Dame
• UC Berkley
• UCLA
• Ohio State University
• University of Chicago
• Emory University

Now, some of these we are already fairly sure we won’t apply to, but we thought we’d give them their fair shake. Additionally, if you know of a Ph.D program in Hebrew Bible/Ancient Near East/OrSomethingSimilar at a University that we’ve forgotten, please feel free to comment or shoot us an email.