παράκλητος as a precise legal term

This morning I read Lochlan Shelfer's essay, "The Legal Precision of the Term 'παράκλητος'" (JSNT 32/2 [2009], 131–150), which surveyed (exhaustively, apparently) the use of παράκλητος [paraklētos; from which we get "Paraclete" as a reference to the Holy Spirit] in pagan and Hellenistic Jewish literature and argued that, with one exception from the Classical period (Demosthenes, De Falsa Legatione [343 BCE]), every use of παράκλητος was either (i) a translation of the Latin advocatus, or (ii) consistent with its use a translation of advocatus.

I found a lot about this article interesting, but I think I can best explain where Shelfer's argument took my mind in a series of progressive observations:

• With the exception of Demosthenes, παράκλητος only appears in pagan literature six times, once in an Oxyrhynchus papyrus (P.Oxy. 2725.10), and in one piece of epigraphic evidence (a "confession inscription" from northeaster Lydia [modern Turkey]). Regardless whether or not we accept Shelfer's argument regarding παράκλητος as a Greek translation of the Latin advocatus, our Greek term appears to have been rare in gentile (pagan) usage.


• Despite this rarity among gentile writers, Shelfer notes that παράκλητος "is used often . . . by Jewish writers during the Roman Empire" (142). Philo alone, writing in the first-century CE from the northern Egyptian metropolis, Alexandria, uses the term eleven times. Given Philo's involvement in judicial affairs between the Alexandrian Jewish population and the Roman justice system, perhaps the utility of παράκλητος isn't all that surprising. At any rate, our term seems to be especially popular in Jewish Hellenistic Greek relative to gentile Hellenistic Greek. Παράκλητος even appears in transliteration in Hebrew and Aramaic texts as פרקליט [prqlyt]


• The Johannine writings continue the popularity of παράκλητος in Jewish texts: "The currency of the word in Jewish writings no doubt contributed to its most famous uses in the Christian Scriptures where it appears in two places, four times in a speech by Jesus to the disciples in the Gospel of John, the 'Farewell Discourse", and once in 1 John" (145). Five uses in a single set of texts (the Johannine literature) certainly qualifies as a frequent use of παράκλητος, a usage akin to Philo and distinct from gentile use.

If these observations are correct, then I find it interesting that, whatever else the Johannine corpus (especially the gospel, but also Revelation) says about "the Jews," it nevertheless exists within a Jewish symbolic universe. This is fairly obvious from other, more blatant themes in the text (testimony of Moses, Jesus as the λόγος [logos], etc.), but even in the minor details (here, the use of a Greek legal term) John appears thoroughly at home among Hellenistic and Roman Jewish literature, especially where that literature is distinctive vis-à-vis its pagan counterpart.

document no. 2: Pulling at Paul

Here's a second paper I've written and not yet sent off to be published. As always, I welcome any comments/criticisms/questions.

Pulling at Paul

me on Scribd

I've decided to try out Scribd. I've had a user account for a while now, but I haven't uploaded any documents. Now I have. I'm wading into the Scribd rather than diving; I'm keeping my documents private. But my understanding is that they are still viewable to anyone who has a direct link.

While I don't want my non-published work completely available, if you'd like to see my most recent paper here's your Golden Ticket. As always, I'd be particularly interested in any comments/criticisms/questions you might have.

Tradition, Text, And Gospel

on defining biblical scholarship

In the process of putting the finishing touches on an article, I returned to Clifford Geertz's The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), a book I first encountered early in 2002 as I groped after the theoretical basis of my Master's thesis at Cincinnati Christian University. And I came across this:

Cultural analysis is intrinsically incomplete. And, worse than that, the more deeply it goes the less complete it is. It is a strange science whose most telling assertions are its most tremulously based, in which to get somewhere with the matter at hand is to intensify the suspicion, both your own and that of others, that you are not quite getting it right. But that, along with plaguing subtle people with obtuse questions, is what being an ethnographer is like.

There are a number of ways to escape this—turning culture into folklore and collecting it, turning it into traits and counting it, turning it into institutions and classifying it, turning it into structures and toying with it. But they are escapes. The fact is that to commit oneself to a semiotic concept of culture and an interpretive approach to the study of it is to commit oneself to a view of ethnographic assertion as, to borrow W. B. Gallie's by now famous phrase, "essentially contestable." Anthropology, or at least interpretive anthropology, is a science whose progress is marked less by a perfection of consensus than by a refinement of debate. What gets better is the precision with which we vex each other. (Geertz 1973: 29)

I am currently engaged in proposing a semiotic approach to gospels scholarship, a proposition that began in Structuring Early Christian Memory but that I'm realizing more and more I need to push and expand before moving on to my other interests (particularly the "parting of the ways," my analysis of which will depend thoroughly on this semiotic approach).

The most common criticism I have received, from multiple quarters, is of my rather uncontrolled, open-ended, fluid understanding of ancient tradition and how that tradition was expressed in and related to written texts. So, naturally, I like Geertz's idea, in which biblical scholarship's "progress is marked less by a perfection of consensus than by a refinement of debate." More precise, controlled, "scientific" biblical scholarship isn't "better" if its precision and control—its science—are distortions that provide an "escape" from the historical processes and communities and texts at the heart of our analyses.

links are live

Previously I announced the newest issue of the Journal for the Study of the New Testament, but at that time the link to the current issue still led to the Sept. 2009 (32/1) issue. This morning the link has been updated, and I have added links to the abstracts of each article in the original post. If your library doesn't get JSNT, take advantage of their InterLibrary Loan service.

We are Borg

I assume it's okay for me to post this brochure online; if this somehow violates some arcane copyright statute someone please let me know. At any rate, those of you in the East TN area might be interested in a presentation at St. Elizabeth's Episcopal Church (Farragut TN) by Marcus Borg, a historical Jesus scholar and Canon Theologian at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral (Portland, OR).

Borg is well known as a prominent member of the Jesus Seminar, though I've pointed out elsewhere that his work is qualitatively different than most of what has been published under their banner. He is also particularly known for persistently challenging eschatological reconstructions of the historical Jesus, though my own sense is that Borg (and others) lost that debate before it started simply because of the stark binary dichotomy that proponents of a sapiential Jesus often foist upon the ancient data.

Personally, I'm not particularly interested in Borg's prescriptions for how to be Christian in the twenty-first century. If this were a lecture series about the historical Jesus, I would be much more likely to shell out the $45.00 registration fee. For those of you with a more pastoral bent, however, the cost is less than 6.5 hours of labor at the current Federal minimum wage. Well, that's before taxes.

[HT: Daniel Overdorf]

Poirier on NT introductions and the synoptic problem

I just finished reading John Poirier's article, "The Synoptic Problem and the Field of New Testament Introduction" (JSNT 32/2, 179–190), a very brief piece that surveys the treatment of source-critical hypotheses among introductory discussions of NT research. Naturally, Kloppenborg and Tuckett don't receive very much treatment since they don't exhibit the neglect Poirier is chronicling (see p. 185, n. 17). Poirier doesn't mention Mark Allan Powell's Introducing the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009), presumably because Powell's book was published after Poirier's article was in the process of publication. This adds to the impression, I think, that Poirier has put his finger on an on-going problem (see Goodacre's discussion here) rather than chronicling a problem with past research.

In the interest of full-disclosure, I should say that I myself am not a proponent of the Farrer-Goulder-Goodacre approach to gospel relationships, but neither am I convinced against it. Rather, what I like most about the ascendancy of this set of arguments is the reminder that the results of source-critical inquiry must be plugged back into Christian origins scholarship (including gospels scholarship) with a healthy respect for the contingency of those results. We will certainly have to debate what constitutes healthy respect for this contingency, but certainly the cavalier confidence in Markan priority and Q that characterized NT research in previous decades (including the just-completed Naughties) does not.

out last month

The December 2009 issue of Journal for the Study of the New Testament [JSNT 32/2] arrived in the mail today, though the website still has September 2009 listed as the current issue. The actual current issue includes the following articles:

• Lochlan Shelfer, "The Legal Precision of the Term 'παράκλητος'" (131–150).


• Rafael Rodríguez, "Reading and Hearing in Ancient Contexts" (151–178).


• John C. Poirier, "The Synoptic Problem and the Field of New Testament Introduction" (179–190).


• Alan J. P. Garrow, "The Eschatological Tradition behind 1 Thessalonians: Didache 16" (191–215).


• Joshua Jipp, "Rereading the Story of Abraham, Isaac, and 'Us' in Romans 4" (217–242).

All five essays look promising. I have half an essay on a topic related to Poirier's topic idling on my hard drive and waiting for my renewed attention. And given my current reading among the Apostolic Fathers as part of a revision of my History of New Testament Interpretation course, Garrow's essay piques another of my interests. I am also developing a graduate-level course on Romans (see Jipp's essay) and continuing to refine/develop my freshman-level Gospel Narratives course (see Shelfer's essay).

I'll try to add links to the articles when JSNT updates their website.

heretical diets in Ign. Trall. 6.1

Now that I've finished my review of Chris Keith's book I've been able to get back to reading the Apostolic Fathers. I've tried not to stop completely, but certainly my progress was slowed as I paid particular attention to reviewing Chris's book.

So this morning I turned to Ignatius' epistle To the Trallians. Here's the Greek text, along with translation, of Ign. Trall. 6.1 from Michael Holmes (third edition; 2007: 218, 219):

Παρακαλῶ οὖν ὑμᾶς, οὐκ ἐγὼ ἀλλ᾽ ἡ ἀγάπη Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, μόνῃ τῇ Χριστιανῇ τροφῇ χρῆσθε, ἀλλοτρίας δὲ βοτάνης ἀπέχεσθε, ἥτις ἐστὶν αἵρεσις.

I urge you, therefore—yet not I, but the love of Jesus Christ—partake only of Christian food, and keep away from every strange plant, which is heresy.

As I consider Ignatius' view of food (and remember, this is far afield from my specialties), I'm reminded also of Ignatius' demonstrable affinity for Paul and his writings. If Ignatius was as fond of Paul as he seems to have been, and if Paul argued forcefully—both in his letters and in Luke's portrayal of him in Acts—that issues of diet should not disqualify a person from being counted among God's people, then how can Ignatius have deviated so far from Paul in prescribing a quite restrictive view of diet and fellowship?!

Paul was quite emphatic: The unity of the people, and not the food on their plate, mattered to him (see 1 Cor 8–10; Rom 14–15). This is also the point of Luke's portrayal of the Jerusalem council in Acts 15: Through Peter's ministry in Caesarea and Paul and Barnabas' work among the gentiles in Asia Minor, God had made clear that he had "made clean" (Acts 10.15) the people who eat pork and shrimp and [O, the greatness of his mercy!] even Taco Bell. Is Ignatius really capable of getting it this wrong?

It has been about eighteen months since I read Daniel Boyarin's Border Lines (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), which was a fascinating, very technical exploration of heresiology among Jews and Christians and its role in the "parting of the ways" between them. But if I remember correctly, Boyarin argues that the Greek word αἵρεσις [hairesis; "sect, division, party"] did not take on the "heretical" connotations of the English word heresy until the third or fourth century.

If this is the case (i.e., if Boyarin did make this argument as well as if this is a more helpful way of reading αἵρεσις), then the consequence for our understanding Ign. Trall. 6.1 is fairly clear. Ignatius' letters are often dated to c. 110 CE (though some have suggested a later date of 125–150 CE), which obviously antedates the third or fourth century. The texts of the New Testament (which also, obviously, antedate the third or fourth century and which, in my estimation, also antedate Ignatius), use αἵρεσις in the sense of "sect" (Acts 24.5, 14; 1 Cor 11.19; Gal 5.20; 2 Pet 2.1) or "party" (Acts 5.17; 15.5; 26.5; 28.22) rather than of "heresy." So I would render Trall. 6.1 as follows:

Therefore I urge you—yet not I but the love of Jesus Christ—only make use of Christian food and abstain from [every] strange plant [or herb], which is divisive [αἵρεσις].

If this gets us closer to Ignatius' intended meaning (or to his audience's likely understanding of his language), then he actually appears more Pauline here than in Holmes's translation (if I have understood Holmes rightly). The problem isn't that eating the wrong foods pushes a person or group of people beyond the pale of "Christianity"; rather, the church(es) in Tralles has/have formed groups [αἱρέσεις; haireseis (groups, divisions)] around distinctive menus. This coheres, I think, with another distinctive Ignatian emphasis: the importance of submitting to the bishop and other church leaders (see, inter alios, Trall. 2–3). Ignatius' emphasis on the bishop ensures both the unity of the church and its protection from false teaching. If the Trallians will accept "only Christian food" [μόνῃ τῇ Χριστιανῇ τροφῇ; monē tē Christianē trophē (6.1; = "food sanctioned by the bishop"?)], their unity will be restored/preserved and their ability to submit "to the bishop as to Jesus Christ" (Ign. Trall. 2.1) will likewise be restored/preserved.

a brief comment (well, almost)

As I wrap up Chris Keith's book, The Pericope Adulterae, the Gospel of John, and the Literacy of Jesus (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2009), I found the following particularly interesting:

Regardless of whether PA was oral or written, GJohn's absorption of PA demonstrates that, into the second and third centuries, written gospel texts, even authoritative ones, functioned in a 'performance mode' in light of the texts' scribe (or performer) and readers (or [intended] audience). The interpolator was both a reader of GJohn's author and an author in his own right, modifying GJohn in light of his (intended) audience. PA is thus primary evidence that long-held assumptions that written tradition was 'fixed' while oral tradition was 'free' are incorrect. (Keith 2009: 259)

Keith's point about the problematic assumptions upon which NT scholarship has depended since at least the rise of form criticism in the first third of the twentieth century is dead right. If we accept any literary explanation of the synoptic gospels' interrelationships (e.g., the Two-Source Hypothesis or the Farrer Theory), we are similarly hard-pressed to explain how later evangelists could handle the text(s) at their disposal without a sense that they were falsifying those texts. The answer (or a significant part thereof) must be the altogether different conception of fixity current among ancient Christians. Moreover, this conception of fixity (for the early Christians clearly and demonstrably did think their traditions were fixed and stable, despite [and even in the face of] the variations between them) applied to both oral and written expressions of tradition and was capable of, among other things, incorporating interpolations such as PA.

But that's not actually what caught my interest, and so I've emended this post's title by adding the parenthetical qualifier. I was particularly pleased to see Keith's suggestion that the [written] text of John's gospel functioned along the lines of a performance of the Jesus tradition. This idea has not, unless I've missed it, played a significant role in his argument throughout The Pericope Adulterae; it is, on the other hand, a significant aspect of my argument in Structuring Early Christian Memory: Jesus in Tradition, Performance, and Text (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2010). The idea of the written texts themselves—texts that have been subjected to intense examination in all their minutiae and presumed to exist in a stable form similar to our familiar NA²⁷ or UBS^4rev—as performances of the tradition rather than the final expressions of the tradition will likely be one of the (if not the) most significant advances in gospels scholarship in the next generation. But then again, I would say that, wouldn't I?

educated guesses on Jesus . . .

. . . in the second and third centuries. I'm currently in the middle of Chris Keith's proposal regarding the Sitz im Leben der Kirche of the Pericope Adulterae's [PA] original insertion into John's gospel at 7.53–8.11. Keith identifies four facts for which any such proposal must account:

• A version of PA known in the early church no later than the second century;
• Early references to PA "as being located in a gospel context, which could have been GJohn but may not have been";
• Early Christian writers typically employed PA as an example for early Christian leaders to follow (especially bishops, especially in terms of ecclesial discipline);
• At some point no later than the mid-fourth century CE a scribe had inserted PA into John's gospel at John 7.53–8.11. (Keith 2009: 213)

After rejecting the popular theory that the early church suppressed the Pericope Adulterae from their Jesus tradition, Keith goes on to propose that second- or (more likely) third-century Christian responses to pagan critiques of Jesus/Christianity as thoroughly uneducated and illiterate provide the most likely context driving the insertion of PA into John's gospel. [Note that Keith does not suggest that PA originates in the second or third century, only that PA's insertion into John's gospel occurred during this time.] The driving consideration behind Keith's proposal is that, of all various facets of PA's portrayal of Jesus, only the image of a Jesus who was capable of writing (= grapho-literacy) is unparalleled elsewhere in the Jesus tradition. In other words, Jesus as out-maneuvering the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus as interpreter of Torah, Jesus as compassionate for the outcast, Jesus as siding with sinners . . . these all have parallels elsewhere (and presumably, therefore, would not justify PA's inclusion into a canonical gospel). But Jesus as writing . . . this is unique to PA and so sustains Keith's explanation of PA's interpolation.

If a writing Jesus explains PA's insertion into John's gospel, then the socio-historical context of PA's insertion must be one that required (or at least desired) a writing Jesus in the first place. With this in mind Keith surveys a number of early pagan critics of Christianity (Celsus, Lucian, Galen, and Minucius Felix) who highlight Christians' and Jesus' vulgarity and illiteracy. These criticisms were rooted in earlier critiques (see John 7.15; Acts 4.13), and later, more educated Christians (including Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine) benefitted from PA's portrayal of a grapho-literate Jesus.

All of this makes very good sense, and Keith's argument is well worth reading in full. But I have a question that, so far, has yet to be addressed (or even raised).¹ It seems to me Keith's argument depends a lot on the assumption that the literate Christians needed (or at least found useful) a grapho-literate Jesus for their responses to their pagan opponents. But if these literate, educated Christians (again, including Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine) needed (or at least found useful) a grapho-literate Jesus, and one of these (not necessarily Ambrose, Jerome, or Augustine, but someone like them) inserted PA into John partly in response to non-Christian polemic, then how do we explain the presence of these educated folk among Jesus' followers in the first place? In other words, something attracted grapho-literate people to Christianity even before a grapho-literate Jesus, via PA, entered the Jesus tradition. This is especially the case if we accept Keith's argument, as I'm prone to do, that "the highest educated Christians in the early centuries of the Church tended to be converts who had gained a pagan literate education in their pre-Christian lives" (Keith 2009: 84). Why, then, would these same individuals need to insert PA's image of a grapho-literate Jesus into John's gospel rather than point to whatever factors legitimated their own conversion to Christianity?

While I'm here, I'm still not sure how this Sitz im Leben der Kirche would explain PA's insertion into John's gospel, since, as Keith argues, PA was already widely known (and accepted?) even before it found a canonical home. That is, Keith does not argue that PA originated in the second or third century (as I noted above) but that it was inserted into John's gospel at this time. He also argues that PA did not (necessarily) present a grapho-literate Jesus prior to its insertion in John's gospel, which means that when a scribe inserted PA at John 7.53–8.11 he also took a pericope that didn't mention writing and used it to propose an image of Jesus doing precisely this (see John 8.6, 8). So we have grapho-literate Christian leaders taking an authoritative, if non-canonical, story of Jesus not judging an adulteress and inserting that story into the Fourth Gospel, along with the twice-added mention of Jesus writing in the ground with his finger.

At this point I'm not sure I'm persuaded by Keith's proposal here, but (as I say) he may address my questions a bit further on. And even if not, Keith's analysis of PA and features of the Johannine narrative that may have motivated PA's insertion is very persuasive. But the situation surrounding PA's entrance into John's gospel is largely lost to history, and so Keith is trying to make a proposal on the basis of very sparse evidence. His critique of other proposals makes them largely untenable, and my own questions of Keith's proposal may be simply a function of our inability, absent new evidence, to identify when, how, or why the Pericope Adulterae found a place between John 7 and 8.

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¹ Let me say again, I'm in the middle of Keith's argument (pg. 228; see Keith 2009: 203–56 for his entire discussion of "The Historical Context for the Insertion of the Pericope Adulterae into the Gospel of John"). Knowing my luck, Keith addresses this question on p. 229!

I was part of that decade

[File this under shameless self-promotion.]

James Crossley has very briefly summarized the "naughties" in NT/biblical scholarship. Two of the issues he highlights are (i) the debate between confessional and secular biblical scholarship, and (ii) the rise of memory in the discussion of historical Jesus/Christian origins research. Yours truly [*ahem*] gets a mention along with Bauckham and Dunn; anyone who knows James might not be surprised that these latter two come off as scholars who might benefit from some "mediating." Especially in Bauckham's case, I agree.

Happy New Year

I'd like to wish all [both] of Verily Verily's readers a Happy New Year. I hope 2010 brings blessings and fulfillment for you. May 2009's joys be increased and its pains faded in the new year. If nothing else, at least now I can go to bed.

Judaism and Christianity (Ign. Magn. 8–10)

Michael Holmes introduces chapters 8–10 of his English translation of Ignatius' letter To the Magnesians with the subheading, "Judaism and Christianity." Naturally, my ears pricked up (which was a particularly strange sensation since I read with my eyes; thankfully, my eyes did not "prick up").

The section begins, "Do not be deceived by strange doctrines or antiquated myths, since they are worthless" (Ign. Magn. 8.1).¹ In the preceding context (Ign. Magn. 7) Ignatius exhibits an affinity for Johannine theology, claiming that "the Lord did nothing without the Father" [ὁ κύριος ἄνευ τοῦ πατρὸς οὐδὲν ἐποίησεν; ho kyrios aneu tou patros ouden epoiēsen (7.1)]. He also echoes the Pauline encomium to unity in Eph 4.1–6, through which Ignatius emphasizes the role of the bishop (the singular is important) and the presbyters (note the plural) in delimiting "right" [εὔλογον; eulogon] worship from "worthless" [ἀνωφελέσιν; anōphelesin] "doctrines and myths" (8.1). So far nothing suggests an anti-Judaic polemic.

The very next phrase, however, makes clear Ignatius' meaning. "For if we continue to live in accordance with Judaism, we admit that we have not received grace" [εἰ γὰρ μέχρι νῦν κατὰ Ἰουδαϊσμὸν ζῶμεν, ὁμολογοῦμεν χάριν μὴ εἰληφέναι; ei gar mechri nyn kata Ioudaïsmon zōmen, homologoumen charin mē eilēphenai (Ign. Magn. 8.1)]. The word "Judaism" [Ἰουδαϊσμός; Ioudaismos] is a rare word, with only seven occurrences in all the texts comprising our Septuagint and New Testament.

• In 2 Macc 2.21, Judas Maccabaeus and his brothers are said to have fought bravely for "Judaism" [ὑπὲρ τοῦ Ἰουδαϊσμοῦ; hyper tou Ioudaïsmou].
• Similarly, in 2 Macc 8.1, Judas and his companions secretly enter the villages and summon "their kinfolk and those who had persisted in Judaism" [τοὺς συγγενεῖς καὶ τοὺς μεμενηκότας ἐν τῷ Ἰουδαϊσμῷ; tous syngeneis kai tous memenēkotas en tō Ioudaïsmō]. An observation and a question: First, 2 Maccabees 7 is the famous account of the woman and her seven sons who were martyred for their religious practice (not their religious faith). Second, Is the participial phrase "those who had persisted in Judaism" intended to identify a second group, separate from Judas' kinfolk, or is this two ways of identifying the same group? I lean toward the latter, perhaps with the stipulation that the participial phrase further specifies which of his kinsfolk Judas and his companions called to arms.
• In 2 Macc 14.38, a man named Razis, an elder of Jerusalem who had been given the epithet "father of the Jews" [πατὴρ τῶν Ἰουδαίων; patēr tōn Ioudaiōn (v 37)], is said to have been accused observing Judaism [= Jewish practices] and to have surrendered both his body and his soul for Judaism (the term Ioudaïsmos occurs twice in this verse).
• In 4 Macc 4.26 Antiochus tries to force the Jews "to renounce Judaism" [ἐξόμνυσθαι τὸν Ἰουδαϊσμόν; exomnysthai ton Ioudaïsmon] by forcing them via torture to eat defiling foods. It's worth noting that 4.23 makes clear that the observance of the ancestral law, rather than any particular religious conviction (or "faith"), is especially in view.
• So the two occurrences of Ioudaïsmos in Gal 1.13–14 present a particularly interesting problem. Paul refers in 1.13 to "my former life in Judaism" [τὴν ἐμὴν ἀναστροφήν ποτε ἐν τῷ Ἰουδαϊσμῷ; tēn emēn anastrophēn pote en tō Ioudaïsmō] and claims in 1.14 to have "advanced in Judaism" [προέκοπτον ἐν τῷ Ἰουδαϊσμῷ; proekopton en tō Ioudaïsmō] beyond his peers. On the face of things Paul could be referring to either his religious convictions or his religious practice when he refers to his Ioudaïsmos. But on closer inspection, a number of factors push us toward understanding "Judaism" in terms of behavior rather than religious belief. First, this referent characterizes the other five uses of Ioudaïsmos in the Maccabean literature cited above. Second, Paul himself makes clear that he is discussion his former pattern of behavior, both by his use of ἀναστροφή [anastrophē; "behavior, life, conduct"] and by immediately going on to discuss his persecution of "the church of God" (a behavior rather than a belief). As a result, in Gal 1.14 when Paul describes himself as "more zealous for his ancestral traditions" [περισσοτέρως ζηλωτὴς τῶν πατρικῶν παραδόσεων; perissoterōs zēlōtēs tōn patrikōn paradoseōn], he is most likely referring to his observance of Judaic customs rather than his acceptance of Judaic theology.

Granted, the distinction here can only ever be analytical (practice and belief are, after all, mutually informing). But the biblical (LXX and NT) evidence suggests that the term Ioudaïsmos refers to practice more directly than it does to belief. When an author rejects living "according to Judaism" [κατὰ Ἰουδαϊσμόν; kata Ioudaïsmon (Ign. Magn. 8.1)], the likelihood is that he has in mind Jewish practices rather than Jewish beliefs.² This is an important distinction, I think, because a lot of the NT attests debate regarding how to behave like faithful Israel rather than how to believe like faithful Israel. Even Ignatius, whose indebtedness to Hebrew biblical traditions is remarkably slight (as I've noted on three different occasions), goes on to appropriate Israel's prophetic tradition for "Christ Jesus" (Ign. Magn. 8.2).

In 9.1, then, Ignatius refers to those who lived [ἀναστραφέντες; anastraphentes (the same root that Paul used in Gal 1.13)] by the old practices and who "no longer [keep] the sabbath but [live] in accordance with the Lord's day." Here we seem to have a clear recognition that Jesus' first followers were Jewish, a fact that makes all the more significant their quitting the Sabbath and observing the first day of the week (the day of the resurrection). Implicit in all of this is a not-too-subtle critique of other Jews who, down to Ignatius' own day, continue to observe the Sabbath but not the Lord's day. Magnesians 10.1 refers explicitly to "the way we act" [καθὰ πράσσομεν; katha prassomen], and 10.3 goes on to declare it "utterly absurd to profess Jesus Christ and to practice Judaism" [ἄτοπόν ἐστιν Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν λαλεῖν καὶ ἰουδαΐζειν; atopon estin Iēsoun Christon lalein kai ioudaïzein]. Holmes's translation of ioudaïzein as "to practice Judaism" rightly highlights the behavioral aspects of this verb; the issue is precisely one of behavior (which day of the week to observe, what foods to eat, etc.). Even the remainder of 10.3, which highlights "belief" [πιστεύω; pisteuō ("I believe")], maintains this emphasis (i.e., note that "belief" is something that "every tongue" does).

These three chapters—Ign. Magn. 8–10—provide some very interesting material to think about for any discussion of Judaism, Christianity, and the interaction/distinction between the two in the first centuries CE. I seriously doubt I've scratched the surface with these thoughts, but this passage, I think, is one to which I'll find myself returning in future writings.

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¹ Translations of Ignatius in this post, unless otherwise stated, come from Holmes 2007: 207, 209. All Greek texts come from Holmes 2007: 206, 208. Translations of Septuagintal texts are my own; the Greek LXX text is that of Rahlfs, accessed via BibleWorks 8.

² Holmes lists two textual variants here. The reading found in the main text, "according to Judaism" [κατὰ Ἰουδαϊσμόν], is found in the Latin translation of the middle recension of Ignatius' letters. Codex Mediceo-Laurentianus (the only surviving Greek ms of the middle recension) reads "according to the law of Judaism" [κατὰ νόμον Ἰουδαϊσμόν (?; I would have expected the genitive here)]. The Greek mss of the long recension (and the Armenian version [middle recension]?) read "according to the Judaic law" [κατὰ νόμον Ἰουδαϊκόν]. These variants do not impact my argument, except insofar as the term Ioudaïsmos disappears in the third reading.

getting at the crux

I was able to continue reading Chris Keith's The Pericope Adulterae, The Gospel of John, and the Literacy of Jesus (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2009) yesterday, in part because the family minivan contracted a vehicular strain of swine flu. I suspect a fair bit of scholarship—biblical or otherwise—takes place in automative waiting rooms around the globe.

At any rate, chapters 5–8 represent a turning point in Chris's argument. The first four chapters established the problem and some methodological groundwork, and the next four provide an exegetical discussion of the Pericope Adulterae and the context in which a scribe inserted it (viz., John 7–8). Chris states his thesis clearly at the beginning of chapter six:

What follows will therefore bring these issues to the fore of the discussion by focussing upon the interrelationship of authority, Moses, the law, judgment, and literacy/education as both the crowd and the Jewish leadership attempts to answer the question 'Who is Jesus?' in John 7. (Keith 2009: 143)

One of the marks of an insightful argument, in my judgment, is its power to open new doors in your mind. When you hear the thesis to be argued you begin to see its merits even before you hear the evidence in favor of that thesis. Chris's argument that the debate regarding Jesus' identity and his relation to Moses/the Mosaic Law in John 7 drew the Pericope Adulterae to John 7.53–8.11 more than Jesus' claim to judge no one in 8.15. The Pericope may not be Johannine, in other words, but it does provide evidence of a particular reading of John's gospel in the early (first three or four) centuries of the church's history.

One word of clarification: Notice that Keith's thesis, as stated in the passage quoted above, doesn't argue against John 8.15's relevance for understanding the Pericope's placement. Rather, Keith broadens his view and attempts to demonstrate that both the Pericope and John 8.15 belong to a larger nexus of issues with which John 7–8 (and even John's gospel as a whole) are concerned. Chris's attention to more global, holistic concerns—whether textually, historically, culturally, or whatever—strikes me as entirely appropriate.

Facebook ad: FAIL

I've noticed this ad pop up a number of times on the ad bar of my Facebook page. A number of questions occur to me:

• Is this aimed at luring young Christian men (single or otherwise) away from traditional Christian values [girl as temptress]?
• Is this aimed at luring young non-Christian men (single or otherwise) into Christian circles [girl as bait]?
• Is there any sense in which this doesn't completely miss the point?

scribes and audiences

I've finally found some time to get back to Chris Keith's, The Pericope Adulterae, the Gospel of John, and the Literacy of Jesus (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2009). I've finished the first four chapters, and to this point I've found very little to argue with. In fact, I've been somewhat surprised at the extent of the overlap between Chris's research interests and my own; for example, had I known about his argument regarding the identity and function of "the scribes" [οἱ γραμματεῖς; hoi grammateis] in the New Testament, I would have cited it in my own discussion of the relation between scribes and Pharisees in the synoptic accounts of the Beelzebul controversy (Structuring Early Christian Memory, pp. 180–185). If anything, the main point of difference between Chris's work and my own, I think, concerns his very intense focus on "text-brokerage" (by which the contents and significance of sacred texts are mediated via a small group of literate individuals to a largely illiterate [or insufficiently literate] populace) versus my own interest in the relation between tradition and the texts that embody that tradition. But even here we're both circling around a similar set of questions; namely, How do texts/traditions function within their wider social contexts?

But Keith's fourth chapter, "Scribal Literacy in the New Testament World: The Scribes (and Pharisees) as Text-Brokers," raises a slightly different sent of questions for me than those he pursues. In his comparison/contrast between the synoptic gospels' and Josephus' portrayal of "the scribes," Keith rightly recognizes that the social contexts in which the scribes are portrayed affects how they are portrayed. At one point Keith says,

Even the texts that could possibly be addressed to a predominantly Gentile audience (e.g., Gospel of Mark or Luke-Acts) presume a level of familiarity with a Jewish worldview, as indicated by the fact that these stories are replete with allusions to and direct quotations of the Jewish Scriptures. (Keith 2009: 108)

I like Chris's agnosticism here regarding the gentile make-up of Mark's, Luke-Act's, or even any of the NT texts' audiences. At the very least these texts "presume a level of familiarity with a Jewish worldview." I rather think that the texts posture their audience as a Jewish group regardless of their ethnic composition. For example, I think the author of 1 Peter does address predominantly gentile Christian groups, particularly on the strength of 1 Pet 4.3–4, which says explicitly that 1 Peter's audience used to pursue "the gentiles' desire" [τὸ βούλημα τῶν ἐθνῶν; to boulēma tōn ethnōn]. But 1 Peter also spends considerable time and energy reframing its audiences in Jewish terms, describing them as aliens and strangers, God's elect, a stone set in Zion, a chosen genos [race], a royal priesthood, a holy ethnos [nation], and even as the prophet Hosea's children (see esp. 1 Pet 2.9–10). In other words, when 1 Peter addresses a gentile audience, it takes special measures to address them as Jews.

I don't see any similar special measures in the gospels. Perhaps the difference is generic: The gospels are narratives that don't explicitly address their audience one way or another; 1 Peter, an epistolary text, does identify and address its audience. But more is going on here, I think. To come back to Chris's discussion, Josephus does write narrative (see his Antiquities of the Jews and Jewish War), but his narratives are couched in a rather different symbolic universe:

Josephus portrays scribes according to his 'aim to explain Jewish society in a more intelligible way to his Greek non-jewish audience.' For the Greek audience Josephus addresses, scribes were functionaries whose grapho-literacy [= ability to write] did not translate into sacred literacy [= ability to read/recite/interpret/apply sacred texts]. . . . Contrary to the writings of Josephus, the Synoptic Gospels aim to portray Jewish society (in this respect) on its own terms, even if portraying it as such for the benefit of Gentile readers. (Keith 2009: 109; citing Christine Schams)

Chris focuses narrowly on Josephus' portrayal of γραμματεῖς [grammateis; "scribes"] and the brokers of Jewish sacred texts (e.g., the "sophists" [σοφισταί; sophistai] at War 1.649). But he raises in my mind the question of how Josephus and the evangelists connect their intended (or at least imagined) audiences and sacred Israelite tradition. I don't have sufficient knowledge to speak authoritatively here (not that that usually stops me), but my impression—uninformed as it is—is that Josephus is demonstrably aware that Torah and the prophets are foreign texts vis-à-vis his audience. The gospels, on the other hand, nowhere demonstrate this awareness. The closest they come, unless I'm missing something, is their translation of Aramaic terms or their explication of (certain) Jewish customs (e.g., Mark 5.41; 7.3–4). But this is a long way from what I think we see in Josephus. Perhaps this is an area for further research.

Mark (BECNT)

Maybe I'm just getting grumpy, but . . .

That's probably not the best way to start this post. Let's try again.

This morning I read Robert Stein's introductory discussion of the gospel of Mark in his contribution to the Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Mark [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008]), which I've assigned for the course I'm teaching on Mark in the Spring 2010 term. I appreciate the breadth and thoroughness of Stein's discussion, and I realize that the introduction to a commentary is not the place to expect original or groundbreaking scholarship. Also, I've read two others of Stein's books (A Basic Guide to Interpreting the Bible and The Method and Message of Jesus' Teachings [both 1994]), so I knew as I started this book that Stein represents a very traditional scholarly point of view.

So in the context of my broad appreciation for what Stein has accomplished in publishing this commentary (and it is significant), I found myself increasingly exasperated by Stein's rather uncritical approach to Christian origins and Mark's place therein. For instance,

From within Mark we learn a great deal abut the audience for whom it was written. We know it was a Greek-speaking audience that did not know Aramaic, as Mark's explanations of Aramaic expressions indicate (3:17–22; 5:41; 7:11, 34; 9:43; 10:46; 14:36; 15:22, 34). We also know that it was a Christian audience familiar with the gospel traditions. (Stein 2008: 9).

But do we know these things? And if so, how? Nevermind my general questioning of the utility of identifying Mark's audience as "Christian" (As opposed to what? Jewish? What does this mean?), which would be inappropriate for Stein to discuss, perhaps, in this venue. But why should Mark's explanations indicate necessarily that his audience—either in part or in whole—were unfamiliar with Aramaic? I find it just as probable—more so, even—that we should construe Mark's explanations as evidence that the Markan evangelist was accustomed to presenting the Jesus tradition in situations that might also include people (Jews? God-fearers? gentiles?) who were unfamiliar with Aramaic.

I also question the judgment that Mark's was "a Christian audience familiar with the gospel traditions." I wouldn't want to suggest that Mark wrote for people who were unfamiliar with the gospel. But I don't think familiar is a useful adjective for gospel scholarship. For too long we have spoken of the evangelists as "familiar" with gospel traditions or of those traditions as "sources" for their writings. But this language, rooted in earlier generations of scholarship, fail to express the significance that traditions and customs and ethics—in a word, culture—played in the earliest Christian communities (or any communities, for that matter).

Anthropologist Clifford Geertz famously described culture as "webs of significance" (granted, webs "that we ourselves have spun"), and it's well past time for NT scholars as a whole to appreciate that early Christians—the authors of our texts as well as their audiences—lived and moved and had their beings in worlds defined and constrained by their traditions. We might as well say that Mark's audience "was familiar with" oxygen. Or water. Or love. As I've argued elsewhere, this change in perspective has dramatic consequences not only for our interpretation of the biblical texts but also for our appraisal of them.

Torah scroll at Masada

A ritual scribe has committed himself to inscribing a Torah scroll in the location of Masada's famous synagogue. The story (from IsraelNationalNews.com), is available here.

[HT: Jim Davila]

Biblical imagery in Ignatius' letter To the Ephesians

Yesterday as I sat in the lobby of my doctor's office I picked up Ignatius' epistle To the Ephesians (as one does). I continue to be impressed by the freedom Ignatius apparently feels vis-à-vis Hebrew biblical traditions, at least compared to the constraint (I think that's the word I want) other authors exhibited to live within a world defined by those traditions. Paul may have written his letters in Greek, and the evangelists (or someone[s] before them) may have translated the sayings from and stories about Jesus into Greek, but Ignatius seems to be transposing the gospel into another cultural-linguistic system rather than simply translating. Here, perhaps, is yet another example:

1 Ἄμεινόν ἐστιν σιωπᾶν καὶ εἶναι, ἢ λαλοῦντα μὴ εἶναι, καλὸν τὸ διδάσκειν, ἐὰν ὁ λέγων ποιῇ. εἷς οὖν διδάσκαλος, ὃς εἶπεν καὶ ἐγένετο· καὶ ἃ σιγῶν δὲ πεποίηκεν ἄξια τοῦ πατρός ἐστιν. 2 ὁ λόγον Ἰησοῦ κεκτημένος ἀληθῶς δύναται καὶ τῆς ἡσυχίας αὐτοῦ ἀκούειν, ἵνα τέλειος ᾖ, ἵνα δι᾽ ὧν λαλεῖ πράσσῃ καὶ δι᾽ ὧν σιγᾷ γινώσκηται. 3 οὐδὲν λανθάνει τὸν κύριον, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὰ κρυπτὰ ἡμῶν ἐγγὺς αὐτῷ ἐστιν. πάντα οὖν ποιῶμεν ὡς αὐτοῦ ἐν ἡμῖν κατοικοῦντος, ἵνα ὦμεν αὐτοῦ ναοὶ καὶ αὐτὸς ἐν ἡμῖν θεὸς ἡμῶν, ὅπερ καῖ ἔστιν καὶ φανήσεται πρὸ προσώπου ἡμῶν, ἐξ ὧν δικαίως ἀγαπῶμεν αὐτόν.

1 It is better to be silent with substance than to speak and lack substance. It is a good thing to teach, as long as the speaker heeds his own words. There is one teacher who speaks and reality conforms to his word; even the things he does in his silence are worthy of the Father. 2 The one who truly possesses Jesus' word is even able to hear [Jesus'] silence, so that he is perfect and he acts in accordance with what he says but is known through the things he doesn't need to say. 3 Nothing escapes the Lord; even our secrets are at his fingertips. Therefore, let us do everything in light of his dwelling among us, so that we would be his temples and he would be our God in our midst (since that is what he is, as will be made evident to us by those things we do out of our just love for him). (Ign. Eph. 15.1–3; Greek text from Holmes 2007: 194)

Holmes listed Eph. 15.1 as one of Ignatius' few allusions to biblical traditions (2007: 174, n. 14), as I mentioned here. Ignatius' description of Jesus [!] as the one teacher who speaks reality into existence [ὃς εἶπεν καὶ ἐγένετο; hos eipen kai egeneto] echoes the Septuagint's translation of Genesis 1. For example, "Then God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light" [καὶ εἶπεν ὁ θεός, Γενηθήτω φῶς. καὶ ἐγένετο φῶς; kai eipen ho theos, Genēthētō phōs. kai egeneto phōs (Gen 1.3 LXX)]. This pattern of (i) God speaking [εἶπεν; eipen] and (ii) it being [ἐγένετο; egeneto] continues throughout Genesis 1 (see 1.6, 9, 11, 14–15, 20, 24). Interestingly, there is no corresponding egeneto after God eipen, "Let us make humanity in our image . . ." (1.26), unless I've missed something.

But even here, where I'd like to say that Ignatius is somewhat constrained by the world of Israelite tradition, nothing about Ignatius' language seems to capitalize on the semiotic potential of the first biblical creation account. Instead, Ignatius portrays Jesus as the one who speaks creation into existence (cf. John 1.1–5; Col. 1.15–17) and then goes on to speculate that even Jesus' silence is creative (redemptive?). Ignatius, in other words, seems to be reflecting less on the tradition of God creating the cosmos and more on New Testament traditions of Jesus, traditions which themselves do reflect more conscientiously and pervasively on, among other things, the tradition of God creating the cosmos.

But what I think is really interesting is that Ignatius could have taken up creation traditions in order to make the point he's making. The statement in Gen 1.26 that God wants to make humanity "in his image" takes aim, among other things, at polytheistic religious practices. The other nations worship images of their gods, but Israel is the image of her God. And if the images of the nations' gods dwell in man-made temples, the Spirit of Israel's God dwells among his people and sanctifies them as his holy presence. Ignatius, arrested for some unknown reason and being marched across the Roman empire to face the lions in Rome's newly built Coliseum, could have consoled himself and his readers that the Lord will avenge the desecration of his image (is anyone aware of any use of the creation accounts in this fashion among Jewish and Christian martyrological traditions?).

But instead, he turns immediately to the contrast between Jesus' creative word "in the beginning" and his redemptive silence before the Sanhedrin and before Pontius Pilate. In other words, Ignatius seems to dwell in a world colored by Hebrew biblical tradition only indirectly, inasmuch as Hebrew biblical tradition colors the texts and stories coming out of the first two or three generations of Christian activity. If I'm reading him rightly, Ignatius is reflecting consciously on various New Testament texts and only dimly, if at all, aware without any concern that those texts are indebted to the forms and expressions and significances of biblical tradition.

The Pericope Adulterae and why it's there

A few weeks ago I began reading the published version of Chris Keith's PhD thesis (University of Edinburgh), The Pericope Adulterae, the Gospel of John, and the Literacy of Jesus (New Testament Tools, Studies and Documents 38; Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2009), which I'm reviewing for Biblical Theology Bulletin. Chris and I went to college together and so have many of the same interests, though we work in different (but overlapping) sections of the canon. After the last book I reviewed, it's a breath of fresh air read a well-written, concise, and clear argument. On top of that, Chris is one of the most insightful NT critics I've met personally. Needless to say, I'm enjoying the book.

I don't have much to report at this time; my comments here are mainly to ease the pressure I feel for having started reading this book a few weeks ago but not mentioning it here. The introductory chapter lays a few methodological principles, and the first two chapters survey (i) the interpretation of John 7.53–8.11 and (ii) the referent of καταγράφω [katagraphō; "inscribe, register, write"] and γράφω [graphō; "write"], respectively. I'm reading the third chapter at this point, which discusses the dynamics of reading and writing (two separate and separable skills) in the ancient world.

All of this is in service of a larger argument that the significance of the interpolation of the Pericope Adulterae is that Jesus could write rather than what he wrote. Keith identifies thirty-eight [!!] interpretations of Jesus' writing in John 8.6, 8, and then, of course, the thirty-ninth position, which acknowledges that the text does not communicate—and so is not interested in—what Jesus wrote. So why the double-mention of Jesus writing? In our world, where even first-grade children know how to write letters in the ground, John 8.6, 8 don't make an impressive claim. But, Keith argues, in the first centuries of the church's history, writing had a different significance, and John 8.6, 8 claim that significance for Jesus.

More will come later, especially as I get into Keith's argument proper (rather than the foundational chapters I'm reading now). At $169 not many of you will be able to buy your own copy (though I was able to find a copy online for less than $115!). But I would recommend that everyone interested in John's gospel, the historical Jesus, or media dynamics of the ancient world find a way to get a copy of this book, whether through a local seminary or university library, interlibrary loan at a public library, or, in a few years, when used copies begin to crop up online for less than $50.

why I love the muppets

This video isn't the reason I love the Muppets, but it contains all of those reasons in one five-minute clip. And does Keith Olbermann make a half-second cameo toward the end?



[HT: Robin Parry]

a martyrological discussion of Ignatius

I started reading Clayton Jefford's The Apostolic Fathers and the New Testament (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2006), an easy-to-follow introduction to this disparate corpus of texts from sundry times, locales, and occasions. Of course, I'm especially interested in these texts' participation in traditional universes, and in particular how those universes relate to those of the NT texts. As I've stated elsewhere, Ignatius seems to be remarkably detached from the universes defined by and populated with Hebrew biblical traditions, traditions which seem to inform and contextualize just about every word of the New Testament.

So I was very intrigued when Jefford's begins his discussion of martyrologies in the Apostolic Fathers (a discussion that first turns to Ignatius' letters) by briefly mentioning 2 Maccabees and 4 Maccabees. The utility of these Jewish texts for framing Ignatius' letters isn't immediately apparent, as Jeffords notes (e.g., p. 47, n. 16). Jefford writes,

The matter of martyrologies within early patristic literature is most interesting in that the roots of this genre surely must lie within late [sic] Jewish and early Christian literature. At the same time, however, those roots are perhaps vague at best. For our present purposes, I will initiate the discussion of the genre "martyrology" with the works of 2 Maccabees and 4 Maccabees. . . . I begin with these texts because it is evident to me that the bishop Ignatius envisioned himself and his predicament within the borders of the philosophy of "reason over passion" extolled by the author of 4 Maccabees. (Jeffords 2006: 47)

I want Jefford to be right, but two points give me pause. First, I'm just not sure how Jefford conceives ancient Judaism that he can refer to Roman-era texts as "late Jewish literature." This, of course, was the standard way of referencing Jewish texts among NT scholars of a previous generation, and I hope Jefford is not falling into that way of thinking. This is a deceptively significant issue; Does Jefford conceive Judaism as coming to an end (and therefore no longer interacting with) the early church? I don't think so, but I can't explain the language otherwise.

Second, the link between Ignatius and 4 Maccabees is very tenuous: "The terminology that Ignatius employs in his letters and the position that he assumes with respect to his captors seem to betray his dependence upon the perspective of this text" (viz., 4 Maccabees; 2006: 47–48; my emphasis). Jefford only explicitly names one link: Ignatius' famous reference to his captors as "leopards" [λεόπαρδοι; leopardoi] at Ign. Rom. 5.1 (cf. 4 Macc 9.28). Otherwise, notice that the dependence is merely "upon the perspective of" 4 Maccabees. If this is all the two share, I'm inclined to side with Bowersock, "who argues that Ignatius and the author of 4 Maccabees simply are the common participants of their times" (Jefford 2006: 47, n. 16; citing G. W. Bowersock, Martyrdom and Rome [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995], 77–82).

If we prefer Bowersock to Jefford here, then it strikes me as all the more surprising that Jewish tradition, biblical as well as post-biblical, offered such robust resources for Ignatius to comprehend and respond to his world. But he doesn't utilize those resources in any significant way. And coupled with Paul's immersion in a biblical universe—Paul, of whom Ignatius is demonstrably fond—I am "doubly all the more surprised" at Ignatius lack of reference to Israelite tradition. Could this be intentional? If so, why? What does this say about the Antiochene bishop's conception of Christianity and the church? Questions questions everywhere!

A scholar goes into a BAR in Houson . . .

Okay . . . so I'm not as clever as I like to imagine. Still, April DeConick links to her "Debut in BAR." I'm not as cynical (is that the right word?) as DeConick about faith or scholarship. But I do think that texts and traditions such as the Gospel of Thomas are of tremendous importance for illuminating not only (i) how others were handling biblical traditions but also (ii) the discursive environment in which those ancient texts with which we are more familiar contested and struggled and maneuvered.

silent praise

This was absolutely a hilarious video. I wish I could sing like these guys . . . er, brethren.

[HT: Chris Brady]

some (less) preliminary thoughts on Ignatius of Antioch

As I mentioned previously, I recently began reading the Apostolic Fathers. After reading Whitacre's text and translation of Ignatius' letter To The Romans (in A Patristic Greek Reader [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007]), I thought I noticed a shift in Ignatius (from the NT authors, the author of the Didache, and from Clement of Rome) regarding his use and thinking in terms of Hebrew biblical traditions.

Today, I returned to Michael Holmes's text of the Apostolic Fathers and read Holmes's introduction to Ignatius. He begins with a wonderful description of Ignatius, which I reproduce here:

Just as we become aware of a meteor only when, after traveling silently through space for untold millions of miles, it blazes briefly through the atmosphere before dying in a shower of fire, so it is with Ignatius, bishop of Antioch in Syria. We meet him for the first time for just a few weeks not long before his death as a martyr in Rome early in the second century. But during those weeks he wrote, virtually as his "last will and testament," seven letters of extraordinary interest because of the unparalleled light they shed on the history of the church at that time, and because of what they reveal about the remarkable personality of the author. (Holmes 2007: 166)

Still only on the basis of my cursory reading of Ignatius' To The Romans, I find Holmes's description compelling. In that letter Ignatius is almost obsessive in his concern that he be able to "attain God" [τοῦ θεοῦ ἐπιτυχεῖν; tou theou epituchein (Rom. 1.2, passim)], which is synonymous for Ignatius with his successful (and gruesome!) martyrdom.

In his discussion of Ignatius' "Sources and Cultural Context," Holmes acknowledges that Ignatius "makes very little use of the Old Testament" (2007: 174) and mentions only three citations (Eph. 5.3; Magn. 12; Trall. 8.2) and three allusions (Eph. 15.1; Magn. 10.3; 13.1; see Holmes 2007: 174, n. 14). Perhaps not surprisingly, Ignatius is very influenced by Pauline tradition and perhaps broader streams of New Testament tradition (including John and/or Matthew). But given the shot-through-ness of those earlier texts with allusions to, connections with, and even citations of Hebrew biblical traditions, I'm intrigued by how Ignatius can be shaped by Paul but largely unserved by the resources Hebrew biblical traditions offered him for understanding and responding to his arrest and martyrdom.

Tomorrow (or later today, since I'm not very motivated to get to my work), I'll start reading Ignatius' To the Ephesians. Should be fun!

in today's mail

Okay . . . so I've wanted to get to this post all day, but first my Gospel Narratives final exam and then Midnight Breakfast (which started at 9.00 pm!) kept me from my computer. When I got the mail today, hidden amidst the bills and various solicitations, was Structuring Early Christian Memory, the published version of my PhD thesis. I looks . . . well, it looks like every other volume in T&T Clark's Library of New Testament Studies series, except that it has my name on the cover and spine. In other words, it's very sexy.

A few of my colleagues have commented on the price, and I am a little embarrassed at the $140 list. The price, however, is a reflection of the very limited print run more than a statement of its intrinsic value. And no, I don't get $50 for each copy sold.

Speaking of copies sold, tonight at Midnight Breakfast one of my colleagues told me that she bought a copy. You can get it from Amazon.com for 37% off (which is actually better than my author's discount with T&T Clark!!), but it's still over $85. But hey, shipping's free, so . . . At any rate, she's the first person that I know of who's bought my book, so I should be slowly creeping up the Amazon Sales Rank now.

UPDATE: I was remiss in not providing requisite photographic evidence of the book; I have now rectified the oversight.

[HT: Chris Keith]

in the meantime

The last month has been a bit of a blur, making it difficult to find time to blog. Now the semester is over (well, final exams are next week; but classes have finished), and all I have left is grading and preparing for next semester.

Since I finished reading through my Greek New Testament nearly a month ago, I've been working through the Apostolic Fathers in fairly unsystematic fashion. I've managed to acquire a number of helpful resources: For those with only a tenuous grasp of Greek, I've found Rodney A. Whitacre's A Patristic Greek Reader (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007) a very helpful introduction to the Greek texts of early Christian writings. For the complete text of the Apostolic Fathers I've been reading Michael W. Holmes's The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations (third edition; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007). I also have the first volume of Bart Ehrman's revised Loeb Classical Library edition, The Apostolic Fathers (two vols.; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003 [volume 1; volume 2]), but I have stuck mostly to Holmes's one-volume edition.

In the last month I've read the Didache, 1 Clement, and Ignatius' epistle To The Romans. What has struck me thus far is the different ethos with respect to biblical tradition that characterizes those three texts. The Didache (an early church manual with strong resonances with Matthew) sounds a lot like a NT text, though considerably more focused on the life of the church. As a NT scholar, I'm used to inferring the church's conduct from gospel texts; the Didache, even more than the NT epistolary texts, explicitly addresses how the church ought to pray, celebrate the Eucharist, welcome itinerant missionaries, etc.

1 Clement, on the other hand, reads a bit more like a Pauline epistle (with considerable differences, to be sure). But 1 Clement, like the NT texts, lives in a world defined by and filled with Hebrew biblical traditions. Here Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Job, and others appear not just as characters but also reference points for apprehending and interpreting late-first-century realities and responding appropriately to them. In 1 Clement the church continues to find nourishment and succor from her Israelite roots.

Ignatius, however, strikes me differently. Granted, I've still six Ignatian letters to read through, and I don't know what I'll encounter there. But in To The Romans, Ignatius doesn't take advantage of the opportunities afforded by Hebrew biblical traditions to make sense of and respond to his impending martyrdom. He clearly does understand what will happen to him, but Israel's story doesn't seem to play much, if any, role in how he understands it. I'm wondering, in other words, if Ignatius, unlike the author of the Didache, Clement, or the NT authors, distinguishes between the stories of Christ and of Israel.

wishing you the world

I wish all of JBC's students (and everyone else besides) a very merry Christmas. May you find the peace and joy we all long for throughout the rest of the year.

as the SBL looms . . .

Today's Chronicle of Higher Education features a new phenomenon just in time for this year's SBL Annual Meeting in New Orleans, LA (I leave Friday morning): "tweckling."

Tweckle (twek'ul) vt. to abuse a speaker only to Twitter followers in the audience while he/she is speaking.

I've panned presentations here on Verily Verily, but given that I don't Twitter I probably won't tweckle, either. I would only add to the Chronicle's feature a note that tweckling reflects not just on soporific presenters but also on easily distracted attendees.

zeroing in on the nail's head

Since late 2005 I've been trying to put my finger on a problem within New Testament research that, I think, skews a great number of facets of that research. Yesterday, as I continued reading Barry Joslin's book, Hebrews, Christ, and the Law (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2008), I think I made some progress in trying to formulate the problem I hope to address in future research.

Joslin provides an exegetical discussion of Heb 8.1–13 in chapter five. Hebrews 8, of course, has the lengthy reference to Jer 31.31–34 [LXX = 38.31–34] in which YHWH promises a "new covenant" with the houses of Judah and Israel. Throughout Joslin's book this "new covenant" self-evidently implies the passing of the old, Mosaic covenant. The reference to Israel and Judah, then, become somewhat of a problem. Joslin writes,

Though Jeremiah specifically addresses Israel and Judah, it becomes clear that Hebrews sees the prophecy's fulfillment in the eschatological days of the present time, and that it is applicable to more than simply the Jewish nation, though clearly they are not excluded. (186; my emphasis)

The problem I have, I think, begins with the two clauses that Joslin introduces with the concessive conjunction "though." First, Joslin has to find a way to diminish the Jeremianic reference to Israel and Judah. I don't necessarily fault Joslin here; he's writing about Hebrews, not Jeremiah. If Hebrews diminishes the explicitly Israelite/Judahite focus of Jer 31.31–34, Joslin would need to do so as well. I'm not convinced that Hebrews does this, however, but that's another (though related) subject. In fact, now that I look back at Joslin's quote, this seems to be precisely his point: Jeremiah focuses on Israel and Judah; Hebrews, not so much.

But, and second, the second though-phrase has to back-pedal and reserve a place for Israel and Judah within the Jeremianic new covenant. At this point, then, either the author of Hebrews has misread Jeremiah, or Joslin has misread Hebrews. And it isn't simply deference for Hebrews's privileged place within the canon that makes me prefer the latter option. Hebrews invokes a world determined and defined by Hebrew biblical tradition, by the story of Israel's God and his relationship with his covenant people. Indeed, Hebrews takes up and manipulates those traditions and that story in order to achieve certain ends in its own present.

But one thing Hebrews—and the rest of the New Testament, it seems to me—does not do is "reserve" a place for Israel. The texts comprising the New Testament do not regard Israel (and the Jews enveloped within that label) as ancillary to God. Those texts, in different ways but all together, begin with a notion of God's election of Israel and proceed (again, in different ways but all together) to extend that notion to the nations beyond Israel. Any argument that has to include a caveat such as, "though clearly they are not excluded," is already moving in the wrong direction.

Whence comes this analytical anomaly? The self-evident split between Christianity and Judaism in our own world, I think, has distorted our analyses of the NT texts, of Christian origins, and of late Second Temple Judaism in general. Given that the NT texts are Christian texts, and given that Christianity ≠ Judaism, critical analyses have to explain the role Jews play in the symbolic universe(s) built and inhabited by Jesus' followers. As a result, scholarly discourse on Christian origins resembles a horse being led around by its cart, and exegetical work (such as Joslin's) guided by such a wayward horse is equally lost.

To be clear, eventually Christianity would become something other than Judaism, a fact that present religio-political realities make obvious. And even in antiquity, theologians and bishops comfortable wearing the label Christian but who refused the label Jew would have to wrestle with their strange patterns of identification. But the texts of the NT—and the authors thereof—don't seem to have made this distinction. The point in Heb 8.1–13 is clearly not that the Jews were clearly not excluded from the new covenant. This was never in doubt!

done!

Last December I began reading through my Greek New Testament. Not in order (Matthew to Revelation). Not even very systematically. But [almost] every day. It was sorta a spiritual thing, but it was also about exposing myself to Greek texts everyday. More than that, it was about reading Greek texts everyday, as opposed to the closer, more analytical work I do (also almost daily) with Greek texts.

Of course I did a lot of translating on the way. But I also tried hard to understand without translating—to engage the text as a Greek text rather than to transmogrify the text into a quasi-English text before engaging it. I read a lot aloud, but probably not as much as I should have. But always my goal was to read the text rather than translate the text.

At any rate, today I finished the last book: Acts. I'm considering a similar program for Hebrew, though I can't even imagine trying to work through the Hebrew Bible in a year [!]. But maybe the Pentateuch. Or maybe just Gen 1. Best to start with reasonable expectations.

Regarding Greek, my plan is to start on the Apostolic Fathers next. I'd also like to work through some of the Greek Second Temple Jewish texts, but my immediate research interests pull me more vigorously toward those later texts at the moment. But today felt strangely like some sort of milestone, so I thought it deserved a mention here.

Is this a logical problem?

I'm still reviewing Barry C. Joslin's Hebrews, Christ, and the Law, and I'm struggling a bit to understand its logic. I earnestly welcome clarification from anyone who thinks they understand the logic behind this statement:

Drawing from the only other mention of Melchizedek besides Psalm 110:4, he describes his meeting with Abraham when Abraham was returning from the slaughter of the kings in Genesis 14. Hebrews is only concerned with Melchizedek insofar as much as [sic] he relates to Christ, and receives attention simply because his priestly office and this meeting with Abraham supply evidence for the writer's main thesis, viz., that there is a new priesthood that is superior to the old. (135–136; my emphasis)

Forget the grammatical problem in the middle of the quote; any work of this length and sophistication will suffer a few problems like this. Forget even the non sequitur at this quote's beginning, in which Joslin refers to Genesis 14 as "the only other mention of Melchizedek besides Psalm 110:4." Nothing about Genesis 14 is "the only other mention"; Genesis 14 provides the account of Melchizedek and Abraham, and Psa 110.4 is "the only other mention" of Melchizedek. But Joslin misses this because he isn't concerned with Melchizedek; he's only concerned about priesthood, and Melchizedek is a label that simply means "not-Levitical" (see 135, n. 7). The text might as well have said Christ is a priest forever according to the order of Gidget, and only the consonants מלכי־צדך [mlky-ṣdk] in Psa 110.4 prevented him from doing so.

But I'm struggling with the point that Joslin reads into Hebrews 7. Given the text's logic—that Levi was still in Abraham's loins when Abraham offered his tithe to Melchizedek and so Levi offered tithes to Melchizedek—I don't see how the writer's point could possibly be that Christ belongs to a new priesthood, and that this new priesthood is superior to the old one. If anything, it seems to me that Hebrews places the Levitical priesthood in the category new; Christ's priesthood, then, being according to the order of Melchizedek, is both older and, therefore, superior.

Am I missing something here?!

What John doesn't say

A good friend of mine has explored the Fourth Evangelist's conception of memory in an interesting essay called, "Why John Wrote a Gospel: Memory and History in an Early Christian Community" (Memory, Tradition, and Text: Uses of the Past in Early Christianity [A. Kirk and T. Thatcher, eds.; Atlanta: SBL, 2005], 79–97), which he later expanded into Why John WROTE a Gospel: Jesus—Memory—History (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2006). In the essay he addresses the Fourth Evangelist's conception of "memory," especially given the somewhat unusual passages in John 2.21 and 12.16:

Then, when Jesus was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered [ἐμνήσθησαν; emnēsthēsan] that he said this, and they believed the scripture as well as the word Jesus had spoken. (John 2.21)

His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus had been glorified, then they remembered [ἐμνήσθησαν; emnēsthēsan] that these things were written about him, and that they did these things to him. (John 12.16)

Of course, the reference to the disciples later remembering what Jesus had said/done in John 2 comes at the end of John's account of the Temple incident, and especially Jesus' answer to "the Jews," "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it" (2.19). In John 12 the events that were later remembered concerned Jesus' entry into Jerusalem amidst acclaims of blessing as the one who comes in the name of the Lord. These are clearly pivotal events in the Fourth Gospel's account of Jesus' life, and the evangelist explicitly acknowledges that, beyond actually witnessing Jesus' ministry, "remembering" Jesus' life from a perspective informed by (i) the resurrection and (ii) the Paraclete [= Holy Spirit] are crucial for anyone wanting to properly understand Jesus.

As I was reading Craig Koester's The Word of Life: A Theology of John's Gospel (Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2008), a question stuck in my head. First, the passage from Koester responsible for making me think:

Jesus speaks of dying as the act of giving his flesh. He tells the crowd that what "I give for the life of the world is my flesh" (6:51). In what follows, Jesus speaks of those who eat his flesh and drink his blood, using disturbingly graphic terms to underscore the reality of his death (6:53–56). . . . [Many] recognize that the primary level of meaning concerns crucifixion, which is the way Jesus' flesh is given and his blood is shed." (84)

In John's gospel, Jesus says a lot of difficult things, whether about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, as here, or about living water flowing out of people, or those who oppose him being the children of the devil, and so on. What surprises me, however, is that the evangelist doesn't add more comments that later, after Jesus had appeared to his followers raised from the dead, that then they understood his comment about eating his flesh and drinking his blood. How appropriate it would have been, in my opinion, for the narrator to have added the words in bold:

Then Jesus said to them, "Verily, verily I tell you: Unless you eat the Son of Man's flesh and drink his blood, you do not have life among you. But whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood does have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in them." His disciples had no clue what Jesus was talking about, but later, when he had been raised from the dead and had explained the Law and the prophets to them, they remembered his words and rejoiced. (John 6.53–56, and then some)

But John doesn't say that, and I'm a little intrigued why not. There are no answers to this question, of course; John also never tells us if Jesus ever got indigestion or if he ever sneezed so hard it hurt his back. But from where I sit, Jesus' words in John 6 are much more difficult to "remember" than his statement in the Temple or his acclamation on the road into Jerusalem. But I think one point is fairly clear: In order to read the whole gospel properly, the evangelist intends us to remember every pericope, every paragraph, even every word, with the enhanced memory informed by Jesus' resurrection and the guidance of the Counselor who comes in Jesus' absence (John 15.26–27).

200 posts

A bit after I published my last post, I realized that that was my 200th post. Now this isn't an impressive feat. I published my maiden post on Wednesday, 21 September 2005. So in a little over four years I managed to do what Jim West does in six hours. Still, 200 posts is 200 posts, and I've done it. I look forward to hitting that all-important milestone, 250 posts, sometime in 2016.

a rather nice piece, I should think

Slate.com has a rather nice piece by—wait for it . . . —Christopher Hitchens. It isn't often that I can find myself in the descriptions of people like me (viz., conservative Christian who takes the traditional claims and teachings of the Christian church seriously enough to leave them open to question), especially when those descriptions are written by people like Hitchens.

There's still a world of disagreement; of course there is. But the tone Hitchens strikes in this essay enables, even invites conversation and debate. I can't help but think that Jesus would have enjoyed speaking with someone like Hitchens (well, Hitchens as he conducts himself in this particular Slate article). Of course, unless Hitchens brushes up on his Aramaic, they probably wouldn't have found very much to say to each other . . .

HT: Doug Chaplin

Pilate and Jesus' crucifixion

Last week I was writing a lecture on the political dynamics of the gospels' accounts of Jesus' trials and crucifixion. This morning, as I was reading through Craig Koester's book, The Word of Life: A Theology of John's Gospel (Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2008), I came across this quote, which resonated exactly with what I wrote a week ago.

It is not always clear whether readers are to see Pilate as a weak and indecisive figure or as a powerful and shrewd administrator (18:29–19:22). . . . Yet the appearance of weakness might be deceiving, since Pilate's actions finally serve Roman political interests quite well. He does not agree to crucify Jesus until the Jewish authorities reaffirm their loyalty to the emperor, and the sign Pilate puts above the cross simply calls Jesus the King of the Jews, which disturbs the Jewish leaders because it gives the impression that the Romans are executing an actual Jewish king. Pilate's refusal to change the sign suggests that the is quite content to give the impression that he is crucifying Jewish national aspirations along with Jesus. (Koester, The Word of Life, 72; my emphasis)

The irony, of course, is that Caiaphas sought to have Jesus executed in order to preserve the nation. But in Pilate's hands, the crucifixion of this supposed messianic pretender only further subjected the nation to Rome's power.

another reason to love Greek

Earlier I mentioned ἀποτυμπανίζειν [apotympanizein], a word that I might not need often but that comes in really handy when I do. I offer today another word that I might not use everyday. But if my wife spoke Greek, this word just might reduce the number of words I would need to answer the question, "What did you do at work today, honey?" According to the Louw-Nida Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, μοσχοποιεῖν [moschopoiein] means "to make a calf-idol, to shape an idol in the form of a calf" (§6.101). I hereby coin an equally convenient English verb, to calfdolatrize, as the standard English equivalent to μοσχοποιεῖν.

The new, authorized translation of Acts 7.41 is, then:

They calfdolatrized in those days, and they offered a sacrifice to their idol, and they rejoiced in the works of their hands.

The word of the Lord.

Philo and Paul

In my reading of Joslin's book on Hebrews (see my comments here) I'm currently elbow-deep in his discussion of Philo's view of the law. In a sub-section entitled, "Philo and the Patriarchs" (71–72), Joslin writes,

Philo also paints an idealized picture of the patriarchs. He states that they embodied the law and intuitively obeyed the Torah before it was written by Moses. In short, the patriarchs lived according to true virtue since the written law codified what was known to be both true and virtuous. In his concluding statements on Abraham, Philo writes that the patriarch "obeyed the law . . . himself a law and an unwritten statute." (71; citing Philo, On Abraham 276)

Joslin also cites an article by John W. Martens ("Philo and the 'Higher' Law." Society of Biblical Literature 1991 Seminar Papers 30 [1991]: 309–22). My question: Is anyone aware of anyone bringing this Philonic evidence to bear on Paul's (nearly) contemporary argument in Rom 2.14–15 regarding the gentiles "being a law for themselves" [ἑαυτοῖς εἰσιν νόμος; heautois eisin nomos]? Is anyone out there familiar with Martens's work?