A friend of mine–currently writing his PhD dissertation while in a witness protection program for knowing me–recently passed on the following quotes from James Barr. Barr, who died in 2006, was a world-renown Old Testament scholar, known for such linguistic classics as The Semantics of Biblical Language and Comparative Philology and the Text of the [Read More...]

American Christians must take on the difficult work of understanding how whiteness has been woven like a cancer into their Christianity.

If you haven’t had a chance, do take the time to watch 16-year old Malala Yousafzai addressing young people at the United Nations last week. Watching her is really remarkable.  Here are a few things that she said not only about educating girls along with boys, but also for the multi-faith inspiration for her nonviolent response [Read More...]

“Debate” is a parlor trick.

That doesn’t mean I don’t admire the skill, practice and dedication such showmanship requires, but I’m less impressed watching someone trained in “debate” deftly handling their arguments than I am watching, say, Ricky Jay handling a deck of cards.

Jay’s performance is better because, unlike those practiced in debate, he’s not suffering from shut-eye. He knows he’s performing a trick and — even if his patter may playfully suggest otherwise — he knows that we know it too. We watch the cards dance in his fingers, disappearing and re-appearing as if by magic, but we all know and accept that it isn’t really “magic” — just the remarkable, dazzling, entertaining execution of a clever trick.

Any magic act would be far less entertaining — and far less impressive — if the “magician” were genuinely trying to convince us otherwise. Or if he seemed foolish enough to believe otherwise himself. We’ll play along with magical powers as the conceit of a trick, but only as a conceit. I’m amazed and delighted at the skill with which Ricky Jay manipulates a deck of cards, but that skill would be cheapened and that amazement diminished if it required either the performer or his audience to believe that something more than skillful manipulation was at work.

And that’s the problem with debate. It invites the audience — and even more so the performers themselves — to regard it as something more than simply the skillful execution of tricks. The audience is asked to believe that this prestidigitation is meaningful, that it reveals truth. And, even worse, it asks the performers themselves to believe that. It convinces them to be tricked by their own trickery. These skilled illusionists become delusionists, infected by the old shut-eye. They are tempted to believe their own patter and wind up convincing themselves that the parlor trick of debate has something to do with the open-minded, single-minded pursuit of truth.

That’s not what debate is about. Debate is about winning. That’s why they keep score — why there’s such a thing as debate teams who compete against other teams. They compete for trophies and titles, not for truth.

The rules of debate say as much, otherwise the outcome of every such competition would be predetermined by the initial assignment of sides. The whole game is a construct designed to ensure that neither side has an advantage. The only way for the contest to be fair — or to be any fun — is if it is conducted in such a manner that it doesn’t ultimately matter whether or not the side being argued is ultimately true. It is a construct designed, quite effectively, to segregate truth from winning — a way of “scoring” arguments irrespective of any necessary correlation to anything actual. The winning tactic thus may be a maneuver that effectively conceals, evades, deflects, buries or obscures any truths that might be damaging to the argument of one’s assigned side.

Such debate competition can be useful training for anyone interested in pursuing truth outside of the competitive construct of such contests. Learning to employ such tactics of deflection, concealment and obfuscation can be an excellent way of learning to recognize their use outside of the debate arena — i.e., in real life, where truth is what matters and not just scoring points. And learning to counter such tactics is eminently practical training for both the artificial setting of the arena and the actual setting of the real world.

But the value of such training is lost if those trained in debate become infected with the shut-eye — if they begin to confuse winning with reasoning, point-scoring with truth. When that happens, the performers forget they are performing. They are tricked by their own tricks.

This is why I find so much of the so-called “Christian apologetics” so disheartening. That’s true for the clumsy, botched sleight-of-hand of a Ray Comfort — aces protruding from his sleeves and a handkerchief peeking out from beneath an oversized, mismatched thumb tip as he proclaims “Ta-da!” and takes his bow. But it’s just as true for the masterful manipulation of a skilled performer like William Lane Craig. I’ll happily applaud when he opens the sealed envelope from inside the corked bottle and reveals the very playing card I had chosen at random, moments before. Bravo! Well done! Wonderful trick! But, no, it’s no reason to believe in actual magic. Expert showmanship isn’t the same as the pursuit of truth — even if the showmen themselves seem to have forgotten the difference.

When Ray Comfort challenges someone to a debate over the truth of Christianity, I wince because I am a Christian and I know that Comfort is most likely going to “lose” that debate, leading some to the mistaken conclusion that this indicates something meaningful about the truth or untruth of what I believe. When William Lane Craig challenges someone to a debate over the truth of Christianity, I wince because I am a Christian and I know that Craig is most likely going to “win” that debate, leading some to the mistaken conclusion that this indicates something meaningful about the truth or untruth of what I believe. Such winning and losing at the game of debate is as meaningful as winning or losing in a poker game with Ricky Jay. (Note: You will lose.)

This little rant was prompted by Libby Anne’s post earlier today on the “Brainwashed shock troops” of the fundamentalist homeschooling movement and by Rachel Slick’s guest post at the Friendly Atheist earlier this week, “The Atheist Daughter of a Notable Christian Apologist Shares Her Story.” Both posts are in the form of what we evangelicals call a “personal testimony” — albeit in the opposite direction.

What’s striking to me in both testimonies is the way in which trickery and truth are confused by so many fundamentalist parents. They come to confuse winning with meaning, and convince themselves to believe that their manipulation really is magic. But to quote C.S. Lewis — someone who flirted with the old shut-eye himself and later came to regret it — “reality is harsh to the feet of shadows.” Outside the artificial arena of the game of debate, there’s no panel of judges keeping score and awarding points for clever tricks. In the real world, everything will be tested. So test everything. And hold on to the good.

The good — not whatever wins or whatever scores points.

Rather than training their little fundie “shock troops” in the craft of debate, these parents would be better served — and their children would be better served — to teach them the practice of dialogue. “Debate” can carry you only until you encounter a situation in which your tricks don’t matter. Or until you encounter someone who knows better tricks than you do.

These homeschooling parents should scrap all these debate teams and replace them with something far harder but far more practical for real life in the real world: Improv.

I’m deadly serious about that. I realize improv training is trendy and that, as Ayun Halliday writes, “There’s big money in teaching corporate executives the rules of improvisation.” But even if I dread the crimes against comedy that would likely be committed by legions of fundamentalist homeschooling improv troupes, the exercise would require them all to learn and to practice and to acquire the art of listening.

And that skill better equips one to seek and to find the truth than any amount of debate trickery ever could.

 

Last year my wife and I went on a tour of Turkey. While we were there we visited the ancient Roman city Aphrodisias where I was first introduced to a former slave named Zoilos. I posted a blog about our visit (here) with some thoughts on the similarities and differences between Zoilos and Onesimus.

Last month I published an article in Biblical Archaeology Review based on that blog post. An edited version is now available on Bible History Daily.

Incidentally, my friend and colleague, Tim Gombis, is beginning a series on Philemon & Onesimus over on his blog Faith Improvised. Tim is going to argue that Philemon and Onesimus were actual brothers. Tim and I have talked about this in private and he knows that I disagree with him. But I look forward to hearing his thoughts afresh now that he has had time to put them in the form of a research paper. Perhaps he will change my mind.

Back in 2010, I read one of the most scathing book reviews I'd ever seen.  Unfortunately, it was of my own book, The Pericope Adulterae, the Gospel of John, and the Literacy of Jesus (Brill 2009).  The review appeared in the Journal of Theological Studies and was written by J. Keith Elliott.  You can read it here.  I should also add that shortly before the publication of the review, I won a 2010 John Templeton Award for Theological Promise from the Forschungszentrum Internationale und Interdisziplinaere Theologie at the University of Heidelberg based on the book.  So I received this harsh negative feedback in a context of simultaneously receiving encouraging positive feedback.

Elliott managed in the space of about three or four pages to criticize the cover of the book (which I didn't pick), the foreword of the book (which I didn't write), the price of the book (which I didn't set), the fact that I published a chapter in the form of an article too closely to the publication of the book (the time frame for which I didn't control), as well as my chapter titles and dedications.  He referred to my dedication of the book to a friend, my mother (for having survived two forms of cancer), my wife, and my (at the time) newborn son as "embarrassing and overblown."  He ended the review by taking the words I wrote to my son in the dedications out of context to make it look like I was dismissive of my own study.  The problem was not limited to the unprofessional act of dragging an author's dedicatory words to family members into an academic review that, ostensibly, was supposed to focus on the actual content of the book, though.  On several occasions, Elliott misrepresented the argument of the book and even attributed to me the precise opposite of what I claim in the book.  To this day I have no idea what prompted the review and its tone.  I had never met Elliott in my life prior to the next SBL when I made sure to introduce myself and ask a few pointed questions.

At the time, I offered no formal public response other than a quick comment on Mark Goodacre's blog when Elliott's review came up in the comment thread on Marks' discussion of another negative book review.  Elliott was a very senior scholar in the field of NT textual criticism and I was a very junior scholar.  There was no way for me to respond officially without it looking like sour grapes.  I did appreciate several blog discussions (here and here), though.

Earlier this year, the new editors for JTS learned of the review.  They were shocked and invited a response, offering to publish a formal apology before it.  That response, including the unreserved editorial apology, has now appeared in the online version of JTS and will appear in print in the next volume.  You can access the online version here.

Negative criticism is part of academia and to be expected.  We are not always right and our peers' job is to point that out sometimes.  Thankfully, though, this type of negative criticism is rare.  I appreciate the current editors of JTS taking the unusual step of rectifying such an odd review and offering me a platform to respond.

Update:  Brad Johnson comments on the journal taking responsibility for the review here.

Gershon Galil has offered a second alternative reading of the ceramic inscription from Jerusalem, in addition to the first he offered a few days ago. He has also provided a drawing to illustrate the possibility of his second alternative, which I provide below along with his thoughts.

Gershon writes:

Here is another possible reading of the inscription from Jerusalem (from right to left):

[…], mem, qop, lamed, ḥet, nun, [yo]d, [yo]d nun

…נ [יי]נ חלק מ…
… Spoiled Wine from…

The term yn ḫlq is attested only once in a text from Ugarit (KTU 4.213:3): “…arb’m (kdm) yn ḫlq b gt sknm“. For the meaning of this classification of wine see the following translations: verdorbener Wein (Aartum); mauvais/perdu vin (Lemaire et al); vino estropeado (del Olmo Lete and Sanmartin). For a short discussion of this term see: K. Aartum, UF, 16 (1984), 1-52, esp. 26.

This is a very simple and possible reading but I prefer my first reading:

[Your poor brothers – You sh]all [gi]ve them their share

The Ophel inscription should be dated to the second half of the 10th century (it was absolutely not written in the 11th century). In the mid-late 10th century the house of David controlled Jerusalem, and I agree with Athas that:

“The language of the inscription is difficult to ascertain from so few letters, but there is good reason to think it is probably Hebrew” (although it is well known that the roots ḤLQ and NTN are clearly also attested in other West Semitic Languages).

The term yn ḫlq is not mentioned in the Bible or in any other extra Biblical Hebrew text. Moreover, the Ophel Inscription was inscribed on an open large size pithos jar, and it is not unreasonable that it contained wine.

Gershon Galil’s reconstruction of the ceramic inscription. (Original rendering by Ada Yardeni)

Update

At the biblical studies forum, Gershon adds:

A short note on the spelling of the word “wine” in West Semitic Languages: In Ugaritic, Old Canaanite, Phoenician (Shiqmona: IEJ, 18 [1968], 227B:2), Ammonite, and even in the Kingdom of Israel (The Samaria Ostraca) wine was always written with only one yod (yn; ka-ra-nu: ye-nu = Aphek-Antipatris: TA 3 [1976], 137:2). But in (southern) Hebrew the form is always yyn (Epigraphic Hebrew [Lachish, Arad and more], Biblical Hebrew [without any exception], Ben Sira, Qumran, and even in the Rrabinic [sic!] sources).

 

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Gershon Galil’s Persperctive on the ceramic inscription from Jerusalem

Filed under: Ancient Near East, Archaeology, Epigraphy, Hebrew Tagged: ceramic inscription, Gershon Galil, inscription, Jerusalem, Jerusalem ceramic inscription, Ophel

There is a cool electronica song, “Musica ex Machina,” from the new album Off the Record by Karl Bartos. The title is evidently a play on “Deus ex machina,” or “God from a machine / mechanical God,” a phrase that — among other sources — re-entered Western Christian theological discussions through German Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s invocation of the phrase in the daring and controversial theological speculations in his Letters and Papers from Prison, written during his imprisonment in Nazi Germany on suspicion of his involvement in a plot against Hitler; Bonhoeffer was executed shortly before the end of the war. (His restless, rigorous, and creative work and his extraordinary, singular life were equally important to me during a formative period of my theological studies and remain inspirational and challenging to me.)

In brief, the concept of “Deus ex machina” — dating to a discussion from the ancient author Horace — refers to mechanical gods brought onstage in Greek tragedies to make a complicated plot work out just fine. Just when it seems there is no way out, the gods are flown in to make everything okay. I used to illustrate this to my undergraduates at Santa Clara University by borrowing their skateboards (which some of them would ride to class) and weaving a complex plot, only to roll in on the skateboard as the god and solve all the characters’ problems. Bonhoeffer was critical of Christian theology that was effectively mechanical-god theology, wherein God’s job is to solve problems humans can’t solve, to make things okay for us. (Instead of being God by coming to humans’ aid, Bonhoeffer imagined Christian people consoling a God who chooses not to control human affairs but suffers in and with the world, writing in a poem that what is distinctive about Christianity is that “Christians stand by God in his hour of grieving.”)

There is no way to make anything other than an offensive and cheap transition from theology in the era of the Holocaust to contemporary life, but I must here introduce the Karl Bartos song.

“Musica ex Machina” has only a few lyrics:

“Initially every sound was linked to the object casting it / like a tree always casts its shadow on the ground

Musica ex machina / sound on sound / Musica ex machina / sound on sound

Since Thomas Alva Edison we can record and save a sound / We can send it around the world or play it back at a later date

Musica ex machina / sound on sound / Musica ex machina / sound on sound”

The lyrics on their own hang suspended stylistically between a middle school essay and liturgical language, but when married to electronica, they work in a mesmerizingly fresh way.

Bartos is playing with the “mechanical god” image in the key of music. He is proferring music as a mechanical divinity at the same time as the lyrics express wonderment at all the things that this mechanized deity, music in electric/electronic form, can make possible. Is Edison the “mechanical god” in a new way? Bartos seems to be redeeming “mechanical music,” reminding me of the Rush lyric (apotheosized by Tenacious D) from “The Spirit of the Radio”: “All this machinery making modern music can still be open-hearted”.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

It makes me wonder if the concept of “deus ex machina” was not vilified too quickly in modern Christian theology. (This is in no way to say that Bonhoeffer did not have excellent grounds for wanting to name and extinguish it in his own day.) In other words, what if “deus” were understood by way of “musica”? It is hard to get out of mechanicity when theologizing about God, after all. Could the fight against the mechanical god and the endorsement of mechanical music be somehow related at a deeper level?

I can’t find a link to “Musica ex Machina” to share with you (that’s fine — you’ll have to buy the song if you like it!), but here is something else recently from Bartos, “Atomium.” It gives a taste of his style.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Tommy Beaudoin, Hastings-on-Hudson, New York

“In a time when constitutional democracies are endangered by narrow, self-serving interests and suicide bombers commit horrible terrorist acts for the sake of vague political ends or otherworldly promises, a serious conversation about constructive and hopeful political aims, and their grounding in the world of Spirit, seems warranted.  And refreshed memories of a political Jesus stand ready to inspire that task once again.  To reverse the sentiment of St. Paul:  if for the next life only we have hoped in Jesus, then we are of all people most to be pitied.”

Douglas E. Oakman, The Political Aims of Jesus

A few chalices dating to the time of the destruction of the Philistine city of Gath by Hazael, king of Aram (Syria), have been announced during the current excavation at Tel es-Safi/Gath. The most recent, larger than usual, chalice was announced by Prof. Aren Maeir on Monday and Tuesday. Follow the excavation reports here.

Prof. Maeir displays the large chalice after the stand was excavated. (I like the T-shirt. Maybe there is another step down — a human stooped over with a mobile phone.)

Vessels of this type were sometimes used for burning incense.

Gath was one of five cities of the Philistine Pentapolis (1 Samuel 6:17). The city was destroyed by the Aramean King Hazael shortly after the middle of the 9th century B.C.

At that time Hazael king of Syria went up and fought against Gath and took it. But when Hazael set his face to go up against Jerusalem, (2 Kings 12:17 ESV)

Joseph Lauer calls attention to a nice article about the find in The Jerusalem Post here. The author of the article is Joshua Lipson. Joshua volunteered at the Tel es-Safi/Gath excavation a few years ago.

And thanks to Prof. Maeir for posting the nice photos. No good reason to hide discoveries like this.

Most commentators on Philemon work with the dominant understanding of the relationship of Philemon to Onesimus.  They are master and slave.  In some way Onesimus has brought harm to Philemon and has fled.  He has somehow found Paul, whom he has known to be a close friend of his master Philemon.  The extant letter is an appeal to Onesimus’s master to receive him back—to “accept him” in the same way that Philemon would welcome Paul (v. 17).

Paul informs Philemon that Onesimus has become a Christian disciple while with Paul and he reminds Philemon that he owes to Paul his very self, as well, presumably a reference to the fact that Philemon also has become a Christian convert through Paul’s ministry.

It appears that Onesimus is not incarcerated, for Paul the prisoner is able to send him back to Philemon along with his letter.  Not much else can be known about the situation lying behind our canonical letter, though variations of this consensus interpretation appear in commentaries and monographs.

Most commentaries also make reference to a minority interpretation of the relationship between Philemon and Onesimus.  Allen Dwight Callahan, in several articles and a monograph, has argued that they are not master and slave but actual brothers.  Callahan claims that the interpretive tradition of a master-slave relationship began in the late 4th century on the basis of the tentative speculation of John Chrysostom.

Though Callahan’s reconstruction can be found among interpreters seeking abolition of the slave trade in the 19th century, there are almost no current interpreters that share Callahan’s minority view.

Paul’s language in v. 16 remains a problem, however, for the consensus view.  This is what Paul says in vv. 15-16:

For perhaps for this reason he was separated from you for a time, that you might receive him back forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother, especially (“certainly, exceedingly”) to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.

Paul plainly indicates that they are brothers, “not only in the flesh but also in the Lord.”  Commentators, however, have found various ways of accommodating Paul’s language to the interpretive consensus.

For some, that Paul notes that the two are “brothers in the flesh” may mean that they are members of the same household.  Even if Philemon is the master and Onesimus the slave, their being of the same household means they have some level of solidarity.

For Barth and Blanke, Paul is calling for Philemon to love Onesimus “for the person he is.”  “A brother and a neighbor has the right to be loved in his own right, as a specific and unique person.”  Adelphon en sarki, then, means, “the person that he is.”

Another way that commentators handle Paul’s words here is to view them as an exhortation.  Paul is urging Philemon on the basis of his new relationship to Onesimus, to love and embrace Onesimus as a brother “both in the flesh and in the Lord.”  The solidarity enjoyed by all those in Christ trumps all other loyalties, so Philemon must now embrace Onesimus fully as a brother.  That is, because they are brothers in the Lord, they must embrace and function as brothers in the flesh.

Joseph Fitzmyer is typical of most commentators in treating Paul’s words here.  He translates the expression  as “fellow human being.”  Being brothers “in the flesh and in the Lord”:

does not mean that Onesimus was a brother of Philemon ‘in the consanguinary sense’ or as a ‘blood relative.’  It is merely Paul’s way of stressing Onesimus’ condition as a human being in contrast to his condition as a Christian.  Sarx denotes, as often in Paul, that aspect of human life that is bound by earth-oriented interests, limited in its capacities, and affected by its appetites, ambitions, and proneness to sin.  As used of Onesimus, the phrase en sarki expresses his basic human status apart from his condition as a slave; it is a status that Onesimus shares with Paul and Philemon, and Paul acknowledges that aspect of Onesimus’ existence (p. 116).

In this series of posts, I hope to demonstrate that those who take the consensus view of the relationship between Philemon and Onesimus have not reckoned adequately with Paul’s language in vv. 15-16.  Whether or not such a reconsideration of this passage leads to a reconfiguration of the imagined situation involving Paul, Philemon, and Onesimus, commentators on this epistle must take Paul’s language especially in v. 16 more seriously.

I think it is extremely unlikely that Paul’s words can be interpreted to mean that Philemon and Onesimus are both human beings or that they share the same social status.

I’ll elaborate some considerations in support of this in the next several posts.

Hi, everyone. Remember me?

I’m not really abandoning the blog. But gosh if it doesn’t seem like I’ve said my piece on most of the topics I’ve discussed.

I have mostly used this blog as a way of working through major shifts in my theology; to give you an idea, here’s a roughly chronological if somewhat overlapping list of most of the major issues I’ve wrestled with (each followed by varying periods of campaigning for my conclusions) since the blog’s beginning:

• Explaining my already completed move away from futurism toward preterism
• Explaining my discomfort with CSBI-style inerrancy (which I already held suspect) toward a very mild sort of inerrancy called theological concordism, i.e. the belief that the Bible’s theological claims are all true even if its scientific and historical ones aren’t
• Acknowledgement (and justification) of my embrace of modern science, including evolutionary theory, etc.
• A budding conviction about the importance of the historical community of faith
• Expositions about the meaning of biblical faith, characterized by a growing social consciousness
• A modification of my bibliology to reject concordism in all its forms and accept the Bible as fully human with no divine guarantee of accuracy
• A rejection of soteriological exclusivism (the belief that only those who know Jesus by name can be saved)
• A growing discomfort with “full preterism” based on my developing historical-critical understanding of the Gospels
• Apathy about the arguments over the Atonement models morphing suddenly into fierce opposition to penal substitution
• A rising attraction to older forms of ecclesiology
• Acceptance of Christian universalism

Now, while I certainly don’t want to imply that I’ve arrived, I do think I’ve come to a certain equilibrium where I get the impression I’m in the right vicinity on a lot of the bigger theological issues, and the refinement process isn’t volatile enough to power the kinds of whopping posts I’ve done in the past. But as I said, I’m not packing it in. It’s just likely that going forward this site will be composed less of what amounted to articles and be more of a journal or…well, a blog.

I say that sincerely enough, but I also know how wary I am of posting a quick burst of opinion that misleads by giving an incomplete picture: although I have often attempted short posts in the past, I find that I end up explaining things so that the post can stand alone, which inflates its size. So who knows…

And for anyone concerned about my faith, as I typically am when blogs like mine suddenly go dark, don’t worry: it’s just as strong as it was. So strong that I just don’t feel threatened or that I need to defend it all the time, which is another reason the site has slowed down.

A third reason I’ve been posting less is that I’ve found an outlet for my theologizing  in a remarkably eclectic Google+ Community I created called Theogeeks, intended for Christians or other interested parties not wanting to initiate Christianity vs. atheism/agnosticism, etc. debates. If you’d like to see what’s going on or have things you’d like to discuss I invite you to join.

Hope you all are well. Thanks for reading my update!

The post A quick update appeared first on Undeception.

Professor Yosef Garfinkel has announced the discovery of two royal public buildings in his excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa. According to the press release, one is the palace of David and the other was the king’s storehouse.

Two royal public buildings, the likes of which have not previously been found in the Kingdom of Judah of the tenth century BCE, were uncovered this past year by researchers of the Hebrew University and the Israel Antiquities Authority at Khirbet Qeiyafa – a fortified city in Judah dating to the time of King David and identified with the biblical city of Shaarayim.

One of the buildings is identified by the researchers, Professor Yossi Garfinkel of the Hebrew University and Saar Ganor of the Israel Antiquities Authority, as David’s palace, and the other structure served as an enormous royal storeroom.

Today (Thursday) the excavation, which was conducted over the past seven years, is drawing to a close. According to Professor Yossi Garfinkel and Sa'ar Ganor, “Khirbet Qeiyafa is the best example exposed to date of a fortified city from the time of King David. The southern part of a large palace that extended across an area of c. 1,000 sq m was revealed at the top of the city. The wall enclosing the palace is c. 30 m long and an impressive entrance is fixed it through which one descended to the southern gate of the city, opposite the Valley of Elah. Around the palace’s perimeter were rooms in which various installations were found – evidence of a metal industry, special pottery vessels and fragments of alabaster vessels that were imported from Egypt. The palace is located in the center of the site and controls all of the houses lower than it in the city. From here one has an excellent vantage looking out into the distance, from as far as the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Hebron Mountains and Jerusalem in the east. This is an ideal location from which to send messages by means of fire signals. Unfortunately, much of this palace was destroyed c. 1,400 years later when a fortified farmhouse was built there in the Byzantine period”.

A pillared building c. 15 m long by 6 m wide was exposed in the north of the city, which was used as an administrative storeroom. According to the researchers, “It was in this building the kingdom stored taxes it received in the form of agricultural produce collected from the residents of the different villages in the Judean Shephelah. Hundreds of large store jars were found at the site whose handles were stamped with an official seal as was customary in the Kingdom of Judah for centuries”.

The palace and storerooms are evidence of state sponsored construction and an administrative organization during King David’s reign. “This is unequivocal evidence of a kingdom’s existence, which knew to establish administrative centers at strategic points”, the archaeologists say. “To date no palaces have been found that can clearly be ascribed to the early tenth century BCE as we can do now. Khirbet Qeiyafa was probably destroyed in one of the battles that were fought against the Philistines circa 980 BCE. The palace that is now being revealed and the fortified city that was uncovered in recent years are another tier in understanding the beginning of the Kingdom of Judah”.

The exposure of the biblical city at Khirbet Qeiyafa and the importance of the finds discovered there have led the Israel Antiquities Authority to act together with the Nature and Parks Authority and the planning agencies to cancel the intended construction of a new neighborhood nearby and to promote declaring the area around the site a national park. This plan stems from the belief that the site will quickly become a place that will attract large numbers of visitors who will be greatly interested in it, and from it one will be able to learn about the culture of the country at the time of King David.

To my conservative friends, I’d urge caution before making any bold claims based on Garfinkel’s work. Or any claims at all. Let’s wait and see how credible archaeologists evaluate his stratigraphy. If he’s correct, we’ve lost nothing by being patient.

For previous posts related to Khirbet Qeiyafa, see here. The high-resolution images below are available from this link.

UPDATE: The Jerusalem Post has some background on the previous years of excavation. The Arutz-7 headline dubs the find as “King David’s ‘Suburban Palace.’” The Times of Israel includes a review of Eilat Mazar’s alleged excavation of David’s palace in Jerusalem.

Haaretz largely ignores the press release and gives Garfinkel’s arguments for Qeiyafa’s significance in proving the existence of David’s kingdom along with counter-arguments. The subhead gets right to it: “Some archaeologists claim that three rows of stones found in Khirbet Qeiyafa prove the existence of a kingdom shared by two biblical kings - David and Solomon; other scholars beg to differ.”

UPDATE #2: Joseph Lauer has noted an essay by a David Willmer, a former supporter of Garfinkel, at Foundation Stone. He provides some important context, including this:

It's no coincidence that on the last day of excavation an announcement so "momentous" should be made. It's all about attention, fund raising, the lecture circuit, the headlines. But it's not about archaeology. Nor is it about history. And it calls into question the right to call oneself an academic. When science, research and intellectual honesty are held hostage to sensationalism, then the public, the truth, and the legitimacy of showing the deep roots of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel are done terrible damage. The archaeologists become a laughing stock - and those wishing to delegitimise the State of Israel are given another arrow in their bid to destroy that connection. That the IAA would enable this unprofessional and egregious charade is nothing less than shameful.

Aerial view of Khirbet Qeiyafa from the north

Aerial view of “David’s palace” and Byzantine farmhouse

Pottery from excavations.
First two photos by Sky View courtesy of the Hebrew University. Third photo by Clara Amit. All photos courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

BBC RADIO 4: The Story of the Talmud (Episode 1 of 2).

In the first of two programmes, Rabbi Naftali Brawer delves into one of the greatest books ever written holding the key to unlocking Jewish thinking and history. Traveling to Jerusalem, he gains rare access to one of the world's leading ultra-orthodox yeshivas - the Mir. Here he finds young men who will study these ancient Hebrew and Aramaic texts, full time, for anything up to 30 or 40 years. They explain how arguing and debate are the ways to understand the ancient wisdom of the rabbis that have contributed to the Talmud though the ages and still telling you everything you need to know to be a Jew today. The Talmud is not about the arrival but the journey and it's less about about finding answers than discovering what the questions are.

Tracing the history of the Talmud, Rabbi Naftali heads to the Galilee to the archaeological site of Beit She'arim, the remains of an ancient city, where shortly after the destruction of the 2nd Temple, the first words of this book were written down. He discovers that the Talmud was an audacious project defying one of the key Jewish laws which forbade writing down the Oral Laws of Moses. Its creation was deemed necessary in order to preserve Jewish culture and practice which, at this time, was facing extinction.

Rabbi Naftali meets some of the greatest Jewish minds and scholars in the world today: Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, described by Time Magazine as a 'one in a millennium scholar', who has published his own edition of the Talmud; Gila Fine - one of the growing number of female orthodox academics working with the Talmud.

The programme ends with a moving story from leading Talmudic scholar and holocaust survivor, David Weiss Halivni, who explains how the Talmud sustained him in the concentration camps.

I am reading some science fiction for distraction, The Fall of Hyperion, recommended by my friend Rick. This is the second in trilogy and, as seems so often the case now, the themes are far more relevant to my immediate life than I expected. One character, a Jewish Philosopher named Sol, as mourning his daughter and quotes a portion of Yeats’s A Prayer for My Daughter.

“All Sol wanted, he realized now, was the same possibility once again to worry about those future years which every parent fears and dreads.”¹

He is right. We miss, we yearn for even the things we once feared and dreaded.

1. Excerpt From: Simmons, Dan. “The Fall of Hyperion.” Bantam Books, 2011-02-02. iBooks.
   This material may be protected by copyright.

One of the most interesting things about the Hebrew Bible is the emergence of different voices offering conflicting opinions, sometimes even within the same book. Arguably one of the most divisive issues in this respect seems to be the role of Israel's kingdom in relation to God's will and plan. The solemn warnings by the prophet Samuel at its inauguration take a very negative view of kingship whereas the rules of David and Solomon are idealised even despite their personal faults. By the later period of the kingdom the focus has shifted again. The main issue is no longer whether or not having a king is the right path, the key question is the manner in which the king walks along that path.

Working near the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Hebrew University of Jerusalem archaeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar has unearthed the earliest alphabetical written text ever uncovered in the city.

The inscription is engraved on a large pithos, a neckless ceramic jar found with six others at the Ophel excavation site. According to Dr. Mazar, the inscription, in the Canaanite language, is the only one of its kind discovered in Jerusalem and an important addition to the city’s history.

Dated to the tenth century BCE, the artefact pre-dates by two hundred and fifty years the earliest known Hebrew inscription from Jerusalem, which is from the period of King Hezekiah at the end of the eighth century BCE.

A third-generation archaeologist working at the Hebrew University’s Institute of Archaeology, Dr. Mazar directs archaeological excavations on the summit of the City of David and at the southern wall of the Temple Mount.

Hebrew University of Jerusalem archaeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar displays a jar fragment unearthed near Jerusalem’s Temple Mount bearing an inscription in the Canaanite language. Dated to the tenth century BCE, it is the earliest alphabetical written text ever discovered in the city. The text contains a combination of letters approximately 2.5 cm tall, which from left to right translate to m, q, p, h, n, (possibly) l, and n. The archaeologists suspect the inscription specifies the jar’s contents or the name of its owner. Photo courtesy of Dr. Eilat Mazar; photographed by Ouria Tadmor.

The discovery will be announced in a paper by Dr. Mazar, Prof. Shmuel Ahituv of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and Dr. David Ben-Shlomo of the Hebrew University, following their extensive research on the artefact. Prof. Ahituv studied the inscription and Dr. Ben-Shlomo studied the composition of the ceramic materials. The paper, “An Inscribed Pithos From the Ophel,” appears in the Israel Exploration Journal 63/1 (2013).

Early Iron IIA period

The inscription was engraved near the edge of the jar before it was fired, and only a fragment of it has been found, along with fragments of six large jars of the same type. The fragments were used to stabilize the earth fill under the second floor of the building they were discovered in, which dates to the Early Iron IIA period (10th century BCE). An analysis of the jars’ clay composition indicates that they are all of a similar make, and probably originate in the central hill country near Jerusalem.

According to Prof. Ahituv, the inscription is not complete and probably wound around the jar’s shoulder, while the remaining portion is just the end of the inscription and one letter from the beginning. The inscription is engraved in a proto-Canaanite / early Canaanite script of the eleventh-to-tenth centuries BCE, which pre-dates the Israelite rule and the prevalence of Hebrew script.

Reading from left to right, the text contains a combination of letters approximately 2.5 cm tall, which translate to m, q, p, h, n, (possibly) l, and n. Since this combination of letters has no meaning in known west-Semitic languages, the inscription’s meaning is unknown.

The archaeologists suspect the inscription specifies the jar’s contents or the name of its owner. Because the inscription is not in Hebrew, it is likely to have been written by one of the non-Israeli residents of Jerusalem, perhaps Jebusites, who were part of the city population in the time of Kings David and Solomon.

Source: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

More Information
Dr Eilat Mazar Institute of Archaeology Cite this article The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Proto-Canaanite inscription found on Pithos. Past Horizons. July 18, 2013, from http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/07/2013/proto-canaanite-script-found-on-pithos

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For Archaeology News – Archaeology Research – Archaeology Press Releases

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Are you broken in by your pastor, leadership team and church? Don’t answer yet.

I was a pastor of local churches for about 30 years. I’ve also been a parent for 26 years. I’ve also been married for 33 years. So, I know what it means to try to control people. I do have to confess: I have tried to control people. Manage them. Manipulate them. Coerce them. I feel I am pretty self-aware and that I have always been interested in how to be a good pastor, a good father and a good husband. I’ve always cared about freedom… for me and for others. But I have failed along the way. Even the other day on The Lasting Supper I tried to manage a conversation that was getting heated. But my good friends there called me on it. I’m thankful for that community. I’m still learning.

I also know what it means to be managed. I have served pastors and leaders who I really cared about. I loved them and their ministries. It wasn’t until we’d already gone down the road that maybe Lisa pointed out my blind devotion to the man and their mission that had gotten out of hand. You see, even for someone who’s worst fear is being trapped and controlled and who is passionate about his own freedom can get caught up in a person or program that threatens and even destroys these things he ultimately cares about. I have been broken in by pastors and leaders to serve them and their ministries and I not only didn’t know it, but I invited it. They weren’t malicious about it. They were sincere. But I was blinded by my own love, devotion, loyalty and sense of purpose and meaning and they used that to further themselves and their work.

So I ask the question again: Are you broken in by your pastor, leadership team and church?

Archaeological digs in Israel are winding down and the maximalists are having a great time. Today’s report comes from the excavation of Khirbet Qeiyafa which is conducted jointly by Professor Yossi Garfinkel of the Hebrew University and Saar Ganor of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

Here is today’s Press Release from the Israel Antiquities Authority.

“

King David’s Palace was Uncovered in the Judean Shephelah

Royal storerooms were also revealed in the joint archaeological excavation of the Hebrew University and the Israel Antiquities Authority at Khirbet Qeiyafa ***
These are the two largest buildings known to have existed in the
tenth century BCE in the Kingdom of Judah 

Two royal public buildings, the likes of which have not previously been found in the Kingdom of Judah of the tenth century BCE, were uncovered this past year by researchers of the Hebrew University and the Israel Antiquities Authority at Khirbet Qeiyafa – a fortified city in Judah dating to the time of King David and identified with the biblical city of Shaarayim.

One of the buildings is identified by the researchers, Professor Yossi Garfinkel of the Hebrew University and Saar Ganor of the Israel Antiquities Authority, as David’s palace, and the other structure served as an enormous royal storeroom.

Today (Thursday) the excavation, which was conducted over the past seven years, is drawing to a close. According to Professor Yossi Garfinkel and Sa’ar Ganor, “Khirbet Qeiyafa is the best example exposed to date of a fortified city from the time of King David. The southern part of a large palace that extended across an area of c. 1,000 sq m was revealed at the top of the city. The wall enclosing the palace is c. 30 m long and an impressive entrance is fixed it through which one descended to the southern gate of the city, opposite the Valley of Elah.  Around the palace’s perimeter were rooms in which various installations were found – evidence of a metal industry, special pottery vessels and fragments of alabaster vessels that were imported from Egypt. The palace is located in the center of the site and controls all of the houses lower than it in the city. From here one has an excellent vantage looking out into the distance, from as far as the Mediterranean Sea in the west to the Hebron Mountains and Jerusalem in the east. This is an ideal location from which to send messages by means of fire signals. Unfortunately, much of this palace was destroyed c. 1,400 years later when a fortified farmhouse was built there in the Byzantine period”.

A pillared building c. 15 m long by 6 m wide was exposed in the north of the city, which was used as an administrative storeroom. According to the researchers, “It was in this building the kingdom stored taxes it received in the form of agricultural produce collected from the residents of the different villages in the Judean Shephelah. Hundreds of large store jars were found at the site whose handles were stamped with an official seal as was customary in the Kingdom of Judah for centuries”.

The palace and storerooms are evidence of state sponsored construction and an administrative organization during King David’s reign. “This is unequivocal evidence of a kingdom’s existence, which knew to establish administrative centers at strategic points”, the archaeologists say. “To date no palaces have been found that can clearly be ascribed to the early tenth century BCE as we can do now. Khirbet Qeiyafa was probably destroyed in one of the battles that were fought against the Philistines circa 980 BCE. The palace that is now being revealed and the fortified city that was uncovered in recent years are another tier in understanding the beginning of the Kingdom of Judah”.

The exposure of the biblical city at Khirbet Qeiyafa and the importance of the finds discovered there have led the Israel Antiquities Authority to act together with the Nature and Parks Authority and the planning agencies to cancel the intended construction of a new neighborhood nearby and to promote declaring the area around the site a national park. This plan stems from the belief that the site will quickly become a place that will attract large numbers of visitors who will be greatly interested in it, and from it one will be able to learn about the culture of the country at the time of King David.

“

Comments: It is often true in the media that the headlines say more than the article. This seems to be the case here. I understand this Press Release to be saying that a large structure, called a palace (don’t think Buckingham!) has been found. There is evidence of “a metal industry, special pottery vessels and fragments of alabaster vessels that were imported from Egypt.” Whether these things are to be associated directly with the David (1010–970 B.C.) we read about in the Bible is a matter of interpretation.

I note that the aerial photo of the site is an older one; it does not show the structures we see in the recent closeup of the “palace” and Byzantine farmhouse. (Correction: See the correction by Luke Chandler in the comments below.)

Todd Bolen’s comment this morning is worth heeding.

To my conservative friends, I’d urge caution before making any bold claims based on Garfinkel’s work. Or any claims at all. Let’s wait and see how credible archaeologists evaluate his stratigraphy. If he’s correct, we’ve lost nothing by being patient.

I see that Todd has added several updates and links to the Israeli papers also. Take a look here.

Welcome back Todd. We have missed your posts and insightful comments.

From the BBC News report that the law has its final approval:

The Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat leaderships all backed the proposals, which were finally approved by MPs and peers earlier this week.

It is expected that the first gay and lesbian wedding ceremonies will take place by summer next year.

Under the terms of the the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill, religious organisations will have to "opt in" to offering weddings, with the Church of England and Church in Wales being banned in law from doing so.

Commons Speaker John Bercow announced the bill had received Royal Assent - the formal approval of the sovereign required for all legislation. The news was greeted with cheers in the Commons chamber.

Writer Andrea Palpant Dilley, in Duke Divinity's Faith & Leadership blog, advises church leaders trying desperately to attract and retain young people to "change carefully and wisely":

Consider the changes that people go through between age 22 and 32. Consider that some of us in time renew our appreciation for the strengths of a traditional church: historically informed hierarchy that claims accountability at multiple levels, historically informed teaching that leans on theological complexity, and liturgically informed worship that takes a high view of the sacraments and draws on hymns from centuries past.

Some of us want to walk into a cathedral space that reminds us of the small place we inhabit in the great arc of salvation history. We want to meet the Unmoved Mover in an unmoved sanctuary.

So as you change -- or as change is imposed upon you -- keep your historic identity and your ecclesial soul. Fight the urge for perpetual reinvention, and don’t watch the roll book for young adults.

We’re sometimes fickle. When we come, if we come, meet us where we are. Be present to our doubts and fears and frustrations. Walk with us in the perplexing challenge of postmodern faith.

CFP: 4th Global Conference: Spirituality in the 21st Century:

4th Global Conference
Spirituality in the 21st Century

Tuesday 18th March – Thursday 20th March 2014
Prague, Czech Republic

Call for Presentations:

The contemporary study of spirituality encompasses a wide range of interests. These have come not only from the more traditional areas of religious scholarship—Theology, Philosophy of Religion, History of Religion, Comparative Religion, Mysticism—but also more recently from such diverse fields as Management, Medicine, Business, Counseling, Ecology, Communication, Performance Studies and Education – among many others.

This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary conference invites a broad range of scholars and practitioners who seek to challenge disciplinary silos by exploring the spiritual foundations upon which their fields of inquiry stand. Papers and/or presentations are welcomed from any academic, professional and/or vocational area in which Spirituality plays a part.

Papers, performances, presentations, reports, works-in-progress and workshops are invited on issues related to any of the following themes:

-Conceptualisations of Spirituality
-Interpreting Elements and Examples of Spirituality
-Cultural Expressions of Spirituality via Art, Dance, Film, The Internet, Literature, Music, Radio, Television and/or Theatre
-Spirituality and Communication
-The Liminal Elements and Facets of Spirituality
-Spirituality and Cultural Identity
-Research and/or Pedagogical Approaches to Spiritual Work
-Childhood Spirituality
-Teaching Spirituality
-Spirituality and Healing
-Spirituality Compassion and Reconciliation
-Spirituality and Addiction, Health Care, Medicine, and/or Nursing
-Spirituality in Counseling, Hospice Care, Psychology, Psychiatry, Social Work, Therapy and/or Wellbeing
-Spiritual Pilgrimages
-Spiritual and Ecological Maintenance of Health and Life of Human Beings
-Development of Personality as a Process of Spirit Creation
-Spirituality and the Environment
-Spirituality and Gaia
-Spirituality in Business and/or Management

The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. Presentations, Papers and performances will be considered on any related theme.

What to Send
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 11th October 2013. All submissions are minimally double blind peer reviewed where appropriate. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 17th January 2014. Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to the Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract f) up to 10 key words
E-mails should be entitled: S21-4 Abstract Submission.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chairs

John L. Hochheimer: Hoch@siu.edu
Rob Fisher: s21-4@inter-disciplinary.net

The conference is part of the Ethos programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting.

For further details of the conference, please visit:
http://bit.ly/1aqEMzG…

Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence. July 16, 2013 at 03:32AM via category: religion

This summer, a team of UNC students and staff excavated an ancient mosaic that holds much promise for revealing early Jewish beliefs.

Jocelyn Burney, a senior archaeology and religious studies major who participated in the dig, said this was just the second mosaic to be found in Israel illustrating the biblical figure Samson.

“Huqoq is one of only two synagogues in Isreal with a mosiac depicting Samson,” Burney said.

“The second synagogue is only a few miles away, which suggests that Jews in Southern Galilee in antiquity had a special interest in him.”

Religious studies professor Jodi Magness, who has led the archaeological trip to Huqoq, Israel, for three years, said though biblical mosaic floors are not uncommon, Samson is a rare motif. Samson is depicted as a giant figure in the mosaic, which relates to later traditions of Samson preserved in Talmudic literature, she said.

Burney said it was exciting to be among the first in many years to see the mosaic.

“When Dr. Magness realized that we were close to uncovering more mosaics this year, she brought everyone over to that part of the site and let us watch as Orna Cohen, the site conservator, brushed away the last few centimeters of dirt,” Burney said.

More here.

I wanted to write this for first to start my thought process and second, perhaps, for discussion:

Matthew        94/78
Mark               150/151
Luke               13
John               163
Acts                14
Revelation     54

Mark is the first, and as I explained in my book, uses this for a particular reason. I think it is a rhetorical ploy. This explains Matthew’s continued use with it (keeping in mind the textual tradition you use and hoping we have a fairly accurate representation of the original text). In Luke-Acts, it is almost done away with and thus becomes just another verb choice.

However, in Revelation, we see another uptick.

Wait. Go here and read this paper by Steve Runge first.

Anyway, here is my current hypothesis:

Mark begins the Gospel genre. His use is rhetorical. Matthew sees this and uses it, expanding Mark’s story with his own. Luke‘s rhetoric goes into a different direction and thus doesn’t need word choice, or rather, doesn’t need this particular grammar choice. Or, he may not get the entire theme as displayed in Mark and Matthew and thus attempts to correct the “poor” grammar. Acts doesn’t really count here, except to show the author(s) of Luke-Acts as a single-minded writer who likes tidiness.

John reworks the Markan narrative including other narratives along the way and his own material but unlike Matthew and Luke, retains more of Mark’s rhetorical flair.

Oh, yes. Thomas (the Greek fragments such as P. Oxy 654) uses the historical present in relation to Jesus. The Coptic has it as past tense, indicating a translation from the Greek, I’d argue. Wonder if this means Thomas knew the Synoptics? —->

What does this mean for Revelation? First, I would argue Revelation is written by the same author(ial community) as The Gospel of Mark. Second, I believe there are direct literary connections between Revelation and Mark, such as the borrowing of certain phrases. Not words. Phrases.

I think the use of the historical present as we move from Mark to Revelation indicates an awareness — perhaps a theological intent — of the original literary use in the first written Gospel. I think it also indicates reliance (especially for Matthew, Luke, and John) on Mark.

What about Thomas? I don’t know, really, but it would be interesting to do a vivisection of the use of historical presents and where each of them end up. Numbering the usage starts us on a path, but the path should lead us to examining the exact use — where are the HP’s used in relation to one another.

Anyway, just wanted to jot this down.

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My books are now available on Amazon. Mimetic Criticism and the Gospel of Mark: Introduction and Commentary and From Fear to Faith: Stories of Hitting Spiritual Walls is in paperback or Kindle

A short and sweet letter from Paul Pinos, via Facebook:

“How would you respond to someone citing Gen 1:29-30 as evidence for animals being vegetarian prior to the fall?”

Ah, Adam and Eve, bless them. The original hippies, they were! Think about it: They lived in harmony with nature, were naked all the time, and they were vegan! All they needed was an acoustic guitar and they’d have been made in the shade.

But I digress. Paul had a question, and it’s a good one. Here’s Genesis 1:29-30, as rendered in the NIV:

Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground — everything that has the breath of life in it — I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

The context begins with God addressing newly created humans, but he broadens out his statement in verse 30. I admit that a cursory reading does appear to indicate that all animals must have been vegetarians in Genesis 1 — but only if you believe the account was meant to be understood as literal history. Which I don’t. However, looking more deeply at the text, one of the first things I notice is that God’s statement does not actually prohibit humans or any other animals from eating meat. It only specifies that the fruit-bearing trees and green plants are his “gift.”

What does that mean, exactly? There’s a lot that could be unpacked. But to conclude that this short passage says, for certain, that animals did not eat meat until after the fall of man, is to read something into the text that is simply not there, in my opinion. It would be like me saying, “Here’s the salt,” and you interpreting it to mean you can’t use pepper.

To understand God’s true perspective on a question like this, we must also look at what he has revealed elsewhere in scripture. For example, other Old Testament passages not only acknowledge but seem to celebrate the carnivorous qualities of meat-eating animals: e.g., lions and ravens (Job 38:39-41), hawks (Job 39:29-30), the Leviathan (Job 41:14) and lions again (Psalm 104:21; also see verses 27 and 28). Most of these passages seem to directly credit God as the source of food for the carnivore being discussed, and Psalm 104:27 says, “All creatures look to you to give them their food at the proper time.” All creatures — including, presumably, the meat-eating ones.

If carnivorous animals are the result of a creation gone rogue thanks to Adam and Eve’s hankering for forbidden fruit, it seems unlikely that the Holy Spirit would later inspire writers to describe God as blessing the behavior in these ways.

Under the new covenant, those who trust in Christ find justification and new life that Romans 5 seems to describe as not just restoring us to, but actually surpassing, our prelapsarian (pre-fall) state. So, if we had originally been created to eat nothing but plants, one might reasonably expect the New Testament writers to consistently abhor the eating of meat. But that’s not what we find. Consider the Apostle Paul’s words in 1 Timothy 4:3-5:

They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.

Paul’s position in 1 Corinthians 8 seems to be more take-it-or-leave-it when it comes to meat, but it’s pretty clear that his only hangup is when it has been sacrificed to idols. (Even then, he’s cool with it, but warns his readers to be careful in how their behavior might influence other believers.) Also of note is Peter’s vision in Acts 10, which is centered around the killing and eating of animals. Yes, the vision was most likely intended as a metaphorical demonstration that the gospel is for everyone, including non-Jews — not a ringing endorsement of barbecues and McRibs. Still, it seems a strange choice of analogy if God is a vegan.

But, in the end, what I find to be the most persuasive scriptural evidence against this idea is the example of Christ. If carnivorism is a direct result of sin, then of all people, sinless Jesus would have been a vegetarian. And yet, we see him eating fish, miraculously multiplying fish for human consumption, twice, and participating in and eating the Passover, which, by law, required the roasting and eating of a lamb.

Finally, we should not completely ignore what science has shown us, because this is a biological question. There are lots of animals that eat meat, but some that eat only meat (or virtually nothing but meat). Interestingly, all of the animals mentioned in the OT that I referenced before fall under this category, with the exception of the raven. We don’t know exactly what the Leviathan is, but if it is a hyperbolic description of a crocodile or an orca, as some scholars have suggested, it would fit as well.

This group, “obligate carnivores,” also includes all other cats, snakes, sharks and all other raptors. The young-earth/literal Genesis model would necessitate that a massive and fundamental overhaul of these animals occurred (not just outwardly, with their sharp teeth and claws), but in the makeup of their brains (hunting instincts), senses and basic physiology (cats, for example, are unable to absorb some of the nutrients they need from vegetables. They must eat meat, or they die).

I fail to see why such a significant (and if it were true, very tragic) change would not have seemed worth mentioning by God when he is describing the curse in Genesis 3, or the author of Genesis, when he is describing the overall events. You would think he might have taken a quick break from the pages and pages of genealogies to add a blurb, like, “And, by the way, the curse also turned cuddly lions and playful sharks into killing machines.”

God, of course, is free to judge however he likes (it is his universe, after all), but it does strike me as bizarre and unfair to give a handful of creatures a Freddy Krueger makeover as a way to punish us for our sin.

For those of you who normally dwell in a more sane and reasonable world, the answer to the question you might be pondering is, “Yes, creationists really do believe this vegetarian lion stuff.” Here’s a link to a recent article on the subject by the venerable Institute for Creation Research.

— Tyler Francke

In one of his recent posts on his blog, Peter Enns quotes James Barr, who in the second edition (1981)of his book Fundamentalism tries to respond to objections he received to his charge of fundamentalism addressed to evangelical biblical scholarship in general in the first edition of his book (1978).

Here is his response to these charges, which Enns suggests, and I agree to a large extent, are still valid for a considerable amount on evangelical biblical scholarship. But you do not have to believe it. Judge for yourselves. Here is the quote from Barr, borrowed from Enns:

But are things much better now? The suggestion that they are in fact much better now, and that conservative evangelicalism today is quite different, free from the stains of the older fundamentalism, is one of the most interesting responses that my book has evoked. Conservative propaganda has, it seems, convinced some that this improvement has taken place. Undoubtedly the total evangelical scene in recent years has come to display some excellent features of openness, freedom and variety. But the very success and numerical strength of evangelicalism has through the same process greatly intensified the obscurantists, backward-looking and extremist aspects in which the core of fundamentalism resides. The student fundamentalism of today may perhaps be more gracious and kindly in its manner than that of earlier generations; but, on the other side, it seems to have systematically lost or eradicated the major features that a generation ago softened the rationalism of pure conservative ideology, brought the movement closer to the currents of general theological thinking, made it much more biblical, and also made it really evangelical. On the institutional scene, the use of ecclesiastical power-politics to achieve a fundamentalist take-over of the great Concordia Seminary, with the use of inquisitional methods upon the former teachers and finally the enforcement of their exile and withdrawal into a separate institution, is a clear modern demonstration that the motives and methods of fundamentalism haven’t changed. The use of heresy hunts against scholars and theologians, which was a normal weapon of the older fundamentalism, is being tried again in some denominations and is more likely to succeed than fifty years ago. Intellectually, the improved quality of conservative scholarship has to be balanced by an appreciation of the enormous influence in the evangelical world of pseudo-intellectual gurus like Francis Schaeffer, of semi-educated evangelists and leaders of all kinds, and of rubbishy partisan literature. On the social side, the presence of interesting and open-minded evangelical groups with positive, promising and sometimes radical social ideas, which should be gladly acknowledged, does not alter the fact that at the same time we have a much more massive and effective social-right in American politics. Thus in all respects, as I see it, the notable elements of progress, to which conservative apologists gladly call attention, are balanced by even greater elements of regress, of which they generally say nothing (xiv-xv).

I included a section (pp. 145–9) on the use of argument about presuppositions by fundamentalists but now think there is more that I should have said about this. Academic conservative controversialists seem now to spend more and more of their time talking about presuppositions. In part of this they are trying to take the discussion about presuppositions in non-conservative theology, which arose with reference to quite other matters, and adapt it as a mode of defense for an essentially fundamentalist position. Somehow, they seem to think, if it can be agreed that there is no exegesis without presuppositions (and Bultmann, because he said something like this, has received a rather incongruous respect in these circles), this will justify the claim that conservative presuppositions are just as good as any other (xvii).

Fundamentalism emphasizes the guru, the teacher, with his following. Studies of the social dynamics of leadership within fundamentalism are much needed. It is probable that the needs of leadership support the continuance of a fully conservative or fundamentalist position. Leaders may make all sorts of concessions from time to time in fact, but if they do not profess support of the most completely conservative position about the Bible their position of leadership is itself in danger…The chief concern of fundamentalists, it often seems, is to avoid being perceived and classed as fundamentalists; but this is purely tactical, for they will not affirm any non-conservative position (xix).

Such facts are in agreement with my general argument, namely that fundamentalism is not basically concerned with the Bible and what it says, but with the achievement of dominance for the evangelical tradition of religion and way of life (xiii).

//

Filed under: Biblical, Evangelicalism, Fundamentalism Tagged: James Barr, Peter Enns

 ANE Today Editorial Introduction:*

 Hazor, “the head of all those kingdoms,” has a unique place in Biblical Archaeology. It is the largest tell in the Southern Levant, and a city-state whose importance resonated throughout the Middle and Late Bronze Ages.

Hazor is also specifically named in the Book of Joshua as one of the enemies of the Israelites. Since the pioneering excavations at Hazor during the 1950s and 1960s, the question of ‘who destroyed Hazor’ has tantalized scholars and lay people. The renewed excavations directed by Ben-Tor have added greatly to our understanding of the site and have brought to light an enormous Late Bronze Age “Ceremonial Palace” in the Upper City.

But is it really a palace and does the identification matter for our understanding of the Joshua narrative? Ben-Tor’s student and co-director, Dr. Sharon Zuckerman, disagrees. She believes the Late Bronze Age building is actually a temple, built in an area used over many centuries for religious activities. Either way, the building was destroyed in an immense conflagration at the end of the Late Bronze Age and the area was never reused for temples or palaces.

How can we tell the difference between a temple and a palace, and does it matter for the history of the site or its Biblical significance? We (the ANE Today Editorial Team) invite our readers to judge for themselves. The Ancient Near East Today is eager to hear your ideas, posted as comments on the ASOR Blog or as submissions (please send to asormedia@gmail.com).

By: Amnon Ben-Tor, Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
Edited and abridged from NEA 76.2 (2013): 81-91

The Middle Bronze Age

At the beginning of Middle Bronze Age IIB (ca. 1700 BCE), the site of Hazor witnessed a radical transformation. Previously, in the Early and Intermediate Bronze Ages, only the Upper City was inhabited. But in Middle Bronze Age IIB the lower “enclosure” of about 200 acres lying to the north of the Upper City was settled. Until the end of the Bronze Age, Hazor was composed of an Upper and a Lower City, with a total population of some 15,000. Hazor also became an important political and economic power in the Levant and beyond, known as far away as Mari on the Syrian Euphrates.

Yigael Yadin’s excavations uncovered Middle Bronze Age remains mainly in the Lower City, including fortification systems, gates, and temples. In the Upper City, however, the expedition reached this crucial period in only a few isolated spots. Our excavations concentrate exclusively on the Upper City and reveal a picture of impressive public buildings that apparently served as Hazor’s administrative and cultic center.

These include:

The Middle Bronze Age palace consisted of several units with massive walls. Only a portion of the building was exposed; most of it is still buried beneath a courtyard extending east of the Late Bronze Age Ceremonial Palace.

The Southern Temple is located near another discovered during Yadin’s excavations and is bonded to a corner of the Middle Bronze palace. This proves that the temple and palace were constructed as a single complex.

The Standing Stones Precinct contains approximately thirty maṣṣebot (“standing stones”), several offering tables, and a round stone basin. These indicates that in addition to the cultic activities held in the roofed Southern Temple, rituals were also carried out nearby under the open sky.

The Storehouse Complex was only partly exposed. The high mudbrick walls and the absence of doorways indicate it was a subterranean structure that contained agricultural products.

The excavated area accounts for only part of the Upper City and the four Middle Bronze Age architectural complexes do not represent the complete picture of the Upper City during this period.

From the Middle Bronze Age to the Late Bronze Age

The renewed excavations established that the transition from the Middle Bronze Age to the Late Bronze Age was gradual and not violent. Nothing has confirmed the theory that Hazor was destroyed during the campaign to Canaan by the Egyptian king Thutmose III in the middle of the fifteenth century B.C.E.

The Late Bronze Age

The renewed excavations proved that Hazor was not destroyed during the transition from the Middle Bronze Age to the Late Bronze Age. Our excavations revealed that during the fifteenth century B.C.E., the center of the Upper City underwent fundamental, even revolutionary changes, perhaps initiated by royal decree and executed by a king or new dynasty.

Since the transition from the Middle Bronze Age to the Late Bronze Age at Hazor was gradual, we must consider what happened to the impressive buildings of the Middle Bronze Age. Did they continue to exist in their original states, or were they completely demolished and replaced? Our excavations indicate that two of the four Middle Bronze Age complexes in the center of the Upper City, the Standing Stones Precinct and the Storehouse Complex, went out of use. But two other two complexes, the palace and the temple, continued into the Late Bronze Age.

The changes were careful and deliberate. The Standing Stones Precinct was intentionally covered with earth and ceased to function. Above it were built a spacious paved courtyard and a section of the entranceway leading to the new Ceremonial Precinct. The builders were careful not to damage the standing stones (maṣṣebot) when they laid the fill.

The subterranean storehouses were also discontinued. This area suffered severe damage caused by construction during the Iron Age. The earlier Southern Temple was sealed with fill that reached the tops of the stone foundations. Following the line of the early temple’s walls, a new temple, similar in plan, was erected.

Just as the interior of the Southern Temple of the Middle Bronze Age was sealed with a fill, so too, was the interior of the early palace. The brick walls were dismantled to serve as fill for the rooms up to a height of almost 2 m which supported the Ceremonial Precinct’s largest architectural unit, the courtyard, situated east of the new Ceremonial Palace.

The Ceremonial Palace

The new palace consisted of three parts: a courtyard, porch, and nucleus. Each was used for approximately two hundred years with only minor changes. The plan retained its original character throughout the period of its existence; only in its later years did the building show signs of disintegration and neglect.

On the western part of the courtyard was an elevated platform (a bamah), and large amounts of bone, ash, and pottery fragments around it indicate cultic ceremonies. From this area, three steps led up to the porch. A broad entrance led from the porch to the main hall. Doorways led to two pairs of rooms on the north and south sides of the hall and a back room on the west side with a bathtub- like installation. Built of bricks on a stone foundation, the walls were preserved to a height of about 2 m at several points and were 3.5 m to 4 m thick. Cedar beams were incorporated into the brick walls. Basalt orthostats lined the lower parts of the main hall’s inner walls, as well as the outer walls of the entire building.

Hazor was destroyed, together with the palace, sometime in the middle of the thirteenth century B.C.E. An accumulation of ash, collapsed brick, and charred wooden beams reached the tops of the building’s walls and attests to the city’s destruction in a fierce conflagration. But how should this building be interpreted? Is it a palace or a temple?

The Building Is a Palace (the conclusion of Prof. Ben-Tor)

Buildings elsewhere with plans similar to the Hazor structure are generally defined as palaces, for example, the Stratum IV palace at Alalakh from the same period. The plans of the two buildings share near identical features: (1) a terrace wall built of orthostats supporting the porch; (2) steps leading up from the courtyard to the porch; (3) a terrace wall turning at a sharp angle into the entrance and supporting a staircase with two column bases; (4) two rooms flanking either side of the porch, one of them housing a stairway; and (5) the nucleus of the palace, the largest space in the building, surrounded by subsidiary rooms. Other similar features include the building techniques. In both, the walls consist of a stone foundation topped with a mudbrick superstructure strengthened with wooden beams. The walls, some of which are stepped, are lined on the lower part with orthostats.

The furnishings of the rooms at Hazor also have close affinities to the Alalakh palace, for example, a plastered, bathtub-like container (apparently for storing water for libations), located in a small room behind the throne room, was found in both structures. A one-piece basalt statue holding a large basin, discovered near the entrance to the Hazor building’s main hall, indicates cultic practices connected with libations. Evidence of rituals connected with libations is also encountered in other palaces, for example, at Qatna, Ebla, and Mari.

Large storage vessels like the pithoi discovered in the room adjoining the porch and in one corner of the throne room at Hazor are also characteristic of palatial structures. Similar pithoi were uncovered in palaces at Alalakh, Mari, and other sites. These pithoi should not be considered part of royal storehouses but as receptacles for storing food (such as flour, grain, oil, water, and wine) for use in religious ceremonies, cultic rituals, and festive banquets. This interpretation is also based on the large number of eating and drinking vessels uncovered in the building and its courtyards. Festivities were of great importance for dignitaries and were opportunities to display their power, wealth, and influence to further their interests within the community.

The separation of religion and state is a modern concept and cannot be applied to the ancient Near East nor, of course, to Hazor. The king, considered the representative of the gods on earth, performed both religious and civic roles. Scholars agree that the ancients “viewed the god as residing in the sanctuary just as the king lived in his palace.”

In this light, the building in the center of Hazor’s Upper City served as a ceremonial palace. The administrative palace, containing the living quarters and workshops—and, if we are lucky, the offices of Hazor’s scribes and its archives— still awaits excavation. The monumental building in Area M on the northern slope of the tell, not yet completely exposed, is a worthy candidate for such a palace.

The Building Is a Temple (the conclusion of Dr. Sharon Zuckerman)

Location: The building was erected in the center of the Upper City on an elevated spot overlooking the entire city and visible from a distance. Like other cities of the Late Bronze Age (e.g., Ugarit in Syria and Megiddo), the highest point of the city was planned as the cultic precinct, dedicated as the dwelling place of the city’s gods, whereas the royal palace was built on a location that allowed it control of the approach to the acropolis.

Arrangement of Space: The eastern courtyard, in the center of which stood the stepped bamah opposite the entrance, resembles courtyards of typical Canaanite temples, such as the Orthostats Temple of Area H at Hazor, Temple P2 at Ebla, Temples III–I at Alalakh, and the Temple of Baal at Ugarit.

Plan of the Building: The building is a massive, well-defined structure with a small number of rooms arranged symmetrically around a main hall. The hall was approached through the eastern courtyard on a straight symmetrical axis, past the bamah opposite the entrance and two columns flanking the entrance. Its back room, opposite the entrance, was built as a niche in the building’s rear wall; in its center was a square basalt base sunk into the ground (perhaps the base of a statue or throne?). The plastered “bathtub” found in this room probably held liquids for cultic purification or libations. The building’s plan, arranged on a distinct symmetrical axis, is characteristic of temples of the period, many of which have been designated “monumental symmetrical temples.” Such an arrangement is unusual in palaces, which generally contain many rooms arranged around a number of courtyards.

The Finds: A rich and varied assemblage of finds was found sealed beneath the vast destruction layer encountered in all the rooms and in the eastern courtyard. Scattered throughout were hundreds of complete pottery vessels that throw light on the building’s various activities. The pottery mainly consists of bowls for serving food at cultic ceremonies and miniature vessels (votives) for offerings to the gods, as was common in many temples in the ancient Near East. The large number of animal bones scattered throughout the courtyard also indicate that public cultic ceremonies involving animal sacrifice were held there.

Other finds that help illuminate the building’s function are metal figurines of gods and Canaanite rulers. These figurines, particularly the remarkable large statue recently identified as the Canaanite storm-god Baal (or Hadad), indicate the building had a cultic purpose <INSERT FIGURE 9>. Other finds include jewelry boxes made of bone that contain beads, cylinder seals, and other items of personal ornament.

Conclusion

Whether the building in the center of Hazor’s Upper City was a ceremonial palace or a temple, it attests to the power and wealth of the Canaanite kingdom of Hazor in the Late Bronze Age. The violent destruction of the building and its surrounding area also serves as a testimony to, and a symbol of, the kingdom’s collapse during the “years of crisis” in the thirteenth century B.C.E. and the end of Hazor’s era of prosperity and glory. Never again did Hazor attain the dimensions and might of the imposing Canaanite city that was found worthy of the biblical claim that “Hazor formerly was the head of all those kingdoms.”

 

* The Editorial Introduction in italics is written by the ANE Today Editorial Team and not by Professor Ben-Tor.

Photo Gallery:  We will be adding a gallery of all the images that appear in Near Eastern Archaeology 76.2 (2013) for Hazor in the Middle and Late Bronze Ages. Smaller versions of some of the images also appear in the text above to illustrate the abridged version of the article found on the ASOR Blog / ANE Today.

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If that headline makes no sense, here’s the luddite version:

Reddit is a website that gets *tons* of hits.

Reddit is made up of thousands of “subreddits” that focus on different things.

If any random person visits Reddit, they see popular posts from the most popular subreddits.

Reddit Atheism (r/atheism) was one of those subreddits for the past few years.

That meant popular atheism-related stories were seen by who-knows-how-many people who would never have clicked on or cared about those stories otherwise. It also meant that anyone who signed up for a free Reddit account would be automatically subscribed to r/atheism. They would have to click “unsubscribe” to not see those stories.

That default option led r/atheism to become one of the most popular subreddits on the site with more than 2,000,000 members, most of whom (I suspect) aren’t even atheists.

Today, Reddit announced that r/atheism would no longer be a default subreddit for new members and casual visitors (and neither will r/politics):

We know many of you will wonder what happened to /r/politics and /r/atheism and why they were removed from the default set. We could give you a canned corporate answer or a diplomatic answer that is carefully crafted for the situation. But since this is reddit, we’re going to try things a bit differently and give you the real answer: they just weren’t up to snuff. Now, don’t get us wrong, there still ARE good parts about them. Overall, they just haven’t continued to grow and evolve like the other subreddits we’ve decided to add.

Part of the problem is undoubtedly the internal chaos r/atheism went through last month when one of the moderators was booted and users rebelled against the new changes. The impact of that overhaul is still being felt, with actual stories often getting downvoted by some users just out of spite.

I would argue the subreddit used to be full of more quality links when it was added to the default list… but those are admittedly harder to find now. This is not censorship, by the way — anyone can still subscribe to any of the atheism subreddits. Honestly, it’s probably a smart move by the Reddit admins even though it hampers getting atheist stories to larger audiences (and means less traffic for me personally).

BuzzFeed’s John Herrman welcomes the changes and holds a view that I’m sure many people share:

Reddit’s atheism forum has become the internet’ de facto gathering place for young militant atheists, which, I mean, have you ever met a young militant atheist? The kind of kid who, fresh off a heady afternoon watching Richard Dawkins videos, is just super pumped to humiliate his Christian aunt next time she posts about church on Facebook? /r/atheism is that, times a million. (Or, times 2,174,577, to be exact.) When people talk about disliking “Redditors,” they’re often just talking about this.

Both of these sections were large enough, and historically important enough to the site’s users, that they remained in the front-page mix for almost everyone. But they’re both animated by the idea that being technically right about your primary point, or being able to point to evidence of hypocrisy in your opponent, entitles you to say whatever you want, however you want, and to be respected for it.

In demoting them, Reddit has done its casual users a service, and slapped some of its most annoying — and often, dedicated — users on the wrist…

Not surprisingly, I take a slightly different view of the channel, which is that it was a place that was full of annoying jerks and (literally) new atheists who were only now discovering all the problems with religion… but also people who found value in the channel and positively contributed to the discussions. It’s a place where some people saw an opportunity to (anonymously) talk about coming out to their families, learn what they could do to fight church/state separation battles, and support fellow atheists. The support for Damon Fowler came through r/atheism’s broad reach as did much of Jessica Ahlquist‘s.

It’s arguable that r/atheism has caused more people to question or lose their faith than any books written by the New Atheists, any statements made by non-religious celebrities, any blog posts or podcasts, and even any tragedy. By being taken off the default list, we’re less able to reach people who may not even know that questioning their faith is an option.

What’s fortunate is that r/atheism is still one of the largest subreddits on the site — it just won’t be adding new members as quickly as it used it. Hell, it’ll probably be relatively stagnant from now on. Maybe that’s a good thing. It’s a chance for the channel’s moderators to take a look at their practices and figure out what they need to do to make the site more useful to more people, outside of the glare of the rest of Reddit.

Hopefully, it means better quality on r/atheism. It’s the biggest and best forum for discussing atheism we have right now and it’d be awful to see it fall even further than it already has.

***Edit***: I wanted to add that I think Reddit would have made this decision even before the internal chaos happened. The channel was already heading down a self-righteous path before the new moderators came in to try and fix the problem.

A few years ago, back in the days when I used actually to post regularly here, I dropped a reference in the comments to a certain low-blow, embarrassing book review [PDF] that a friend of mine suffered in the pages of The Journal of Theological Studies. These were the heady days before Twitter took off, though, so the scandal of it all was fairly muted, and relegated mostly to a few follow-up comments.

Today I got word from the same friend that JTS has a new reviews editor, and they’ve taken a fairly surprising approach of actually addressing the shit they dropped on the floor.

I can only hope now that Professor (Emeritus) Elliott has been told that his reviews are no longer welcome. At least then the stinky odor will have not only been identified but also wiped up.

In any event, I encourage you to read the review in all its vindictive glory. It will make you feel a lot better about the hatchet jobs done to your work.

Filed under: academia