Science Denial (NPR Science Friday)

I mentioned yesterday the denial of history, specifically Holocaust-denial. While I wrote that post, I happened also to be listening to a podcast about another form of public misinformation: science denial.

On NPR’s Science Friday, Ira Flatow interviews Michael Specter, who is the author of Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives (Amazon link).

The interview itself is not at all a typical “science v. religion” piece, and while I judge that if anything Specter soft-peddles the role of religionists in science denial, he successfully puts religion-based science denial into the larger context of our national pandemic (my words, not his) of irrational thinking, and of the calculated encouragement of irrational thinking by groups that benefit from the denial of science.

Unfortunately, Specter initially seemed to encourage a “blame the scientists” approach. He was simply (and rightly) trying to say that scientific progress itself moves too slowly for the public to become acutely aware of its astonishing but tortoise-paced successes. However, I think much of the fault there lies with the unrealistic promises of school officials writing press releases and the willful scientific ignorance of media editors, and not with the scientists themselves.

You need not be especially vested in the “science v. religion” public discourse to enjoy the interview. But, anyone in religious studies or religious education might be particularly interested in how Specter places religiously motivated denial of science into a larger cultural context of unreason.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day: Jan 27

This Wednesday is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. At this page, you will find over 160, fully up-to-date links, in nine languages, to educational resources about the Shoah, or Holocaust.

You may find information about this international day of remembrance at the website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the page for the United Nations Outreach Programme.

History belongs to those who advocate for it, and education is the best defense against the history that the deniers would condemn us to repeat.

RBL Review of Bibb's Ritual Words and Narrative Worlds in the Book of Leviticus

Bryan Bibb’s book, Ritual Words and Narrative Worlds in the Book of Leviticus (T & T Clark, 2008), is reviewed on the Review of Biblical Literature website. Find the link to the PDF review on the book’s RBL page.

Bryan’s work is as “intriguing” and “appealing” as the reviewer claims, working further into the ways Leviticus “ritualizes narrative” and “narrativizes ritual.” The reviewer rightly recommends the work.

In the obligatory paragraph of constructive criticism, I would argue that the reviewer is not as clear as Bibb is himself concerning his claims about the role of “gaps” in Leviticus’s narrativized ritual. For Bibb, there is a kind of positive feedback loop (my words, not his) between “gaps” in ritual instructions and “gaps” in narrative. No instructions are so clearly articulated as to cover all aspects of relevant practice, and these “gaps” give rise to narrative explications (whether written or practiced) that seek to establish clarity but which themselves inevitably have their own “gaps.” These gap-ridden narratives in turn call for added instruction, and so on. The story of Nadab and Abihu (Lev 10:1-3), with its relevant instructional material (e.g., Lev 6:12-13; 16:1-2, 12-13) offers a poignant example of the risks involved in a life lived practicing ritual in the “gaps.”

Read the review, and if you have (or could have) any interest in Leviticus or the ways that narrative and ritual instruction may intersect, read Bibb’s book.

Google Wave in Education? Talk to Me

I have finally gotten a Google Wave invite, and have started mucking around. Is anybody out there using Google Wave for collaborative projects in education? If you are, please tell me about it in the Comments. Or, point me to any examples or resources that you know about.

Thanks!

A General-Public Biblical Studies Site?

Why yes, and they would like to know what you, the public, would like from such a site.

This is from the Society of Biblical Literature, our big ol’ professional conference. The site will be called, “The World of the Bible: Exploring people, places, and passages.”

As they put it:

This website will provide information about the Bible from academic perspectives, and will not reflect any one religious viewpoint.

Fill out their survey, won’t you? Let’s raise the signal-to-noise ratio in our public discourse about the Bible.

Hat tip to Akma.

Feed the Beast: Biblical Studies Carnival

Bragging rights for feeding the beast: get ’em here! Nominate anybody’s post(s) to Duane, come back here, and tell us in the comments that you fed the beast.

Each month, a volunteer blogger hosts the Biblical Studies Carnival: she posts an entry that links to the best posts in academic biblical studies from the previous month. “Best” is determined simply: whatever posts readers nominate to the host, subject to the host’s vetting.

The carnivals themselves are a hill of fun.

It is not unheard of for good carnivals to die, because they run short of volunteer hosts, especially when readers are slow to nominate posts and the hosts have to chase around choosing posts on their own. There has been some talk about how to ease the burden for Biblical Studies Carnival hosts.

So: I have dedicated this post to bragging rights for nominators. Go find a post in biblical studies from January—something you thought good enough to bookmark, or to link to on your own blog or on Facebook, or that sparked some other kind of activity in your life—go find that post and nominate it for the January Carnival.

Then come back here and post a comment. Do not tell us what you nominated, but simply tell us with pride: “I fed the beast!”

Literature of Ancient Israel: New Section Begins

Got a new class starting this morning, “Literature of Ancient Israel.” What would you like to say to anyone beginning their study of the Hebrew Bible?

These folks aren’t M.Divs or undergraduates, but rather masters students in varying degree programs more or less comprising “lay pastoral studies”: pastoral counseling, pastoral studies, religious ed, social justice, spiritual direction.

If there is one “big idea” animating the syllabus (besides the standard thing of distinguishing evidence-based inquiry from devotional or apologetic reading), it is the several theological tensions and disputes preserved in our canon. Only in its genuine, disconcerting diversity can the Bible be big enough to address the multidimensional array of pathetic (or delightful, for that matter) circumstances we creatures continue to find ourselves inhabiting.

The course is fully online, and even our weekly plenary sessions don’t begin right away, so no suit-and-tie get-up for me today. (Of course I suit up to teach. Why, what do you do?) I will have the pleasure of offering them a weekly asynchronous “televised address,” as well as a weekly synchronous hour, so there will still be the occasional need to become presentable.

Unlike some online conversations my students have had before, these folks are holding their discourse behind closed doors. Wish ’em luck. Anything you think they should have on their minds as they dig into the literature of Ancient Israel?

"When God Began to Create…": Nouns Bound to Verbs

In order to post on this, I have to break an informal but firm rule I have kept for myself: not to blog on Genesis 1–3. I have no wish to attract any debate or controversy about the truth/historicity/inerrancy of the story/myth/history/polemic/whatever of Gen 1. That said, my Hebrew students are at a point now where they can make sense of the Bible’s very first phrase, so let me have this, please.

As for my Hebrew students: sit up and pay attention. You won’t know the Akkadian, but you can still follow the argument: just give the Hebrew special attention. I am throwing in the Akkadian for my enjoyment, and because I am up to my neck in some texts at the moment.

The text in view is Genesis 1:1:

בראשית ברא אלהים

Traditionally, “In the beginning, God created…” But, more recently, “In the beginning, when God created…” Or even, “When God began to create…” Students naturally want to see a definite article in the first form: BA-rēšīt ("in THE beginning"). They are told (if they are told anything) that the form is in construct, and therefore unable to take a definite article. The obvious question is, “To what is it in construct? It precedes, not a noun, but a perfect verb.”

In Hebrew relative clauses, one permissible construction is a construct noun followed by a finite verb: קרית חנה דוד “The-district-of David encamped,” that is “The district where David encamped” (Isa 29:1). Similarly, for Akkadian relative clauses, one permissible construction is a bound (“construct”) form followed by a finite verb (with -u of subordination): bīt ēpušu “the house-of I-built,” that is “the house (which) I built.” (Note that, in both Hebrew and Akkadian, we will more often see the relative particle in such a clause: Hebrew אשר, Akkadian ša.)

This construction is often used with verbs of time. So in Hebrew: ביום הציל יהוה “In-the-day-of YHWH delivered,” or “In the day when YHWH delivered” (2 Sam 22:1). That the noun of time is in construct is more clearly shown in examples with distinct bound forms: בליל שדד ער “in-the-night-of Ar was devastated,” or “in the night when Ar was devastated” (Isa 15:1). In Akkadian: UD-um É.GAL KUG.BABBAR i-r-i-[šu], or Ūm ekallum kaspam irrišu: “The-day-of the-palace receives silver,” or “The day when the palace receives silver.” (CT 8 36a, cited in Huehnergard exercise 19.G.2.)

An excellent parallel to our text is found in Hosea 1:2: תחלת דבר יהוה “The-beginning-of YHWH spoke,” that is “When YHWH first spoke” or even “When YHWH began to speak.”

By now, it is clear that these constructions are parallel to that of Genesis 1:1. Looking at it again, we can translate:

“In-the-beginning-of God created,” that is, “In the beginning, when God created,” or even “When God began to create.” In other words, the Bible begins with a subordinate clause, preceding the main clause. Where, then, would you say that the first main clause in the Bible begins?

The Beatles: Solomon, Aaron, Pul, and Daniel

I'm sure our own reconstructions are more accurate than this. After all, we have, um…and then…dang.

Hat tip to the Little Professor.

COS in a Year: Anyone Else In?

I don’t normally make resolutions for the New Year, but Charles’ suggestion to read Context of Scripture (Brill link) in a year…well, that’s like making a resolution to, um, read really fun stuff every day.

Charles’ reading schedule (see PDF link in his post) offers enough variety to keep any one section from becoming deadening, while also providing enough continuity to keep the “C” in COS. Most of the daily readings are short enough that I’ll have time to make the most of the footnotes and, where appropriate, lexical helps.

I am caught up so far. Is anybody else giving it a shot?

Visual Babel (Re-acquiring Scripts)

(Strong language alert for this video: mosey on down to under the vid if'n you'd rather keep the F-bombs at bay.)



I have two re-acquisition projects going right now. One of getting back my Egyptian: I had two excellent years of instruction while in school, eventually reading handily through Shipwrecked Sailor and Sinuhe and such. Since I didn’t use it during the dissertation years, and since teaching keeps me some busy, it’s not exactly ready-to-hand anymore. So, I have been making fresh flash cards and zipping through Gardiner again. I mean to have worked through the grammar and be into readings by spring’s end.

My other project is my OB and standard Akkadian cuneiform signs. My Akkadian grammar has stayed pretty good, because I have used it off and on, but mostly with texts already transliterated (and often already normalized). So, out have come the cuneiform flash cards, with a goal of getting back up to a literacy of 200 or more signs, knowing their usual OB and SA forms.

My routine has been to hump through Egyptian for several days until glassy-eyed, then turn to wherever I last left off with the cuneiform. Lather, rinse, repeat. In between, I “rest” for a day or two on rapid Hebrew or Koine or on snippets of Attic.

This is all to say, the inside of my head is a bowl of warmed-ever mnemonic soup: an exhilarating but faintly nauseating visual babel where ÉRIN is bumping heads with ṯ3ty, and and SIPAD has ḥnḳt sticking out of its pockets.

Letters Home (Discussion Assignment)

As you have seen, I am noodling ideas for weekly discussion-board assignments in my upcoming online course, “Literature of Ancient Israel” (an introductory course in Hebrew Bible and biblical studies for students planning careers as lay pastors).

One week, I may ask them to compose a short letter to someone “back home” (figuratively speaking: these are mostly commuter students who live locally). This could be a family member, or a friend outside of the school, or someone at their home church. In the letter, they would write about something they've recently learned in the course, trying to communicate what excites them about it, and what preliminary, provisional ideas they are developing about why this thing matters.

The letter would have to show engagement with the materials of the course: readings, lectures, other discussions. They would also need to respond to (not “answer”) some of the other students’ letters.

This “Letters Home” assignment would also serve as practice for the final paper they need to write for the course: “How has the study of the Hebrew Bible shaped my Christian imagination and goals for Christian ministry?” (I hasten to note that the setting is a professional program in pastoral studies; these are not undergraduates with a wide variety of vocational plans.)

What do you think of a “Letters Home” discussion-board assignment? Are there ways in which you would tweak it, or any red flags to be looked out for?

Write the Bible

Or supplement it, anyway.

In my niece’s middle-school, the kids first read some book or series of their choice; then, they get to write an extra chapter, either within a book, or between two books of a series, or as a prequel or sequel to a book.

I am thinking of adapting this to a discussion-board assignment. I would give them a notably thorny or confusing biblical text, and the students would get to write some additional material (just several lines of dialogue, exposition, whatever). They would then also be asked to explain what “goods” are offered by their own additions, and to comment on one another’s work: Does it alleviate some moral problem in the text?  Does it help explain some character’s behavior (including God’s) that is otherwise hard to understand in the text at hand? Does it cause two adjacent narrative elements to better cohere together, and if so, how?

In choosing a text, I would like it to be 1) narrative, and 2) somewhat off the beaten track while not so obscure as to feel irrelevant (not, say, Gen 3, yet not unexplained corpse of Deut 21 either). Aaron and the golden calf is a possibility; or the dismembered concubine; or David and Bathsheba; or an epilogue to Jonah; or Job 1–2.

What text would you consider for such an assignment, and why? What do you think of the possibilities for such an assignment?

Couple of Recent Finds

Two new sites for the blogroll and feeder page.

One is Mike Aubrey’s ΕΝ ΕΦΕΣΩ, which I stumbled into after reading a comment by Mike somewhere or other. Linguistically informed conversations about Greek syntax are a wonderful thing, especially where they resist the vein of “see how my grammar-validated theology beats up your grammar-condemned heresy.” Go and have a look.

The other is The Immanent Frame, which is:

a collective blog publishing interdisciplinary perspectives on secularism, religion, and the public sphere. The blog serves as a forum for ongoing exchanges among leading scholars across the social sciences and humanities, featuring original essays that have not previously been published in print or online.

The Immanent Frame is an academic site, and from what I see, its conversations avoid the polarized, “he said she said” sensationalism that mars most of our public discourse on religion and secularism. Their page, In the Classroom, offers suggestions and invitations to educators. Take a moment and browse around over there. My own readers might want to see their series, “Religion and the Historical Profession,” which responds to an article claiming that religion is now the “most popular theme of historical study in America.”

(Hat tip for discovering The Immanent Frame goes to my old classmate, Lance Gharavi.)

Whoa: Welcome!

As soon as I find the incoming link that has spiked my numbers today, I’ll offer a proper welcome. Things are a little slow around here while I work through some overdue fall grading. Hit some Tag links in the sidebar, mill around, and have fun. You can expect more or less daily postings after this week.

Here are a few popular posts from the last year:

• Barack Hussein Anti-Christ Video Debunked. Sigh.


• Modern Hebrew to Prepare for Biblical Hebrew.


• “Essential Questions” and the Book of Job.


• Backwards through the Hebrew Bible.

A favorite Tag link of my own is Bible Woo.

Enjoy yourselves, and come back soon.

Real Biblical Scholar Makes End-Times Prediction

Although Duane, for his part, offers no proofs, I unhesitatingly entrust my eggs to the basket of his own prediction.

Which means I’ll have to create my summer courses after all, I guess.

We're All #1 Meme

James McGrath, at Exploring our Matrix, has proposed a new meme: We're All #1.

See the background at the original post, but the idea is: What Google search term produces your blog as its first/highest hit? The search term cannot be your name or the name of your blog, and the search term cannot use quotation marks.

What am I #1 in?

• phlebotinum Bible


• Bible woo

What are you #1 in?

December's Unwelcome Cousin

Pay now or pay later.
Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere.
As you sow, so shall you reap.
Give someone enough rope and they will hang themselves.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse.
A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner.
Rome was not built in a day.
If a job’s worth doing it’s worth doing well.
Silence gives consent.
Man does not live by bread alone.

(Allow me to cite my sources.)

Okay, But Tell Me Why: Neil Gaiman

I’m being stalked. By Neil Gaiman readers. They make a point of sidling up at times carefully chosen to appear random, then raise their voices ever so slightly: “Yada yada Neil Gaiman etc.,” they say to one another, carefully avoiding my eyes and pretending not to see me there, minding my own biblical-studies, higher-ed busyness.

I harbor no skepticism about Gaiman: I know absolutely nothing about him, and am wholly willing to be persuaded. But help me:

In you opinion, why must this barely-post-boomer sci-fi/fantasy-reading professor of higher education in Old Testament studies drop what he’s doing (after grading) and pick up Neil Gaiman? Also, where should I begin, and why?

(No spoilers, please!)

Gel Pens and Candy and Hot Tea in Kettle

…slippers and music of all kinds but metal.*

What are a few of your own favorite things, when in a grading marathon?

* (I was a Zeppelin loyalist during the metal years.)