Well, I thought I’d end 2007 with a doom and gloom prophecy for the U.S. economy. If you aren’t aware of what’s being going on, you’ve been living in a hole in Pakistan. The biggest housing bubble in U.S. history has popped. The banking system is going down in flames. The Fed is trying desperately to bail banks out by injecting billions into the system and lowering interest rates. This is devaluating the U.S. dollar at an incredible rate and sending inflation soaring. And since all this destruction of the dollar hasn’t helped a bit, the Fed has now promised to unload $40 billion more and will probably lower interest rates further. California had a large hand in boosting the economy as the center of the housing bubble buildup. But now California is the center of the mortgage and housing meltdown and is facing a projected $14 billion dollar budget shortfall next year because of it. The Governator recently said he will declare a fiscal emergency
in January. California, the biggest economic player in the U.S. economy, will bring down the rest of the nation’s economy just as it propped it up previously. The transportation industry is facing a crisis. Oil prices have shot to astronomical levels. We are spending hundreds of billions of dollars more than we ever have before in the history of our nation to police and wage war against other countries. Foreign nations who might have otherwise helped support our economy from outside are being scared away as the dollar decreases in value and interest rates fall.
If this continues, I predict a stock market crash and an economic recession sometime between 2008 and 2011 that will make the dot-com fallout seem like a sniffle and the Great Depression like a bit of a cough. Peter Spence, a leading economist in Britain agrees with me: The Government must suspend a set of key banking regulations at the heart of the current financial crisis or risk seeing the economy spiral towards a future that could make 1929 look like a walk in the park.
The economist Ludwig von Mises has this to say: There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought on by credit expansion. The question is only whether the crisis should come sooner as a result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.
My advice: Invest whatever money you’d like to keep in foreign currencies and stocks ASAP. Not only will it be there when the economy rights itself, but it will yield returns you couldn’t dream of. And don’t even think about purchasing a home in the next three years.
Those intimately familiar with the Hebrew Bible will at once be aware of numerous instances where the authors or editors of the texts could be charged with plagiarism (I put together a short list of some here). However, in the ancient world, this was not the moral or ethical dilemna it would be today. The opposite was the case. Originality was not necessarily a virtue. Writing and editing texts was a specialized art and being able to precisely copy something else or draw on a vast storage of shared literary heritage was considered participating in high craftsmanship.
Consider the following description of the Underworld as taken from three completely different texts composed and edited at different times in Babylonian history.
To the dark house, the abode of Irkalla,
To the house which none leave who have entered it,
To the road from which there is no way back,
To the house wherein the entrants are bereft of light,
Where dust is their fare and clay their food,
Where they see no light, residing in darkness,
Where they are clothed like birds, with wings for garments,
And where over door and bolt is spread dust.
from The Descent of Ishtar
To the dark house, dwelling of Erkalla’s god,
To the house which those who enter cannot leave,
On the road where travelling is one way only,
To the house where those who enter are deprived of light,
Where dust is their food, clay their bread.
They are clothed, like birds, with feathers.
They see no light, they dwell in darkness.
They moan like doves.
from Nergal and Ereshkigal
Seizing me, he led me down to the House of Darkness,
the dwelling of Irkalla,
to the house where those who enter do not come out,
along the road of no return,
to the house where those who dwell, do without light,
where dirt is their drink, their food is of clay,
where, like a bird, they wear garments of feathers,
and light cannot be seen, they dwell in the dark,
and upon the door and bolt, there lies dust.
from the Epic of Gilgamesh
When we approach the biblical texts, it is easy to forget that a prophet, figurehead, or legendry personage didn’t write much (if any) of those texts, but they are to a large extent (in their final forms) the work of one or more elite scribal artisans. In whatever locale the scribes of ancient Israel wrought their art, and whatever their motive for editing, composing, or rewriting their texts, they were part of a certain social system of scholars and craftsmen much like their Mesopamian and Egyptian counterparts. They had no qualms taking something from someone else and incorporating it into their own work or even putting another’s name to it.
Those familiar with New Testament scholarship are aware that many theories that have popped up to explain the strange and variegated endings of the gospel called Mark. While I am no New Testament enthusiast, I do have a theory that I have not heard before, which might explain the abrupt and confused ending(s) of Mark in terms of the historical and literary milieu of the text.
We take for granted the fact that our scriptures today come in packages called books. But in the ancient world, books did not come onto the scene until Hellenistic times. Even then, it was not until the fourth century of our Lord that the use of books supplanted more ancient forms. One of those ancient forms was the scroll. A scroll differed from a book in many ways. While a book was meant to encompass an entire work and could be expanded to accommodate the necessary text, a scroll was more like an archive or storage room. The length of a scroll did not accommodate a work or works, but a work or works were accommodated to a scroll. Thus, for instance, multiple, independent texts could be included on a single scroll until it was filled. In the case of lengthy texts, they would have to be interrupted and continued on other scrolls.
My theory is that the text of Mark was originally written on a scroll either after another text or on its own, but the author ran out of room for its complete composition. Whether the rest of the text was written elsewhere and has been lost or whether the rest was never completed, we may never know. Expanded or contracted endings could have resulted from the extra space or lack thereof that presented itself to those who copied the scroll onto another papyrus of equal length.
This is a hot topic in evangelical Christian faith and politics. Personally, I don’t believe abortion can be successfully legislated and prohibited any more than alcohol or drugs. As a Libertarian, I hold to the golden rule that governmental/legislative interference causes more problems than it solves and that the best solution is almost always the one which doesn’t include an oppressive, controlling Uncle Sam, but requires instead a free, contract-abiding, self-government. However, because I am a follower of Yeshua and an adopted member of Israel, I also believe human life is sacred. This sacredness is demonstrated in Genesis 9:6 when it proclaims that whatever value there is in one’s own human life is the same as the value of another’s by making equivalent the status of one who takes a human life with the human life that has been taken. We have in this statute a respect of human life so profound that it dissolves all prejudice, all partiality, all segregation, all racism, and all sexism. Herein, the life of a female is neither lesser nor greater than the life of a male. Herein, the life of a vigorous and healthy child is neither lesser nor greater than that of an invalid. Herein, the life of a poor laborer is as worthy and dignified as the life of a king. Because human life exists in the image of YHWH.
When it comes to abortion then, the question is when is the foetus, child, or whatever you want to call it, considered human life? My perspective has been that just as science has not determined the point at which life enters the seed of a plant, so it may never determine at which point life enters a seed of humanity. I have, therefore, seen in the process from fertilization to formation and to birth not many possible points for the beginning of human life, but a continuum of two former human lives in a unity of one.
Although I have begun my inquiry with a supposed admiration for the ancient Hebrew perspective, it has begun to occur to me that my Modern mind conceives of human life altogether differently. Genesis 2:7 speaks of a human becoming living (or having life in it) through the imposition of breath. This concept of life being conditional upon breath is actually fundamental to the definition of the words translated living being
throughout Genesis. The Hebrew word nefesh,
although traditionally translated soul, refers biologically to the neck or throat in order to give concrete expression to the idea of the passage of breath into and out of a person. Thus without a neck or breath to go through it, there is no nefesh, no living being, no human life.
The Pharisees, who wanted to build a fence around the Torah
(Mishnah Aboth 1:1), established a host of conservative principles meant to restrict someone from coming close to destroying human life. I have no idea how old the concept is, but the Pharisees and fathers of Rabbinicism accepted a terminus a quo for human life at the 41st day after conception. When the rights of the first-born are discussed in the Oral Law, we find it said that nothing which might come from the womb of a woman during the first 40 days of pregnancy can be considered life (Mishnah Bekoroth 8:1). The Rabbis elaborated on this idea in their commentary on the Oral Law, saying:
if she is found pregnant, the semen, until the fortieth day, is only a mere fluid.
Babylonian Gemara, Yebamoth 69b
However, in the case of a woman whose life or well-being was endangered by an unborn child, because the child was not technically a living human being until breath, the Pharisees allowed an abortion up until emergence of the head. An arm or even a foot could come out momentarily, but until the head through which breath enters had left the woman’s body, the baby had no claim to human life.
If a woman was in hard travail, the child must be cut up while it is in the womb and brought out member by member, since the life of the mother has priority over the life of the child; but if the greater part [the head] of it has already been born, it [the baby] may not be touched, since the claim of one life cannot override the claim of another life.
Mishnah, Oholoth, 7:6
Such authoritative religious knowledge from those whose scriptures we adore should have some impact on how we approach the issue.
There is a verse that gave me pause. Amos 1:3. The traditional text states that YHWH will bring judgment upon Syria because she threshed Gilead with threshing tools of iron.
The LXX adds something here.
…they were sawing pregnant women of those in Galaad asunder with iron saws.
New English Translation of the Septuagint, pre-publication version (italics added)
The Dead Sea Scrolls as represented by 5QAmos and 4QXIIg support the additional words pregnant women
against the Masoretic Texts. So it seems that the sin of Syria that incurred the wrath of YHWH was more specific than general murder. It was the threshing of pregnant women. However, from historical context, I think that it is not abortion itself that is being condemned—it is the use of cruel and violent means against the innocent (and chosen people of YHWH) by political enemies whose aim is not simple abortion of babies, but complete genocide. The very idea of one using iron threshing tools on a pregnant woman cannot reasonably be equated with the will to abort a child any more than speaking of shoving screwdrivers in an ear can be equated with trying to pick at earwax.
Friday November 16:
7:00 PM to 8:30 PM
AM16-123 (Room: Ford AB – GH)
Mennonite Scholars and Friends Reception
Saturday November 17:
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
S17-29 (Room: Madeleine B – GH)
Theological Perspectives on the Book of Ezekiel
1:00 PM to 3:30 PM
S17-63 (Room: Manchester F – GH)
Hebrew Scriptures and Cognate Literature
4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
S17-119 (Room: Del Mar A – GH)
Orality, Textuality, and the Formation of the Hebrew Bible
7:00 PM to 8:30 PM
San Diego Natural History Museum
Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibition
9:30 PM to 11:30 PM
S17-137 (Room: MM Salon 5)
Student Members Reception
Sunday November 18:
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
S18-17 (Room: Manchester 1 – MM)
Hebrew Scriptures and Cognate Literature
1:00 PM to 3:30 PM
S18-76 (Room: 24 A – CC)
Pentateuch
4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
S18-107 (Room: Santa Rosa – HI)
Bible, Myth, and Myth Theory
Monday November 19:
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
S19-32 (Room: Ford C – GH)
Qumran
1:00 PM to 3:30 PM
S19-76 (Room: Manchester C – GH)
Pentateuch
4:00 PM to 7:00 PM
S19-128 (Room: 25 A – CC)
Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
7:00 PM to 8:30 PM
S19-138 (Room: Santa Rosa – MM)
Book Review Session: Christopher R. Seitz, Prophecy and Hermeneutics: Toward a New Introduction to the Prophets
9:00 PM to 11:00 PM
(Room: Marriott Hotel and Marina, Salon 1)
CGU/CST Faculty and Student Reception
Although I’ve downloaded every available book in its electronic, pre-publication form, the NETS is one book that I won’t leave SBL/AAR 2007 without! For far too long, those interested in an English translation of the LXX have depended either on ancient and out-of-date translations from over a century ago or non-scholastic, extremely dynamic/paraphrased versions released by the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox church (and shaded by those organizations and their agendas). But no more! There is a new English translation in the mix and I can attest through use of the electronic version that this thing is not only fun to read, but brilliant!
The hardest part is ditching one incredible event to attend another. But unless you’re a quantum particle or a dead cat, you can’t be in two places at the same time.
Friday November 16:
7:00 PM to 8:30 PM
AM16-123 (Room: Ford AB – GH)
Mennonite Scholars and Friends Reception
Saturday November 17:
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
S17-29 (Room: Madeleine B – GH)
Theological Perspectives on the Book of Ezekiel
- Ezekiel’s Theology of Divination and the Authority of Prophetic Speech in Ezekiel 21:26
- A Reassessment of the Different Editions of Ezekiel 7 in the Septuagint and Masoretic Text: Relating Ezekiel’s Composition-History to its Inclusion in the Emerging Scriptural Canon
- The Transformation of Royal Ideology in Ezekiel
- The Imaginative Effects of Ezekiel’s Merkavah Vision: A Day in the Life of Hashmal
- Edwards’ Ezekiel: The Interpretation of Ezekiel in the Blank Bible and Notes on Scripture
1:00 PM to 3:30 PM
S17-63 (Room: Manchester F – GH)
Hebrew Scriptures and Cognate Literature
- Scribal Culture and the Transmission of Cuneiform Texts in Mesopotamia
- Scribal Culture and the Tablet of the Heart
- Israelite and Judahite Scribal Culture in Epigraphical Perspective
- Comments on Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible
4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
S17-119 (Room: Del Mar A – GH)
Orality, Textuality, and the Formation of the Hebrew Bible
- The Textualisation of Israelite Religion in the Context of the Orality and Literacy
Debate
- The Voiced Text in the Hebrew Bible: From Epic Song to Biblical Narrative and Midrashic Exegesis
- Rethinking Inner-biblical Exegesis and Biblical Criticism in Light of Orality & Textuality
- Implications of the Oral-Scribal Approach to Tanach Studies
Sunday November 18:
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
S18-17 (Room: Manchester 1 – MM)
Hebrew Scriptures and Cognate Literature
- The Spoils of War
- The Hebrew Sheol and the Emarite Shuwalu
- He Subdued the Water Monster
: God’s Battle with the Sea according to Egyptian Sources
- Princess as Political Pawn
1:00 PM to 3:30 PM
S18-78 (Room: Betsy C – GH)
Qumran
- Refining Sociological Models for Understanding Scribal Practices in the Biblical Dead Sea Scrolls
- Reading the Wiles of the Wicked Woman (4Q184 1) in Its Manuscript Context
- From the Wilderness to a Door of Hope
: Thematic (Re)conceptualization of the Wilderness in Liturgical Texts (4QBarkiNapshi and 4QWords of the Luminaries)
- Qumran Yahad and Rabbinc Havurah: A Comparison Reconsidered
- Ancient Halakhic Homilies in the Writings of the Qumran Sect and of the Tannaim
4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
HELP! I CAN’T DECIDE!
either…
S18-107 (Room: Santa Rosa – HI)
Bible, Myth, and Myth Theory
- Myth and History in Ezekiel’s Oracle Concerning Tyre (Ezekiel 26-28)
- Ancient Interpretations of the Mythic Structures of Sacred History
- Classical Greek Demythologizing
- Beyond the Dichotomy between Myth and History
or…
S18-123 (Room: Del Mar B – GH)
Midrash
- Derashah as Performative Exegesis in Tosefta and Mishna
- The Origins of the Flood in Second Temple and Rabbinic Interpretation
- Dialogues between Sages and Outsiders to the Tradition
: Creation of Difference as a Literary Method of Religious Polemics in Rabbinic Literature
- The Demise of the School of Shammai
Monday November 19:
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM
S19-32 (Room: Ford C – GH)
Qumran
- In the Second Degree
- 4QApocryphon of Jeremiah C and the Problem of Genre
- Resurrection and Biblical Tradition: The Relation between the Pseudo-Ezekiel Fragments and Ezekiel 37 Reconsidered
- The Centrality of the Temple in 4QMMT
- X and Duqah in Some Calendrical Scrolls: Are We any Closer to an Identification?
1:00 PM to 3:30 PM
S19-76 (Room: Gregory B – GH)
Pentateuch
- A New King Arose over Egypt Who Did Not Know Joseph
: The Joseph Novella as Prologue to the Moses Biography
- Is the Joseph Story
a Misnomer for Genesis 37-50?
- Pentateuch and Exile
- YHWH’s Mercy and Wrath: The Contribution of Exodus 34:6-7 to the Canonical Shape of the Torah
- Integrating the Alien
4:00 PM to 7:00 PM
S19-128 (Room: 25 A – CC)
Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible
- Masoretic Insights into the Text of Deuteronomy
- Deuteronomy 32:43 and Textual Criticism: New Proposals for an Old Puzzle
- All that Glitters is Not Gold: The Masorah of Spanish Bible Manuscripts and Its Peculiarities
- Conjectural Emendations in Bible Translations: Past, Present, and Future
- II.B.17: A Manuscript Ascribed to the Scribe of the Aleppo Codex
There have been a few instances where I ran across someone who wanted to get a (Biblical) Hebrew tattoo and were hoping for a little assistance in terms of the grammar.
The most common question is how to say beloved
in a Hebrew tattoo. Well, I just happen to be an expert on this one. Beloved:
דָּוִד
Lover is the Qal Active Participle of the verb to love
and looks like this:
אֹהֵב
You can see an example of this word in plene in Deuteronomy 10:18. If you are a woman, however, you may want to go the route of the feminine form:
אֹהֶבֶת
You can see an example of this word in Genesis 25:28.
Perhaps you would rather have the tattoo say One Who Is Loved.
That is the Qal Passive Participle and looks like this:
אָהוּב
You can see an example in Nehemiah 13:26. If you are a woman, however, you may want to go the route of the feminine form:
אֲהוּבָה
You can see an example of this word in Deuteronomy 21:15.
Getting new glasses is sweet. Getting new prescriptions sucks. Seeing things in a whole new perspective, priceless. For some odd reason, my eyeballs decide to change shape over the course of every new decade, which causes my sight to become blurred and changes my whole perspective of the world–literally. Of course, the change takes place slowly over a long period of time so that my mind gets used to seeing things according to whatever shape my eyes are in. When the new lenses come in, it is a bitter sweetness. Everything jumps out into amazing 3-D clarity. I marvel at the sight of individual leaves on trees, the faces of strangers in the dark, distant road signs that are entirely readable… And yet, I know there is going to be a good headache for the next day or two and everything is going to look somehow skewed for the next week as my mind copes with and tries to get used to the sudden changes…like height (somehow I and everything else around me managed to shrink about a half a foot). Fortunately, even though things look smaller or further or closer or whatever than they did before…I am not bumping into things. Somehow my mind knows that the space is no different even though my eyes tell me otherwise. Creation is incredible. Praise be to YHWH.
The hardest thing to do was trying to forget the meanings and interpretations imposed on me by other translations or tradition so that I could, hopefully, make decisions based more on the grammar and narrative of the text itself than on my own presuppositions or theological leanings. However, as I learn more about the Ancient Near East, I do hope to use that as a direct influence. Here, for example, I have translated verse one with heaven and earth
since this was a common phrase in the ancient world (for example, the Sumerian ziggurat, Etemenanki, house of the foundation of heaven and earth
). The phrase signified the entirety of the physical/material world. I now present the Hebrew of Genesis 1:1-6 as taken from the 1983 BHS Michigan-Claremont electronic text along with my humble translation.
בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָֽרֶץ׃
וְהָאָרֶץ הָיְתָה תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ וְחֹשֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵי תְהֹום וְרוּחַ אֱלֹהִים מְרַחֶפֶת עַל־פְּנֵי הַמָּֽיִם׃
וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים יְהִי אֹור וַֽיְהִי־אֹֽור׃
וַיַּרְא אֱלֹהִים אֶת־הָאֹור כִּי־טֹוב וַיַּבְדֵּל אֱלֹהִים בֵּין הָאֹור וּבֵין הַחֹֽשֶׁךְ׃
וַיִּקְרָא אֱלֹהִים ׀ לָאֹור יֹום וְלַחֹשֶׁךְ קָרָא לָיְלָה וַֽיְהִי־עֶרֶב וַֽיְהִי־בֹקֶר יֹום אֶחָֽד׃ פ
וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים יְהִי רָקִיעַ בְּתֹוךְ הַמָּיִם וִיהִי מַבְדִּיל בֵּין מַיִם לָמָֽיִם׃
Genesis 1:1-6
1. In a beginning, Elohim created heaven and earth. 2. But the earth was vacuous and uninhabited, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and a wind of Elohim was swooping over the surface of the water. 3. Then Elohim said, “Let there be light” and light was there. 4. Then Elohim saw that the light was good and made a separation between the light and the darkness. 5. And Elohim called, “Day!” in reference to the light. And in reference to the darkness, Elohim called, “Night!” And evening was there. And morning was there. Day one. 6. Then Elohim said, “Let there be a broadened space in the midst of the water and let a separation be there between waters for the water.”
Genesis 1:1-6
