Updating my c-v

Very few people need or care to update a curriculum vitae but in the course of recommending a colleague for promotion to full professor, mine was requested to support the recommendation. Although we actually have an annual review with the academic Dean each Spring (which includes a few pages summarizing our recent professional activities), my c-v seems not to have been updated in a while. What have I published recently?

Looking back over annual reviews and trails of emails, I recalled that I had been invited to submit an article on "Elaine Pagels" for a multi-volume encyclopedia: Women in Today's World (published by MacMillan) and that in 2010 I had received an email from the publishers saying that a draft of my article had been accepted and would be published. And then I heard no more. This kind of reference work is likely only to be bought by libraries. So I went online and found that indeed the work had been published in 2011 with 2016 pages. How on earth would I find the page numbers to reference my tiny article?

Well, some of the material seems to be online because a search for the encyclopedia together with the article on "Elaine Pagels" brought the happy news that the article is on pp.1062-1063. So that's one article correctly referenced!

I've also updated an article I wrote on women in noncanonical texts for the 20th Anniversary edition of A Women's Bible Commentary (Westminster John Knox) eds Carol Newsom and Sharon Ringe. The book will be republished in 2012. This was far harder than the original as so much more material on women in noncanonical NT texts has been published in the last 20 years in addition to explosions of material on gender imagery and issues. Strictly speaking, there isn't even a limitation of dates on noncanonical texts. See the problem?

In my updated c-v I also include blog posts I write for Episcopal Cafe. These posts represent a different kind of writing that isn't strictly academic but it reaches a far wider audience than anything academic I ever write. 

"Stuff Happens" (May 2007)

"Missing Saints and Psalms" (July 2007)

"Is It Morally Justifiable to Publish Mother Teresa's Private Letters?" (August 2007) 

"Why Do We Need To Discuss Hospitality?" (September 2007)

"Who's On Trial? The Gospel and the Archbishop"  (November 2007)

"Blood Isn't thicker than Water" (October 2007)

"What Has the Bible to Do With Sexuality?" (December 2007)

"Diversity of Pauline Traditions" (January 2008)

"Secret Mark" (February 2008)

"The Gospel of Truth" (March 2008)

"Female Prophets: A Lost Legacy?" (April 2008)

"Krister Stendahl" with Jane Redmont (May 2008)

"Mourning Diamond" (June 2008)

"Did Jesus Speak Greek?" (September 2008)

"Bill Maher's Religulous: An Exercise in Caricature" (October 2008)

"Our (Same-Sex) Marriage" (December 2008)

"Narnia: Christian Triumphalism or Imaginative Pluralism?" (January 2009)

"Racism, Injustice and Reparations" (February 2009) reposted in Ekklesia:

http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/8956

"Singing Judith's Song" (March 2009)

"Why Do You Seek the Living Among the Dead?" (April 2009)

"On Being Excluded" (May 2009)

"Fathers and Daughters" (August 2009)

"The Contribution of the Lone Translator" (October 2009)

"Go Forth From this World" (January 2010)

“To see and respect” (March 2010)

“A Trip that Changed my Life” (May 2010)

“White Light Festival” (December 2010) reposted in Religion at the Margins:

http://religionatthemargins.com/2010/12/the-white-light-festival/

“Buildings and Meanings” (February 2011)

“Elizabeth Johnson: Reliable Guide” (April 2011)

“Created in God’s Image” (July 2011)

“The art of waiting” (August 2011)

“Jesus & Abba” (October 2011)

“Is the Kingdom of Heaven a Ponzi Scheme?” (November 2011)

Long story short: the c-v is taking longer to update than I anticipated...

Meditations on Matthew 19

Meditations on Matthew 19-21 coming up on a website for the Center for Biblical Studies of St Thomas' Church, Whitemarsh in Philadelphia. Here's the first on Matthew 19. The Daily Mediations are part of an ambitious plan of the rector and the parish via. the resources for the Center to encourage people to read the whole Bible in small bits. Kudos to St Thomas' Church Whitemarsh! Different people are writing meditations for each day over the course of the next few months.

So do you have Bibles in the pews of your parish? What about discussions of the passages of scripture in the lectionary each week? What about discussions of the context of each of these passages so that we don't loose site of the wood for the trees?

Speaking Events Spring 2012

Starting this Sunday for 2 weeks I am at St James the Less Scarsdale speaking on Jesus the Meek King. January 22, Feb 2, 9, 16 I'll be giving one of four courses at the Cathedral of St John the Divine (see details below). Then I go to the Episcopal Diocese of Central PA Clergy Conference in February 2012 where I am one of two speakers. I'll be speaking on households in the New Testament. On Feb 12th I am at Brick Presbyterian Church in NYC speaking on humanity made in God's image. And on March 4th I am at St Luke's Darien CT speaking on the many faces of Jesus in a Lenten series.

More details about Lenten speaking events soon...

Exploring Genesis
Rabbi Leonard A. Schoolman
Four Tuesdays: January 24, 31, February 7, 14 7:00-8:30 p.m.
The biblical Book of Genesis has become the battleground for conservative and liberal thinkers. Its verses are widely used as proof texts for many arguments. Rabbi Schoolman will guide us in a consideration of the origins of the Book, and will help us to discern the original meanings and the various interpretations of the text itself. Among the topics will be Creation, Adam and Eve, Sodom and Gomorrah, the Binding of Isaac, and the Joseph cycle. Please bring a copy of the Bible.


Biblical Women of Worth
Dr. Phyllis Trible
Four Tuesdays: January 24, 31, February 7, 14 7:00- 8:30 p.m.
Unlike the book of Proverbs 31:10, this course offers different answers to the question, "A woman of worth, who can find?" Professor Trible will explore the phrase "woman of worth" through characters ranging from Eve and Miriam through Jezebel and Huldah to the Syro-Phoenician woman.

Introduction to the Gospels
Professor Deirdre Good
Four Thursdays: January 26, February 2, 9, 16 7:00-8:30 p.m.
The “good news” of the New Testament books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John is the telling of the life of Jesus. Dr. Good will help us to understand the origins of the Gospels, which came first and why, as well as the audiences for which the Gospels were written. These basic documents of Christianity form the basis for an understanding of the art and music of western civilization. Their message is crucial for the education of a well-rounded individual. Please bring a copy of the New Testament.


Introduction to Islam
Dr. Hussein Rashid
Three Thursdays: January 26, February 9, 16 7:00-9:00 p.m.
More than one million Muslims live in the greater New York area. How much do we know of their beliefs and practices? Dr. Rashid will guide us through a basic understanding of Islam as it is practiced in America and abroad. We will look at the Qur’an, Islam’s holy scriptures, and explore its relationship to the Bible of Jews and Christians. He will also help us to understand the many varieties of Islam, including Sunni, Shi’ia and Sufism. There will be ample opportunity for questions and answers, and for discussion.

Professor Larry Schiffman on the DSS at Times Square

Onassis Foundation Exhibition: Transition to Christianity

Currently the Onassis Foundation here in NYC is showing an exhibit Transition to Christianity: Art of Late Antiquity--3rd to 7th Century CE through May 14th, 2012 including items never seen outside Greece. Peter Brown says:

“This exhibition is devoted, in large part, to showing the strange and colorful life of an age which had once been consigned to the shadows, as an age of death and gloom…. Here was an other story, told under an other, more peaceful, eastern sky: the preparation, throughout the territories still ruled from Constantinople by Roman emperors, of a Byzantine civilization that would last for a further millennium.”  “It was the last and the most open of the great ages of antiquity,” Peter Brown continues. “Of this great story, an exhibition can show only fragments…. These poignant fragments of a long-lost age speak to us directly of what it was like, on the ground, to live through an era of mighty transition.”  There is an online course at the website giving you a flavor of the exhibit. And the Wall Street Journal published this review on January 4th.

January 8-19, 2013, Trip to Turkey: Christianity in Asia Minor with Profs Good and Shaner of GTS

Join Professors Deirdre Good and Katherine Shaner of General Theological Seminary for an illuminating and informative journey to Asia Minor (modern day Turkey), exploring both the urban contexts ouf ot which early Christianity was shaped and some of the spaces in which Christianity grew to prominence. Through visits to some of the great archaeological parks of the world, we will examine the historical and cultural context in which the earliest Christians and their writings emerged.

Deirdre Good is professor of New Testament at General Theological Seminary. She has visited Turkey twice and after the second visit wrote this piece “Buildings and Meanings” – http://www.episcopalcafe.com/daily/interfaith/by_deirdre_good_my_last.php   - on the meanings of religious buildings in Istanbul and elsewhere.  She edited a 2005 book on Jewish, Christian and Muslim interpretations of Mary (Mariam, the Magdalen and the Mother) which contextualizes Mary traditions in and around Ephesus.

Professor Katherine Shaner is assistant professor of New Testament at General Theological Seminary.  Her research focuses on slaves, women, and low-status persons in Pauline communities and especially the city of Ephesos, where she worked with the excavation team in the summer of 2010.   She has also worked with excavators from Pergamon and Sardis. Her expertise in Roman archaeology provides an invaluable tangibility to the 1st century world – and will help us experience the lives, beliefs, practices and challenges of first-century Christians and their neighbors.

This is a unique opportunity to travel with New Testament experts who know how to bring history to life in some of the most fascinating archaeological sites in the world.  We invite you to join us!

Please click on the link for information about itinerary, registration, costs and other travel details. For questions about the trip, please email Deirdre Good: good@gts.edu or Katherine Shaner: shaner@gts.edu 

Christmas Cake

Long ago and far away, when I was eleven years old, I took an exam called the 11+. Most children of that age at that time in the UK took that exam. It was thought to be able to determine academic abilities. If you passed the exam well, you went off to the academically rigorous schools of the day, namely, grammar schools. If you did reasonably well, you went off to slightly less challenging academic environments. And if you failed the exam, as I did, you went to a secondary modern school.

The 11+ exam was created by the 1944 Butler Education Act. It divided children into one of three streams: an academic, a technical and a functional strand. Determining a child's academic abilities at this point in their lives indicated likely career choices. Since I failed the 11+ I would most likely work in the service industry or perhaps education as some of my classmates in the UK now do.

So for the first year of my secondary modern school experience, in addition to main subjects like English and History and Mathematics, boys went off to do metalwork and woodwork whilst girls went off to iron handkerchiefs and bake Christmas Cakes.

The shortcomings of the 11+ exam are well-known and it has been largely abandoned but not before it consigned schoolchildren to particular streams of education far too early.

Differences amongst children were in future not to be measured but eradicated. Those arguments which had been used against the eleven-plus examination were now deployed against streaming or grading. Homogenising efforts were directed not only at differences of ability but also differences of gender. School books which depicted men going to work or women shopping were condemned for promoting sex-stereotyping. Girls were now encouraged to enrol for metalwork and boys for domestic science. Even the differences between teachers and pupils were now minimised; the former’s role was now to facilitate freedom of expression and group activity learning.

Had it not been for the foresight of my parents I would not be where I am today. They paid for me to attend a boarding school at the age of 15 where within one year I took O levels and then three A levels which enabled me to attend University. Pause for a moment to consider as I often do those of my classmates and several generations of UK children hampered and restricted by such an experience from which they would never recover. I met some of them one Easter when I took a job in Woolworth's selling Easter Eggs. 

Letters received from complete strangers

During the course of my teaching career, I've received letters and emails from complete strangers. Sometimes they simply send an entire paper which they ask me to endorse. Sometimes they have a query about a subject in the NT --more often than not from Revelation. Sometimes they send along a real question on an issue on their minds.

What I do depends on the query. I got one of them this week and since the author knew General Seminary and since the three pages concluded with a statement, "If I am mistaken, where have I gone wrong?" I am going to spend some time composing a letter in reply.

However, it's taking longer than I thought. It's about the rendering of DOULOS as "slave" in the NRSV as opposed to "servant" in the KJV. Apparently the author of the letter is exercised by Matthean parables in which "God" as slave owner evidences coercion. True, every Matthean parable featuring managerial slaves (unmerciful slave 18:23-35; wicked tenants 21:23-41; wedding banquet 22:1-10; overseer 24:45-51 and talents 25: 14-30) graphically shows the vulnerability of slaves to bodily harm. So what are we going to do with this imagery?

I'm starting with issues of translation. The NRSV choice of "slave" for DOULOS is to indicate legal subordination. For some, a translation "servant" indicates voluntary servitude. Another word DIAKONOS is generally rendered "servant"and occasionally the NRSV reverts to "servant" for DOULOS: see Gal 1:10.

I try next to differentiate ancient slavery from modern slavery. Race is not a factor in the institution of slavery in the ancient world. Ancient slaves were educated whilst education of American slaves was legally forbidden. Ancient slaves could own property (including other slaves) and most slaves could be emancipated by the age of 30 and could become Roman citizens. Ancient slavery is akin to a process; modern slavery is a permanent condition.

I'm still writing the letter to include the other complicating element: use of the term EBED in Hebrew Scriptures. EBED is rendered by DOULOS in the LXX and occasionally by OIKETES when indicating a household slave.

Here's my conclusion: "So taking the notion of slavery seriously means that we view the language of Paul and gospel writers describing Jesus's ministry to reflect on the one hand the normative reality of ancient slavery and on the other, metaphor. There's no evidence that Jesus or Paul were slaves. And in distinction to modern people, ancient writers do not customarily use language of free will and choice when it comes to allegiance and affiliation. Philippians 2, the text you mention, describes Jesus humbling himself even to death on the cross by “taking the form of a slave” to reflect that crucifixion was the punishment for slaves.

Also, taking the Bible seriously means taking the language it was written in and the social realities that shaped it seriously. We cannot escape slave language by softening the translation; rather our vocation is to reflect on the implications of that language, and to judiciously critique any attempt to replicate antiquity's social mores in today's world."

Inbetween times, I've solicited from colleagues their own examples of such letters. My favorite was the one that asked a colleague to confirm that bee pollen was eaten in the Garden of Eden. Of course they wanted him to endorse a health product. 

Christmas at General Seminary: CBS 11.30pm Christmas Eve

The Right Reverend Sam B. Hulsey Chair in Episcopal Studies

Brite Divinity School, affiliated with Texas Christian University, invites applications for appointment to The Rt. Rev. Sam B. Hulsey Chair in Episcopal Studies. The field is open. Applicants in Pastoral Care and Pastoral Theology or in Theology are especially encouraged to apply. The appointment will be at the Assistant Professor level. The Ph.D. or equivalent is required. Demonstrated competence in teaching and scholarly research is expected. Teaching load is four courses per year at Masters and Doctoral levels.

Brite Divinity School is an ecumenical seminary related to the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). It has an active Episcopal Studies Program with its own director. Brite is an EEO employer and maintains a policy of nondiscrimination with respect to all employees and applicants for employment. Upload letter of application describing interests in teaching and research and dossier to https://tcu.igreentree.com/CSS_Faculty/CSSPage_Welcome.asp. Send three letters of recommendation to Dean Nancy Ramsay, Brite Divinity School, TCU Box 298130, Fort Worth, TX 76129. Review of applicants will begin January 9 and continue until the position is filled. The position begins Fall, 2012.

SBL/AAR in San Francisco + Update: My favorite moment

At the large book exhibit for the combined American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature, there are some wonderful signs like this one. It's a chance to catch up on what has recently been published and what is about to appear. People are offered discounts not only for the duration of the convention but also until the end of December. I'm actually collecting such order forms for someone who couldn't be here so that option is a valuable one.

Editors are keen to converse about publishing possibilities with scholars. Authors can often be seen in the vicinity of presses that have published their work and the presses in turn will promote new publications with posters of titles and announcements of review sessions at the conference. I like to ask a press which of their books has sold well and what their new books are. Today I also asked a number of presses what Coptic texts they had published just to see what the level of interest for Coptic materials is.  The answer is, not much. Does a portable Coptic New Testament exist?

Sometimes, you get a booth that doesn't draw much interest. But it should be said (inspite of the above pic) that the SBL encourages confessional diversity about which there has been some controversy here. More recently, in the Chronicle, Jacques Berlinerblau reports on a session he attended in SF run by the Society for Pentecostal Studies.

He asks:

If it is taken as a given that God exists, that the Bible is His word and His Truth, and that one’s job is to cooperatively identify that Truth, then what happens to the scholarly ideal of critical inquiry? To what degree does a professor in a Pentecostal seminary have the right to challenge these articles of faith? And what happens to her when she does that?

How do Berlinerblau or Hendel or anyone else who is not a member of this faith community fit into any of this? Is participation in an SPS session open to all members of the SBL?

It would be wrong to ask these questions solely of Pentecostals. What many of us in the SBL have been alleging for years is that the prevalence of organized religious blocs in the Society creates a state of affairs that is unhealthy for scholarship on the Bible and Bible scholars.


Update: my favorite moment at SBL was a social one. Over cocktails with a new friend one evening I heard about his first teaching experience. "Remember when you told us about your first teaching day?" he said. (I'd had a nosebleed out of sheer terror and retreated to the bathroom to staunch the bleeding). "Well, it was similar. I thought I'd throw up. My palms were sweaty...I was very nervous. I knew that the students would be very familiar with the text--more than you or I would ever be--so I got each of them to read the same passage from their bibles. And as each one read a different translation, people began to hear that the Word of God wasn't saying the same thing. So I said, 'How can we reconcile these differences...?' And we had a great discussion. Afterwards, one of them said, 'This was wonderful! I had no idea what to expect and I am already looking forward to the rest of the class...' And I sighed and went home."