Family Values: Can One Size Fit All?

You can find this OpEd piece here.
The levels of local and national intensity surrounding this mid-term election are hard to describe. Conversations and emails are only on this topic. It will be relief to wake up tomorrow and be about more ordinary things.

Orientalism Reclaimed from the WSJ Nov 4th

An exciting review by Eric Ormsby of Dangerous Knowledge by Robert Irwin (Overlook) summarizes the argument: Said's 25 year old book Orientalism is "a work of malignant charlatanry."

To make the case Irwin reprises a history of Orientalism from antiquity to modern times including profiles of individual scholars including an evaluation of their accomplishments. Each description is a refutation of Said's thesis, according to Ormsby. Instead of condescension and bias ("we" Westerners and "they" the Orientals) we see scholarly scrupulousness. Said's argument sacrifices scholarly achievements for the generalizing thesis. Irwin tracks every logical fallacy, error, inconsistency and falsehood in Said's book Orientalism. Said's description of Muslim armies conquering Turkey before conquering North Africa "really does suggest a breathtaking ignorance of Middle Eastern history."

Ormsby concludes that Irwin provides a nuanced critique of Islamic studies that Said failed to deliver. Just plain curiosity about others is alive and flourishing in a history of Middle Eastern scholarship.

New Presiding Bishop Schori Interview on the Today Show

The Today Show's Meredith Vieira conducts a taped interview with the new Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori accessible here. (Menu on the left for The Today Show video brings up a list of topics of which one is the interview lasting about 5 minutes and easily downloaded).

Filmed in GTS' Chapel of the Good Shepherd, Bishop Schori, who is to be installed this weekend in Washington DC, addressed questions about connections between science and religion and controversies surrounding her election. Pressed on what issues behind these controversies are, she opined at least two: what it means to be made in God's image and what it means to live faithfully in community.

Worth a look (and GTS also looks good in the background)!

Tudor Family Values

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Relics of the Templars unearthed

Something for DaVinci Code enthusiasts:

Found in 1742 near Royston, Cambridgeshire, and open to the public, this cave shows signs of being a secret meeting place of the Knights Templar in the 1300's. According to an article in the Cambridge Evening News, every inch of the wall space is filled with carving, from finely-wrought images to rough graffiti. Various figures and symbols are clues to the cave's history. There are the saints - Christopher, Catherine, George. There's Jesus and his disciples. And there's a shrine to a heretic, being burned at the stake. This could be Jacques de Moray, the Templars' last Grand Master.

The original entrance was through a long, thin shaft, through which the knights climbed, using a series of toe-holes.

"The top would have been hidden inside a safehouse," explains Peter Houldcroft, whose archeological survey revealed that the cave is orientated to the East - to the point at which the sun rises on the saint's day of John the Baptist, the patron of the Templars.

The Templars extended the cave, decorated the walls with symbolic carvings and erected a wooden platform, half-way up the wall, to act as both a stepping platform (down to the cave floor) and a waiting area for the uninitiated.

When life as a Templar (even a secret life as a Templar) became too tough, in the late 1340s, they abandoned the cave, scratching out some of the most incriminating carvings and filling it in with earth. And so it remained, unchanged and undisturbed, for 400 years.

Was the apostle Junia a woman?

In an article from the Star-Telegram for Oct 28th 2006, on former Texas journalist Rena Pederson's new book The Lost Apostle, Searching for the Truth About Junia (Jossey-Bass, 2006) are some astonishing opinions.

In Romans 16:7 Paul says: "Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles and they were in Christ before I was."

Against the argument that Junia was a prominent woman apostle before Paul (an argument that has patristic traction as well as the support of modern translations like the NRSV) is Southwestern Baptist Theological President Paige Patterson.

Pederson quotes Patterson as saying, "I'm not arguing that Junia isn't a woman. It is very possible she was, but it can't be proved. Even if it is a girl's name, it doesn't mean it's a girl. I was placed in a girl's dorm because my name is Paige, just like a boy named Sue. ...But the point is there is no way to establish that Junia was in fact a female. The attempt to make her one of the apostles, based on a suspect text...is an agenda looking for a reason."

Not content with an argument based on his own experience of having a gender neutral name, Patterson added in an email to the article's writer that "apostle" has both generic and specialized meanings: "Even if Junia were female, which cannot be demonstrated, the text in question would still not establish that she functioned as Peter or Paul, a position of apostolic authority. The word 'apostolos' means 'one who is sent' and whether Junia is male or female, the text means only that that individual had a calling from God to share the Gospel. Evangelicals have always argued that women can and should do this."

1) Since the name Junia appears widely on gravestones, inscriptions and in ancient writings as a woman's name, isn't it likely that Junia is a woman in Romans 16:7? The contrary argument is that the form in Rom 16:7 "Junias" is not an accusative but a diminutive of the name "Junianes." Dimunitive forms of this male name occur far less frequently in ancient texts.

2) Arguments from modern gender-neutral names like Cooper, Paige, and such are irrelevant to study of ancient names. Shouldn't a seminary president know this?

3) There's no evidence that I know of to distinguish between generic and specialized meanings of the term apostle in ancient texts. This is the kind of separate but equal argument used to deny a class or group of people access to priviledge or power. It is a modern rather than an ancient interpretative tool.

All of this goes to show that interpreting the roles and offices of women in the NT still has existential relevance.

Blue Sky, Rain, Sun and a Rainbow

Yesterday evening in the mix of glorious fall weather we've been having in Maine, a rainbow appeared in the sky just about an hour before sunset. This is to share for people not on sabbatical :)

Promoting Jesus' Family Values #1

Perusing a reviewers blog from the Library Journal, I came across this!
Scroll down on the left side to the advertisment...(it comes and goes, to be sure, along with other books).

Thanks to Reverend Dr Mom for a fabulous weekend in the rectory at Barnstable on beautiful Cape Cod going back and forth to St. Mary's for talks with parishioners about the origins of the Bible and a book signing for Jesus' Family Values!

England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales: Summer 06

What a summer of travel: a conference and holiday in Scotland with parents and family followed by 2 weeks in Maine with my niece Joscelyn followed by two weeks in Ireland driving with my parents!

The SNTS conference in Aberdeen was excellent: outstanding presidential address from Sean Freyne on litererary and archaeological material from 1st C Galilee and good papers in sessions I attended. I was able to work in the UL whilst in Cambridge. And I was able to visit the Chester Beatty Library and manuscripts in Dublin.

Everyone should have a sabbatical. This fall I am learning Spanish and writing.

Authorial Admonitions

Recovering from a bout of shingles, I have been correcting first proofs of my new book on Jesus and Family Values. Katha Pollitt's piece, "Thank You for Hating My Book" in yesterday's Times
came at the right time to remind me of the vagueries of book reception.

Ponte Simone de Beauvoir

For the first time, a bridge in Paris has been named after a woman, in this case, Simone de Beauvoir. Too obvious, perhaps. At least, ancient Egyptians would have thought so. And more recently, who does not know the 1981 book This Bridge Called My Back: Radical Writings By Women of Color by Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua?