And I quote . . .

The least of learning is done in the classrooms.

Thomas Merton

To my Latin students . . .

. . . in particular, and to learners of ancient languages in general, I would like to offer these words of encouragement uttered by Tom Hanks' character, Jimmy Dugan, in Penny Marshall's delightful film, A League of Their Own:

It's baseball. It's supposed to be hard. If it weren't hard, then everyone would do it.

Have a happy (and be) Thanksgiving!

If you haven't read this little book yet . . .

. . . I'm referring to Walter Bruegemann, William Placher, and Brian Blount, Struggling with Scripture (Westminster John Knox 2002) . . . well, Greg Carey makes a terrific case for why you should.

If you want to improve your skills in reading biblical Hebrew . . .

. . . you should heed the bibliographical advice offered by Stephen Cook at Biblische Ausbildung.

Eminently sensible career advice . . .

. . . that both undergraduate and gradutate students interested in biblical studies would do well to heed is available at April DeConick's "Forbidden Gospels" blog. (ī, puella!)

On plagiarism

I learned about this from Stephen Cook's blog Bliblische Ausbildung, and since he posted such a delightful cartoon in connection with it, I hope you'll start from there to link to James McGrath's post on Butler University's Very Clear And Straightforward tutorial about plagiarism. Everyone who teaches undergraduates . . . and anyone who is an undergraduate . . . should pay close attention to it.

I was going to buy this book eventually anyway

But now I have even more reason to, given what it is apparently costing its author, Peter Enns, Professor of Old Testament and Biblical Hermeneutics at Westminster Theological Seminary, for having written it. Visit the stuff of earth and Faith and Theology and MetaCatholic to learn more about this developing academic outrage. And be sure to visit Prof. Enns' own weblog at a time to tear down / A Time to Build Up. A book with consequences like these has got to be worth reading, whether you end up agreeing with it or not.

Available at Amazon. Updated links to reviews of Enns' Inspiration and Incarnation and related information are being collected by Brandon Withrow.

Honoring Dr Jim West

Somebody ought to be keeping track of the outpouring of support for Jim West since his hugely popular blog's untimely demise. Might as well be me. Here's what I've seen so far . . .

• Aantekeningen bij de Bijbel: Jim West Blog
• Ancient World Bloggers Group: Jim West's Blog
• Awilum: Open Letter to Jim West - Support Jim by Linking to his Blog
• Bible and Ancient Near East: Deletion of Jim West's Blog
• Biblioblogs: A Scandalous Act (Jim's farewell speech to the Ephesian elders: "For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God", etc., Acts 20.27 tniv)
• Chrisendom: From Jim West (the same)
• Codex: Back to Blogging
• Dr. Claude Mariottini: Jim West: A Note of Appreciation
• Dr. Claude Mariottini: Jim West Says Goodbye to Blogging
• Dr. Platypus: What Kind of Craven Slimeball Deletes Another Person's Blog?
• Exploring Our Matrix: Around the Blogosphere
• Higgaion: I'm not sure what good a link will do . . .
• Idle musings of a bookseller: In memoriam
• James' Thoughts and Musings: The Deletion of Jim West's Blog
• Lingamish: Dr. Jim West disappears
• Lingamish: Update on the disappearance of Jim West
• Metacatholic: Total Depravity
• Narrative and Ontology: Support for Jim West
• Northstate Science: Deleted Blog
• NT Gateway Weblog: Jim West's blog: transmission cut
• Observatoria Biblico: Blog de Jim West foi completamente apagado
• PergaMent: Man skal huske et tage back-up
• Le Pharisien Libere: l'ami Jim West a perdu son blog
• Pseudoscienze cristiani antiche e medievali: Jim, this time I don't agree with you
• Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth: The End of an Era
• the stuff of earth: say it ain't so, jim!
• Sufficiency: Blogging and Mortality
• Sufficiency: Dr. Jim's posts still on bloglines
• The Tell es-Safi/Gath Excavations: Jim West's Blog is erased!
• The View from Jerusalem: Dr. Jim West, Be resurrected!
• The Voice of Stefan: Total Depravity: Unconscionable Cowards
• If I've missed your Jim-West-related post, please let me know via e-mail (gordonwatley at gmail dot com) or comment, and I'll include it as I update the list.
  
  UPDATE:
  
• Second Go (Biblioblogs)
• Breaking News (Lingamish)
• He's back (Idle musings of a bookseller)

A religious studies course for public schools

Dr. Jim West thinks that "Bible courses in public schools simply are improper" and that "the same would be true" for public schools "to offer Qur'an courses or the like". I'll have to beg to differ with him on this issue, since I am in fact teaching a course in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam for high school students here in the grandly conservative state of Nebraska. The focus of the course is on comparing how Jews, Christians, and Muslims read their own and each others' scriptures, by engaging students in discussion of close readings of selected passages from the Tanakh, the New Testament, and the Qur'an in English translation. Of course, I do happen to be employed as a lecturer in Classics and Religious Studies at UN-L, and I am trained in historical studies in Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity at the University of Virginia, and the course is part of UN-L's "Advanced Scholars" program, which means it's for college credit, so maybe it doesn't really fit Dr. Jim's criteria for a public school Bible/Qur'an/the like course. But they are high school students, and we're not in church (or synagogue) (or mosque).

There . . . now I'm not sure whether I've challenged Dr. Jim West, or buddied up to him, but either way, this should make my blog more popular, right? (I learned this from Nick Norelli.)

And then, of course, there's that old saying,"Those who can, do; those who can't, teach", to which Woody Allen famously added, "And those who can't teach, teach gym" . . . or is that "Jim"?

Now I've done it . . .

What I'm teaching this semester

I'm excited (!) about what I'm teaching this semester! In addition to the perennial Classical Mythology course (I still do so love teaching on the other [= pagan] side of the aisle), I'm teaching

• an "Advanced Scholars" distance learning course for (hopefully college-bound) high school students, on Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, in which we will work through selected passages on similar subjects (e.g., Adam and Eve; Abraham, Isaac, and Ishmael; Mary and Jesus; law and grace; sin and salvation; prayer; gender; war and non-violence; etc.) in the Tanakh, the New Testament, and the Qur'an -- sort of a scripture-study triathlon; and

• an upperclass Honors seminar that I've provocatively titled "Rewriting Moses: Jewish biblical interpretation in the time of Jesus", which is mainly an introduction to the study of methods of biblical exegesis in the works of Philo and Josephus, with special reference to their treatments of Genesis and Exodus, and with one eye on the NT and other more or less contemporary Jewish and Christian texts.

Did I mention that I'm also trying to put my dissertation on Sibylline Oracles 1-2 to bed this semester? AND stay married? Wish me luck!

On behalf of Iraqi Mandaeans

If you haven't already signed the Petition to help the Mandaeans attain refugee status, I urge you to consider doing so now.

You can learn more about the Mandaeans ("the last living Gnostics") of Iraq and their current plight at April DeConick's website on The Mandaeans.

The last I looked (on 12/26/07), 514 persons had signed the online petition so far . . . the goal is 1,000. Please read, and then do.

On the letteral sense of scripture

Over at Ancient Hebrew Poetry, John Hobbins links to a wonderfully outlandish Youtube video of televangelist/radio preacher Larry Ollison's "exegesis" (if that's the right word?) of Genesis 1.1 in the light of John 1.1 and Revelation 1.8, 1.11, and 22.13.

Never mind the impressive frequency of Dr. Ollison's howlers (on the difference between ρημα/rhema and λογος /logos, for example, or how the New Testament was translated from Hebrew into Greek, or that no one -- not even ancient Hebrew scribes -- has ever [until now!] had any idea what the Hebrew particle את/et really means)! He declares that the את in the Bible's opening phrase, בראשית ברא אלהים את חשמים/bereshit bara elohim et hashamayim, refers to Jesus, on the grounds that the Greek references to Jesus as the Alpha (Α) and Omega (Ω) in the book of Revelation should be back-transliterated into the Hebrew alphabet's Aleph (א) and Tav (ת) -- not as individual letters, however, but as the word את -- so that the first sentence of the Gospel of John should be read: "In the beginning [of the book of Genesis] was the word [specifically, the word את = Jesus] and the word [את/Jesus] was with God [right there next to the word אלחים/God], and the word was God [because אלחים is, of course, plural]" . . . when, that is, the Bible is read in its (il)literately truthy letteral sense.

Never mind the buckets of egregious misinformation Dr. Ollison spews forth getting there! Never mind that, for this interpretation to work, John the Revelator's blatant misunderstanding of Jesus' words would be forever enshrined in Scripture! This is figural exegesis par excellence, right up there with the Epistle of Barnabas' (9.7-9) brilliantly linguistically inapt understanding of the number of Abraham's men (318 = τιη in Greek) as a reference to the first two letters of Jesus' name (ΙΗσους) and his cross (Τ)! Whatever else one might think of Dr. Ollison and his ministry, this is patristic exegesis at its dazzlingly dizzying Bible-Code-thumping dictation-theory-of-divine-inspiration-on-steroids best. And I mean that in the nicest way, really. Of course Origen could have exegeted circles around this guy with one metaphor after another tied behind his back! But the video is still a gem.

I don't know how much education in the biblical languages Dr. Ollison has actually had . . . and to view it in all its uproariously just-enough-to-be-dangerous glory, you really should take the time to absorb his whole show on The Hebrew Language . . . but the question does underscore the need for (and the timeliness of) a conversation like the one that's been going on lately in Biblioblogland about teaching and learning the biblical languages in seminaries (start here with [again] John Hobbins at Ancient Hebrew Poetry and follow the links there).

My own first advice to anyone contemplating going to seminary (not that anyone's every asked me for it, but if they did it) would be: if you can, get an undergraduate degree (or at least minor) in Greek and Hebrew first, and run ahead of the pack by the time you're in seminary.

Let me put it this way:

• Beginning biblical Hebrew grammar: $35.
• Hebrew-English interlinear Old Testament: $75.
• Seminary education: $45,000.
• Finding Jesus in the את in Genesis 1.1: priceless.