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.

"All the news that fits"

This might seem a bit off-topic, but since I am currently teaching a course in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and since it is my blog, I'm going to allow it . . .

No doubt you've heard by now the story of British teacher Gillian Gibbons in Sudan who got into trouble for allowing her students to name a Teddy Bear that was the subject of a writing assignment Muhammad. According to the story as it's told here,

A 7-year-old student called Mohammad told Reuters this week he had suggested his own name be used for the bear.

In a writing exercise students were allowed to take the bear home and asked to keep a diary of what they did with the toy. These accounts were put together in a book entitled "My Name is Mohammad".

Never mind that, according to the story as it's told here, the boy "said he was not thinking of Islam’s Prophet when asked to suggest a name, adding most of the class agreed with his choice"; never mind that he also noted that "Gibbons had not discussed religion nor did she mention the Prophet"; it was too much of a coincidence for the protesters in Sudan who, according to the story as it's told here, were calling for her execution. Said local cleric Abdul-Jalil Nazeer al-Karouri, "a well-known hardliner",

This is an arrogant woman who came to our country, cashing her salary in dollars, teaching our children hatred of our Prophet Muhammad.

And she did this, evidently, by not discussing religion and failing to mention the Prophet (PBUH) in her classes in math, English, and spelling! The story goes on to say that

Hard-line clerics who hold considerable influence with Sudan's Islamic government, have sought to whip up public anger over the Gibbons' case, calling her actions part of a Western plot to damage Islam.

Frankly, in my opinion, there's no need for a Western plot to damage Islam; Muslims like these are doing a fine job of that on their own.

This is just one more example of a trend that my students have been discussing lately . . . you never seem to come across positive stories about Islam or Muslims in the news, only negative ones. Of course, part of the reason for that is the inherently negative bias of news media generally: good news is no news, after all. Which is why I was so pleased to see that Reuters, near the end of its report here, added this bit:

"When we heard we wanted to demonstrate immediately but some said we should wait and see what the concerned authorities find out," said Abdallah, a science student.

Shopkeeper Sabir Abdel Karim said that if Gibbons had not intended to insult Islam, an apology to Muslims would be enough to end the problem. "Any one can make a mistake and Muslims are forgivers. She will be forgiven and God will be the judge."

How many times has just this sort of sensible Muslim discourse gone
un(der)reported because it's so, well . . . sensible! . . . and for that very reason that much less newsworthy?

Almost makes me want to switch back to a Mac

In the comments to my post on Migne's Patrologia Graeca series, the following Very Useful Information is provided by Marco V. Fabbri, who writes:

Perhaps you would be interested to know that the Sibylline Oracles are available within the Pseudepigrapha module in the program Accordance for Macintosh. The good news is that they are tagged. The tags include parsing details, so that searches can be performed for uninflected forms, or for grammar details. I wrote the tags, so that I would be interested if you notice mistkaes [sic!] that I should correct.

This is good news for anyone interested in working with the Greek text of the SibOr (or any of the Pseudepigrapha, for that matter) . . . the ones who use a Mac, anyway. Thank you, Marco!

Buy this album . . .

. . . and then Go and Do Something (more) to help end the genocide in Darfur. Start here.

Book notes

Many thanks to rogueclassicism for mentioning, way back in early June, William Slater's (Bryn Mawr Classical) review of Eleanor Dickey's Ancient Greek Scholarship: A Guide to Finding, Reading, and Understanding Scholia, Commentaries, Lexica, and Grammatical Treatises, from Their Beginnings to the Byzantine Period. I bought the book and I have to say . . . for whatever it's worth . . . having seen it for myself now . . . I concur with the reviewer's prediction that "any serious student of Greek will want to possess it". It's the only one of its kind out there, and the materials for original-language reading practice that it includes make it all the more useful.

I was delighted to discover recently that Ernst Sackur's 1898 Sibyllinische Texte und Forschungen: Pseudomethodius, Adso und tiburtinische Sibylle was put back into print last year by Elibron Classics.

The collection of essays from the Third Enoch Seminar, meeting at Camaldoli in Italy two summers ago . . . Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Book of Parables, edited by Gabriele Boccaccini . . . is also now available. Given (as Dr. Jim West has already pointed out, and in so many words) that Everyone Who Is Anyone in Enoch studies has contributed to it, this is one book that no one who is at all interested in the question of "Son of Man" as a christological title can afford to ignore.

And I'm still trying to figure out why I could purchase a paperback edition of Peter Toohey's Reading Epic: An Introduction to the Ancient Narratives (London: Routledge, 1992) not all that long ago for a very reasonable $15.95, but I would have to shell out $125 today . . . which I won't, and not next week either . . . for the same author's (better) companion (!) volume Epic Lessons: An Introduction to Ancient Didactic Poetry (London: Routledge, 1996), still (11 years later!) available only in hardback. **Sigh** Go figure . . .