1. Reading the Psalms as a whole

   
   

While it does not appear that there was much consideration into how the psalms were organized into a book, one trend seems to be noticeable. The first book contains a large number of laments, while the last book, and especially the last five chapters is full of praise. The trend seems to be one from lament to praise, similar to the lament psalms themselves. The last psalm ends with a universal call to praise God: not just Israel, but all the world is to praise him.

Robin Parry presents one of the better examples of theological interpretation of Scripture which I have read. He presents the idea of the ideal reader, who reads in the way expected by the text. Since the text does not know the NT, the canonical Christian reading will be unexpected, based on that definition. "Indeed, it is essential for a Christian theological reading of Lamentations that the reader is not standing in the shoes of the implied reader" (396). But the Christian theological reading must have an organic relationship with the expected reading: the expected reading is an important and necessary first step, but only the first step. The primary key for a Christian reading of Lamentations for Parry is Isaiah 40-55 (postexilic for him, hence after Lamentations). Second Isaiah takes Lamentations and injects hope into the book, particularly through the connection of the man of Lamentations 3 and the suffering servant of Isaiah 53. From there it is only a short step to the NT and Jesus. Building on N. T. Wright's view of Jesus as true Israel, Lamentations is the equivalent of Saturday in the Passion week. Bringing in the rule of faith, Parry wonders how the Trinity plays a role in Lamentations. Yahweh and Jesus have already been discussed, but how does the Spirit fit in? Parry finds the connection in Romans 8:17, where the Spirit groans with the church and creation. The Spirit thus groans with those who are suffering in Lamentations. The essay ends with the expected complaint: does this not rob Lamentations of its power? Lamentations is designed to be about bad news, not good news. The voice of Yahweh has been purposefully removed from Lamentations; how can we now insert that voice and still consider it a legitimate reading of the book? In response, he says that we must pay attention to both the canonical form and the canonical context: we must balance the good news and the bad news, in a sense. We must be sure to not move too quickly to Sunday from Saturday, but neither should we forget Sunday is coming.

For anyone interested in theological interpretation of Scripture, this is an excellent place to begin. Not only does he give a good example, he is self-conscious about what he is doing and helps the reader along the way with his thinking. But I remained somewhat bothered with his conclusion. The complaint he raises is precisely the complaint I have as well: Lamentations no longer lives up to its name. While I fully agree that canonically we have hope, I want to guard the places like Lamentations where that hope is not expressed. The author of Lamentations could have expressed that hope if he desired; in my thinking Second Isaiah already had been around for awhile, and even apart from that many of the other prophets had spoken of a future hope after exile. The author of Lamentations purposely does not include any hope because he wants to express the despair present at the time and hope would go counter to his desire. I agree with Parry's conclusions in a sense, although I get there a different way: I agree that we need to stay in Saturday for awhile but not forget Sunday is coming. But I would rather frame it as staying in Lamentations for awhile before moving on to Isaiah and the Resurrection. I do not want to level the various books of the Bible and make them all say the same thing; I want to preserve the diversity in them.

1. Confession of sin

Another topic in many psalms is confession of sin (especially 51 and 32). While 51 is very individual, the last few verses of the chapter give it a communal aspect. The reference to the Holy Spirit in 51 is not to salvation, but to the calling to be king: David does not want to stop being king. Psalm 32 illustrates the importance of being forgiven rather than being perfect.

1. Vengeance

A disturbing type of psalm for us today are the imprecatory psalms, the psalms in which the psalmist asks for destruction of enemies (137 and 109). These psalms are based on the Mosaic covenant, which promise destruction to those who oppose God’s people. However, some measure of use of these psalms today can be helpful in limited ways.

1. Provision and presence

The psalmist trusts God for daily provision, which is the topic of Psalm 23. Green pastures is not a life of leisure, but the food necessary for life. God is also present in all places and all times.

I was just reading Rashi's commentary on the Song of the Sea and came across some left-handed slander. Here is the text on which he (Rashi) is commenting: Your right hand, O LORD, glorious in power; your right hand, O LORD, crushes the enemy (Exodus 15:6). Rashi says on the verse, in a loose paraphrase: the two mentions of the right hand indicate that when Israel does the will of the Omnipresent one, the left hand is made into the right hand. I.e., a wonderful thing happens: one's useless left hand becomes a glorious right hand!Sorry to all you left-handers out there.

1. Psalms are to be understood as Torah

   
   

Psalm 1 is a different type of psalm than what is usual in the rest of the book. It is often called a wisdom psalm, using similar terminology to wisdom literature. Its location as the first psalm is intentional: it instructs the reader how to read the Psalms. They are not just emotional rants from unbalanced people, but they are to be viewed as Torah, as the divine word from God. We are blessed if we follow the Psalms. We are happy and blessed not because we do not have problems, but because we have a solid foundation. Psalm 19 and 119 also reflect this emphasis.

1. God Reigns!

   
   

The second psalm is also placed intentionally. It speaks of the reign of the Lord even in the face of many nations rising against him. One of the main themes of the Psalms is that God is sovereign. Even when the people rage against God, God is still God.

The point of reading the Psalm is not to discover a new truth (such as the fact that God reigns over the whole world), although that is a process which can be done and which I do below. The point of reading the psalms is to read the psalms to express and to change one’s emotion. The Psalms help to us to truly understand our emotional situation. But the Psalms also help us to speak to ourselves emotionally and to challenge us to different emotions and different feelings. The Psalms help us to put into reality what was not present before. For example, the phrase “Yahweh is king” in the Psalms is not simply make a proposition about reality, it is to help the reader recognize that Yahweh truly is king in their life.¹ Some of the psalms (42-43, for example) advocate talking to yourself: reminding yourself of truth when the truth is not felt as true.

The psalms also helps us express our emotions to God when we are not sure they are appropriate. “On the other hand, Israel’s prayer is at the same time a guard and guarantee against an overpolite idolatry. Such an idolatry imagines that God is fragile, delicate, and easily offended. In much of fraudulent piety, God is too nice and so our prayers must be censored. The outcome of such deference, of course, is that there is never serious and effective address.”² When we have strong feelings, we should talk to God about them. It is not as if we could hide them successfully anyway.

1. Walter Brueggemann, The Psalms & the Life of Faith, ed. Patrick D. Miller (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 3-32.

2. Brueggemann, The Psalms & the Life of Faith, 58.

Murphy, Roland E. The Tree of Life: An Exploration of Biblical Wisdom Literature. 3rd ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002.

Roland Murphy has written a very helpful introduction to wisdom literature in the Bible and somewhat beyond. The book includes the usual discusses of the classis wisdom books of the OT: Proverbs, Job, and Qoheleth. Beyond these he also includes surveys of Ben Sira and the Wisdom of Solomon. He concludes the book by looking at wisdom’s echoes in other parts of the Hebrew Bible, the theology of wisdom literature, and Lady Wisdom. The book seems to be designed for those with a basic background in Old Testament who desire to know more about wisdom literature.

I recently finished the book mentioned in the title by Michael Oren. It is an excellent book on the history of the Middle East from the US's perspective. The main point of the book is in the title: the US has always viewed the Middle East with a mixture of power, faith, and fantasy. The power is the military might, all the way from the confrontation with the Barbary pirates to the second Gulf War. The faith is the missionary movement and the influence from reading the Bible. The stories about the early missionaries are exciting and somewhat chilling. The Middle East just seems to attract strange people. The fantasy is the unreal image that the Middle East holds over American's view of the land of the Bible and the 1001 Arabian nights. America has always had difficulty in the region because of the interrelation of these three aspects. The first part of the book is best as he talks about history that is not discussed very much, but once he gets past WW2 he goes much quicker, althought this quick picture of the past sixty years was helpful as a grand overview. If you want help to understand the Middle East tody, this is a great book to read. This is also a great book to see how we can learn from history and how while things change greatly over time others never seem to go anywhere. The book is worth it just to read the stories about hte missionaries. Highly recommended!

One of the odd facts surrounding Jeremiah is that he never mentions Josiah's reform. Shouldn't Jeremiah have been excited about it? He was alive and seems to have been active during the time period. Why didn't Jeremiah praise Josiah and the reforms? This oddity has produced a number of speculative theories. But the more I thought about it the less odd it became in my mind for two reasons. One is a parallel: Isaiah and Hezekiah. Hezekiah enacted similar reforms to Josiah, but we read nothing about them in Isaiah. Why not? Which leads to a second reason: the purpose of the prophets. Prophets go from central to peripheral in the course of the OT. The earliest prophets, such as Abraham and Moses, are the center leadership. The next group of prophets are still associated with the central government, but are not the center themselves, such as Nathan and Gad. But by the time we get to Elijah and Elisha and the writing prophets, we mostly have prophets who speak from the outside (there are exceptions, and in postexilic times the prophetic role seems to return to a more central role, it seems). But the peripheral prophet works to challenge sinners and abuse; in other words, the prophets come in when the times are evil. Hence, if the king is enacting reforms, there is little role for peripheral prophets. They are needed most when the king and leaders are opposed to God. Hence, it is not surprising that Jeremiah does not mention the reforms: that was the not the time when prophets were in action.

I received the happy news this morning that my proposasl for a paper at ETS in Boston has been accepted. Here is the title and the abstract. I'll probably post the full paper in a few months.

THEOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION OF SCRIPTURE:

REFLECTIONS FROM AN EVANGELICAL BIBLICAL STUDIES PERSPECTIVE

The Theological Interpretation of Scripture (TIOS), focusing on the importance of the hermeneutical significance of the canon and reading the Bible in a theological manner, has been gaining popularity recently, giving rise to a variety of articles, books, and commentaries. But there has been little reflection from evangelical biblical scholars. Should evangelicals embrace TIOS? Should it cause them concern? This paper will give a short history of TIOS, present the beneficial aspects of TIOS for evangelical biblical scholars, discuss some potentially unbalanced directions taken by some TIOS advocates, and briefly evaluate the recent TIOS commentaries in the Brazos and Two Horizons series from the perspective of evangelical biblical studies.

McCann Jr., J. Clinton. A Theological Introduction to the Book of Psalms. Nashville: Abingdon, 1993.

This is an excellent introduction to the Psalms as a book for today. McCann wrote this book in order to “assist readers to hear the book of Psalms itself” (9). While mentioning critical views and questions about Psalms, he spends the majority of his time determining how the Psalms are relevant for us today.

The book is easy to read, which makes sense since it written by a professor with extensive pastoral experience. It is also fairly short, making it a relatively quick read (I actually read the entire book on a plane ride from Chicago to Seattle). The chapters are filled with illustrations and applications like a good sermon rather than an academic work. But this is no fluffy devotional work: McCann knows what he is talking about and presents solid insight into the Psalms. The intended audience seems to be a student, a pastor, or a lay person, although a scholar could derive much of value from this book as well. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the Psalms. Follow the link for a summary and critique of the book.

On the way to Cornerstone we listened to a lecture and question and answer time by Walter Brueggemann, one of my favorite Old Testament theologians. These lectures can be downloaded for free from Christianaudio.com, a great site which also gives away a free audio book each month (July is the Practice of the Presence of God). He has many great ideas, although he takes almost all of his ideas too far in my opinion. I disagree with much of what he says, but he helps me think about the Old Testament in new and very helpful ways. Anyway, in this lecture he talked about how we are each scripted into a certain script by our surroundings: family, friends, culture, etc. The Christian life is all about being re-scripted into a different script. The problem is that we always have a tendency to go back to our old script, and so we always have to be re-scripting ourselves. Nothing unusual in this statement besides different wording. I didn't think about this lecture much once we got to Cornerstone, until something brought it to mind a few days later. We camped next to an Eastern Orthodox group, who had set up a tent with several icons. Several times a day they would hold services in the tent with various readings of the Bible, creeds, and other theological formulations. I didn't think much of this either, until it dawned on me the connection between the two: the Eastern Orthodox services were a way to re-script themselves. They would spend time each day reminding themselves of theology and the reality of God through these procedures. Essentially it is not all that different of a goal from the evangelical daily bible reading and prayer: the point is to re-script ourselves into the proper script. Now, I am not advocating that we become Eastern Orthodox: while I admire their goal, I am not as happy with their means. But it is also good to remember that daily Bible reading is nowhere commanded in the Bible: it is no doubt a good idea, but the option was not even available to most Christians through church history. But however we do it, we must be often re-scripting ourselves out of the script of the culture that surrounds us and into the script of the Gospel.

Proverbs has seen a large number of great commentaries published recently, and one of the largest is a two volume commentary by Bruce Waltke (NICOT). One of the more interesting points of the commentary is his understanding of proverbs. Most commentators think of proverbs as general principles which are not always true: they are true only in specific situations. Waltke argues that this is a terrible basis to follow: can we seriously trust God's word if it is only true some of the time? Therefore, he makes the proverbs virtually into promises: this is what will happen. This naturally leads to some problems for his understanding of the proverbs, since many of them do not seem to be absolutely true. I have only glanced at his commentary, but he has several ways of explaining them as promises.

First, he reads many of them eschatologically. That is, even if they are not true now, they will be true in the eschaton. The righteous will not always get the rewards of righteousness now, but they will eventually. This is true enough, but I wonder if onecan get this from reading Proverbs. A canonical reading will support this interpretation, but that does not seem to be the langauge and idea of Proverbs itself.

Second, he interprets some passages as being only part of a process. For example, the proverb on training one's child and they will not depart from it receives this explanation. While it is an important part, parenting is not the only part of a child's choice in what to do with their life. Hence, the proverb, while being absolute, is not absolute. But then is any proverb absolute? Are not all situations interconnected with other situations and decisions? 

Third, he simply interprets proverbs to fit his definition. The most famous example of proverbs being used in different situations is 26:4-5, which contain a flat out contradiction. One tells us to answer a fool according to his folly, the other tells us not to answer a fool according to his folly. Which is it? Waltke, in contrast to most commentators, reads the first part of each verse in light of the second part, that is, they are actually talking about two different things. We are to answer a fool to make sure they are not encouraged in their foolisheness, but we are not to answer them in a way that sinks us to the level of foolishness. They are not contradictions. We are not to decide which one to follow in each situation (the usual interpretation), instead, we are to follow both all the time. Both are absolute and both are to be followed all the time. While Waltke knows Hebrew grammar far more than I ever will, I do not think that the leading parallel phrases can be defined differently when they are stated in exactly the same terms. 

While it is an interesting idea, I do not think Walkte has the correct idea on proverbs. Having said that, it is an excellent commentary, at least on my minimal reading of it. Owners of it will not be disappointed. 

My favorite style of music is alternative, which is hardly surprising since I am from the Seattle area and I am part of the MTV generation. I once thought that as I got older my musical tastes would mellow out to something more respectable, but so far it is hasn't happened, although I do keep on waiting for the time when the alternative station becomes the oldies station (I am hearing advertisements directed to parents on alternative stations now). I heard a Smashing Pumpkins song on the radio recently and it reminded what a great song it was: Bullet with Butterfly Wings. I love the music of the song as well as how the music matches the pathos of the lyrics. The angst of the song reflects the angst of not being able to get out of the pit and the slime. Mark Driscoll used this video one time in a high school assembly as a way to introduce them to sin and the gospel: see the story below.

Such a conclusion is not contextless. We do not say these things concerning Yahweh as though every occasion of response were an arbitrary flip of the coin. No, of course not. Yahweh is deeply enmeshed in a tradition of textuality, is committed to what has been previously claimed, and is held accountable for the chance for life together (between Yahweh and Israel). Thus the offer of Yahweh is not sheer capriciousness. But even so, one may ask: Does life with God not entail anxiety? Even if there is a tendency in a certain reliable direction, there is always a chance of a response in another direction, for Yahweh has a vast repertoire of possible responses. Yes, the faith of Israel is not without anxiety.

This, I suggest, is the severe meaning of the Second Commandment. The One with whom Israel has to deal is not an image, a category, a genre, a concept, or a norm. Rather this is a particular God with a name and a history, who is a free agent and an active character Israel’s faith is finally not trust in something that is transcendent in Yahweh, so as to escape what is contingent. But Israel’s life with God is endlessly dialogical, and it is therefore always open and always capable of newness. Israel is tempted to minimize the risk and curb the danger by boxing Yahweh into a formula. But each time it does so, Yahweh surprise. In times of judgment when sovereign assertion of Yahweh is expected and warranted, we find pathos. In times of terrible need, when Yahweh’s delicate generosity may seem appropriate, Yahweh is solemn and demanding. One does not know. Israel does not know. What Israel does know and counts on heavily is that the incomparable Yahweh of these several noun-metaphors will always be “in play” and Israel must always be “in play” with Yahweh, for that is its very life. (282).

I highly enjoyed reading this book due to a variety of factors. The postmodern ignoring of history and discussion about what was going on behind the text was a refreshing change from the usual discussion of OT theology in the guild. There was little of the usual speculation about multiple sources and redactors. Instead, there was detailed study of the text as it stands. This rejection of history certainly causes problems and I am not sure that a fully satisfying OT theology can be done with a completely synchronic approach as Brueggemann, but if the choice is between a synchronic approach and a traditional historical critical approach, I will choose Brueggemann.

I went to see the newest installment of the Chronicles of Narnia in the theater on Friday, Prince Caspian. I had heard good reviews of the movie and I was not disappointed. I highly recommend the movie, especially for those of you who enjoyed the book, but also for those who have not read the book (or forgotten what happened in the book!). The director changed more material in this movie than the previous installment, but I think that they are good changes and help the movie overall.

It dawned on me several years ago that each of the books in the series has a religious tinged theme. I've been meaning to write a series of posts on the theology of the series, but we lost our copy of the books and the kids are not old enough yet to enjoy them anyway, so the series will have to wait several years. But since I just saw the movie, I thought I would pass along what I think is the religious theme of Prince Caspian and how it translated from the book to the movie (although I will admit that I have not read the book in several years and my memory of it is a bit sketchy).

Part four deals with mediating the presence of YHWH. While YHWH did deal with Israel with a mediator at times, the vast majority of the time was through some kind of mediator. These mediators include the Torah, the king, the prophet, the cult, and the sage. Brueggemann discusses each of these institutions and people, looking at various critical problems about them, showing their function in the text, and how they mediated the presence of God to the people.

            After the two retrospects Brueggemann gets into the heart of the book: the testimony about YHWH. The first major section (Part I) is Israel’s core testimony. He sets up this section in a rather unusual way, ordering his summary along grammatical lines: verbs, adjectives, and nouns. He does not use dogmatic categories for God, since he says that they do not fit the descriptions of God in the OT (117). The first chapter presents an introduction to the trial metaphor and to his methodology. He is not interested in “what actually happened” or the “earliest” testimony, but in all the testimony about God. This first part is the characteristic testimony about God, the testimony which is most prevalent.

            Walter Brueggemann is one of the premier Old Testament scholars writing today, and this book is no exception. While the book has serious flaws, this was one of the most enjoyable books I have read for quite some time, as well as the most inspiring and insightful. Brueggemann never explicitly states the purpose of the book, but the general tenor of the book indicates that Brueggemann desires to give an introduction to the Old Testament with a postmodern orientation. As Norman Gottwald  says in one of advertisements for the book in the beginning of the book, this is the first postmodern Old Testament theology. The postmodern stance shines through clearly in the book, as Brueggemann virtually ignores questions of historicity, sources, and chronology.

One of my side interests is the relationship of the German church to the Holocaust, a fairly depressing part of church history. The first book I read on the topic was very interesting: Theologians Under Hitler, by Robert Ericksen. He looks at the life of two somewhat more radical theologians (Emanuel Hirsch and Gerhard Kittel, of TDNT fame) and one more neutral theologian (Paul Althaus). The book is certainly worth reading for an understanding of how people could follow Hitler and be so excited at his election: he would bring order and Christianity back to Germany after the liberal and sinful Weimer Republic. Or at least, so they thought. While the radical Christians clearly caused damage by their beliefs, Erickson argues that the moderate Althaus caused the most damage by being a moderate and endorsing Nazism: if a moderate was for it, then it must be all right. A chilling statement in the book comes from Althaus (I think): if the church did not embrace national socialism, then the church would become irrelevant and would lose any influence it has. What a challenge for us today! It is clear that Nazism is evil and the church should not have accepted it. But at the time it was not clear. What things that we accept today will be seen clearly as unhelpful in the future? We must be every careful about conforming to the context around us.

I am currently reading another book on the topic, a collection of essays on a variety of subjects: Betrayal , edited by Erickson and Heschel. This is a good place to start to read on the topic. The authors spend a few pages introducing the topic, from which I learned that the Jehovah's Witnesses were among the few who protested what was going on in Germany. Erickson presents a short overview of his book. One of the more interesting chapters is an overview of another book, this one on the German Christian movement (Deutsche Christen), the radical Nazi Christian movement. They put into place a variety of theological moves related to anti-Semitism, removing any hint of Judaism from Christianity. Hymns had their Hebrew words removed (Hallelujah, etc.). Jesus was declared to be an Aryan and not Jewish (although this was already happening in the final decade of the nineteenth century). The Old Testament was rejected, and large parts of the NT were removed (including all of Paul by some Deutsche Christen). New versions of the Bible and hymnals were produced with the necessary excisions. Luther's law/grace distinction was expanded so that the OT (law) was only helpful as a negative way to show the glory of grace. Luther himself was quoted in his desire to burn synagogues. The movement was very masculine focused, using fighting imagery and decrying compassion and femininity.  Foreign missionaries argued that since the gospel was contextualized for other peoples, then it should also be contextualized for the Germans, including their anti-antisemitism. Just like the difference between men and women did not end with the cross, so the difference between Jew and Aryan did not end either. Ironically, all the effort to impress Hitler did not work: he ended up ignoring them. In the post-war atmosphere, Christians claimed the church was persecuted. But upon further study, that persecution was not great. For example, the government told the churches they could not use the swastika on their church newspapers. After the war, almost all of the Deutsche Christen returned to the church and normal life without consequences. Most were silent about the Nazi years, although some continued to defend their beliefs and actions.

The book ends on a somewhat disturbing tone, as it strongly implies that anyone who says that the Jewish religion is not a valid faith or way to reach God is anti-Semitic and has not fully taken to heart the Holocaust. I will fully agree that I have not truly understood the Holocaust, nor will I ever do so. But I refuse to change my beliefs from Jesus being the only means of salvation to believing that people can be saved from their sins to true freedom by some other means. I abhor anti-Semitism, but I think that to define it that broadly is stretching the term too far. Overall, this is a helpful book if you would like to learn more about this depressing topic.  They seem to be a little too devoted to finding "bad" examples and ignoring the Christians who actually helped the Jew (although they do have a chapter on Bonhoffer), but much excellent information is included. 

My dad left me a legacy of game playing. He played detailed war games throughout most of his life and left them all to me. Since my family refuses to play them with me, they don't get unpacked very often (I do play a lot of Catan with the family, though!). I am always interested in games that involve the Bible in some way. People stopped playing Bible trivia games with me a long time ago, but there are some excellent games out there that help in understanding the Bible. I came across a seemingly comphrensive list recently that is well worth looking at, since it includes games of complexity levels and quality. I am particularly interested in Credo , a game that allows one to play a role in the eary church councils and argue for one of the Christological views. But it is apparently impossible to find.

 A game that just came out a few months ago I was able to find and acquire. The name of the game is the Campaigns of King David. I've only played it a few times, but it is quite fun. It is a game based on the nations around Israel during David's time. There can be two to five players. Two players play Philistia and Judah, and each additional player plays Aram, Phoenicia, and Moab. The game is fairly extensive, with 20 or so pages of rules. The turn order is completely random, which injects a fun element into the game. There might be several turns of excess food, and then a famine for a few turns, for example. There might be five battle episodes before a time to raise new armies. While the two player game is rather lame, more players give a real feel for what the politics of the time period were like and what David and other kings actually faced. A full game with five players would probably take six or seven hours (I've not actually finished one yet), so it is not a game for the weak-willed, but it is a great game to help introduce the geography and politics of the time period. And you can get the random "Ark of the Lord" card to help you in battle!

King, Philip J., and Lawrence E. Stager. Life in Biblical Israel. Library of Ancient Israel. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001.

This book is simply an amazingly broad and comprehensive study of life in ancient Israel. While the book is written in prose like a traditional book, the deep structure is that of an encyclopedia. If one wants to learn about any aspect of life in ancient Israel (and most likely see some gorgeous pictures in relation to it), then one can simply turn to the table of contents and immediately find it. This book is very useful to have one’s shelf within easy reach at any given moment.

King and Stager wrote this book to illustrate what life was like for both the average Israelite as well as the elite. This area of interest was neither of much interest previously nor able to be studied until the rise of archaeology, since so much of the Bible has to do with the elites. So King and Stager write using archaeology, other ancient Near East cultures, and the Bible to show the reader what life would have been like in ancient Israel.

The first main chapter (chapter 2) is about the Israelite house and household, covering domestic architecture, family relationships, food, and illness. The third chapter covers farming, animals, water sources, arts, and travel. The fourth chapter looks at royal architecture, urban water sources, and warfare. The fifth chapter examines clothing and adornments, music, dance, and literacy. The last chapter is about sacred sites, ritual objects, religious practices, death, and the afterlife.

The pictures are another strength of the book. This is one of the most beautiful books on the Old Testament I have ever read. It seems that every other page had a color photo illustrating some point the authors were talking about. Some of these were essential to understanding the description, such as the photo of how keys worked in the ancient world (33). The chart of pottery types and Hebrew words was helpful in visualizing what they would have looked like, very useful as one reads about seemingly dozens of different types of jugs and jars in the Old Testament (144-145).

There are many interesting tidbits in the book along the journey that may or may not be true. They theorize that anointing kings with oil came from a remedy for head lice (75) (a correlation vs. causation problem?). They identify the “price of a dog” in Deuteronomy 23:19 as related to a healing cult centered around dogs rather than relating to prostitution (83). Ekron produced a thousands tons of oil every year (96). Grape production requires a stable society, since it is a multi-year process (98). The apparel of women did not differ much from that of men, although they do recognize there must be some difference because of the laws against dressing like the other gender (272).

ועת. הפקח

נא את אזן    עבדך. לספר. אשר

שלחתה   אל עבדך. אמש. כי. לב

עבדך דוה. מאז. שלחך. אל. עבד

ך   וכי  אמר. אדני. לא. ידעתה

קרא ספר חיהוה. אם. נסה. א

יש לקרא לי. ספר לנצח. וגם

כל ספר   אשר יבא. אלי   אם.

קראתי. אתה ועוד אתננהו

אל. מאומה                    

And now, please explain to the ear of your servant the letter which you sent to your servant last night because the heart of your servant is sick since you sent to your servant. And when my lord said “You do not know to read a letter” (Or “You do not understand! Call a scribe!). By God never has any man tried to read to me a letter, and every letter which comes to me, surely I read it myself, and moreover I can repeat it!

 This is one of a series of letters that were found at Lachish before the attack by Nebuchadnezzar. 

I'm always interested in what other people are reading, so I thought I would post some of the new books that I have gotten recently and why I bought them. I'm not sure during which lifetime I will read them, though.

1. Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch - I'm writing a dissertation on the Pentateuch. Enough said.

2. Psalms for Young Children - For reading to Eily

3. Genesis, by James McKeown - a commentary on Genesis from a theological intepretation of Scripture viewpoint

4. Betrayal, edited by Robert Erickson - A collection of essays on the church in Germany during World War 2

5. War in Ancient Egypt, by Spalinger - for my dissertation

6. The Concept of Biblical Theology, by James Barr - A 1 on my reading list, which means that I have to read it and write a review of it.

7. Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testament, Childs - another 1 on my reading list

8. Leviticus 1-16, Milgrom - I got a good deal on this very large and expensive book

9. The Tree of Life: An Exploration of Biblical Wisdom Literature, Murphy - Another 1 on the list

10. French for Reading - summer project

11. הארי פוטר ומסדר עוף החול (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) - practice my Hebrew 

The Hebrew of Proverbs 30:33 has a fun aspect that does not come through in English. Here is the verse in Hebrew and a literal translation.

כי מיץ חלב יוציא חמאה ומיץ אף יוציא דם ומיץ אפים יוציא ריב

For the pressing of milk brings out butter and pressing of the nose brings out blood and the pressing of anger brings out strife.

The verse is highly parallel, as each clause uses the same verbs: press and brings out. The second and third clause have another parallel: the word "anger" is actually the plural of "nose."

I'm quite sure that all of this is rather meaningless, but it was interesting, right? 

I recently read a book on Lewis, of Lewis and Clark fame (no, this is not an April Fool's Joke , I actually did read the book). It was interesting because I was very ignorant about their journey and the life of Lewis, even though I grew up in the NW not terribly far from where they wintered. The book included many fun stories, such as their encounters with bears who refused to die even when shot multiple times, the great trust that the men had in Lewis, and the incredible physical work it took them to get to the West Coast and back. I was saddened by the large amount of STD's that the men picked up along the way from sleeping with the Indian women: their husbands were happy to have the wives sleep with the white men because they thought they would then get the hunting power of the white man. The saddest part of the book for me was the end: Lewis ends up ruining his life and commiting suicide (apparently, although some argue he was murdered). This man who did a tremendous job on the highly dangerous multi-year trek across the country can't handle life when he gets back.

This past week I also watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy again, and as I watched Theoden and Aragorn make their speeches to the troops before battle in the third movie (when Rohan arrives to help Gondor and when the allied troops are at the gate of Mordor), I thought to myself how great it would be to have the charisma displayed by these two men to help others follow Christ more effectively. But the more I thought about this, and about Lewis' life, the more I realized how unlike these two events the Christian life is. The Christian life is a lifelong quest, not one that lasts a few years until one gets back to real life. This shows just how difficult the Christian life can be: the goal of this life is not to make it back to civilization or to defeat a single enemy, but it is to subject the rest of our entire life to service with God. As it has often been quipped, the problem with a living sacrifice (Romans 12:2) is that it keeps on crawling off the altar. As Christians, we need the endurance not just to last for awhile, but to keep on serving Christ, an endurance that is impossible without the work of the Spirit in us and through other believers.  

I love Bibleworks. Besides Firefox and Word, it is the most used program on my computer. I have used it since version 3 and followed it through all its upgrades. But now, I am wondering if perhaps I should switch my allegiance. I recently discovered  a brand new Bible program: Biblespade (the name refers to doing spade work in the text). It is trying to be a combination of Logos (with lots of extra books integrated into the program) and Bibleworks (a focus on the biblical text) and is trying to keep the price reasonable. The main draw for Biblespade is its tagging. Most Bible programs are tagged for such items as noun case and verb tense. Biblespade has this but also much more. On a lower level, it has tagged the text following Mounce's Morphology of Biblical Greek. This way, if you want to know all the nouns that behave morphologically like a certain noun, you can instantly see it. If you want to see all the verbs that had an original digamma, it is not a problem. There is no equivalent work in the OT yet, but Biblespade says they are working on designing something. On a higher level, more syntax options are tagged, this time using Wallace's grammar. If you want to know where all of the genitive of material's are in the NT, you can find out instantly. Naturally, this tagging is not perfect, as different exegetes will have different ideas about how to classify each word. But this is at least a start. Some words are tagged two ways (such as "the love of Christ constrains us," which is tagged both subjective and objective genititve). In the OT the text is tagged according to Waltke and O'Conner's grammar. But this is not all: it is also tagged on a higher level. Word order is very important but not very well studied. So they have tagged all VSO (verb, subject, object), plus a few other letters (time words, etc.) so that one can easily see the word order and compile stats. Finally, there is also discourse tagging. The text is tagged according to Longacre's charts: all texts are placed into one of Longacre's text-types (narrative, predictive, instructional, etc.). Then each clause is placed into its particular band: mainline, background, etc. If you want to find all the background clauses in a predictive text type, then it is done easily. The text is also tagged according to Randall Buth's view: topic and focus for forefronted items, as well categorization for verbs forms for continuity and discontinuity. While much of this still has problems that need to be worked out, the potential to surpass Bibleworks is tremendous. 

On the other side, it also offers lots of options. One of the most important is text critical data: one can simply scroll over a verse and all the data from NA27 and BHS appear. Another exciting option is the Ancient Near East module. They hope to start putting out original language texts from the ANE, such as Akkadian, Egyptian, Aramaic, and Hittite texts. These texts would be tagged and would make learning and using these languages much easier. But that is still for the future. A variety of other helpful books can be bought for a reasonable price: TDOT, TDNT, NIDOTT, NIDNTT, the Word commentary series, NICNT, NICOT, Pillar commentary series, etc. This offers tremendous flexibility. While it is not cheap if one adds a lot of these books, they can be bought over time. A variety of other interests are also served. A map system based on Google maps is included, tied into the biblical text, so that one can just click on a place name and see where it is on the map. There are a variety of pre-loaded maps (such as the Conquest of Canaan).  Some sermons are included when one needs to be encouraged. One new technology included here is access to tagged mp3 sermons: as the preacher goes to a text, it automatically comes up on the screen as you are listening. But enough about the potential of this new program: go check it out and buy one for yourself! 

 ויבא הושעיהו בן שב

י ויקח את בגד עבדך כאשר כלת

את קצרי זה ימם לקח את בגד עבדך

וכל אחי יענו לי הקצרים אתי בחם

  ש   אחי יענו לי אמן נקתי מא

שם                                    

And Hoshayahu son of Shobi came and took the garment of your servant. After I measured the grain over those days, he took the garment of your servant. And all my brothers will answer for me, the ones harvesting with me in the heat of the [sun]. My brothers will answer for me “Amen”. I am innocent from blame.

This is only part of the letter, the complete letter can be read elsewhere.This seems to be a clear case of oppression of the poor, such as Deuteronomy fights against. Follow the link for a discussion of the background of the letter and why the garment