A week later

So, I’ve been having a blast this past week. I finished Tales of Symphonia, and I’ll probably post a review of it at some point soon. Having this week just to play games, kick back, read fiction, and otherwise do nothing that resembles actual academic work has been extremely refreshing. This week I plan to actually do some work on my Semlink, start in on vocab for intermediate Greek, and hopefully continue to relax before Greek starts next week. Mandy and I have also dutifully spent our economic stimulus check, in order to do what American Patriots do…buy stuff.

I’ve read a variety of blog posts over this past week, and I’ve avoided commenting on many. However, at least one deserves a mention. Earl has been doing a series on Autonomous Churches, and his most recent post is available here. Take a look, I’m sure Earl would love your thoughts.

A bit of news

I’m taking this week off from thinking (aside from work related things), so don’t expect blog posts of any substance unless I get a sudden and unexpected urge to actually use the gray matter contained inside my cranium. Much like Eric I intend to read fiction (currently the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn cycle by Tad Williams), play games (specifically Tales of Symphonia, and if I finish it I’ll possibly start Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits), drink coffee (which isn’t really a departure from normal. I’m currently brewing a fine Harrar and will probably crack open some Kona by the end of the week), and conquer the world with Mandy in Civilization IV. I’ll perhaps emerge from this cocoon of hedonism in roughly a week when I begin preparing for my Intermediate Greek class in Summer I, and finish up my Semlink.

But that’s not the reason that I even began this post. In my meanderings this morning I found this article on CNN.com. Roland Martin often has some interesting things to say, in my opinion; I thought his take on the whole Rev. Wright thing was fascinating (that, and I’m a karma whore).

Done!

Yesterday I took my last two finals. It’s wonderful. I need to finish up some paperwork for Mentored Ministry, and then I’ll be busy with church responsibilities that didn’t get taken care of earlier this week because of studying. Still, it’s a great feeling to be done, or near enough that it doesn’t matter.

Also, I took a “Reformed Theology Quiz” on facebook, which Len sent me. I scored as a five-point Calvinist. How does that happen? Those of you who know me will know that I don’t play those games. Five-point Calvinist. Honestly. I like the Pope! I said the Westminster Confession should be amended! How do I come out a five-point Calvinist? Oh well, it was a fun way to blow off steam while it lasted.

The End of Another Semester

This is my obligatory end of semester post. I realize every student blogger out there is posting something similar, and it pains me to be part of the herd (flock?) of lemmings in this case, but I like reflecting on a semester after it has concluded.

In this case, the semester isn’t quite over yet. I have two finals next week (Aramaic and Greek) and a take-home final (Theology of the Pentatuech) that I need to sit down and actually complete at some point. Either way, classes are over and that’s good enough for me.

Greek II - I have completed my first year of Greek–for the second time. I can’t express how happy I am that I decided to not attempt to test out of Greek I and II. Retaking the first year of Greek was certainly what I needed. I feel like I actually have a good chance of retaining the information this time. I’m looking forward to Intermediate Greek this summer. Perhaps most importantly, I’ve enjoyed the experience and as a result I’ll have a much easier time reviewing and keeping up with my Greek.

Aramaic - The first half of the semester was not my idea of fun. It actually wasn’t my idea of learning a language either (learning paradigms != learning a language). However, the second half of the semester, in which we simply translated Biblical Aramaic and even got into a different pointing system and some unpointed Imperial Aramaic was much, much better. In fact, I really enjoyed the second portion of the course, and I learned a ton. It is somewhat odd; I’m the least anxious for this final. I think this is primarily because the final involves parsing and translation. I know I can do this. There are no paradigms to reproduce, which means all I need to do is show that I know the language as well as any first year Aramaic student could be expected to know it.

Spiritual Formation for Ministry - I took this class as a Semlink, and I’m glad I did. I still have several months to finish it, but I’m hoping to complete it by June (earlier, if I can manage it). This is a course that could be extremely helpful and useful, but has proven to be neither. The lectures have been mediocre, and the readings are the same. I’m glad I took it as a Semlink.

Theology of the Pentateuch - This was the most disappointing course this semester. Actually, it is currently running neck and neck with my Systematic Theology courses from undergrad as the most unhelpful course I have ever taken. I don’t want to have this post descend into negativity at the end, so I will content myself with saying that it would have made a decent Biblical theology course. As a Theology of the Pentateuch course it was unfruitful at best. The problems generally revolve around using categories from systematic theology (instead of simply working through the text) and in having as our corpus the entirety of the Christian Bible (yes, including the NT) instead of restricting our searching to the Pentateuch (or even the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament).

So, two classes where I learned a ton, one that was mediocre, and one that was a complete disappointment. I suppose it could have been worse. All in all though, this semester has not been the worst I’ve ever had, and Greek and Aramaic thoroughly redeem it. So, onward to next Wednesday and my Greek and Aramaic finals.

On God’s Green Earth

Those of you who visit my blog the old fashioned way will notice that I’ve changed my theme. I could say that this was in honor of Earth Day, and an attempt to reduce my carbon footprint. However, modern displays are pretty good about the amount of power they use, regardless of the color.

In the end, I like dark backgrounds, thought it would be nice for a change, and–who knows?–maybe the mention of Earth Day will inspire someone else to turn off their computer when not in use.

Better Study Bibles

John Hobbins has offered his thoughts on what needs to be improved in study editions of various translations. I agree wholeheartedly. Having an edition of a translation that was more forthcoming with information on the text critical decisions that were made in producing the translation would be a huge step forward.

Of course, the problem is one of economics. There is a relatively small number of people who would be interested in such a tome. I won’t hold my breath for a “raising of the bar,” as Hobbins puts it, of study editions for Bible translations. But, I will hope that we might see at least some movement in this direction in the future. One never can tell.

2008 New England Regional Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature

On Friday, I had the pleasant experience of attending the New England Regional SBL meeting. Adam has already typed up his reflections. I will shamelessly steal his format and include my own thoughts here.

Before the conference:
Mandy and I decided to drive to Andover Newton Theological School. It was a good choice, in hindsight. There was very little traffic, and we made it in just over an hour. Of course, Adam had arrived far earlier than the two of us, so we met up with him and had coffee. We also met an editor from Hendrickson and helped carry around some tables. This afforded us a first look at some of the books Hendrickson had on offer. Having done this, we headed to the morning session.

The Morning Session:
I attended the David Narratives Revisted section. The most interesting paper of the morning was given by Ryan Stokes, a GCTS alum and current student at Yale University. His paper was entitled, “The Nature and Identity of the ‘Satan’ in 1 Chronicles 21:1.” The paper was fascinating, and Ryan did a superb job of presenting it. The conclusion was nothing new or innovative, but it was a solid “revisiting” of the issue. Jonathan Kaplan, of Harvard University, also gave an interesting paper. His paper title was, “The Limits of Monarchic Power: 1 Samuel 8 as ‘A Mirror for Princes,’” which caused me to become immediately interested. I would have liked it if Jonathan had spent a little more time fleshing out what a mirror for princes was (I understand the concept, but a bit more information about how he was applying it to 1 Samuel 8 itself would have been helpful).

Plenary Sessions:
The Plenary sessions were both fascinating. I’m not a huge student of the second temple period, but John Collins’ address kept me interesting. It was basically a “history of scholarship” on the topic, and accomplished that quite well. I know I learned quite a bit, and feel a bit more comfortable placing the books I have read on the topic into a kind of developmental spectrum.

The second session, with Peter Machinist was equally fascinating, though in a different way. He spoke of Frank Moore Cross’ contributions to Biblical and ANE studies. I have no read a great deal of Cross, but I have read and digested several of his articles, as well as two or three of the essays from Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic. The anecdotes that some of his students offered during the Q and A time were equally attention grabbing. I wonder if one day Mandy, Art, Earl, myself and a host of others will have similar anecdotes about Dr. Snyder.

The Afternoon Session:
Here I attended the section concerned with the Deuteronomistic History. Keith Bodner’s paper was excellent, but the one that was most interesting to me was Richard J. Thompson’s. Richard is a PhD student at Harvard, and his paper was entitled “The Neo-Assyrian Oath of Allegiance to ASHUR as the Basis for the Deuteronomistic Covenant with YHWH,” which is itself a bit misleading. That title is actually the title of his dissertation. He presented the findings from his first chapter, which are really only the Biblical source material. Nevertheless, I think the topic itself shows quite a bit of promise and I hope to keep tabs on how the dissertation progresses. I gave him my email address, and he seemed more than willing to stay in contact. I look forward to reading further chapters in his dissertation.

Other Observations:
Gordon-Conwell had a good showing, at least in the number of students. We even had someone presenting. However, not a single professor attended. Absolutely ridiculous. I realize our profs are busy, but this should be a non-negotiable for them, especially since the regional meeting was so close this year. Back to students for a moment though, it was somewhat interesting that I talked with more students from GCTS at SBL than I have here on campus.

I thoroughly enjoy professional conferences. Aside from the papers, which have been at least informative in my limited experience, it’s a great opportunity to meet people. I’m sure some of the novelty of drinking wine and chatting with Biblical scholars will wear off eventually, but for now it makes for an enjoyable afternoon.

Would it be too much trouble to publish papers online before the conference? I realize that expecting the individual presenters to print off 25-35 copies of a paper is probably impolite at best, but we all have the Internet now. I say slap the papers online as a PDF and let us download them ourselves. It would be extremely helpful to have a copy of the paper in front of me. I know that some only have abstracts of the paper completed when they submit them for consideration, but why not require the completed paper a week prior to the meeting? I think it would be a good idea, but I haven’t been the one having to complete a paper and present it yet, so who knows?

Finally, after the regional conference I’m even more excited about the national meeting in November.

SBL Tomorrow

Mandy and I are headed to the New England regional SBL tomorrow. I’m looking forward to it. Look for a post tomorrow with my thoughts on the papers I hear.

Now if I could just decide whether to drive or take mass transit.

John Hobbins on Inerrancy

In a recent post at Ancient Hebrew Poetry, John Hobbins argues that conversations about inerrancy must continue. I have a few thoughts of my own on the topic that I wanted to share.

1. I think any conversation is important. I’m not about to say that conversations about inerrancy should stop. Quite the opposite, I think that within evangelical circles this very conversation needs to continue as that particular sect of Christianity figures out its stance on the issue. Still, some conversations are less beneficial than others.
2. John brings up some good thoughts on the history of interpretation and inerrancy’s importance to what interpreters have said about the text. I think this is an area that could do with some more investigation. Perhaps Earl could undertake some preliminary research on the topic. I think it would prove fascinating.
3. Alas, in the end I think that John may be mixing (confusing?) terms. Consider the following quote:

There is simply no chance that Judaism and Christianity, for example, will ever stop taking the Torah (a concept, it should be noted, that includes but extends beyond the Pentateuch) and the Bible, respectively, as anything less than the text to be read in worship and studied at home and other venues of religious instruction.

The Torah/Hebrew Bible/Bible/Scriptures being the text to be read in worship is not directly related to inerrancy. Rather, I think it has a great deal to do with the idea that the text is inspired. However, inspiration != inerrancy. To be sure, inerrancy has influenced interpreters. It has been, and in some sects still is, a major doctrine. However, inerrancy is concerned with slightly different issues than inspiration. Inspiration says that the text is somehow from God. Inerrancy says that since that text is from God it has no errors (as Hobbins rightly points out, this is variously defined). To many, inerrancy is a requirement for inspiration, though by no means does everyone agree on that.

Another relevant quote:

The vast majority of American political scientists treat the Constitution, for all practical purposes, as inerrant. There is little or no talk of downgrading either its iconic or practical importance in American political life.

I think the better word to use here would be “inspired.” The idea that the Constitution is “errant” is simply not something that comes up in political science. It says what the Founding Fathers desired it to say. Errancy or inerrancy does not enter into the conversation and is rather superfluous to said conversation. Inspiration, on the other hand, is quite relevant. That is to say, the Constitution is viewed as the standard to which all other laws are compared.

I think if conversations about inerrancy are going to continue in a fruitful way there needs to be some attempt to define what exactly it is, and how it differs from inspiration.

Youth Group as Seminar

Forgive the title of the post. I dislike the term “youth group” but it was the most concise way to title the post. Let me give a brief explanation of what I mean by the title. When referring to “youth group” in this context I am referring specifically to the mid-week program that we run at IBC. I’m not referring to the “youth ministry” as a whole, or any other event, meeting, gathering or program which we run. Now, on to what I want to say.

I’ve been having a variety of interesting conversations recently, most of them spawned by my post on preaching. This is all to the good, although they have failed to completely sway me from my views. I have, however, begun to think about the possible implications of my thoughts on preaching as it relates to youth ministry. Someone recently posed the question to me, “How does preaching differ from lecturing in a classroom?” The answer is, of course, that any good course will not only include lectures but assignments that complement the lectures. As I thought on this more I began to wonder if there was a way to translate any of the pedagogical principles that are used when designing a college course to a youth ministry. It is fairly unlikely that students would read textbooks, write papers, take exams, prepare timelines, or other activities normally deemed “school-like.” But, I think I have at least one viable idea.

As my thoughts on the subject outlined above converged with my thoughts on how to help students take ownership of the youth ministry without overwhelming them I came up with the following idea:

Perhaps we could run the teaching time of our Wednesday night meeting as a seminar. A seminar obviously has sound pedagogical principles behind it which I need not delve into here. But it doesn’t necessarily have a school-like feel. I also think that by being a bit more informal than a normal seminar style course typically is I can remove any last vestiges of said feel (leaving aside the question of why our culture has deemed that feel so repugnant). If I were to try this, our Wednesday night teaching would look something like what follows. Students would pick topics or passages for us to discuss ahead of time. I’d then ask for volunteers/assign students to particular passages/topics after I had set a schedule. Those students would be responsible for coming up with some thoughts on that topic or passage. Some students, no doubt, will put only a minimum of thought or time into this. Others, I believe, might really grasp the concept and enjoy it. An example may help to shed some light on the idea.

Let us say the topic is justice. Let us also say that two students are responsible for this topic, the first is Steven, the second is Emily. Steven is pretty busy and so doesn’t spend too much time thinking about the topic and what he thinks about it. He manages to look up a few verses before our meeting though, and decides he’ll say something about the Lord’s Prayer, and how if God’s kingdom comes on Earth, then that must certainly mean justice would happen. Emily, on the other hand, takes things a little more seriously (or maybe she’s just less busy?) and talks to me about what might be a decent passage to look up. I give her some ideas, and even suggest a few websites. She checks these out and finds she’s quite interested in the topic. She asks if I have anything else she might read. I give here The Little Book of Biblical Justice by Chris Marshall.

When Wednesday roles around Steven gets up in front of the group. He nervously shares his thoughts on the Lord’s prayer, anxiously answers a question while managing to only look partially confused, and then sits down. Next, Emily gets up and talks about how the topic really excited her, so she went overboard in preparing. She stumbles through her presentation (due to nervousness, not any lack of preparation), talking about the poor, widows, and orphans and how we need to help them. She doesn’t make all of her points clearly, but she seems to enjoy it. After this, I get up and spend a few minutes tying things together and sharing some of my thoughts on the topic of justice.

I hope by doing this that students will be given a chance to get excited about a topic. It also involves them in taking ownership of the youth ministry and helps give them ways to learn that don’t simply involve me talking with them. I’m very interested to hear people’s thoughts on this idea. Do you think it has merit? Is there a chance it might work? Am I being too idealistic? If I wasn’t clear enough please ask and I’ll attempt to clarify.