Burke Reads With Comprehension- Dever Doesn’t Read at all

BAR’s dual review of Israel Finkelstein’s award winning Forgotten Kingdom shows what is good and bad in academia today.

Good is Burke’s intelligent if not always complimentary assessment of Finkelstein’s book. And bad is Dever’s petulant and childish screed manifesting nothing besides professional jealousy and envy.

Burke’s analysis is measured and his reading is open and sympathetic (in the sense of a willingness to hear out Finkelstein even if at the end he doesn’t agree). Dever’s analysis allows readers to get a good grasp of Dever but nothing of the book which Dever misrepresents at every turn. But this is no surprise, given that Dever numerous times admits that the book is …

…. so drama-filled, so clever that it took me—a specialist—a bit of time to see through it.

Dever has to tell readers he’s a specialist because he isn’t acting like one with his demeaning and condescending tone.

It’s tragic that Dever read the book with hatred in his heart. Had he read it as a scholar, he may well have disagreed with the book’s conclusion but he would have done so with some dignity. As it is he’s simply exposed his bias. Perhaps he’s lost his way. Perhaps the suggestion that the book is drama filled is merely a bit of projection… And it is Dever himself who is overly dramatic but nonetheless quite easy to see through.

Read Burke’s review and read Finkelstein’s book. But skip Dever’s screechings. The desert hasn’t been kind to him.

Pentebabbleism At Its Worst

Via Joel Watts- this hilarious video exposing Pentebabbleists on TV for the con artists they are.

The Heschel Papers

Via Jack Sasson-

It is with great pleasure and enthusiasm that the Duke Center for Jewish Studies and the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library announce that the Abraham Joshua Heschel papers collection guide is now live and the collection is open to research.

America’s Destruction In One Lawsuit

Here’s everything that’s wrong with America today: laziness and greed.  All other societal ills spring from these twins.

One New York Yankees fan hopes that suing for snoozing will work out in his favor. Andrew Rector, 26, was caught taking a serious nap during an April 13 “Sunday Night Baseball” game against the Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium. The ESPN cameras didn’t let him get away with it, either, shining the spotlight on Rector, who was slumped in his seat during the fourth inning of the close game. Now, Rector has filed a defamation suit, claiming he was called “fatty, unintelligent and stupid” by commentators. He is suing Major League Baseball Advanced Media, ESPN New York, the New York Yankees and ESPN announcers Dan Shulman and John Kruk in Bronx County Supreme Court, seeking $10 million in damages for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress, Courthouse News reported.

Laziness and greed.  They aren’t destroying America.  They already have destroyed America.

Twitter Theology That Makes Me Sigh

Someone hasn’t bothered to read the Bible…  There is no forgiveness without repentance.  Period.  As I’ve said many times now, forgiveness without repentance is permission.  And God loves us too much to give us permission to destroy ourselves or others.

The Fortress Commentary on the Bible

Worth mentioning again.  Check it out.

Job and His Wife

I’m presuming his wife is the woman…

Weirdness…

Signs of the times… From the twitter.

Ethnogenesis

The Process of Ethnogenesis in Palestine. Whose Task Was It?, has been posted by Łukasz Niesiołowski-Spanò on his Academia.edu page.  It’s the paper he’s giving at #ISBL2014.

Maps Of Ancient Israel (And More)

I appreciate very much Gershon Galil pointing this resource out.  I’m adding it to the ‘useful sites’ I recommend.

Where in the World is Chris Tilling Now?

Have you wondered why you haven’t heard much from him?  He’s been in a bit of trouble with the law…

In an ironic twist of a fate, a mascot for a Christian anti-masturbation group was arrested Sunday for masturbating in public. The organization recently finished a federally funded 31-city nationwide school tour which it says focused on educating both children and parents about the dangerous consequences of masturbation.

Fappy The Anti-Masturbation Dolphin, whose real name is 35-year-old Chris Tilling Paul Horner, was arrested on Sunday at Metta Yoga in Phoenix after employees notified police about a man with no pants on peering through office windows.

Tom Downey with the Phoenix Police Department, who took Tilling Horner into custody, spoke with Arizona news station ABC 15 about the arrest. “We thought at first he was possibly intoxicated or mentally unstable, ya know, talking about children and how deadly it is for them to masturbate. Telling us he was in town with a Christian organization aimed at talking with children about the dangers of masturbation. Saying things like, ‘They need to stop playing on the Devil’s playground, stop pounding their Devil stick or ringing the Devil’s doorbell’,” Tilling Downey said. “Things got very odd when Tilling Horner broke down crying in the back of my cruiser and began making noises, kind of like a fish, saying that he believed himself to be an actual dolphin. It was really strange.”

There’s actually a petition to get frappy a full pardon … With thanks to Roberta Mazza for the tip.

Despicable

Via

Karl Barth and the Incarnation: Christology and the Humility of God

Coming in November from T&T Clark (just in time for SBL) –

This work demonstrates the significance of Karl Barth’s Christology by examining it in the context of his orientation toward the classical tradition – an orientation that was both critical and sympathetic. To compare this Christology with the doctrine’s history, Sumner suggests first that the Chalcedonian portrait of the incarnation is conceputally vulnerable at a number of points. By recasting the doctrine in actualist terms – the history of Jesus’ lived existence as God’s fulfillment of His covenant with creatures, rather than a metaphysical uniting of natures – Barth is able to move beyond problems inherent in the tradition.

Despite a number of formal and material differences, however, Barth’s position coheres with the intent of the ancient councils and ought to be judged as orthodox. Barth’s great contribution to Christology is in the unapologetic affirmation of ‘the humanity of God’.

It looks a good read.  I’ll let you know when I have a chance to read it.

Sectarianism in the Second Temple Period

Lawrence Schiffman has a great series the third part being about sectarianism in the Second Temple period.

The major sects of the Second Temple period first appear in our sources in the aftermath of the Maccabean Revolt  (168-164 B.C.E.). Yet in truth, the process of Hellenization began much earlier. The rise of the Maccabees (Hasmoneans) was occasioned by ferment in Jewish religious thought which led to a crisis regarding the extent and the manner in which the Jews were going to accommodate themselves to Hellenism. The Maccabees settled matters only partially, eliminating extreme Hellenization as a possibility. Yet their successful revolt left open a number of options regarding Hellenism, and also brought to the fore various other issues in Jewish religious thought and in the development of Jewish law.

And more.

Digitizing Reformation Texts: The Junius Institute

Sumner on Barth and Herrmann

It’s a quite interesting essay.

Stop Talking When You Have Nothing Else to Say

“When I have nothing more to say I stop talking.” Then [Luther] told the story of a certain monk who was a beginner as a preacher. “When he had practiced his sermon and had memorized eight pages of manuscript, he delivered it rapidly word for word. In a quarter of an hour he was finished with the sermon. His bag was empty. Dear God, men like this who knew nothing were supposed to have been rectors of the churches!”  – Martin Luther

Writers and editors should heed the same advice.