Memorization and Meditation upon the Psalms

I have been reading this book by Gordon Wenham with a group of guys from my church. The last chapter I read was particularly convicting especially after we discussed it last Wednesday night.

The chapter’s subject was “The Psalter As An Anthology To Be Memorized.” The idea of memorizing a large of amount of something turns me off. I remember disliking my high school physics class because of the large amount of memorization involved (I loved my college physics class because I wasn’t required to memorize much of anything). The reason for my dislike of memorization is that (at least for me) memorization never lead to an  in-depth understanding of that subject. One could memorize equations in physics and use them to solve problems but never understand why that equation was necessary or where it came from. The knowledge that the person gained from memorization is trivial. 

I held memorization of Scripture in similar esteem. I hope that this attitude is not sacrilegious.  I have a pretty good memory. I can usually remember Scripture enough to know what book and approximately what chapter a verse came from. If I misremember, I can check google or use my excellent search algorithm in my bible software. Memorizing Scripture in and of itself does not necessarily lead to a greater depth of understanding either. Why spend that time memorizing verses when I can usually find what I’m looking for in 5 to 10 minutes?

In the light of this past chapter, I have adjusted my mindset about memorization of Scripture. Wenham says:

Works that are read again and again tend to be committed to  memory. Indeed, Griffiths argues that memorization is highly valued by religious readers. He goes further, maintaining that religious texts are often constructed in a way that aids memorization. For religious readers “the ideally read work is the memorized work, and the ideal mode of rereading is by memorial recall.” And as a reader memorizes a text, he becomes textualized; that is, he embodies the work that he has committed to memory.

I memorized Psalm 1 yesterday and plan on memorizing more as time goes on. I plan to do so because I want to be transformed by God’s Word. So memorization leads to the spiritual exercise of meditation and reformation. The act of memorization allows me to read and think without a text in front of me (I do not plan on substituting my memorized text for my written text). Memorization is not trivial if treated in this way; it fosters a love for Scripture and gives greater opportunity for reformation of the reader.

SBL Reflections

I could say many things about my experience at SBL. For one, Chicago was an excellent “host” city. This trip was my first time in Chicago. I’ve driven around the city many times as a kid as my family would make the trip up to Minnesota every year or two. Being in Chicago is much better than driving around it. The slight change in culture (from the South to the North), the big city feel, the food (I still long for another Kuma Burger and another slice of Lou’s pizza) and the lodging was all invigorating and helped me to take a slight break from the fast pace of school and work.

Having Jacob Cerone, who lived in Chicago for a while, as my trip companion made the trip much more enjoyable. Jacob’s conversation about different sessions we attended, school, and life uplifted me in a way that going by myself couldn’t have.

The sessions I went to were challenging and informative. I attended sessions on textual criticism on Samuel, translation theory, reading Law (Torah), LXX, and Composition of the OT. Not all sessions are created equal. I did a lot of jumping around because I didn’t go with a focused objective (I will heed Jacob’s advice on attending sessions next time). I went to be refreshed. I just needed to hear something different, so I went eclectic. More often than not, these sessions raised the bar for me. I saw good scholarship at work. I became eager to do more research in my field and explore the world of the Bible.

I also had the opportunity to eat dinner with professors and students from different places of the world. This experience probably made the trip for me. One professor encouraged us not to let the fear of making mistakes paralyze us.  We do our work for Jesus. We must honor him with the gifts he has given us. We must rely on him to give us the ability to do the work has given us to do. When we do make mistakes, his grace overcomes our mistakes.

At the beginning of the trip, another professor, as she walked out of the train advised me not to generalize SBL. Not all conferences are equal. I am thankful that this one gave me a new outlook on my studies. I look forward to the next one – not to relive old memories but hopefully to make new memories as God continues to widen my understanding of him and his Word.

End of Another Semester

I realize I have been absent for the last few months. To be honest, I have written several posts that I still feel are unworthy of public eyes. As focused as I have been on finishing school and the business at my job, I have not had a chance to fix them. So now, I write to you to give an update and several goals I have for the last few weeks of the year.

This semester has had its ups and downs. Dr. Thomas’s Pre-Reformation Interpretation of the Old Testament was very good. The reading was challenging, the lectures were often stimulating, and the end of semester project was enlightening. That project probably made the semester for me. We had to choose an interpreter or period and cover early influences, distinctiveness, methodology, and later impact of that interpreter or period. I chose Nicholas of Lyra and spent the next 2 months pouring over material related to the points mentioned above. I learned two things. First, studying earlier interpreters guides introspection and circumspection. This study has impacted the way I think through my own interpretive practices and caused me to ask the question of why I do what I do. Second, studying earlier interpreters has underscored the importance of learning other languages. Since Nicholas wrote in Latin, I would have had access to so much more material if I had only been strong enough in my Latin.

I also took Syriac this semester. I feel like the language has opened new doors for textual criticism. I’m excited about reading the Book of Joshua in the Peshitta.

Finally, as to goals, I would like to give some reflections on my recent trip to Chicago for the SBL meeting one month removed from the trip. Also, I have been reading several books that I purchased from SBL and would also like to give you a taste of them. Finally, I would like to finish an ever-evolving post on how I study for Sunday School lessons. This last post is more of a reflection (then again, I suppose all of my posts are reflections on something) on my method of study.

I know I said finally in the last paragraph, so let’s call this P.S. If you are looking for something to do, feel free to read my paper. Here’s the thesis:

In terms of his contribution to the interpretation of the Old Testament, Nicholas developed a more robust view of the literal sense, which he established by utilizing Jewish interpretation while standing upon the philosophical advances of earlier Christian interpreters.

 

And here is the paper: NicholasOfLyra

Until next time!

Where did morality come from? Evolution?

In this interview on CNN, Richard Dawkins answers questions about himself and his views. In particular, he argues that evolution is mainstream, and religion and creationism are really the controversial views. I think that Richard Dawkins, while he may be a brilliant biologist, is ignorant in matters of philosophy and religion. He is better than other prominent athiests, but his arguments are just as unpersuasive. Here is his answer to the question, “Where did morality come from? Evolution?,” with some of my commentary.

We have very big and complicated brains, and all sorts of things come from those brains, which are loosely and indirectly associated with our biological past. And morality is among them, together with things like philosophy and music and mathematics. Morality, I think, does have roots in our evolutionary past. There are good reasons, Darwinian reasons, why we are good to, altruistic towards, cooperative with, moral in our behavior toward our fellow species members, and indeed toward other species as well, perhaps.

He asserts that ideas about morality are derived from our “biological past.”  Morality, therefore, is not transcendental or founded upon universal principles.  According to Dawkins, ‘good’ seems to be whatever the Darwinian process turns out. Dawkins then makes the value judgment that these reasons found “why  we are good to,  altruistic towards, cooperative with, moral in our behavior toward our fellow species members, and indeed toward other species as well, perhaps.” I have a major issue with this assertion.  Since we developed our “morality” via Darwinian processes, this morality is necessarily relativistic. Our environment, social, biological, and otherwise is what forms our thoughts about how we should act toward one another. If placed in another environment, our morals may turn out differently. In other words, Darwinian processes could have (and still can!) turn out reasons why we are good to kill our neighbor and steal his possessions. In no sense are these morals binding. The Darwinian process can hypothesize as to the origination of why we act the way we do, but it cannot turn around and say, therefore, “you must act like this.” In other words, the evolutionary explanation is descriptive but never prescriptive. Hence, Dawkins is only speaking of preference (social, individual, or Darwinian) and not actual morality.

There are evolutionary roots to morality, but they’ve been refined and perfected through thousands of years of human culture. I certainly do not think that we ought to get our morals from religion because if we do that, then we either get them through Scripture – people who think you should get your morals from the Old Testament haven’t read the Old Testament – so we shouldn’t get our morals from there.

Dawkins hits on a subject closer to my heart. I certainly find some places in the Old Testament hard to explain, but for Dawkins to say that people who say “you should get your morals from the Old Testament haven’t read the Old Testament” strikes me as naive. Plenty of theologians (Christopher Wright and Gordon Wenham, for instance) have reckoned with the ethics of the Old Testament and have come to vastly different conclusions than those of Mr. Dawkins. His answer shows that he has not studied the issue in depth. The Old Testament actually approaches morality from a nuanced perspective. The Bible acknowledges human sin and the brokenness of the world due to that sin, God’s commitment to justice and remedy of sin, and God’s faithfulness to his covenant. All these come into play when the Old Testament describes the history of God’s actions with Israel and provide the reader with the ability to make proper moral judgments based on its content. Mr. Dawkins, as a man of scholarship, please interact with the many who have studied this subject before you make a passing judgment on Scripture!

Nor should we get our morals from a kind of fear that if we don’t please God he’ll punish us, or a kind of desire to apple polish (to suck up to) a God. There are much more noble reasons for being moral than constantly looking over your shoulder to see whether God approves of what you do.

Again, this comment fails to interact with the Christian view of human ontology. Francis Schaeffer describes the fullest expression of humanity not as that which is characterized by many mistakes (i.e. to err is to be human) but as that which is unblemished by any imperfection. Beyond the fact that fear is actually a good reason to obey God is the idea that we are not truly human unless we are perfect in our obedience toward God. We have more than just fear of a holy God motivating us to be “moral people.” God’s love, mercy, and grace have always been motivations for God’s people to obey. Even the Ten Commandments begin with “I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery.” Redemption has always been the primary motivation for God’s people to be “moral.” That being said, God is a holy God and that should scare the Hell out of us.

I’ve always found Dawkins an interesting figure. He is in many ways the chief representative of the so-called New Atheists. He is supposedly a brilliant biologist. He is, however, dogmatic toward evolution and atheism in a manner that reminds me of uber-fundamentalist Christians. And he is, evidently and most importantly, lost as we all are without a Savior.

Reflections on my Annotated Bibliography

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been reading and compiling an annotated bibliography for the purpose of formulating and refining a thesis. You’ll forgive me, I hope, if my writing is a bit complicated. I tend to absorb the writing style of those that I’ve subjected my eyes to the most. Scholarly writing isn’t always “readable” writing.

I can tell that I’m becoming more familiar with parts of the field as I make fewer and fewer notes. At first, my annotations were summaries of the articles I was reading. Now, I’m able to sum the article up in 4-5 lines. I’ve also made sure to add a couple of lines of my thoughts of the article and its usefulness toward my “thesis.”

I’ve focused primarily on two works. First, is the work on the Enneateuch (fancy word for Genesis-Kings). The scholars in this book describe methodologies and case studies for the literary works in the Ennaeteuch. The second work is focused current scholarship on the Penteteuch. The first work is topically focused but literarily broad, and the second is more broadly focused but centers its study on the first 5 books of the Bible rather than the first 9. I’m reading both so that I can get a general grasp on the state of Old Testament studies on the Pentateuch and Former Prophets. I’ve only compiled 11 sources so far, and I have a long way to go.

Although I’m in the early stages of my bibliography, I’m already trying work through some issues with my thesis. First of all, I should mention that I’m looking at the book of Joshua and…well, I’m still thinking of an “and.” I know I want to focus on language, text critical, and literary development issues and how they impact interpretation of the final form of Joshua. Other than that, I’m too broad right now to say much about specifics.

Methodologically, I have some questions to answer. The “critical” field is definitely concerned with source criticism/literary analysis and its impact on interpretation. Evangelicals are interested in final form centering around dogmatic issues. The line between the two isn’t that bold, but I need to deal in both realms for the purpose of my thesis. This fact leads me to ask questions about “evangelical” use of “critical” scholarship. Namely, what is the useful, best, and wise use of critical scholarship? Don’t get me wrong. I have to ask the same question about evangelical scholarship. Since I am plunging myself into the deep end of source criticism at the moment, the question about critical scholarship is more pressing. The real question is: How much do I discuss source/literary/historical critical issues? I suppose I could help myself by having a more specific thesis – my problem is really the chicken-or-the-egg syndrome.

I’m not too stressed right now, but at least I’m thinking…and praying. If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading my ramblings.

Romer’s “How Many Books (Teuch): Pentateuch, Hexateuch, Deuteronomistic History, or Enneateuch”

Thomas Romer traces certain scholarly trends as the guild struggles with the issue of literary works in the Hebrew Bible. He provides a brief history on how certain scholars have tried to fit the books together and ends with a few of what he calls “Open Questions.”

Martin Noth, of course, articulated the theory of the Deuteronomistic History (DH). He proposed that the end of the Pentateuch was lost and that the Tetrateuch was appended to the DH. In the light of this theory, Some scholars have rejected the original Documentary Hypothesis theory in favor of some new theories to address the problem that the DH raises with the Pentateuch (i.e. the loss of sources). John Van Seters, for instance, proposes that Genesis-Numbers operates as  a prologue to the DH: “[he] considers the Yahwist to be a post-Deuteronomist author who wrote the pre-Priestly traditions of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers.” According to Romer, this model does not seem to address the issue of certain passages within the “Tetrateuch” only making sense within the context of a Hexateuch.

From there, Romer moves on to the question of whether we have a Pentateuch or Hexateuch. “The most decisive argument for the existence of a Hexateuch,” Romer writes, “is Joshua 24. The final discourse is clearly later than Joshua’s last words in chapter 23, which stem from Deuteronomistic redactors.” The expressions “these words” and “Thus says the LORD” in Joshua 24 strongly link this chapter with the end of Deuteronomy. Romer sees validity in distinguishing between what he calls a “Pentateuch redaction” and a “Hexateuch redaction” within the first books of the Old Testament. The “Pentateuch redaction” seems to be concerned with a theology of founding “Israel’s identity in the Torah mediated by Moses;” whereas the “Hexateuch redaction” is primarily concerned with idea of land. Keeping in mind the evidence for the Hexateuch, we can note that much speaks in favor of the “Pentateuch redaction:” Moses’s death at 120 years, the oath formula, and the No-Prophet-Like-Moses formula.

Then, Romer raises the question of whether these two literary units point to a larger, earlier unit known as the Primary History or the Enneateuch. In fact, a number of scholars have the opinion that the an “epic story” (some form of Enneateuch) predates the Pentateuch, Hexateuch, or DH. This idea is based off a number of literary and thematic links in Genesis through Kings.  Deuteronomy 34 and Joshua 24 aren’t viewed as conclusions to their respective literary unit. They are, instead, transitions to different themes in the Enneateuch. Romer also mentions literary links between the end of Kings and the beginning of the Latter Prophets which suggests that a redactor wanted to make that connection and that the Enneateuch may have been read long with these Latter Prophets. The main problem for the proponents of the Enneateuch is where Deuteronomy fits in with the literary unit. Some scholars suggest that Deuteronomy is late addition, but Deuteronomy has much more in common with Joshua-Kings than with Genesis-Numbers. Thus, the Primary History may have been read as a unit, but it wasn’t a “canonical unit.”

Finally, Romer makes this observation:

How can we distinguish comprehensive redactional activity from restrictive additions that are limited to one or two passages, or from cases of intertextuality, which do not necessarily imply redactional activities[?] One may, for instance, observe that the story of Jephthah sacrificing his daughter has many parallels with the Adequah story in Gen 22, but this does not mean that the author of Judg 11 wrote his story in the context of the Enneateuch.

We have some evidence what Romer calls historical summaries in the Psalms and Prophets that suggest the existence of a Pentateuch, Hexateuch, and Enneateuch. Romer maintains that we have little redactional evidence of the Enneateuch, but that fact does not preclude certain books being read in units.

Professional Minister

I had a good conversation with my friend, Jacob, about our goals with the academic training we are receiving at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and (hopefully) beyond. Here’s my confession: I didn’t go to school because I wanted to be a pastor. I went to school because I love to study. I got hooked on the Biblical languages and theology and never looked back. I never intended to be a minister. Anytime someone asks me why I’m in school, I always tell them that I want to research the world the Bible and teach hopefully in a university and especially in the church.

I’m in a place right now where I get to use my teaching gifts. I will be preaching this Sunday night, and I have been teaching through the book of Joshua in Sunday School. I love it.

I’m in school because I love scholarship. I’m not seeking glory. I have too many doubts about my own abilities to even begin to dream of making a Wellhausian-impact in the realm of Old Testament studies. I simply want to contribute. I want to widen my own knowledge of the field, contribute to scholarship in some way, and transfer what I’ve learned to the church (which is one of my favorite things to do).

I still battle some sense of shame when I say that I’m not in school to be a pastor. I love and respect my pastors. I consider the office of pastor a noble one. We lay all these burdens we lay on our pastors - administration, counselling, preaching, teaching, etc. I think we’ve professionalized office. I have two (personal)  problems with that. First, I don’t want “pastor” to be my job. I don’t want to be “Pastor” Nathaniel. I’m fine with just Nathaniel. I’ll do what I’m gifted at doing. I’m more than willing to preach and teach. I’m willing to grow in areas I’m not strong in as well. I, however, don’t want all the expectations we lay on our pastors, and I definitely don’t want it to be a job in the same way that programming is a job. Second, I enjoy being a “lay person;” although, I really don’t think “lay person” is the right word. An unfortunate side effect of the professionalization of the ministry is that we have “pastors” and “lay-people.” Two groups of people, one church. I just want to be a part of the community of believers. I don’t want a title.

At the end of this reflection, I don’t know if my lack of desire to be a pastor is to my shame and reflects a lack of courage on my part. I hope not. I really do love serving in the capacity that I do. I’m willing to grow where ever I’m planted. I just don’t want to be a professional minister.