Kushana's Bible Question Page

My Powell's Bookshelf

2011-12-20T18:21:29Z

I have created a list at Powell's Books of some of my favorite books about the Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Gnosticism, History, Archaeology and ancient religions. (I tried to avoid the very technical titles: if you want to find a textbook for a dead language or something else equally obscure, email me if you just can't find it online.)

This list of books is in no particular order and it includes many items in my LibraryThing list:

My Powell's Bookshelf

(Browse through the whole thing, the book order is completely random.)

-Kushana

Book Review: Invisible Romans

2011-12-20T17:04:03Z

I want to recommend the book I am currently reading, Dr. Robert Knapp's Invisible Romans

A Classics professor at UC Berkeley, Dr. Knapp has spent his career studying the history of the Roman Empire away from its capital city. He is also a specialist in ancient coins, ancient inscriptions, tomb stones, and graffiti. (Since there was no paper in the ancient Western world graffiti was used the way later eras would use flyer, handbills and yard signs for local elections.) Well prepared by this background (and able to mine art history and the passing comments contained in the usual Classics reading list of works written by the most privileged people in the Empire) Dr. Knapp has written a highly readable and well-illustrated book on how the subjects of the Roman empire lived (and sometimes how they felt about it.) He covers the lives and attitudes of middle-class and poor men, women, slaves, freedmen, and soldiers. (Most people could not write so reconstructing their lives is not an easy task for any historian.) Dr. Knapp includes early Christian and Biblical (i.e. New Testament) sources in his chapter and provides at excellent look at how early Christians did (and did not) break free from the common opinions of their time.

After reading this book you will not read the New Testament in the same way: you will read the letters and gospels more in the way its original hearers did (very few people could read). You will understand something of the sheer strangeness of the early Christian message for its contemporary hearers.

If you know nothing about the Roman Empire, this book is an engrossing and non-technical introduction. If you are an expert you will learn something (or at least be reminded of a source you had not thought about recently.)

This book is written to be read out of order: jump in at any chapter that interests you. (Or, if you are a teacher, assign the best chapter(s) for your class.) For this reason the book is a little repetitious when read straight through -- but having discarded many excellent book chapters from class syllabi over the years because they were overly technical mush when read on their own, I am grateful for Dr. Knapp's thoughtfulness in designing this book.

Highly recommended for anyone who has ever wondered what Caesar's solders thought of all this, or what the silversmiths in Ephesus were so upset about (Acts 19), what ancient women looked for in marriage, and how slaves gained their freedom.

-Kushana

Ancient Astronauts

2011-10-15T03:23:03Z

If you are interested in ancient astronauts or forbidden archaeology then I highly recommend this podcast interview with Dr. Ken Feder: http://www.skeptic.com/podcasts/monstertalk/11/07/27/

-Kushana

...

Did the Gnostics Care About Christ?

2011-09-04T23:33:38Z

A central interest in the death of Christ was not universal even among the branches of early Christianity (see Dr. Bart Ehman's <a href='http://www.powells.com/partner/36168/biblio/9780195182491?p_ti' title='More info about this book at powells.com' rel='powells-9780195182491'>Lost Christianities</a> for a glimpse of that world): only the types of Christianity which won out sociologically and politically to become the ancestors of all contemporary forms of Christianity put together the idea of atonement in quite the way that modern Christianities hold to. One must not put what is normal in the present back on to the past: the past will almost always be different.

There were many Gnostic schools, each with their own theology. In turn these individual theologies changed over time. For example, Sethian Gnosticism was sometimes very Christianized: at other times in its development it was not. Its interest in the death of Christ varies accordingly. (Dr. John Turner made a nice pattern out the Sethian texts we knew of -- then the <a href='http://www.powells.com/partner/36168/biblio/9781426200427?p_ti' title='More info about this book at powells.com' rel='powells-9781426200427'>The Gospel of Judas</a> made it untenable.)

Of all the ancient Gnostic texts, the one with the most interest in the life and teachings of Christ (the <a href='http://www.powells.com/partner/36168/biblio/9780944344118?p_ti' title='More info about this book at powells.com' rel='powells-9780944344118'>Gospel of Thomas</a> scarcely refers to Jesus' death (its brief allusion 'to bearing one's cross' is not necessarily biographical: this was already a proverb before the time of Christianity. (Crucifixions were historical and contemporary realities: Romans did not need the death of a small-time Jewish rabble rouser (so minor that the contemporary historian Josephus does not give him the column-inches of other Jewish religious and political leaders who gathered crowds around them) to understand the idea of 'carrying one's cross'.)

Aside from the Gospel of Thomas (and perhaps the Dialogue of the Savior), most Gnostic texts (and schools) had very little ongoing interest in the death of Christ (and little interest in the life and preaching of Christ): for nearly every school of ancient Gnosticism Christ was an avatar, if you will, something that was never human nor part of time. (Exactly what varied with each Gnostic school.) The Gnostic texts which do mention the cross do so in the same funhouse mirror way that Gnostic texts interpret the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible: even after you read them it is difficult to sort out when they are making a joke, when they are basing something on a pun or an interpretation of a pub (sometimes even a pun in Aramaic), when they are being serious, and whether they are mocking another school of Gnosticism or Christianity (or not talking about any particular competing religion).

Christ was not the Anointed in Gnosticism: depending of which Gnostic school you consult (and at which point in its development) Christ is Seth from the Book of Genesis, or Christ is God, or Christ is a pagan wisdom teacher in a lightly Christianized guise. The ideas in Gnosticism are so unlike the ideas in early Christianities that most current scholars reject the theory that Gnosticism developed out of Christianity: one cannot draw a direct line between any two forms of the two religions and account for Gnosticism as it appears in its own texts (even allowing for Gnosticism as a willful distortion of Christianity, as Irenaeus would have it.) Scholars spent a century trying to make that work: the great majority of them now look for a different (and usually older) origin for Gnosticism.

Christ was very important to some Gnostics at the times when Gnosticism was interested in Christianity (for some Gnostic schools that was all the time, for other Gnostic schools it was not). When Gnostics did speak of Christ he was always an emissary of God (or God, himself), a representative of cosmic goodness and a bringer of otherworldly enlightenment. (I cannot think of any Gnostic school which made Christ a villain or mocked Christ the way some Gnostic movements mocked the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible portrayal of God.)

-Kushana

The Good News Bible and Remembering Dr. Nida

2011-09-04T23:17:04Z

An important and influential Biblical scholar and translator died this past week. From the New York Times obituary for Dr. Eugene Nida:

Widely considered the father of modern Bible translation, Mr. Nida (pronounced NYE-duh) was for four decades the head of the Bible society’s translation program .... Previously, most Bible translations had been done by Western missionaries, who rarely had great familiarity with the local language. Not surprisingly, the word-for-word translations that resulted were often stiff, unpalatable and largely inaccessible .... Drawing on linguistics, anthropology and communication science, Mr. Nida devised an approach to translation known as “dynamic equivalence.” (It was later called “functional equivalence.”) .... Traversing the globe by plane, train and canoe, Mr. Nida set in motion the painstaking process of translating Scripture into more than 200 languages, among them Navajo; Tagalog and Ilocano, spoken in the Philippines; Quechua, an indigenous language of Peru; Hmong, spoken in Southeast Asia; and Inuktitut, an indigenous language of the Canadian Arctic. Mr. Nida also played an active role in creating the Good News Bible, a colloquial English-language edition ....

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/us/04nida.html

His official biography: http://www.nidainstitute.org/vsItemDisplay.dsp&objectID=0920A817-28AA-4D6F-9B9F70012FE3A462&method=display

As a historian I worry about making a text produced by very different cultures at centuries' remove too cozy. I think the burden is on us, as readers, to understand the strangeness of the Bible's own world. (We would not expect to intuitively understand <a href='http://www.powells.com/partner/36168/biblio/9780393975802?p_ti' title='More info about this book at powells.com' rel='powells-9780393975802'>Beowulf</a> or the <a href='http://www.powells.com/partner/36168/biblio/9780143039952?p_ti' title='More info about this book at powells.com' rel='powells-9780143039952'>The Odyssey</a> without some historical and cultural orientation, the Bible is just as alien. Learning about when and where a book was written always pays great rewards and make reading a deeper, richer experience.)

I also hesitate about recommending the Good News Bible as a first translation: its readability comes at the cost (especially in earlier editions) of being a loose translation, one that sometimes strays well away from what the original languages say. I would much rather start readers on a translation that is a bit difficult (and a bit strange): the Bible is a bit difficult and a bit strange (that is part of what I love about it) and reading a too-colloquial translation feels like watching a bad movie based on a good book: entertaining and palatable but not the same thing.

(The one scholar who has most successfully boiled down the strangeness of the New Testament is Dr. Bruce Malina: his book <a href='http://www.powells.com/partner/36168/biblio/9780664254575?p_ti' title='More info about this book at powells.com' rel='powells-9780664254575'>Windows on the World of Jesus: Time Travel to Ancient Judea</a> is designed to give readers the right kind of culture shock, the kind of shock it takes most scholars decades to piece together and hours to explain. A good source of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament culture shock is Dr. James Pritchard's <a href='http://www.powells.com/partner/36168/biblio/9780691035031?p_ti' title='More info about this book at powells.com' rel='powells-9780691035031'>Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament</a>. As you can tell from its title (and price), it is not beach reading. It does show you images and stories that were as familiar to Biblical authors as advertising logos and hit TV shows are to us, today -- and it gives an excellent (if hard-won) sense of historical distance.)

-Kushana

Did Irenaeus Know What He Was Talking About?

2011-07-30T20:59:09Z

A reader named Bill writes in and asks about the names Irenaeus uses in Chapter 1 of Against Heresies:

They maintain, then, that in the invisible and ineffable heights above there exists a certain perfect, pre-existent whom they call Proarche, Propator, and Bythus, and describe as being invisible and incomprehensible. Eternal and unbegotten, he remained throughout innumerable cycles of ages in profound serenity and quiescence. There existed along with him Ennœa, whom they also call Charis and Sige.

   Bill wonders why he does not find these names in some translations of the Nag Hammadi Library. Wasn’t Irenaeus writing about the Gnostics? (Indeed the Church Father specifies he is describing the ideas of the school of Gnostics called the Valentinians and we have Valentinian texts in the Nag Hammadi Library.)
   It does not help that some older translations of Against Heresies (like the ones available for free online) Latinizes the Greek names (especially since the Coptic of the Nag Hammadi Library distorts Greek names in its own distinctive and Egyptian way.) This makes the names difficult to recognize (for scholars and readers). However, Irenaeus’ “Proarche” is First Ruler, his “Propator” is First Father, his “Bythus” is Depth, “Ennoea” is Thought, “Charis" is Grace (or Loveliness), “Sige” is Silence.
   If you search here“Bythus” will get no results, but “Silence” will:

http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/nhsearch.html

   It is always difficult to know when to translate a name: look at different translations of the New Testament Gospel of John, some leave the complex Greek term logos (which has a paragraph of meanings) as “Logos”, some translate it as “Word” (when it can mean anything from “a spoken word” to “the structure and order of the universe”). In Against Heresies Irenaeus also mentions the names “Monogenes” (Self Begotten), “Aletheia” (Truth), "Nous" (Mind), "Logos" (Ordering Structure of the Universe), and "Zoe" (Life, used in some Gnostic texts as a Greek name for Chava/Eve).
   In the middle of this invasion of Greek personifications and titles (which some translators translate into English and some leave in Greek) keep in mind that ancient Gnosticism was worried about how one distant, perfect God could create an imperfect world. The Gnostics always proposed a set of intermediate stages that both moved the world far away from God and made Creation the result of a series of mistakes and ignorant (or evil) decisions by middle managers. (Making them very much like some modern atheist humor which imagines Creation as the end process of a too-large and bumbling corporation.) However, since God is perfect in Gnosticism God intervenes and sends an agent in to rescue the Gnostics from the world. (Gnostic mythology is a bit like a good summer movie: very complex and full of strange names and concepts, but ultimately the hero always wins.)
   If you are curious, this is Irenaeus’ account of what Valentinian Gnostics believe:

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.ii.ii.html

   This is what the Valentinians say they believe:

http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/valex.html
http://www.gnosis.org/library/flora.htm

   We have had the accounts of Church Fathers and heresy hunters like Irenaeus from Antiquity, we have had accounts from the Gnostics themselves for only about 65 years (it took 30 of those years to translate the texts, we have spent the next 35 still sorting out just what we have and what to make of it all.) In fact, the study of Gnosticism is just catching up the fact that it based much of what it thought on 19th century books summarizing and theorizing about what the ancient religion was. (These earlier scholars did not work in modern academia and thus had to leisure to write encyclopedic and magisterial life-works on single subjects.) These earlier scholars based their work on the reports of the Church Fathers: they had to, we had few things written by actual Gnostics at that early date. Our predecessors did the best they could to incorporate what these actual Gnostic texts said but their sources often came from a much later time period or very different types of Gnosticism (and like all Gnostic texts they were puzzling, obscure and difficult.)
   Then, in 1945, we discovered a library of Gnostic texts (the Nag Hammadi Library) from about the same place and time as the Gnostic movements described by the Church fathers: 48 separate books (some of them simply books the Gnostics were interested in rather than actual Gnostic scriptures) from at least 3 branches of Gnosticism. (Just as Christianity has denominations so ancient Gnostics had branches, although the differences between different branches of Gnosticism are greater than between any two living types of Christianity. (All of the large differences in Christianity were removed during the era of the ancient Church Councils.))
   With very few exceptions this Egyptian Gnostic library does not match what the Church Fathers told us about Gnosticism (and the few matches we have are not very exact.) Modern scholars of Gnosticism have done different things with this problem: Dr. Birger Pearson discusses types of Gnosticism described only by the Church Fathers alongside forms of Gnosticism thoroughly documented by their own ancient books. (Most historians want two accounts before they will write about something: often history does not provide this.)   Dr. Karen King thinks the whole category of “Gnosticism” should be thrown out, that it is a kind of hologram created by the Church Fathers and that our existing evidence (even with the idea of different Gnostic schools) is too varied to fit under one roof.
   The divergence between what Irenaeus and other Church Fathers say and the Gnostic texts themselves raise a lot of disturbing questions: did the Church Fathers know what they were talking about? (People tended not to question this since they were Church Fathers and without anything from the Gnostics we had to take them at their word.) How did the Church Fathers get their information? Did they ever distort what they knew (our accounts come not from neutral reports but from crusading books intended to defend the faith: Irenaeus, for example makes the promulgation of Gnostic personifications sound like sex even though all of the Nag Hammadi texts we have ascetic and make the process as unbiological as possible).   Did the Church Fathers ever hold and actual Gnostic book in their hands? Did they ever talk to an actual Gnostic? (I would not count purported cases lay people who had re-converted to proto-orthodoxy and were now answering the questions of an angry (or disappointed) member of the emerging church hierarchy: the temptation to answer “Yes, Bishop, those awful people *did* kick puppies” would be too great.)
   We cannot know. We cannot ask the Church Fathers what sources they were working from and when they exaggerated or distorted what they knew. (It may be that the Church Fathers themselves were working from third-hand information.) We do know that later Church Fathers copied (and added florid details) to the works of earlier Church Fathers who wrote about heretics: the later we go in time the less interest Great Church authors have in checking with actual Gnostic sources and the more set and formulaic the denunciations of heretics become. Irenaeus, however, was very early in this process and in at least two cases he knew something about two Gnostic books (The Apocryphon of John (also called the Secret Book of John) and the Gospel of Judas.) That is, however, two books out of some 50 which have survived and scores more which are lost. (In his defense, no ancient writer had access to every book: books were hand copied, expensive and there were no bookstore chains with great regional warehouses or public libraries with Inter-Library Loan in Antiquity.)
   So, yes, Irenaeus uses terms used by actual Gnostics and his account loosely resembles Gnostic ideas about how a series of intermediaries led a perfect God to create an imperfect world. However, (unless you are studying the Apocryphon of John or the Gospel of Judas) I would study actual Gnostic texts first and only read the Church Fathers later: the differences are too great and the problem of why there are differences is too complex (and perhaps cannot be answered.)   There are good recent, readable translations of the Nag Hammadi texts which do their best to explain them on their own terms – and the first rule of history is to start with the accounts of the people, themselves.

-Kushana

Robot Reveals Hidden Giza Pyramid Hieroglyphs

2011-05-26T18:58:01Z

The images revealed hieroglyphs written in red paint that have not been seen by human eyes since the construction of the pyramid. The pictures also unveiled new details about two puzzling copper pins embedded in one of the so called "secret doors."

http://news.discovery.com/archaeology/pyramids-hieroglyphs-robot-mystery-110526.html

My unspectacular guess is they had to do with the construction of the pyramid, but we should know next year.

- Kushana

Worried About Judgement Day?

2011-05-20T17:11:58Z

Don't be. I cannot replace a member of the clergy but I can tell you the end of the world has been fixed (and passed by) many times before:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/end_wrl2.htm

The human beings who are so fond of predicting this date seem to have forgotten Matthew 24:36:

"But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. "

Indeed Jesus proves this two verses earlier (Matthew 24:24):

"Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away till all these things take place." (RSV)

Jesus thought the people standing in front of him would see the End take place. In other words, the first person to misstate the date of the End was Jesus, himself.

Also, always ask yourself if the person making the prediction has something to gain: are they asking you to buy something? Make an offering? Will it improve their tv or radio ratings, social media ranking, or visibility? Is it at all plausible that they like having a loyal following for their own ego gratification? Are they frightening people? Does their prediction match frequent scriptural reminders that no one can predict the date of the End?

(For a real mind bender, keep in mind that the entire idea of a Last Judgment and an End time came from Zoroastrianism and was borrowed by Jews from that religion during the Babylonian Exile. God makes no mention of an End or a Last Judgment until after this (relatively late) era in Jewish history.)

-Kushana

Women and College: Let's Do Better

2011-05-01T17:55:00Z

More younger women have college degrees than their male counterparts:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/26/us-census-education-idUSTRE73P75520110426

(However, this varies greatly by ethnic group and does not hold true for everyone over the age of 25.)

My question is why isn't this percentage larger? Women under 25 only outstrip their male peers by 2%, a very modest percentage. So small a percentage that it is difficult to tell why the change happened. I look forward to a headline on more significant gains in the future -- with clearer reasons for the changes.

-Kushana

Farewell to Lycos

2011-04-05T00:18:00Z

I have been ironing out the chaos of my email account being eaten by the aether. The "email me" link on the sidebar now works.

-Kushana

Well, Just Memorize the Book

2011-02-10T19:59:00Z

E-books without page numbers:

http://chronicle.com/article/E-Books-Varied-Formats-Make/126246/?sid=cc&utm_source=cc&utm_medium=en

The odd things about this is it takes us back to the time of handwritten manuscripts, when any text may be altered by any middleman, at any point -- and when anyone checking a manuscript must refer to "after where it says 'upon Stubb setting the anchor-watch'." This is not exact and no good at all if the passage is missing, has extra characters, or has been tampered with. It also makes it impossible to compare several different editions of the book (if I have a footnote pointing to one copy of a book I can find that passage in all of its mates, in the paperback editions, in editions from different publishers, and (eventually) in electronic editions.)

Those who just want a link instead of a footnote have never tried to track down a partial, obsolete, or incompatible link. This is annoying if the link points to some amusement but it often represents the end of the road if the link has some critical bit of information.

And, as a historian, I always think "Will this work in 20 years? 50 years? 100 years?" I can point you to an exact passage in a 2,00 year old book using a page number, but in 2,000 years from now the problem of how to charge or repair and e-reader or computer may be too much of a hurdle to overcome.

-Kushana

Not Subtle In The Least

2011-01-26T18:48:00Z

My helper tells me I have received spam comments from a domain titled "Hi Sailor".

Really, do they expect me to click on something called that?

I've been under a deadline that does not allow for free writing but that should be over soon.

-Kushana

An Invitation

2010-12-27T19:38:00Z

It is nearly the new year, a time of looking backwards and looking towards the year ahead. In this break between semesters I have been thinking about this weblog project, which I have kept for 3 years, and in one important respect I have failed: few people ask me questions.

People ask me questions on website forums so my aethereal presence is not too fierce or inaccessible. So, it is a new year. There is an email link on the left sidebar. (My helper will not let me simply post it, pointing to a wave of Chinese spammers who seem to think I have no staff (that is true, I have nearly no staff) and that I am ignoring the background of this site (not at all, I pay fairly in pizza for someone else to pay attention to the background if this site): posting my email evidently would make that problem worse.)

The entire purpose of this site is the answering of questions. I am terrible at coming up with questions that do not sound like "Name three uses of the Infinitive in Koine" or "What are the main theological themes in Paul's Letter to the Romans?" I am here to serve: the internet (and the world) are an ocean of perplexity and misinformation. Ask me a question about religion or archaeology and I will try to answer it.

-Kushana

Two Rooms Full of Books

2010-12-11T05:01:00Z

This year's Society of Biblical Literature conference went well, as did the parallel conference sponsored by Biblical Archaeology Review . Despite the close of the semester I am partway though several of the books I bought there and hope to post reviews and Library Thing notices of them, time permitting.

One of the great pleasures of the conference is the room full of books (this year two rooms full of book), sold at discount. That said, each year there are items that take up an unhealthy portion of most book budgets all by themselves. This year's candidate was the $500 facsimile (each page is a life-size large color photo) of an early complete manuscript of the Bible. Much of the information in it appears in the footnotes of most original-language Bibles with scholars' footnotes, but anyone wanting to work on the individual nature of that particular manuscript may now do so in their own armchair (if they have a strong table or lap.)

One thing I look forward to next year is that the Society of Biblical Literature will be returning to its old tradition of meeting along with the American Academy of Religion. Curious about whether there are similarities in how devotees approach saints' tombs in Islam and Christianity? Wondering whether there are any comparison between holy relics in Buddhism and Catholicism? Intrigued by nearly any imaginable question on how any two or three religions are similar? Someone will be talking about it at this larger conference, and I think scholars of the Bible meeting off in their own corner is no help to our wider field of study. (Besides, SBL on its own -- for no good reason -- has far too few talks on archaeology. I am reading a book by Dr. William Dever and the one point I vigorously agree with him on is the need of more archaeology for Biblical scholars: yes, it is difficult, ambiguous, and full of apparent trivia but a careful foundation in archaeology can clear up things that no amount of reading ever will.)

-Kushana

Hear Famous Scholars!

2010-10-27T00:44:00Z

It is time for me to announce the parallel conference to the Society of Biblical Literature's annual meeting of Biblical scholars: Biblical Archaeological Review's Bible & Archaeology Fest which features many of the same speakers at a more modest price and without the lengthy years of schooling:

http://www.bib-arch.org/travel-study/

Who will be there?

James Charlesworth	Princeton Theological Seminary
William Dever	Lycoming College
Bart Ehrman	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Craig Evans	Acadia Divinity College
Mark Goodacre	Duke University
Jodi Magness	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Marvin Meyer	Chapman University
James Tabor	University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Ben Witherington III	Asbury Theological Seminary

(List cribbed shamelessly from here.)

And many other fine scholars whose names are less familiar, but who are no less worth listening to. I warmly recommend attending.

-Kushana

A Few Credit-Hours Shy of An Associate Degree?

2010-08-31T15:31:00Z

A new Federal program seeks to help students who left school with less than 9 credits to go to their Associate degree:

"The Institute for Higher Education Policy and the Lumina Foundation for Education announced a joint program on Wednesday to find formerly enrolled college students whose academic records qualify them to be awarded associate degrees retroactively. The three-year, $1.3-million effort, called Project Win-Win, also plans to identify former students who fell just short of an associate degree, by nine or fewer credits, and re-enroll them to earn a degree."

source: http://chronicle.com/article/For-Those-Who-Fell-Just-Short/124145/?sid=cc&utm_source=cc&utm_medium=en

If your school is on this list this list, contact the campus and ask about the program:

Louisiana:

Baton Rouge Community College

Bossier Parish Community College*

Delgado Community College*

Nunez Community College

University of Louisiana at Lafayette

McNeese State University*

Northwestern Louisiana University*

Southeastern Louisiana University*

Missouri:

Metropolitan Community College District

St. Louis Community College District

DeVry University, Kansas City

Columbia College

New York:

Alfred State Technical College

Clinton Community College

Monroe Community College *

Orange Community College

Suffolk Community College*

SUNY at Cobbleskill

Ohio:

Clark State Community College*

Kent State University at Stark

Kent State University at Trumbull

Kent State University at Tuscarawas

Lakeland Community College*

Northwest State Community College

Sinclair Community College

Virginia:

Germana Community College

New River Community College

Northern Virginia Community College

Thomas Nelson Community College

Tidewater Community College

Virginia Western Community College

Wisconsin:

University of Wisconsin at Green Bay

University of Wisconsin at Platteville

University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point

University of Wisconsin (two-year colleges)

More schools will be added, so check the link for updates: http://www.ihep.org/projectwin-wininstitutions.cfm.

-Kushana

Go to your library!

2010-08-19T04:50:00Z

My current favorite pro-libraries video:

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Oldest Jerusalem Text Discovered

2010-08-03T01:46:00Z

A new, but tiny, archaeological find has been announced in Jerusalem:

"Hebrew University excavations recently unearthed a clay fragment dating back to the 14th century BCE, said to be the oldest written document ever found in Jerusalem. The tiny fragment is only 2 cm. by 2.8 cm. in surface area and 1 cm. thick and appears to have once been part of a larger tablet. Researchers say the ancient fragment testifies to Jerusalem’s importance as a major city late in the Bronze Age ... The minuscule fragment contains Akkadian words written in ancient cuneiform symbols. Researchers say that while the symbols appear to be insignificant, containing simply the words “you,” “you were,” “them,” “to do,” and “later,” the high quality of the writing indicates that it was written by a highly skilled scribe.

The most ancient piece of writing found in Jerusalem before the Ophel fragment was a tablet unearthed in the Shiloah water in the City of David, dating back to the eighth century BCE – nearly 600 years “younger” than the Ophel find."

http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=181135

-Kushana

Mailbag: What Did the Twelve Think of Judas Iscariot?

2010-07-20T02:22:00Z

My helper informs me that a visitor recently came to this site looking for whether the disciples ever asked Jesus about Judas. Off the top of my head, no. (This may seem odd but the Lord was in the middle of being apprehended and tried. The Passion stories move on with such a rush that Christ and the disciples do not speak again until it is all over.)

The Gospel of Judas has many of Judas' questions about the other disciples, but it is later than the four gospels our gospels in the Bible Bible.

Remember that a good Bible Concordance Bible Concordance or online Bible online Bible can help answer your questions about what is in the Bible or who said or did what. (Although I am happy to answer questions that a simple word search cannot pin down.)

-Kushana

Embanet U?

2010-07-20T01:31:00Z

How much of your online degree is really from that trusted school with the recognized name?

http://chronicle.com/article/Outsourced-Ed-Colleges-Hire/66309/

"You're creating a whole set of temptations to make the choices that will increase profits rather than improve education," Mr. Bok says .... Investors, ... [Mr. Urdan] says, are "looking to try to extract value from the growth in online education and working-adult education without having to be directly in the sights of the regulators."

Or to put it another way, the companies named in this article: Certificationmap.com, 2tor Inc., Princeton Review; Colloquy Inc., Kaplan Inc., Total Online Program Service, SunGard Higher Education, Embanet, Bisk Education, Higher Ed Holdings, and Compass Knowledge Group are nowhere on the traditional food chain of academic careers. (The lowest rank of academic job is either "Lecturer" or "Instructor" at an accredited school with a name you would probably recognize or "Professor" at a community college.) I could not find out exactly who plans, researches, and writes the courses offered by these companies or what their qualifications are: you can be certain they are not the regular professors at George Washington University, Boston University, or the University of Southern California.

(Whatever protests these companies may make about the qualities and qualifications of their staff these are not the first, second, third, or fourth choice of work for talented and capable academics with completed degrees -- they do not offer the same pay, professional standing, research opportunities, or job security as a regular job at a college or university. They may have some good people due to the poor economy, but working for a test prep/website content company is not the dream of anyone spending 7-10 years in a graduate program in any subject.)

If you want the education implied by a school's name, go to campus. Yes, it is inconvenient. Yes, it is expensive. On campus you can see what you are getting, you can check whether your professor is interested and focused, you will learn things you never would from typed questions, you will meet your fellow students, you will be able to use the library, and you will learn the campus. This experience is full of intangible extras ("Professor, have you ever heard of something called the Gospel of Mary?") , chance encounters ("The chair next to me is open -- why are you wearing all white?"), sparked questions ("You didn't answer Sue's question -- why aren't we talking about goddess figurines?"), and experiences ("Maybe I should ask that old woman at the next table at the library if she knows anything about Ugarit mythology -- I think she's reading cuneiform but she's not in my class or one of the professors.") that no newfangled correspondence course can give you. If you wish to go to school -- you are still safest going to school.

-Kushana

Note: the first comment is made by Kaplan (or someone defending and advertising Kaplan). Plonk.

New Learning?

2010-06-14T18:03:00Z

From Inside Higher Education:

This is mirrored in a split between professors and students, who approach knowledge in very different ways. Traditional faculty might be described as hunters who search for and generate knowledge to answer questions. Digital natives by contrast are gatherers, who wade through a sea of data available to them online to find the answers to their questions. Faculty are rooted in the disciplines and depth of knowledge, while students think in increasingly interdisciplinary or a-disciplinary ways, with a focus on breadth.

source: <A href="http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2010/06/14/levine">http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2010/06/14/levine</A>

This is malarkey: the skills needed to find knowledge in a library of books are the same skills needed to find knowledge in a collection of website. In both cases the reader needs to know who the author is, how they know what they know, what influenced them to write, what their sources are, and whether the information holds up under fact-checking.

There are already older distance-education technologies (documentaries , version of museum exhibits , college classes broadcast on TV , audio and videos of classes, and photographs (and drawings or diagrams )) and the problem with all of these is they are easy to tune out. In a classroom professors can see how they are going over: a certain amount of boredom is normal, but it is possible to see if a student is focused on their phone, typing long after one has paused to put something up on the board, looking out the window, whether most of the class seem lost, and how they act while taking a quiz (this can be as important as their actual answers.) (It has long been true that students' homework and what say about themselves seldom tells the whole story: a student who looks like she has mononucleosis is a very different matter than one who will not apply herself in a boring required class during her first semester in school. These may seem identical, online.)

Some subject cannot be easily illustrated visually (and not all students learn best by seeing something demonstrated), or taught in a hands-on manner (not all students learn well by doing, either.) I would love it if all subject could be taught in the same way and absorbed equally well by all students but every educational fad makes these claims and every fad has its own failings (some worse than others.) There have been genuine advances in understanding how people learn, but educational fads often have too little to do with experimental psychology.

To go back to another point in the article: skimming will not help you evaluate the quality of your sources. If many of them turn out to be ill-informed (or outright bunk) then breadth of knowledge does little good. (And it is certainly possible to lightly read a wide variety of books and come away just as poorly informed.) Only time, depth of study, and applying the five journalistic questions to your sources can give you a true education (on any subject). This is not a passive process (I am wondering how much academic research the article's author has done...) and it is even more challenging online where little is vetted or fact-checked and anyone can say anything for the price of a small website (like this one)* or a free weblog account. (This has always been the case, of course: anyone who could pull together a little cash could put out a set of leaflets, pamplets, newsletters, or self-published books ... but no one took them seriously as a source of information.)

Nor should you take this website as a source of information: verify what you read here, do your own reading and thinking, and come to your own conlcusions.

* My helper keeps telling me this site would go over far better if I hired a professional designer, let them organize the website, and stopped stuffing every blinking thing that caught my eye down one side of the page. Naming myself after a cartoon character has not helped, either. In my old age I have learned to listen to advice, nod thoughtfully, and do what I wanted to do, anyway. I will leave the better sites under real names to my younger colleagues who have careers to foster.

-Kushana

Online Evangelical Schools Growing

2010-06-14T17:24:00Z

From Inside Higher Education:

Weaving a Christian perspective into the fabric of course design is not unique to Regent, nor is it limited to religious studies courses. While some students attend faith-based institutions to study religious philosophy, many are studying the same subjects as their peers at nonreligious institutions (degrees in business, marketing, and health care are among the most popular at a number of Christian institutions, as elsewhere). But the point of a Christian college education is not to pray before and after class while doing everything else the same, Campo says; it is to make Christian identity part of the way subjects are taught.

source: <A href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/06/14/christian">http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/06/14/christian</A>

My one concern is quality control: already some smaller, religious, for-profit, or online schools are claiming accreditation (i.e. how well they stick to state and national standards for all colleges, how much education they require of their professors, do they have an adequate library for their students, etc.) from accreditation agencies they have cooked up themselves. These agencies have plausible-sounding names, but they are not the rigorous accreditation agencies that certify most colleges you've heard of.

If you are thinking of going to a newer school (or an existing school's new program) give it a hard, skeptical look. Ask who (but the school's marketing department) can vouch for its quality as an education. If you are taking a secular subject (such as Business) your faith will not be greatly shaken by Business courses at a non-religious school. The classes will be about revenues and customers, not the shape of your soul. If the school you are considering is far less expensive than others, try to sort out what they have cut to offer such prices (maintaining a massive working bank of computers with the latest interactive technologies is not so much of a savings over maintaining a physical campus, be wary of that the sole reason for tuition differences.) (Also look at whether the most expensive schools on your list have simply added to their prices for the sake of having a "name brand" education.)

If you are considering a religious school for a religious subject, let me ask you to go against the easiest path of going to a school exclusively within your own tradition. An ecumenical school or a secular school may expose you to ideas (and people) who will strengthen your faith (you may meet wise classmates or teaches from other traditions whom you would not have met at a one-faith school) and you will have ready answers for hard questions about your faith. (The answers taught in one-faith schools tend to work best for wavering people within that faith but often mean little to people from other traditions or the non-religious.) It is also possible that in wishing to make your path easy, a one-faith school may omit parts of the curriculum that will leave you ill-educated among your professional peers. (See the self-serving accredidation agencies, above.) It can be too easy to slide from teaching from a perspective (and wishing to avoid difficult topics) to teaching only a partial version of a subject.

Being a person of faith is not easy, nor is it a thing that avoids the realities of life or the presence of people of other faiths. Get an education that will serve you best in the long run, and weigh carefully the options that are easy or cheap -- once you are out of school it may take a long time to discover what your education lacked, and it is far more difficult to make up for what is missing. Chose your school carefully (and feel free to change your mind if a school disappoints you.) The education you are giving your mind will last the rest of your life.

Note: I received my education from several religious schools (and from a few secular ones.) My education at religious schools was top notch and all schools can be unhappily influenced by non-doctrinal issues (competence, money, internal politics, etc.)

-Kushana

Mailbag: Bast In the Bible?

2010-06-11T04:10:00Z

My helper tells me someone came to this weblog looking for information on Bast (or Bastet) and the Gospel of Luke.

I do not think any of the Gospels in the Bible mention any of the pagan gods by name: why advertise a for a competing brand (so to speak)? Early Christianity seems to have been very local, concerned with evangelizing a small geographic area (if you look at the place names mentioned in the earliest Christian sources, i.e. Luke 10:13), and not yet worried about taking on the issues of an entire province (to say nothing of neighboring provinces like Egypt or the entire Roman empire entire Roman empire as either a government or supporter of a particular religion.)

If you are wondering what the Bible mentions, look at a good concordance or look it up online look it up online. (Note: different translations will give somewhat differing results.)

Cat content: the symbol of St. Mark is the lion.

-Kushana

The Jesus Secret

2010-05-28T03:00:00Z

I recently saw an ad for The Jesus Secret. It took me to a website called The Unhidden Bible.

This is a clever variation on the old false claim that the 'proper' translation of Aramaic reveals whatever the author wants to push about the Bible. This time the false claim is that the original translators of the English Bible (I am waiting for the website to name names, this is a more complex subject that it first sounds) did not know Koine (the popular Greek of the New Testament, the Greek spoken by most of the Roman Empire.)

It is true that until the great troves of everyday letters, contracts, and receipts were unearthed from the sands of Egypt at the turn of the last century that scholars knew less about Koine Greek. However, earlier translators did know Classical Greek and if you know Classical Greek you can certainly read Koine Greek.

Koine Greek is simpler than Classical Greek, it has fewer verb tenses, less complex grammar, a smaller vocabulary ... a Classical Greek grammar and dictionary are quite helpful for reading the more complex passages in the New Testament and do very well for students of New Testament Greek who cannot put their hands on a Koine grammar or dictionary. Saying that people who knew Classical Greek could not read Koine is like saying someone who can read Faulkner can't follow US Magazine.

Besides, the Bible has been translated many times since its first translation into English. We now have many fine translations that benefit from the wealth of Koine texts discovered at the beginning of the 20th century. If the earliest Bibles in English had mistranslations then we have had ample time to correct them: nearly any responsible and scholarly translation of the Bible made within the last 70 years will provide a fair translation of the Sacred Writ. (And you can compare your translation against another one, or several other ones, if you so desire.)

For those who may think I am an evil defender of the status quo: one of my favorite things is the study of the scriptures of now-dead religions. I love accurately translating and understanding the arguments and theologies of religions which have no living adherents and I and other scholars get very bent out of shape when we think one of our colleagues has distorted or misunderstood one the details of these extinct faiths -- simply because we love accuracy. We bring the same fierce love of accuracy (in more minutae than you can even picture)* to the translation of the Bible, we often belong to Biblical faiths, wish very deeply to transmit the text accurately, and when asked to choose between Greek (or Hebrew) grammar and piety, we will often choose the grammar. (We are, after all, scholars. If Paul says something unbelievably crude in Galatians, we will translate it just as he said it.)

* Scholars worry over which ancient hand-written manuscripts to use as sources, they seek out the best photographs of these manuscripts (or examine them in person), they worry over the handwriting and the thinking of the scribes of these manuscripts, they argue over every slip of the pen (which may or may not represent what a Biblical author originally wrote), they consult other ancient texts to be certain their understanding of Greek matches ancients' understanding of Greek, they consult several dictionaries if a word is in doubt, and they debate how Greek used subordinate clauses in order to be certain they have chosen the right one for their translation. (Greek grammar, even simple Greek grammar, is like looking at the insides of a watch.) We do this because it is what goes in to making an accurate translation: there is no one ancient manuscript of the Bible (and every manuscript we have was written by hand -- often several hands.)

I see the website also mentions Aramaic: the Aramaic New Testament we currently have is a careful translation from the Greek. With few exceptions, it will only tell you how Aramaic-speaking Christians of a well-established, five century old religion read the Greek Bible. (A very interesting topic, but not the very words of Jesus.) Aramaic Christianity went through a careful process of textual and doctrinal standardization (as did all the early branches of Christianity). It is not the easy treasure trove of first-generation Christianity that many book and website peddlers propose. (Anyone who tells you Aramaic is the key to Jesus and the Apostles is either frightfully ignorant of Church history (and the history of the Near East) or they are deliberately lying in order to sell you something. Times are tight: hold on to your money.)

Jesus spoke Koine Greek: he had to or his followers, the crowds, Roman officials, and Pilate would not have understood him. To read a good slice of the difficulties in knowing when and how early Christians used Aramaic, read Joseph Fitzmyer's Essays on the Semitic Background of the New Testament (ISBN 978-0802848451)

I see the website also mentions the Dead Sea Scrolls. These were written before the lifetime of Jesus and are Jewish texts, not Christian ones. They do not document anything about Jesus or his followers: they cannot (unless one brings a time machine into the matter. Perhaps someday one of these bad Bible scholarship books or websites will.)

Rule of Thumb: advances in genuine scholarship tend to be small. No one thing, no one discovery or insight, will change everything about what the Bible is or what it means. Anyone who tells your their discovery or insight will change how you read the whole Bible (by skipping letters, making silly claims about ancient languages, or some other novelty I cannot yet picture) is trying to sell books.

Save your money: I'll answer your questions for free.

-Kushana

Book Review: Caves of Steel

2010-05-26T00:16:00Z

I recently re-read Isaac Asimov's Caves of Steel (which, for no good reason, I had mixed up with Pebble in the Sky.) I had completely forgotten that this carefully crafted mystery involved a slice of (still largely accurate) Biblical scholarship about the Old Testament/ Hebrew Bible figure of Jezebel. (Among Asimov's many books were his general introductions to a surprising range of topics, including Biblical Scholarship.) This is not some Metropolis-like symbolic figure, but an actual character who must live down this name.

One of my favorite moments in the book, this time, was a scene where a scientist must test whether a robot has been programmed with the First Law of Robotics. Does he ask the robot to point a blaster at any human in the room? No -- this is essentially a question of computer programming -- so decades before computers became common, Asimov has his scientist testing minor functions of the robot's brain whose correct performance depends upon that law.

I liked this, this was Dr. Isaac Asimov (a Chemist by training) writing, and it is one of the little details that writers who feature specialists often get wrong. Most diagnostic work, most problem-solving, does not occur in great dramatic moments but many small, ordinary, sometimes dull ones. I have read too many books that favor the quick and flashy over the realistic and that moment gave the book grounding (especially since many of Asimov's shorter robot mysteries are logic puzzles, not meditations on computer programming).

I wish there were a good mystery about my field which was half as realistic: most of the time I cannot get past the front flap of such books. Something too unlikely appears in the book's premise and I have to put it down, even if I am in the mood for some light-as-air reading. Most schools have a list of faculty who are willing to answer journalists' and researchers' questions: many would be glad to catch these howlers before authors have spun hundreds of pages around them.

Science fiction is a genre that has done very well walking the line of what is scientifically plausible and telling excellent and thoughtful stories despite that limitation. I wish other genres would learn the same lesson.

-Kushana