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July 26, 2011

Peter Craigie on Ezekiel

The rational, analytical approach will always be helpful in studying ancient texts, but unless we are also able to be sensitive to symbol, allegory, and imagination in our reading of visionary accounts, we will inevitably miss some of the power of Ezekiel’s book.

Peter Craigie, The Old Testament, 169.

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July 26, 2011

A Fishing Story

Today: Saw a bird with a fish in its claws fly by our boat. A few seconds later, a bald eagle flew by. It quickly became apparent that the eagle was chasing the other bird!

Of course, the eagle caught the other bird. The bird dropped the fish, and the eagle swooped down, grabbed it, and flew off. 

The other bird chased the eagle for a moment, mostly out of anger. I’m sure it had no aspirations of actually retrieving its lunch!

[Deron’s title for this V/V story is “An Easy Meal”]

Tags: V/V

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June 22, 2011
Truth and Fiction

Douglas Jones on whether or not truth is compatible with fiction.

(via Justin Taylor)

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June 19, 2011
Excited about this! Congrats, Brownsboro Java crew!

Excited about this! Congrats, Brownsboro Java crew!

Photoset
May 29, 2011

Leslie and I visited the Woodford Reserve Distillery today.

Tags: Day Trip

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May 03, 2011
1 note
Like a Peep in Microwave: Election and the “New Universalism”

This so-called “new universalism” that’s been the topic of discussion lately, most notably in a fine piece by J. K. A. Smith, and then in a riposte by Halden Doerge, is, of course, not…

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April 14, 2011
6 notes
"… It is constitutive of the canon to seek to transmit the tradition in such a way as to prevent its being moored in the past… The modern hermeneutical impasse which has found itself unable successfully to bridge the gap between the past and the present, has arisen in large measure from its disregard of the canonical shaping. The usual critical method of biblical exegesis is, first, to seek to restore an original historical setting by stripping away those very elements which constitute the canonical shape. Little wonder that once the biblical text has been securely anchored in the historical past by ‘decanonizing’ it, the interpreter has difficulty applying it to the modern religious context."

— Brevard Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture, 79

Tags: Brevard Childs old testament hermeneutics canon

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April 10, 2011
"Israel defined itself in terms of a book! The canon formed the decisive Sitz im Leben for the Jewish community’s life, thus blurring the sociological evidence most sought after by the modern historian. When critical exegesis is made to rest on the recovery of these very sociological distinctions which have been obscured, it runs directly in the face of the canon’s intention."

— Brevard Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture, 78.

Tags: Brevard Childs Old Testament canon historical criticism

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April 09, 2011
"The main question to ask about any psalm is not about the situation in the life of David or in the life of some unknown individual that occasioned the composition… These poems “create a world,” to use the language of contemporary interpreters of literature. As Walter Brueggemann observes, “They create, evoke, suggest, and propose a network of symbols, metaphors, images, memories and hopes.” The poets of Israel invite us into a world quite different from the world of ordinary daily life, in which God is taken seriously as sovereign, judge, and redeemer."

— Bernhard Anderson, Out of the Depths, 18.

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April 06, 2011
Dashing Babies Against a Rock? Why the ANE Context is Relevant

I found some help last night in Othmar Keel’s The Symbolism of the Biblical World concerning a notoriously difficult verse, Psalm 137:9. This book demonstrates how the conceptual world of the…