Eisenbrauns is running a “Back to School” sale for 10 days on selected Biblical Hebrew and Ugaritic reference tools at 7%-75% off retail. I’ve compared their prices with Amazon.com and Eisenbrauns has the cheaper price for all of the books except one (the softcover BHS).
For a discussion of the works that they have on sale (and more) that may help you decide what to purchase, you can see my An Annotated Bibliography for Mastering Biblical Hebrew page.
To access the Eisenbrauns sale, go here.
The Church of England Newspaper ran this story about the lack of Scripture reading in evangelical churches; here is an excerpt:
The hidden Bible – Mark Ireland asks why evangelists [sic; Evangelicals] are neglecting the Bible
By Mark Ireland
Have you ever noticed how the churches where you are least likely to hear the Bible being read are evangelical ones? One of the strange rules of thumb I’ve discovered, visiting many churches in my role as a diocesan missioner, is that the more evangelical the church is, the fewer verses of the Bible you are likely to hear read in worship. When I go to a church in the central or liberal tradition, I will always encounter two Bible readings. When I go to one of the catholic parishes in the diocese, I will usually hear four pieces of Scripture read – Old Testament, Psalm, New Testament and Gospel – with the words printed out on the service sheet for the people to follow. However, when I visit an evangelical parish, I will usually hear only one passage of the Bible.
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This observation is also borne out in my own experience. In many evangelical churches you are bound to hear more popular psychology with a Christian veneer from the pulpit than Scripture. The root of this is more than likely the desire to be relevant. Of course, does this suggest that the Bible is not relevant? Or that the Bible can’t be preached in such a way that would be accessible and relevant? Considering the high view of Scripture held by evangelicals, this is somewhat ironic. (What’s even more ironic is that many so-called “Bible Study” groups don’t actually study the Bible, but some Christian self-help book instead.)
Don’t get me wrong; I am an evangelical and I believe the church has to communicate the gospel in an effective way. I just don’t think neglecting the Bible is the best way to do this, IMHO.
I am currently working through Ulrich Dahmen’s excellent monograph on the so-called Qumran Psalms scroll (11QPsa), Psalmen- und Psalter-Rezeption im Fruehjudentum: Rekonstrucktion, Textbestand, Sturktur und Pragmatik der Psalmen Rolle 11QPsa aus Qumran (Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 49; Leiden: Brill, 2003; Buy from Amazon.ca or Amazon.com).
Dahmen proposes a new reconstruction of the beginning of the Psalms scroll based on the techniques developed by H. Stegemann and others. What I find the most fascinating is the help that worm traces and decomposition patterns — as well as computers — play in the reconstruction. His reconstruction is similar to that of Peter Flint’s in The Dead Sea Psalms Scroll & the Book of Psalms (Leiden: Brill, 1997; Buy from Amazon.ca or Amazon.com), though Dahmen omits Psalm 110 from column 4 since its inclusion would make the line and column lengths too large. That seems quite plausible to me.
Who would have thought that worms, decomposition, and computers would all work together to help us reconstruct and interpret ancient biblical scrolls? I find it all quite fascinating.
Peter Kirby at Christian Origins blog will be hosting the second Biblical Studies Carnival. Send your favorite biblical studies blog entry (or maybe two) from the past several months and send it to peterkirby on the gmail.com mailserver, or leave it as a comment to his blog entry on the Carnival.
The first Biblical Studies Carnival was in April and was hosted by Joel Ng at Ebla Logs. It may be viewed here.
Here are some recent bits of news that I found mildly interesting:
My agnostic brother (or is it atheist?) sent me this tongue-in-cheek write up from The Onion; here is an excerpt:
Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New “Intelligent Falling” Theory
KANSAS CITY, KS—As the debate over the teaching of evolution in public schools continues, a new controversy over the science curriculum arose Monday in this embattled Midwestern state. Scientists from the Evangelical Center For Faith-Based Reasoning are now asserting that the long-held “theory of gravity” is flawed, and they have responded to it with a new theory of Intelligent Falling.
“Things fall not because they are acted upon by some gravitational force, but because a higher intelligence, ‘God’ if you will, is pushing them down,” said Gabriel Burdett, who holds degrees in education, applied Scripture, and physics from Oral Roberts University.
…
Now, for the record, I am agnostic on the issue of intelligint design. I am no scientist. That being said, I do believe that to read the Scriptures as scientific is to mis-read them. While this would preclude most forms of young earth creationism, it leaves open the possibility for intelligent design, theistic evolution, evolutionary creation, or other non-concordist theories — and I’ll let the scientists debate the plausibility of each of these options.
The Logos Bible Software blog has posted a screenshot of the Macintosh version of Logos’ “My Library” palette. It looks nice.
Of course, my question is whether this is a mock up (which anyone with Photoshop could make), or do they actually have a bare-bones version together?
Logos plans to release a Macintosh version of their popular software in December of 2005.
Strap on your sword and sandals, VCI Entertainment has just released Epics of the Old Testament. This Old Testament Collection includes four great titles never before available in DVD format: Great Leaders of the Bible, Joseph and His Brethren, Saul and David, and Jacob the Man who Fought with God. It even includes a bonus feature: Genesis!
The four films here are great examples of sword & sandal epics (which means they are entertaining but certainly did not win any awards!). Joseph and His Brethren is pretty good (It’ll be interesting to see if include the seduction-attempt scene in this version, as it is missing from other copies). Great Leaders of the Bible is perhaps the best in the set, while Saul and David is alright. I haven’t seen Jacob the Man who Fought with God. The box-set also includes a film called Genesis. This could be the 1964 film directed by Michael B. Druxman, though I am not sure.
You can purchase the box set (Buy from Amazon.ca or Amazon.com) or buy them individually:
For more movies relating to the Hebrew Bible, see my Old Testament on Film pages.
My friend Jim Linville at the University of Lethbridge up here in sunny Alberta has launched a new web forum on the Hebrew Bible called “Palimpsest: Conversations on the Hebrew Bible.”
The aim of the forum can be best represented by quoting from its “Manual of Discipline” or general guidelines:
Palimpsest is hosted by the University of Lethbridge and is open to the wider internet community for the open and free exchange of ideas within the broad scope of the critical interpretation of the Hebrew Bible. It is, therefore, open to the scholar, the student and others interested in the biblical texts and the academic work done on it.
It is about the Bible as a collection of ancient writings whose first relevance is in the ancient world in which it was produced. Within that framework, discussions are welcome on a myriad of topics: from the historical to the very literary, from positing new theories to brainstorming on an issue, or commenting on published work.
On the other hand, Palimpsest is not about theology, the confrontation of “faith” and “science” in evaluating the veracity of biblical texts, or the Bible as the property of modern religious groups. Of course, Palimpsest is also not about belittling other people’s religion or dismissing any perceived category of scholarship or intellectual thought!
Scholarship progresses both through constructive criticism and co-operative brainstorming. This forum is intended to be a venue for both avenues. Although there is no “peer-review” of posts on this forum, posters should conduct themselves according to the standards of academic integrity and honesty in place in refereed journals. We expect all posters to help maintain a friendly atmosphere even in the midst of disagreements and to avoid making any kind of inflammatory, insulting, or discriminatory comments. Misrepresentation of other people’s views (e.g., the straw man fallacy) is to be avoided as is the dismissing of other’s work because of their real or perceived religious, ideological, political, or national affiliations.
In general, it is hoped that Palimpsest can grow successfully without having to define a lot of specific rules. The Administrator reserves the right to review all policies and to implement new formal rules in response to unacceptable behaviour, and suggestions by the membership. Your input and comments are more than welcome!
There are a number of interesting forum areas set up within it, like biblical interpretation, history of Israel, Pedagogy, Reference and Review, and even an “Odds and Sods” section for more humorous posts (I definitely won’t be posting there! :-).
Of interest to those engaged in the recent discussion on the Biblical Studies list on history of Israel scholarship, there is a subsection in the History of Israel area entitled, “The State of the Guild.” It’s description is as follows:
Is there hope of a unified voice on how to disagree politely? What action, if any, is justified against authors or publishers who rely on invective or ad hominem attacks on other scholars? Or is everything fine? Are the scholarly societies helping or inadvertently censoring the free flow of ideas? What are the boundaries of the scholarly approach?
I encourage you to check this new forum out.
Last Friday Logos posted the Blass-Debrunner-Funk Greek grammar to their prepublication page. This will be the first electronic edition of this grammar and, in reality, the first and only advanced reference grammar for Greek available on any of the Bible software platform. Kudos to Logos.
And if you’re lucky, if you order yours soon, you can get free Logos icon stickers!