This year’s CSBS meeting at the University of Western Ontario was, IMHO, a real success. I thought that the Hebrew Bible sessions were filled with interesting papers (see my previous CSBS posts), the university itself was a great place to visit, and the highpoint for me was (as always) to catch up with friends and colleagues from across North America. A huge advantage of the CSBS over against SBL is its intimacy. I would like to thank all those involved with organizing the conference!

For those interested in some comments on the New Testament sessions, check out Phil Harland’s Overview of Canadian Society of Biblical Studies conference.

The Tuesday Hebrew Bible session of the CSBS had a variety of papers loosely focused on the Writings.

The morning started off with an interesting paper by Arthur Walker-Jones from the University of Winnipeg. In his paper, “Myth Criticism of the Psalms,” he used Northrop Frye’s approach to myth to explore the individual laments.

Next was yours truly (Tyler F. Williams). I presented a paper on “The Psalm Superscriptions and the Composition of the Book of Psalms.” Focusing primarily on the Greek translation of the Psalter, I examined the additions and expansions in the LXX and found that the large majority of quantitative changes in the superscripts are the result of inner-Greek tradition history (rather than reflecting a different Hebrew Vorlage). I will post further on this paper in the near future.

The third paper of the morning was by another Edmontonian, Ehud Ben Zvi, from the University of Alberta. He looked at the Chronicler’s account of Amaziah in 2 Chronicles 25, focusing particularly at the claims advanced in the text itself rather than addressing any historical questions. His was a very interesting paper that explored time construction and periodization in the passage as well as many other features.

After a brief break we heard a paper by David Shepherd (currently of Briercrest College, but moving to Dublin to take up the role of principal of Dublin Bible College August 1) entitled, “‘Strike his bone and his flesh’: Reading Job 2 from the Beginning.” David presented a provocative interpretation of Job 2:5 (“his bone and his flesh”) in which he built a strong argument that rather than this statement being self-referential, it refers to Job’s wife. One challenge — among others — with this interpretation is taking נַפש×?וֹ (naphsho; translated as “his life” in the NRSV) in verse 6 as referring to his wife.

The fifth paper of the morning was presented by Derek Suderman of Emmanuel College (Toronto). His paper, “Towards an Improved Description of Biblical Prayer: Form-Critical Approaches to Direct Address in Psalm 55,” focused specifically on the shift in address in the psalm (rather than thematic changes).

The last (but by no means least) paper of this year’s Hebrew Bible sessions was by John Van Seters, now residing in Waterloo, ON. His paper, “The Myth of the ‘Final Form’ of the Biblical Text,” was perhaps the most provocative paper read this year. A preview of his forthcoming Eisenbrauns’ book, The Edited Bible: The Curious History of the “Editor” in Biblical Criticism, Van Seters attempted to dismantle the notion of “editor” in ancient texts as well as the idea that there was ever a “final form” of any biblical text. While Van Seters had a number of good points about some anachronistic concepts that have crept into biblical studies, I have to admit that ultimately I was not persuaded by his paper. To be fair, I’ll have to take a look at his book to get his full argument.

There was another excellent Hebrew Bible session Monday morning. I had the honor of hearing papers from two former students (Ken Ristau and Tim Goltz) who are both in doctoral programs (Ken at Penn State and Tim at McGill). Here are some highlights:

Tim Goltz (a doctoral student at McGill University) presented a paper entitled “Two Rhetorical Methods for Two Historical Audiences: Reading and Hearing Texts in Ancient Israel” in which he provided an excellent survey of rhetorical approaches to the Hebrew Bible. He organized them in two general approaches: rhetoric as the art of composition (aka the “Muilenberg” school with Lundbom, Trible, and Sternberg) and rhetoric as the art of persuasion (Patrick, Scult, and Duke).

Ken Ristau (a doctoral student at Pennsylvania State University) presented a compelling paper on the Chronicler’s Josiah called “Of Prophets and Monarchs: The Death of Josiah in Chronicles.” Ken argued that the presentation of Josiah in Chronicles lacks the typical joy and blessing that one would expect in Chronicles and that his death is presented ironically. Furthermore, while Josiah’s reforms are presented as the consummation of the Davidic promise, his death marks its end. (Perhaps Ken will provide a more detailed summary on his blog?)

There were a couple of rather entertaining papers in the morning that shared a similar intertextual method. Christine Mitchell (St. Andrew’s College, Sask) linked Haggai and Saskatoon in her paper “Temperance, Temples and Colonies: Reading the Book of Haggai in Saskatoon” while James Linville (University of Lethbridge) went down the rabbit hole and explored “Bugs Through the Looking Glass: The Infestation of Meaning in Joel.” Christine’s paper drew some interesting parallels between the founding of Saskatoon as a temperance colony and Persian period Yehud — particularly how they both were “charter groups” supported by outsiders (in Toronto and Persia, respectively).

Rounding out the morning were papers by Robert Culley (McGill University) and R. Glenn Wooden (Acadia Divinity College). Culley’s presentation on the individual laments (“Reading the Complaints of the Individual”) drew from his lifetime of studying the psalms. After discussing his take on genre (which focuses more on Gunkel’s form rather than Sitz im Leben) and traditional language in the psalms, he worked through a number of laments (Psalms 3, 7, 88, and 22). He summed up his paper emphasizing the importance of considering both the generic elements of the psalms (the group) as well as the unique features of any given psalm (the individual). Glen’s paper, “Daniel against the wise-men: the nuanced use of wisdom terms in Daniel 1-2,” argued, among other things, that the term ‏משׂכלים (mskylym) as used in Daniel separates Daniel and his friends from the other wise men.

All in all there were some interesting sessions on Monday.