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.

The first day of meetings of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies were held on Sunday. Here are some highlights.

Hebrew Bible Session Highlights
The papers in this first session were excellent, IMHO. Here are my thoughts on select papers:

Keith Bodner (who is leaving Tyndale University College and heading out east this summer to join the faculty of Atlantic Baptist University) presented a witty and engaging paper entitled, “The Fellowship of the King: Some Remarks on a Formative Interaction.” I couldn’t think of a better way to start the day! Keith always gives entertaining and informative papers. Based on a close rereading of 1 Samuel 9, Keith highlighted the narrative conflict between Prophet and King (Samuel and Saul) in this early passage — a conflict that would characterize Saul’s turbulent reign. One of the points that I appreciated was his characterization of the girls’ speech in 1 Sam 9:11-13 as confused language (following Rendsburg’s article, “Confused Language as a Deliberate Literary Device in Biblical Hebrew Narrative,” JHS 2:6 [1999]). In addition, Keith argued that Saul’s inability to follow the girls’ instructions (in that he didn’t just go up and find the seer, but he asked where the seer’s house was even though the girls told him he was visiting) foreshadows his inability to follow directions. Marie-France Dion from Concordia University read a paper on the same passage entitled “Who was Samuel to Saul.” In contrast to Keith’s literary approach, Dion presented a source-critical analysis of the passage, arguing that 9:1-2a, 13a, 15-16, 17b, 20-21, 27b; 10:5b-6, 8-9, 10b-13 are secondary additions to the ur-text.

Gary N. Knoppers , from Pennsylvania State University, read a paper entitled, “‘Give Me that Old-time Religion’: The Revival of Israelite Religion in Postexilic Samaria.” While Gary didn’t break out into song, he did highlight the multi-vocal nature of the passage describing the end of the northern kingdom of Israel in 2 Kings 17. On the one hand, this passage presents the cultis of the remaining and imported inhabitants of the northern kingdom positively, when after being punished by Yahweh with the lion attacks (v. 25), they are instructed in “old-time (northern) religion” by a repatriated priest so that the lion attacks stop (vv. 26-28). Thus, the very sins that condemn the original northerners, saves the new settlers! On the other hand, the passage goes on in the rest of the chapter to criticize the same people for their abandonment of Yahweh as if they were the original covenant people (but they — or at least the majority of them — are not). Gary takes these differing perspectives to suggest that the DtrH is not the product of a monolithic school, but preserves diverse perspectives on the northern kingdom. Thus this passage is not quite the anti-Samaritan polemic that many scholars think it is.

The last paper in the morning session was from my good friend (hmm… I also consider Gary to be a good friend) Mark Boda of McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton. He presented on “Freeing the Burden of Prophecy:‏מַשָּׂא(massa’) and the Legitimacy of Prophecy in Zechariah 9-14.” In this paper Mark debunked the notion that the Hebrew term ‏מַשָּׂא (massa’) is best understood as “burden” since it doesn’t only introduce negative prophecies. The term is also not a genre tag that introduces an exposition of a previously communicated expression of the divine will as Richard Weis suggests in his 1986 Claremont dissertation. In contrast, Mark demonstrated that the term can introduce and type of prophetic oracle and its use in Zechariah 9:1, 12:1 and Malachi 1:1 represents a renewal of prophecy in response to Jeremiah’s earlier prohibition in Jer 23:33-40.

Knoppers’ 1 Chronicles Commentary Honoured
At the annual banquet Sunday night Dr. Gary Knoppers won the R.B.Y. Scott Book Award for his Anchor Bible Commentary on 1 Chronicles. This award is for an outstanding book in the area of Hebrew Bible or Ancient Near Eastern studies by a member of the CSBS. I couldn’t think of a better book or person to receive this prestigious award. Well done, Gary!

I highly recommend Gary’s commentary on 1 Chronicles:

• Knoppers, Gary N. I Chronicles 1-9: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Bible. Doubleday, 2004. Buy from Amazon.ca | Buy from Amazon.com
• Knoppers, Gary N. I Chronicles 10-29: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. Anchor Bible. Doubleday, 2004. Buy from Amazon.ca | Buy from Amazon.com