At my wife’s beckoning, I had to take a quick break from my marking (have I mentioned how much I love marking…) to clear the corpse of a mouse from a trap. Mouse number three has felt the cold hard steel of my expandable trigger mouse trap.
This infuses the traditional “T’was the Night before Christmas” poem with new meaning: “all through the house not a creature was stirring living, not even a mouse”!
Stay tuned for some more mouse facts as soon as I finish grading… the end is nigh!
This was recently posted on the ANE list. Good food for thought, IMHO.
I have for some time been concerned about the character of the discussion on [insert academic forum of your choice here] as is typified in this string (and so many others). I’ve spent much of my life hanging around academia. I went to grad school for 20 years at three institutions. I finished two masters degrees and a terminal degree. I put a couple of decades into research. I’ve taught for a decade, and I’ve attended a lot of conferences. Through the years, I’ve met a lot of people with doctorates and lesser degrees. I’ve met a lot of teachers and a few real scholars. One thing that I’ve learned through the years is that real scholars are usually humble and gentle people. They are low key because the evidence drives them to it. Real scholars understand how weak any case is and how limited any grasp of the evidence can be. I’ve also met a great many people who try very hard to make other people think that they are smart. They are wannabees no matter how their resumes may read and no matter what status they may have grabbed for themselves. I’ve seen some wannabees treated with a level of respect that borders on awe because of their sales skills, while I’ve seen some real scholars largely ignored because they don’t try to sell themselves.
– Rodger Dalman (reproduced with permission)
OK, so I’m in the middle of finishing up my semester marking. All in all it is a mundane part of the instructor’s job that I don’t really like. But every once and a while there are bright spots like great essays or exams, etc.
I just finished marking a final exam essay for my introductory Old Testament/Hebrew Bible course where the student incorporated numerous titles to U2 songs throughout the essay! I got quite a chuckle out of that! And it was a good essay to boot! (I make my class aware of my fondness for U2 when we talk about lament psalms and modern laments — I use some U2 songs as examples of modern laments).
OK, so I set up the mouse traps yesterday (see here) and we went out to a friend’s house in the evening (a mouse free house) and when we came back we found two mice caught in traps (my four-year-old son exclaimed, “wow, cool” and was going around today saying that we’re mouse killers!).
Two down and who knows how many to go!
So, while I have been trying to “think like a mouse” I decided to do some more research. This time, however, I decided to do some biblical research! Did you know that mice occur in the Hebrew Bible? There are actually six places were we find our furry little friends: Lev 11:29, 1Sam 6:4, 5, 11, 18, and Isa 66:17. The first instance includes mice among various unclean “swarming things that swarm on the earth,” along with weasels and lizards. The references in 1 Samuel are to the gold mice that the Philistines made and sent back with the Ark, while the Isaiah reference also includes them with other unclean animals. What I find interesting is the way the various translations render the Hebrew term for mouse (עַכְבָּר). Almost all translations consistently render the word as mouse. The NIV, however, always translates it as “rat”, while the NLT renders it was mouse in Leviticus and Isaiah, but rat in 1 Samuel. I’m not sure if there is really enough data to go on to know how exactly to render it, though I wonder if the NIV’s translation is more to vilify the animal?
Stay tuned to see what tomorrow may bring…
P.S. Make sure to read the comments to my original posts (here) — Joe Cathey provides an interesting Texan approach to dealing with mice infestation!
Time Magazine has announced its “Persons of the Year” and Bono gets the nod, along with Melinda and Bill Gates. Here is the introduction from the article:
The Good Samaritans
By Nancy Gibbs
For being shrewd about doing good, for rewiring politics and re-engineering justice, for making mercy smarter and hope strategic and then daring the rest of us to follow, Bill and Melinda Gates and Bono are TIME’s Persons of the Year.
Read the full article here (log-in required).
My dear wife just informed me that when she left for her workout this morning that she saw a mouse. No, I am not talking about a computer mouse, nor am I talking about Mickey Mouse. I am talking about a house mouse — the dreaded mus musculus!
This said mouse was seen trespassING on our garage — our attached garage — of our new home. Then she informed me that she had noticed some holes in our garbage bags (in the garage) the last couple weeks.
Well, mice can be cute. I’ve always liked the mice in Disney’s Cinderella (though they should have went for speech therapy as a kids like I did!), and who hasn’t been amused by the three blind mice or Roquefort the Mouse in the Aristocats?
That being said, I prefer my mice to be animated or connected to my computer. The first thing I did when informed about our possible infestation is research (I’m an academic, what can I say?!). The web is an excellent resource for the budding exterminators. One of the most valuable pieces of advice I came across for far is the following:
To control mice, you must “think like a mouse”
If only I had some Mickey Mouse ears… I would be wearing them now! Another web site recommended the “shock and awe” approach:
It’s better to trap intensively for a few days than to set only a few traps for a long time. Place the traps within travel routes, in corners, or near holes or nests. Traps set in pairs are more effective than single traps. A dab of crunchy peanut butter on the trigger is an enticing lure.
OK, I’m off to HomeDepot to pick up some “expandable trigger” mouse traps (did you know research has demonstrated they are more effective than traditional mouse traps?) and then to the grocery store for some crunchy peanut butter! (Maybe I’ll get some bananas too… I’m in the mood for a peanut butter and banana sandwich).
The game’s afoot… I will keep you updated!
In a previous post I mentioned the publication of an article by Hanan Eshel on the recently recovered Leviticus scroll fragments in volume three of Meghillot: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Here is the published English abstract of Eshel’s article:
Fragments of a Biblical Scroll from the Judean Desert
Hanan Eshel, Yosi Barschi, and Roi Porat
In August 2004 Bedouin discovered a number of small biblical fragments — at least four — in a cave in the Judean desert. These fragments, which measured 3.5 cm2, contained verses from Leviticus 23-24. The uncleaned fragments were photographed, first by Roi Porat and Hanan Eshel, and later by Roi Parat and Yosi Baruchi. Recently, these fragments were purchased by the Jeselsohn Epigraphic Center for Jewish History, Bar-Ilan University, and presented to the Israel Antiquities Authority. They were discovered in a small cave an the southern slope, east of the big waterfall (N.T. 1826/09708).These fragments should be identified as additional fragments of a biblical scroll from the time of the Bar Kokhba revolt. The text of the verses found in the fragments is identical to the MT, with one exception: the word בסכות appears in fragments b and c (Col 1, line 4) with a waw, whereas in the MT (Lev. 23:42) it is written defectively. The ability to complete the lines according to the MT is further evidence of these fragments’ affinity to the MT. Based as they are on partial data and on photographs made under very poor field conditions and before the fragments had been cleaned, our conclusions remain preliminary.
The table of contents and English abstracts of all three volumes are available online at http://megillot.haifa.ac.il/english.htm, while the table of contents of all issues (in Modern Hebrew) may be found at http://megillot.haifa.ac.il. Thanks to Devorah Dimant (the journal’s general editor) for the heads up via the Megillot email list.
Just after I started my blog last April, Joel Ng hosted the first ever “Biblical Studies Carnival” at Ebla Logs. After that things went omniously silent at Ebla Logs… the last post was on April 7, 2005. Then in August 2005 Peter Kirby at Christian Origins blog announced the “Biblical Studies Carnival 2” and accepted submissions, but nothing ever materialized.
At any rate, I’m wondering what people think about establishing a regular “Biblical Studies Carnival”?
If you are wondering what a blog “carnival” is, first things first I should clarify that a “carnival” in the blogosphere has no clowns (well, at least literal clowns!) nor is it related to Mardi Gras. The way I would envision it, the Biblical Studies carnival would be a regular (once a month? every two weeks?) rotating carnival where one blogger sums up the best blog articles in the area of academic biblical studies in the given period of time. Blog articles may be submitted by their authors or be nominated by someone else. Then the host blogger would evaluate the submitted posts and write a post describing and interacting with the entries (with links). Some carnivals will group entries following different themes, while others go through the entries in order of submission (I personally find the ones that try to organize them around topics or themes more interesting).
In regards to the focus of the carnival, I would think the blog entries would have to be:
If you want to look at a couple examples of other carnivals, see the History Carnival XXI or Christian Carnival 100.
I would be happy to help organize it and perhaps do the first one to get it going again — unless , of course, there are other volunteers.
So what do you all think? If we could get a number of people committed for the next six months, then we could get it well established. Please either email me your thoughts or comment on this post.
Why is it interesting debates spring up right when I am swamped with end of term grading and other publishing deadlines? Well, in an effort to avoid some marking, I figured I would offer some observations on the recent debate about historiography among some bloggers (dare I say, “bibliobloggers”?!).
First, some background. The recent debate was sparked in part by a post by Ken Ristau reflecting his frustration with the apparent inconsistency that some scholars bring to questions of ancient Israelite historiography, especially in regards to their disregard and/or scepticism of parts of the Hebrew Bible as a historiographic source (History in the Bible?). It is important to note that Ken wasn’t claiming that the Deuteronomistic History, for example, is equivalent to modern critical historiography. All he was arguing for is a recognition that the biblical texts — with all of their ideological limitations — can be used productively and critically in reconstructing the history of Israel. It should also be noted that, if I read Ken correctly (e.g., the reference to floating axe heads), his post is directed more, though not exclusively, against some comments made by Jim West at Biblical Theology), than the published views of scholars like Davies, Lemche, Thompson, and Whitelam.
Ken’s initial post was responded to by Jim West here. In addition, Keith Whitelam (on Jim West’s Biblical Theology blog here) understood some of Ken’s criticisms directed at his scholarship and chastised Ken for not interacting with specific views, among other things. James Crossley also made some balanced observations at Earliest Christian History blog. Ken clarified his views in his response to Keith Whitelam’s concerns here, then more fully here.
A parallel series of posts examining specific archaeological discoveries that may correlate with the portrayal of Israel in the Bible has been going on among some blogs. This series was initiated by Joe Cathey‘s posts on the Merneptah Stele (initial post here) and Tel Dan Inscription (initial post here) in response to Jim West’s request for “proof” for the existence of Israel. These posts resulted in a flurry of blogging activity that I don’t have the energy to track in detail, but here are some high points.
In regards to the Merneptah stele, Jim responded to Joe’s initial post here (also see here), Kevin Edgecomb responded to Jim in kind here (see Jim’s response here), while Chris Heard produced a superb post here.
In regard to the Tel Dan inscription, Jim responded to Joe’s post here and Joe replied here, here, and once again here! And somewhere in the middle of the fray Jim replied here and here (also see Chris Heard’s reply to Jim here). Kevin Edgecomb has a number of excellent posts on the construction BÄ«t + PN in Assyrian/Aramean accounts (see here, here, and most recently here). I need oxygen… OK, I think this will be the last time I try to track a debate in the blogosphere!
I apologize if I have missed any contributions to this lively debate! In addition, you should make sure to read any comments associated with the blog posts in order to get the full picture!
In my opinion, framing the whole discussion — and here I am not necessarily thinking only of the recent blog interchange — as a dichotomy between “minimalists” and “maximalists” is not helpful. There are not two camps, schools, or positions. If anything, the two terms represent a spectrum of possible views, with “minimalists” being at one end and “maximalists” at the other — and everyone else somewhere in the middle (I personally am a centrist — I, and only I, have a perfectly balanced perspective!). But even this portrayal of the debate is not sufficient as there are significant methodological differences between people all throughout the spectrum. For instance, “minimalist” has been used to describe scholars such as Davies, Lemche, Van Seters, Whitelam, among others. While these scholars have a number of presuppositional and methodological similarities surrounding the value of the biblical texts for modern historical reconstruction, they also have some very significant differences — especially in regards to method. This problem is exacerbated for the “maximalist” label since it seems that anyone who isn’t a “minimalist” is grouped together as a maximalist! And if you thought there were differences among the so-called minimalists, there are huge differences among so-called maximalists. In his recent article in SJOT, Lemche even starts using terms such as “maximalist critical scholars” to distinguish them from conservative/conservative evangelical/evangelical maximalist scholars. (I wonder how many “evangelical minimalist” scholars there are?)
The same observation applies equally to using labels such as “Copenhagen school,” “Sheffield school” (the use of the term “school” is more problematic as it presumes more agreement than actually exists), and “biblical revisionists.” On the other side of the debate, the label “evangelical” is used by some in an uncritical and almost derogatory way — at times equated with fundamentalist — to group scholars who have a high view of scripture, even though there is a wide spectrum of scholars who would consider themselves “evangelicals.”
I am not saying anything revolutionary here; most if not all scholars in the debate do not like the labels and have said as much in various publications — even though they continue to use them! So I think it is time for everyone to put the labels to rest and focus instead on interacting with the views of individual scholars (an especailly important step considering that many times our ad homnium or off-the-cuff comments are against views that no scholars actually hold!)
Even more than avoiding labels that are not heuristically useful, we need to avoid the caustic and inflammatory language that often accompanies this debate. I think we would all agree that it doesn’t help further the debate to use such language. This inflammatory language occurs in print discussions, email discussion groups, and blogs. I really wish we could all learn to play better among ourselves!
I know that some of the bantering is done tongue-in-cheek (especially in the blogosphere), though the tone of the debate does not contribute to furthering our understanding of how (or if) it is possible to write a history of Israel. We all have to do better (I include myself in the indictment). And I’m not just talking about labels that are thrown around, but statements that imply (or outright state) that so-and-so obviously hasn’t read this or that, tantamount to saying “If you weren’t such a moron, you would obviously see it my way!” That doesn’t mean we have to all agree with one another (though I believe greater miracles have happened!), but when we disagree we should do so with respect since there are learned scholars on all sides of the debate. Furthermore, when we are at the receiving end of a cheap shot or ad homnium argument, we should try our best to not respond in kind, but instead respond with appropriate restraint.
Anyone familiar with the debate surrounding the history of Israel knows that there are a number of real issues dividing scholars. An important question that needs to be asked is at what level are the real differences? Most of the time the real differences are not on the surface, but are at lower levels. These lower levels may be methodological, or may be presuppositional and metaphysical. In any debate, it is essential to be able to identify at what level the disagreement exists. In a recent IBR article, V. Philips Long quotes E. L. Greenstein’s comments which I believe are quite appropriate:
in biblical studies we often argue as though we all shared the same beliefs and principles, as though the field were all built upon a single theoretical foundation. But it is not…. I can get somewhere when I challenge the deductions you make from your fundamental assumptions. But I can get nowhere if I think I am challenging your deductions when in fact I am differing from your assumptions, your presuppositions, your premises, your beliefs.
For example, let’s examine the recent blog debate about the Tel Dan stele. All parties — even Jim — appear willing to concede that the phrase in question is “house of David” (this is not the case in the larger debate where alternative readings are proposed; in which case there would be differences on the level of exegetical judgements). But then at the next step taken by Joe Cathey and Chris Heard, correlating the David of the inscription with the David mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, Jim West demurs. I believe this highlights some low-level differences among those engaged in the debate. Reading between the lines, I would suggest that Jim West has both methodological and metaphysical objections to reading the Hebrew Bible as a historical source, Chris Heard is arguing on the level of the historical critical method and bracketing any personal metaphysical commitments (Ken Ristau appears to be operating at this level as well), while Joe Cathey is probably similar to Jim West, though his methodological and metaphysical commitments likely differ considerably from Jim’s. The end result is that the discussion stalls and a stalemate is declared.
The $60,000 question is how can we avoid such disagreements? Or stated positively, how can we engage meaningfully in a debate with whom we may have significant methodological and metaphysical differences? The first step would be to be up front about our lower-level commitments. We need to be clear about our method and our metaphysics. This sort of full disclosure will not, of course, produce peace and harmony among us (we know from pop culture that only Coca-Cola can do that!); but it will help us understand where we all are coming from. After this, we can then see if we can find a “middle discourse” to engage one another. We need to agree on the rules of the game before the game starts. Here I wonder if the most fruitful approach may be to work on the level of the historical-critical method and bracket any metaphysical commitments — at least initially. Then, for those of us who may share similar metaphysical commitments, we may take the conversation further.
Of course, perhaps I am being hopelessly naive to think that we can ever really “bracket” our metaphysical commitments, or that we can ever agree on method (there really isn’t any such thing as the historical-critical method!), or that we could even agree on what argument is more plausible than another.
What we can agree on, however, is to treat each other with respect, try to understand each other’s views, and stop with the labels, ad homnium arguments, and making grandiose claims of “proof” on insufficient evidence.
Well, I’ve babbled on enough. Back to marking!
As has been noted by a few blogs already, Eliat Mazar has published a short article on her city of David excavations — provocatively entitled “Did I Find King David’s Palace?” — in the most recent volume of Biblical Archaeology Review (available for free download here).
The article is definitely worth a read. Mazar based her decision of where to dig on the known topography of the city of David in conjunction with a close reading of the Samuel texts (e.g., David leaving his palace residence and “going down” to the fortress noted in 1 Samuel 5:17).
Here is a modified version of an image from the article that shows the location of the “large stone” structure (labeled as “David’s Palace?”):
In the article, Mazar describes her understanding of the relationship of archaeology to the biblical text as follows:
One of the many things I learned from my grandfather [Benjamin Mazar] was how to relate to the Biblical text: Pore over it again and again, for it contains within it descriptions of genuine historical reality. It is not a simple matter to differentiate the layers of textual sources that have been piled one atop the other over generations; we don’t always have the tools to do it. But it is clear that concealed within the Biblical text are grains of detailed historical truth (p. 20).
Her tentative conclusions are equally as provocative:
The Biblical narrative, I submit, better explains the archaeology we have uncovered than any other hypothesis that has been put forward. Indeed, the archaeological remains square perfectly with the Biblical description that tells us David went down from there to the citadel. So you decide whether or not we have found King David’s palace (p. 70).
While I know this sort of “biblical archaeology” is passé, I find it quite intriguing how the geography reflected in the biblical account helped her locate a significant 10th century large-stone structure — whether or not it is best identified with David’s palace.
Mazar’s method seems to be a throw-back to the Albright-Bright-Wright era where “Biblical archaeology” was concerned primarily to support the picture of history presented by the Bible. As such, biblical sites such as Jerusalem, Jericho, Ai, etc. were typically excavated, and the focus of the investigations tended to be on things like walls, religious centers, etc., rather than the broader material culture of the sites.
While I am by no means an archaeologist, I do know that most modern archaeologists take a broader and more interdisciplinary approach and attempt to retrieve more than simply architectural and ceramic phases or look for correlations between the biblical text and archaeological discoveries. While I think the separation of Biblical/Syro-Palestinian (or whatever we want to call it) archaeology from under auspices of biblical studies is ultimately a good and necessary thing, perhaps Mazar’s work illustrates that the “new” archaeology does not have to preclude considering the descriptions of geography found in the biblical narratives.