I am pleased to post up my interview with Dr. Richard Hays, George Washington Ivey Professor of New Testament at Duke University’s Divinity School.  Some of you may be aware that Dr. Hays is a former teacher of mine during my master’s work at Duke; I was glad also to run in to him briefly at this past year’s SBL.  Despite my area of specialization being Hebrew Bible, I am and remain especially grateful to Dr. Hays for exposing me to the importance of seeing the Old Testament in the New, as well as helping Paul become a bit less(though not entirely!!) opaque!

Dr. Hays was kind enough to devote a great deal of time, energy, and thought to this interview.  It is my hope that you will read it as I did, with joy and interest, and emerge from it with a great deal of insight and knowledge.

Thank you, Dr. Hays, for agreeing to take part in this interview.  Can you start off by telling us a little about yourself and your educational and career history?

Sure.  I grew up in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, where I attended Casady School, an excellent private school where I had the great benefit of studying Latin and German with very fine teachers.  I then went to Yale where as an undergraduate I majored in English literature.  In those days the Yale English department was still significantly shaped by “the New Criticism,” an approach to interpretation that emphasized close reading of primary texts as self-contained aesthetic objects and placed relatively little weight on historical and contextual influences on literature.  (This was during the late 1960s, well before Yale became a bastion of deconstructionism and critical theory.)  I had the privilege of sitting in classes taught by scholars such as Robert Penn Warren, Cleanth Brooks, Alvin Kernan, and Bart Giamatti (who later became president of Yale and then Commissioner of Baseball!).  I also took a class on Romantic Poetry with a young professor named Harold Bloom—a class that, I must confess, I found thoroughly bewildering at the time.  

But probably the most important influence on me during my undergraduate years was William Sloane Coffin, the Yale chaplain, who was an ardent and eloquent advocate for civil rights and an equally eloquent critic of the Vietnam war.  Coffin’s witness brought me from a position of youthful skepticism back into the church and gave me a vision for the gospel as a liberating, life-transforming message.  In retrospect, I would say that Bill Coffin was theologically too much of a Niebuhrian for my (present) tastes, but he was really a splendid and powerful preacher, and he commanded the attention of Yale undergraduates then in a way that is difficult to conceive in our present cultural setting.

At that point, I had no ambition of a continuing academic career, but I did experience a sense of call to ministry.  After graduation from Yale in 1970 I went to the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University, reasoning that I should go back to my native Southwest and serve in the Methodist Church, the church of my upbringing.  But, having been shaped by my undergraduate years in the tumultuous years of the late Sixties, I found seminary tame and confining and dropped out after one year.  My wife Judy and I (married right out of college) decided to move back to New England, and I took a job teaching high school English in Longmeadow, Massachusetts.  During those years we formed a small Christian intentional community called The Ark, which morphed into a booming house church.  And the church in time formed itself into a community called Metanoia Fellowship, which sought to practice radical disciplines of prayer, sharing possessions, and living together in light of the New Testament vision of discipleship.  Important influences during this period for me were Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Life Together, The Cost of Discipleship) and John Howard Yoder (The Politics of Jesus).  During these years, I started commuting to Yale Divinity School to continue work on my M.Div.  And there I was bitten by the bug (or the call) to pursue serious academic study of theology. 

The greatest intellectual influences on me during those YDS years (1974-77) were Hans Frei and George Lindbeck.  These were of course precisely the years that Frei was publishing The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative and The Identity of Jesus Christ.  Lindbeck had not yet sprung to “postliberal” fame (The Nature of Doctrine was still some years in the future), but his course on Reformation Confessions had a powerful impact on me, as did David Kelsey’s course on Christian Doctrine.  However, despite the fact that my most compelling courses were taught by theologians, in deciding to go on to doctoral work I gravitated to New Testament studies—no doubt drawn by my English major’s love for close reading of texts, along with a certain puzzled dissatisfaction about the then-dominant approaches to NT interpretation.

I ended up deciding to attend Emory University for the Ph.D., drawn there particularly by Leander Keck, who was widely acknowledged to be one of the more theologically attuned NT scholars in the country, and whose book A Future for the Historical Jesus had seemed to me wise and compelling.  So Judy and I packed up once again, by now with two kids, and moved to Atlanta.  At Emory, I also appreciated William Beardslee’s work on literary criticism of the NT.  Just as I was finishing my coursework, Lee Keck left Emory to become the Dean of Yale Divinity School.  So Will Beardslee ended up directing my dissertation, which was also significantly influenced by ongoing vigorous argumentation with Hendrikus Boers, the other senior member of  the NT faculty.  Emory provided a context where I was able to pursue my own particular mix of literary and theological interests.  I also did a minor concentration in Christian political ethics; my reading in this area planted seeds that later blossomed in my work on NT ethics. 

After graduation from Emory, I was very fortunate to be hired as an assistant professor back at Yale.  (This account is getting too long, so I’ll try to be briefer.)  My years of teaching at Yale Divinity School (1981-91) were wonderfully stimulating and formative.  I had the benefit there of superb students and a lively, diverse community.  These were the halcyon years of “the Yale School” of theology.  In addition to the faculty members I’ve already mentioned, Brevard Childs, with his emphasis on the canon, was a major force, and I also benefitted from sitting in on Wayne Meeks’s NT graduate seminar from time to time.  I loved the classroom teaching from the beginning, and the wider intellectual community of the university provided the context for the development of the ideas and interests that eventually led me to the writing of Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul.  Anyone who has read that book will realize how significant the work of John Hollander (of the Yale English department) was for my thinking. 

After the publication of Echoes I was granted tenure at Yale.  But not long after that, Duke came recruiting and offered me an attractive situation—particularly in terms of supervising doctoral students and shaping a doctoral program hospitable to theological interpretation of Scripture.  (The Yale program, under the leadership of the senior NT scholars Meeks and Abraham Malherbe was very strong on Graeco-Roman context of the NT, but not so well-suited to my interests in “the OT in the New” and theological interpretation.)  So in 1991, we moved again to Duke, where I have happily spent the last 18 years. 

Probably the Duke part of the pilgrimage is better known to your readers.  Stanley Hauerwas has been a good friend and conversation partner.  Moody Smith, the senior NT scholar in the Divinity School when I arrived, has been a good and supportive colleague; I have now inherited his chair.  Ed Sanders, the senior NT colleague in the Religion Department, also contributed to the formation of a program with high standards and appropriately strong orientation towards the Jewish context of the NT, an orientation now reinforced by my colleague Joel Marcus.  Of course, at Duke, I’m back in a Wesleyan/Methodist environment, one that has a deep respect for the classical Christian confessional tradition and for the ecclesial setting of theological studies.  All of this has provided a very supportive context for my work.  And I’ve been blessed here with many outstanding doctoral students.

I’ve emphasized my own professional trajectory of education and employment.  But to tell the full story, I would also have to write at length about the importance of the SBL, the SNTS—with its European contacts and friendships—and my ongoing friendship over the last 25 years with Tom Wright.  I would also have to talk about the research groups at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton that generated the two books The Art of Reading Scripture and Seeking the Identity of Jesus: A Pilgrimage.  But you asked me to tell you “a little,” and I’ve already done much more than that!

You have written prolifically on Paul, including your seminal dissertation The Faith of Jesus Christ: The Narrative Substructure of Galatians 3:1-4:11.  What first drew your attention to Paul, and how do you see your work on Paul fitting in to the larger context of Pauline scholarship?

 My fascination with Paul took shape during my years in the doctoral program at Emory, as a result of seminars with Lee Keck and Hendrikus Boers.  I was taking those courses in the immediate wake of the publication of Ed Sanders’ Paul and Palestinian Judaism and J. Christiaan Beker’s Paul the Apostle.  These works were raising in different ways questions about Paul’s “pattern of religion” and about the problem of “contingency and coherence” in Paul’s thought.  It seemed to me that the way most Pauline scholars approached these issues was driven too much by the quest for an ideationally/systematically formulated “center” of Paul’s thought, with too little attention to the narrative underpinnings of Paul’s teaching.  So I began to mull over the ways in which Paul’s letters might be understood to contain allusive references to an underlying story.  At the same time, in the seminar with Keck, I wrote a paper on Romans 3, which later became my first published article, a piece in JBL called “Psalm 143 and the Logic of Romans 3.”  The germinal insight of the essay was that Ps 143:2, which Paul loosely cites in Rom 3:20, contains in its wider context references to the righteousness of God that help to elucidate the logic of Paul’s argument in Rom 3:21-26.  You can see how this led on to further developments as I followed this thread. 

How does my work fit into the larger context of  Pauline scholarship?  I’ve certainly been significantly influenced by Stendahl, Sanders, and by the scholars rather imprecisely lumped together as advocates of “the New Perspective,” particularly Jimmy Dunn and Tom Wright.  But for various reasons, I’ve not been strongly identified as a “New Perspective” theorist, despite the ways in which my readings have challenged traditional “Lutheran” interpretations and emphasized Paul’s Jewishness.  I’m not quite sure why this is so.  I think perhaps it’s because my emphases on narrative and intertextuality, and on canonical interpretation, have put me into different conversations.  I should also certainly mention J. Louis Martyn as another important influence; certainly he has taught me to be much more attentive to the apocalyptic dimensions of Paul’s gospel—while at the same time I have placed much more weight than he does on the continuity of Paul’s message with Israel’s scriptural and prophetic traditions.  So I guess I don’t fit cleanly into any of the usual boxes.  “The Conversion of the Imagination,” (the title essay of my 2005 collection of pieces on Paul) demonstrates the way in which I’ve tried to bring apocalyptic and intertextual/canonical approaches together.  

 A question submitted by one of my readers: Richard Burridge in his Imitating Jesus criticizes your Moral Vision of the NT for a “too easy dismissal of love as a key element for NT ethics” (p359). How would you respond to Burridge specifically, and what role do you see “love” having in NT ethics?

Richard, like some other readers, has not quite grasped my point about “love.”  I was not saying that love is unimportant, or that I’m somehow opposed to it!  I was saying that “love” cannot function as a focal image or common denominator to bring the diverse NT witnesses into a relation of unity.  There are two reasons for this: (1) several of the major NT writings have very little to say about love (Mark, Acts, Hebrews, Revelation); (2) “love” by itself is a concept, not an image; it must be given narrative specification by the story of the cross.  (That is why I propose the cross as one of three focal images for NT ethics, along with community and new creation.)  Otherwise, “love” cannot be distinguished from whatever the Beatles vaguely meant when they sang, “All you need is love.”  [I hasten to add that I am a great Beatles fan and was delighted to receive as a Christmas present the new remastered complete anthology of their recordings.]    It seems to me that Richard Burridge’s book exemplifies precisely the problem I am worried about, because for him “love” turns out to be equivalent to the uncritical inclusion of everyone.  (I am of course painting with a broad brush.)  My fuller comments on his book are forthcoming soon in a review essay that will appear in the Scottish Journal of Theology. 

Love is of course of central importance in several NT writings, especially the Pauline Letters, the Gospel of John, and 1 John.   I certainly believe that Christians are called to love because God first loved us in Jesus Christ.  And this calling has enormous significance for NT ethics.  But if we are looking for a synthetic image that can account for how the diverse NT writings hang together, love won’t do the job.  Another way of putting the point is that Burridge conflates the synthetic task of NT ethics with the hermeneutical task, with the result that “love” becomes a trump card that overrides the prophetic and critical witness of NT texts less congenial to Burridge’s (generally laudable) concerns. 

Much of your work has focused upon the use of the Old Testament in the New.  Why do you think this is an important aspect of NT studies?  What remains to be done in your view in this area?  What questions or issues remain unexplored or have not been answered satisfactorily?

 It’s an important issue because nearly all of the NT writers are pervasively engaged with the reception and reinterpretation of Israel’s Scripture!  You can’t understand what these authors were talking about if you don’t understand that they lived and moved in the symbolic world of the texts that Christians later  came to call the OT.  I’m working on a book on the ways that the Evangelists read the OT (see question #10 below).  I am constantly amazed by all the interconnections that emerge when we read the NT texts with an eye to their scriptural antecedents and allusions.  So I’m not sure I know what needs to be done next.  Every time I teach a graduate seminar on this topic, my students come up with fresh insights that are very exciting.  It’s important to emphasize that I’m not simply talking about questions of sources and influences.  If there is a major unfinished agenda, it has to do with thinking more deeply about the semantic effects of a canonical intertextuality in which the OT is re-read in light of the New and vice-versa to produce fresh and unexpected configurations of meaning.  (See the theoretical essays on this topic in Reading the Bible Intertextually, co-edited by Stefan Alkier, Leroy Huizenga, and me [Baylor University Press, 2009].)  This also involves studying more deeply the way in which Christian tradition, especially early patristic interpreters, understood these intertextual relations.  My own training as a NT scholar was impoverished by a lack of emphasis on patristic readings, and I’m now constantly involved in educating myself about these matters. 

Another question submitted by one of my readers: What do you think the future of intertextuality looks like research-wise?  And furtherfore, do you think intertextuality is best used as an analytic tool along with others (e.g., imperial-critical, postcolonial, etc.) in an eclectic hermeneutical methodology, or is it best executed in its own right?

 One of the problems with biblical scholarship is that the guild becomes preoccupied with methodology, at the expense of actual sensitive reading of texts.  I’m not particularly interested in “intertextuality” as such.  Rather, I’m interested in reading the biblical texts as carefully and deeply as I can.  Because all texts are imbedded in history and culture, attention to intertextuality is an inescapable aspect of exegesis of any text.  (For example, you can’t read many of Barack Obama’s speeches well if you don’t read them against the backdrop of Martin Luther King, Jr.)   So, yes, attention to intertextuality operates in a complex field of interpretative practices alongside other “methods.”  But sometimes I think we hamstring ourselves by talking about these methods as discrete things.  For example, what is “imperial-critical” methodology?  It simply means asking questions about the consequences of reading NT documents in the historical context of the Roman Empire.  Stefan Alkier’s work on intertextuality very helpfully borrows categories from Umberto Eco to talk about the “encyclopedia of production” and the “encyclopedia of reception” of a work.  That is simply to talk about the frame of cultural knowledge in which a work was produced by its author and perceived by its readers, both originally and subsequently.  When you put the question that way, “intertextuality” is nothing different from what NT critics have always sought to do—except that the concept of “encyclopedia of reception” broadens the field of concern beyond original authorial intention to embrace the diverse Wirkungsgeschichte of the texts.  Again, I recommend that readers interested in these questions consult the essays in Reading the Bible Intertextually.

What are some of the best places in your view to study the New Testament today?

 First of all, the NT is best studied in a community of prayer, worship, and service, where it is taken not merely as a museum piece but as a living word that calls us to account. 

But I assume the question intends to ask about specific university programs.  Of course, the answer to this question depends on the student’s particular interests and the questions he or she wants to explore.  For example, if you want to study the NT in relation to ancient rhetorical theory and practice, you couldn’t do better than to go to the University of Chicago to work with Margaret Mitchell. 

But if you mean to ask which NT doctoral programs most closely correspond to my own particular set of passions and curiosities, I would immediately name three top programs in the U.S. and one in the U.K.  First, of course, is Duke.  We have an interesting and diverse group of NT scholars here: Joel Marcus, Douglas Campbell, Kavin Rowe, Susan Eastman, and Mark Goodacre, along with wonderful supportive colleagues in cognate fields of Old Testament, theology, and ethics.   But I would also mention Emory University and Princeton Theological Seminary as programs that encourage and support theological approaches to the study of the NT.  These three programs often compete for the same top applicants.  In the U.K., the University of Durham has become the most interesting NT program, with John Barclay and Francis Watson as the leading figures, and with Bishop Wright popping in from time to time.   Finally, without intending unseemly flattery to the interviewer’s institution, I should mention that Baylor is an up-and-coming program where I have happily sent several students in recent years.  The recent addition of Bruce Longenecker there strengthens an already good program.

I know this is a huge question, but can you say a few words about the pistis Christou debate and your view?

 It is indeed a huge question.  The syntactical arguments are inconclusive, and therefore the question has to be resolved in terms of a wider construal of the shape and logic of Paul’s thought.  I believe that the narrative structure of Paul’s christology (see my essay “The Story of God’s Son” in Seeking the Identity of Jesus) and the participatory logic of his soteriology strongly favor the Christological (subjective genitive) interpretation.  But that can never be proven so conclusively as to convince everyone.  In the second edition of The Faith of Jesus Christ (Eerdmans, 2002), I wrote a lengthy new introduction reflecting on the issues, and I don’t have anything either to recant or to add to what I wrote there.

What do you see as the most important issues in NT that merit or will see greater emphasis and study going forward?

Hard to say.  As Yogi Berra observed, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”  At the time I finished my undergraduate work 40 years ago, no one could possibly have predicted what issues would be hotly debated by NT scholars in 2010.  Somewhere today there is a handful of budding NT scholars who will have fresh insights, raise new questions, and move the discipline in unforeseeable directions.  This is partly because of the unquenchable human thirst for novelty.  But it’s also partly because of the unpredictable work of the Spirit of God in the church and in history. 

Still, having issued those disclaimers, I’ll point to a few issues that are obviously on the agenda in the short-term future.  (a) As noted above, the study of patristic interpretation of Scripture is a huge growing edge for the field, and this is only one aspect of a growing sympathetic appreciation of the history of interpretation as hermeneutical aid rather than hindrance.  (b) Many questions about the significance of the Roman imperial context for the early Christian communities remain unresolved.  In my judgment, the most insightful contribution to this debate is the recent book of my colleague Kavin Rowe, World Upside Down: Reading Acts in the Graeco-Roman Age (Oxford University Press, 2009).  (c) I suppose it goes without saying that we must continue to sort out more clearly the historical problems of how Christianity and Judaism developed alongside one another and interacted in the first centuries C. E.  Here Daniel Boyarin’s provocative work deserves a careful hearing and evaluation in our field.  

What one scholar has most influenced your thought, and how?

Oh, dear, how can I pick just one?  See my lengthy answer to question #1 above.  I suppose if I were forced to choose just one, I’d be tempted to say Karl Barth, whose remarkable recasting of Christian theology stands behind many of the other thinkers who have influenced me.  Honorable mention goes to T. S. Eliot—not as scholar and critic, but as poet.

I know you are working on a ‘companion’ volume to your Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul dealing with echoes in the Gospels.  Can you say a bit about that project, who is publishing it, and when it is set to be available?  What other projects can we expect to be forthcoming from you?

Yes, that’s right.  I haven’t committed it to a publisher, but I’m deep into the manuscript.  If all goes well, I’ll finish it during 2010, and hope to see it in print by the end of 2011.  (But I’ve been saying for some time “I hope to finish it next year….”  I am, alas, a very slow writer.)  Broadly, the project will seek to argue that the more we attend to the OT echoes and allusions in the Gospels, the more clearly we are led to recognize what Richard Bauckham has called “a christology of  divine identity” in these narratives.  The Gospel stories link Jesus with actions and attributes that the OT ascribes exclusively to Israel’s God.  For a preview, see my essay “Can the Gospels Teach Us to Read the Old Testament?” in Pro Ecclesia 11 (2002): 402-18.  Beyond finishing that book, I haven’t tried to plan too far into the future.  Each day has trouble enough of its own. 

Many thanks, Dr. Hays, for a delightful, thorough, and stimulating interview!

Last semester, as many of you know, I was teacher of record for a course, Introduction to Christian Scriptures, at Baylor University.  There was an enrollment of 60 undergrad; all but one were freshmen.  I have reflected already HERE , HERE, HERE, and HERE on my teaching.  In hindsight, now, with the semester behind me, I can honestly say that it was one of the most rewarding experiences of my professional career!  I thoroughly enjoyed my students, and it seems they did me as well.  It was a good class . . . they were always willing to engage, press, and investigate things deeply (sometimes when we were pressed for time . . . . but their genuine interest is a teacher’s dream!).  This may sound sappy, but I actually miss them.  I never realized how emotionally invested one can get with a class and students.  All in all, I feel quite good about this experience; teaching is intuitive to me.  Two Baylor faculty members who observed my class also said the same. 

But, perhaps the true litmus test is what one’s students have to say, especially anonymously.  Now, I will be receiving student evaluations in the coming weeks, and I am quite eager and excited to see them.  There is, however,  an unofficial website associated with Baylor that allows students to post evaluations of professors.  I wanted to share one (the only one there so far) one of my students posted about me:

A young, funny, an extremely intelligent teacher, Anderson is one of my favorite teachers I have had in all 13 years of schooling. However, his work load is one that will cause migraines for even the most diligent students. Whether you want to or not, you will learn in this class. His tests make sure of that. The average for the first test was a 64. Each day are reading assignments from the textbook (usually 5-25 pages), NOAB (3-10 pages), and the bible (3-30 chapters). As you will soon find out, unless this is your only class you are taking, it is nearly impossible to complete all of these for each class. What I learned to do is to definitely read the textbook pages, ignore the NOAB pages, read SparkNotes of the bible passages, and take notes as if your life depended on it. Good luck! 

The latter part is of course subjective, but I will admit my course was not a cakewalk.  Nor do I think it should be.  I said at the beginning, and often, the refrain “this is college, this is different than highschool.”  But if I am going to be critiqued on anything, requiring my students to work is something that doesn’t bother me!  (N.B. I don’t relish the fact this student opted for sparknotes on the biblical text.  I intentionally cut the reading assignments down and chose a reasonable textbook so that the majority of their time would be spent in the text; I will hope and trust this is an isolated incident!  But even as we think back to when we were all students . . . remember, we all practiced “academic triage,” choosing what is and is not important and adjusting accordingly). The first few lines of this evaluation, however, were tremendously rewarding.  In my initial outing as teacher of record, for this student I have already earned the accolade of being one of her/his favorite teachers they’ve ever had.  If you ask me, that’s pretty cool.  I feel good about this; quite good.  And I look forward to receiving my official Baylor evals soon.

Hope you all are well!

I’m curious who here…bloggers and readers…have applied to Baylor’s PhD program this year, and if so what area?

And, for whatever it’s worth, I am in charge of Baylor’s preview weekend (early February this year), so if some of you score an interview we will be in communication leading up to that. I wish you all luck.

Brief disclaimer…I in no way have the ear of the committee, nor do I contribute in any way to their discerning process. My role is to organize the weekend and give you all the best taste of Baylor I can!

My wife, son, and I are still home in SD (we were supposed to leave today), snowed in. Many of you, I trust, have seen the huge winter system the Midwest has had the last few days. My town has had 16.2 inches since Wednesday, and we have a bit more here now. All interstates are closed in the state, and I just found out the highway in Nebraska we drive on for several hours is closed and may stay closed tomorrow.

I’m glad to be home a few extra days, of course. But this is the worst blizzard they’ve had since the 1960s!! Insane!

Hope you all had a blessed, safe, and happy Christmas! Wish us all safe and sane travels!

Blogging has been slow recently.  The semester ended, which means teaching ended for me.  I will be posting up my reflections on teaching in due course.

At present, however, my wife, son, and I are home with our families (both are families live in the same town) in South Dakota.  It was an uneventful trip here, save for the fact my son got sick the first night of the trip in the car, about 30 minutes outside Waco, and continued throwing up nearly 10 times in the car and hotel room later that night.  The diagnosis is a bit anomalous to us still, but I am glad to report that aside from a little cold, he seems fine now.  But let me tell you, sick cards are one thing, but sick kids in the car is another.  I felt so bad for him; we stopped at a gas station outside Fort Worth to clean him up after one of his episodes (and he was acting FINE, which was bizarre), and he said to me and my wife, “I’m all wet . . . I sorry.”  Coming from a 2 yr old, that was too precious.  We told him there was no reason to apologize, but it was too adorable.  Things like that are both funny and heartwarming.

Thus far, being home is as wonderful as always.  My parents have done their usual onslaught of Christmas baking: special K bars, fudge, Christmas cookies, 12 gallons of chex mix (the best thing ever!), croissant rolls, garlic seasoned oyster crackers . . . . and more to come! 

We did Christmas with my wife’s family this evening.  My son made out like a bandit . . . a Mickey Mouse book, an accessory pack for his new toy train we are getting him, a memory game, SpongeBob pajamas, the Elefun board game, a cd of kid’s songs, a play tool set, and more I can’t even remember.  And he still has the stuff from my wife and I, as well as my parents and sister to open!  He also helped pass out the gifts.  Two-year olds are hardwired to be helpful.  And what did I get, you ask?  $50 Amazon gift cards from the in-laws, and a pack of wrestling trading cards (still sealed, and it will remain that way!) from my sisters-in-law.  And, again, we still have my side of the family to do Christmas with yet. 

I hope you all are enjoying this time of year, and I wish you all safe and sane travels!

Blessings!

About a month ago I posted HERE that I had been allowed, by my wife and parents (both of whom are footing the bill for this) to purchase my Christmas gift early: an iPod Touch. 

I very much enjoyed the touch, and it made me want an iPhone desperately.  A few glitches, though: 1) We are loyal Verizon customers, unwilling to switch to AT&T . . . Verizon has always gone above and beyond for us; 2) I deeply lamented the fact that the Touch did not have internet access at all times, but only when I could find an open connection, which was rarely, or when at a ‘hot spot’; 3) Price . . . it was a hunk of change for no phone, camera, and unlimited internet capabilities.  I was, however, still very happy with it, and was on it every day and night religiously.

Then, my wife received a text message from Verizon saying we qualified for an early upgrade.  Curious, I called and asked precisely what the discount would be.  Long story short, I returned the iPod touch to Best Buy earlier this week, went to my local Verizon store and got . . . the new DROID.  It’s only been out about a month, but this thing is incredible.  I love having email anywhere.  And internet anywhere.  There are some great apps, and I trust many more to come.  My favorites are the barcode scanners so far, which use the camera to either take a picture of a book cover or scan the barcode and then find it online.  I know these aren’t anything new to iPhone users, but to a loyal Verizon customer, this is pretty sweet.  Loving the DROID.

Never fear, loyal readers.  All is well.  Things are just busy, as you might expect at this time of the year.  Yes, the holidays draw nigh.  But so does the end of the semester.  At present, I am finishing up a stack of my student’s final essays; they also have their final exams tomorrow (wish them luck!), so the next few days will go to grading those and then reporting final grades.  Add to that dissertation work and writing, preparing a trip home for Christmas, and a host of other things, and I haven’t had much time to blog productively about things recently.  That will, though, change soon.  No worries.

In the meantime, check out my SBL posts below, and do comment.

I hope you all are well!

As my series of SBL posts indicate (see below), I was fortunate enough to meet and speak with a number of fellow bloggers at SBL in New Orleans.  For some reason, I am always intrigued by how a person looks, especially when I have long known them only by name, perhaps having my own construct of what they look like floating numinously in my mind.  Oftentimes I will google a scholar, such as von Rad or Gunkel or Wellhausen or even Childs or Barr, to see what they look like.  Similarly, meeting people always offers surprises . . . take, for instance, Rob Kashow’s utter surprise (shared by Mike Whitenton), at the deepness of my voice (see HERE).  So, in an unthoughtful though reflective moment, I submit to you my list of “knee-jerk first impressions” of the bloggers I met (and my apologies if I mistakenly left you off this list; if I did, let me know and I’ll be glad to share my thoughts).  But first, two ‘extended’ examples:

Jim West: I start with JW first for no particular reason (just to get that out of the way first, for our #1 biblioblogger, wink).  I had already heard from a trusted friend and mentor that JW was quite different than his online persona.  And I find myself wondering right now whether it is just that . . . a persona.  There is a discontinuity (and perhaps others–I’m looking at you, Joseph Kelly–can attest to this) between the abrasive, name-calling individual I read on screen and the quiet, dare I say meek individual I encountered in person.  Let me clarify: Jim was a delight in person.  I enjoyed razzing him (asking him to call me a git or dilletante, which he sheepishly and nervously refused to do, and which I think says a lot).  He seems to be a genuine, kind, gentle man, but the man I met does not match the rhetoric I often see coming from his blog.  That is fine, we all have ways of expressing ourselves.  This, however, was quite unexpected.  I now have a very different sense of JW.  Quite the long knee-jerk, eh?

Chris Heard: I was glad to meet Chris for the Pepperdine/SBL recording series.  Having recently followed his youtube videos, I had a better sense of things.  My only regret is that we were unable to talk in any sort of depth; both our schedules were insanely busy.  But Chris ended up being quite what I expected: a kind and thoughtful scholar out to help younger scholars such as myself.  Many thanks!
I must admit also (and I trust Chris will call me a geek for this) that meeting him was quite exciting for me.  Readers of this blog will know of my deep appreciation for his Dynamics of Diselection (see HERE), so I confess to a bit of nerves before meeting him.  He simply has been quite formative for my own work on Genesis.

(Ok, now I can begin to get to providing a bit of the internal monologue, near as I can recall, about meeting my fellow bloggers; this is what went through my head):

Jim West: “Really?  That’s Jim West?  The man in person and the man on the screen do NOT synch up, at all.”

Chris Heard: “Omigosh omigosh omigosh!  It’s Chris Heard.  This is too cool!  Hey, he’s shorter than I expected.”

Mike Whitenton: “Wow, I think I met someone whiter than me!  Surely he’s related to Conan O’  Brien.  He’s a tall fella, too.”

Rob Kashow: “Hey, this guy is way better looking in person than his blog picture would lead you to believe.”

Doug Mangum: “Those are some seriously wicked awesome chops!  Why can’t I grow facial hair?!”

Joseph Kelly: “You look familiar but I have no idea why. I swear I’ve met you before.”

Brandon Wason: “In that suit, with that hair greased and spiked like that, this guy totally looks like an Italian mob boss.  ‘Hey, you talkin’ ta me?!  Fahgettaboutit!!’

Kevin Scull: “Love the hair.” (Unfortunately I can’t explain this one, but it is what I recall).

Chris Tilling: “Oh look, it’s Chris Tilling, someone who’s never read my blog I’m sure.  I bet he has no idea who I am.”

Pat McCullough: “Lordy that guy is huge.  I did not expect that . . . he could totally take me!”

Art Boulet: “I’m jealous; I wish I could totally rock the bald head look.  But my wife tells me I probably have a lumpy head.”

Brian Bibb: “Hmmmm, he looks younger in his pictures” (my sincerest apologies, Brian!).

Claude Mariottini: “I love the way this guy says his name!  I wish I had a cool accent.”

Brooke Lester: “You look remarkably like one of our ethics profs at Baylor.”

Daniel and Tonya: “Master linguists in my presence; don’t mention Hebrew.  Oooo, he’s going to come to my paper, and it’s making a translation argument.  Uh oh!”

Ken Brown: “Really?  I thought this guy was older than me.”

Mike Kok: “This guy looks super young!  I’m only 28 and I’m feeling old . . . “

Inside my head . . . it’s a scary place sometimes.

And now . . . dear reader, I extend the same question to you.  If you met me at SBL, what was the narrative running through your mind?  Levity and  honesty, all in good fun!

I am glad to announce that I learned, while in New Orleans last week, that my paper proposal for the 2010 Southwest Commission on Religious Studies (regional meeting of the SBL) has been accepted.  John Vassar of LSU-Shreveport was kind enough to email me personally and suggest I submit a proposal, and I was glad to do it.  This will be my third year in a row, and 4th paper, read at the SWCRS.  Now I just need to write the thing (which shouldn’t be a problem, given it is the penultimate chapter in the dissertation, and I will be done with the whole dissertation come Spring).

The proposal I submitted was entitled “Replaying the Fool: Esau vs Jacob and YHWH in Gen 32-33.”  Here is the abstract I submitted:

            The Jacob narratives in Genesis are among the most troubling texts in the Hebrew Bible for the way in which they portray characters actively engaging in deception, often of one’s own family.  Esau arguably suffers most, losing not only the right of the firstborn (Gen 25:27-34) but also the paternal blessing (Gen 27:1-45) to Jacob’s clever and calculating ways.  The response of Esau is clear: he plots to kill his scheming brother.  Later in the narrative, however, in the reconciliation scene between the two brothers, Esau’s murderous anger is conspicuously absent and instead replaced with a seemingly affable, forgiving demeanor.  Scholarship has traditionally noted that Jacob’s worry at the impending reunion is in vain and highlights all the more his problematic character, especially in light of the nocturnal wrestling match he has with God.  It is this contest with the divine that traditional readings of the Jacob cycle will argue leads to a change for the better in Jacob’s character.  Such a reading, however, cannot be sustained against a close scrutiny of the text.

This study is part of a larger project looking at the role and function of God in Jacob’s deceptions.  Here specifically I will argue that Jacob by no means repents of his deceptive ways but rather continues with them, at the expense of his brother yet again.  Jacob’s encounter with his besmirched brother will be read in parallel with 25:27-34.  Esau again plays the fool, just as he did with the right of the firstborn, on a variety of levels: he accepts Jacob’s ambiguous offer of the “blessing” (33:11, cf. 32:29) and he ends up separated from his brother yet again by means of Jacob’s trickery (33:15-20).  God is deeply connected with these deceptions (Gen 32:22-32), and a close literary reading of the text will offer new interpretive possibilities for understanding not only the Jacob and Esau dynamic but also the Jacob and God dynamic.

Thoughts?

This concludes my series of posts from last week’s 2009 meeting of the SBL in New Orleans (see HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE for the other posts).

My paper was slotted in the coveted 9 am slot on Tuesday morning.  It was delivered in the “Bible Translation” section, and was entitled “A Trickster Oracle in Gen 25:23: Reading Jacob and Esau between Beten and Bethel” (abstract HERE).  This was my second year in a row presenting at the national meeting, and my third paper at the national meeting (I did two last year, one in the Book of Psalms section and one in the Matthew section).  Upon arriving at the session, the other presents and I were informed we would have 25 minutes TOTAL, not 25 to read and then 5 for Q & A, so if we wanted questions we had to stop reading at 20 minutes.  Needless to say I had already chopped my paper down from about 35 pages to 12, and time was an issue, so I didn’t cut any further; my reading came in just at 25 minutes.

Given the time and day, I fully expected to have maybe a handful of folk present.  I was more than pleased, however, to have a room of about 35 people, including my Baylor colleague Roy Garton, former professor Richard Swanson from my undergrad Augustana College, my professor and dissertation advisor Bill Bellinger, and fellow bloggers Joseph Kelly and Daniel (btw, I’m still waiting for them to blog their thoughts on my paper–wink!). 

Typically when I have read papers in the past, nerves creep up.  This is to be expected, perhaps.  It was wonderful, though, this time, to have no nerves at all.  My throat didn’t go dry, I read at a good, audible pace, and most importantly, I was relaxed . . . throughout.  Even my buddy Roy and Dr. Bellinger noted as much.  I attribute that confidence to teaching.

Despite not having time for questions (although I did have some discussions during the break with people), the paper was very well received.  Many in the audience were clearly in agreement or pleased throughout, as regular head-nodding and “mmm hmmm’s” became visible and audible.  At the end of my paper, as I sat down, I was greeted by a thumbs up from Dr. Swanson, and several comments by people sitting near me (we all sat in the audience, per the convener’s request) that they “really enjoyed your paper” and it was “interesting” or “very good” or “well done.”  Given this is a vital component of my dissertation, I am pleased for the encouraging feedback.

The rest of the session was diverse and intriguing, and I especially found the paper about infinitive absolutes in Hebrew to be intriguing (how geeky does that sound of me?).  As the session ended I talked with a few in the audience, briefly, but had to run to the hotel for my colleagues who were waiting for me . . . for a 10 hour drive back to Waco.