Author Archives: WBS

Blogger Spotlight: Liv Ingeborg Lied on 4 Ezra

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Blogger Spotlight is a feature on the Women Biblical Scholars site that highlights women scholars who have their own blogs. One of their posts is selected for republication here to draw awareness to their blog. Today’s Blogger Spotlight is on Dr. Liv Ingeborg Lied, professor of religious studies at MF Norwegian School of Theology. Check out her blog, Religion – Manuscripts -Media Culture , for more of her writing.

Two Forgotten Sources of 4 Ezra

By Liv Ingeborg Lied

In the last few years, I have mentioned on two occasions manuscript witnesses to 4 Ezra that have apparently been left out of scholarly discussions focusing on this writing. In this post, I propose two possible reasons for this omission, and discuss why these manuscript sources to 4 Ezra deserve our attention. My interest here is not the decisions made by individual scholars, but rather the assessment schemes embedded in philological paradigms and the structuring effects of disciplinary borders to research practices.

My first example, Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) Supplément turc 983, f 113/126, containing Syriac 4 Ezra 8:33-41a/8:41c-47, was discussed in the post “Recycling 4 Ezra” (12 February 2014) (here). As noted in that post, this single parchment leaf was published in 1993 by Bernard Outtier in the article, “Un fragment syriaque inédit de IV Esdras”. The leaf has been dated paleographically to the sixth century (Outtier) and also to the eighth to ninth centuries, by Franҫoise Briquel Chatonnet (“Manuscrits syriaque de la Bibliothèque nationale de France” […], 185). As I mentioned in the 2014 post, the fragment has played no role in the scholarly discussion of 4 Ezra.  More→

One Year Anniversary for Women Biblical Scholars Site!

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Women Biblical Scholars was launched in January 2015 to remedy the lack of any site on the entire Web highlighting female scholars in biblical studies (and related fields). The goal was to raise awareness of the important work women are doing and make it easier to find their scholarship. This past year thousands of people visited this site from 90 different countries. And the Twitter account now has over 400 followers. Over seventy posts went up, including twenty-three interviews with current scholars from Duke, Seattle Pacific, Missouri State, Wheaton, Harvard, Bethel, Hebrew Union, Howard, Regent (Vancouver), Westmont, Ashland, St. Andrews, and more.

Women Biblical Scholars will continue to add to the growing pool of resources here in hopes more teachers and clergy will take advantage of these scholars’  great contributions for use in the classroom and faith communities. Help us get the word out! Send the link to your friends, colleagues, and pastors/rabbis. Send a tweet spotlighting WBS and mention us on Facebook. Also if you would like to help advance the mission of Women Biblical Scholars in other ways send an e-mail to: women.biblical.scholars@gmail.com

Web Round Up #13

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SBL 2015 Society Report is now available. Find out all the stats

Interview with Jessica Keady.

Course Report for Laura Nasrallah’s early Christianity course on the letters of Paul.

HOT OFF THE PRESS:

Nyasha Junior’s An Introduction to Womanist Biblical Interpretation in now available.

Aviya Kushner’s The Grammar of God: A Journey Into the Words and Worlds of the Bible is now available.

Catherine McDowell’s The ‘Image of God’ in the Garden of Eden is now available.

Jane Draycott has a new article out entitled “Reconstructing the Lived Experience of Disability in Antiquity: A Case Study from Roman Egypt.”

Tiffany Webster published “A Miner Knows Better Than Anybody You Have Little Power Over Mother Nature”: Exploring Genesis 1:26–31 and the Concepts of Control and Power with South Derbyshire Coal Miners” in Journal of the Bible and Its Reception.

Corinna Guerrero writes about “Costly Scripture:Encountering Trauma in the Bible” for America Magazine.

Adele Reinhartz writes on “The Journal of Biblical Literature and the Critical Investigation of the Bible.”

Maria E. Doerfler writes about “The Synod and the Spirit: Reviving the Diaconate for Women in the Roman Catholic Tradition?” on her new blog.

Joan E. Taylor writes on “Jesus was a Refugee.”

Christine Hayes on “Divine Law in Greco-Roman, Christian, and Rabbinic Conceptions.”

Recent Journal of Biblical Literature issue has articles by Nicole Ruane, Anne Marie Kitz, and Paula Fredriksen.

Congratulations to Shayna Sheinfeld on successfully defending her dissertation! Check out the abstract on “Crises of Leadership in the Post-Destruction Apocalypses 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch.”

Read more about Courtney VanWeller’s dissertation research on “Paul’s Therapy of the Soul: A New Approach to John Chrysostom and Anti-Judaism” over at Ancient Jew Review.

Sarah Bond writes about sports and ancient Roman referees.

Karen Keen writes on “How to Be a Biblical Scholar Without Losing Your Faith.”

EVENTS:

Two archaeology lectures in Washington D.C. Dr. Ann Killebrew will lecture on “Egyptians, Canaanites, Sea Peoples and Early Israel at the End of the Bronze Age” on November 15th, 2015. Dr. Maryl Gensheimer presents “Landscapes of Allusion at Oplontis and Stabiae” on November 18, 2015.

CALL FOR PAPERS:

“Imagining the Afterlife in the Ancient Mediterranean World”, Birmingham, UK at the University of Birmingham and Newman University, June 21-23, 2016.

The British Association of of Jewish Studies Conference requests papers for The Texture of Jewish Tradition: Investigations in Textuality (July 2016).

St John’s College, Durham University announces Call for Papers for conference on Exploring the Glory of God: Past and present perspectives of biblical, theological, and aesthetic dimensions of God’s glory (July 2016).

SCHOLARSHIPS AND JOBS:

$7,000 archaeology fellowship for summer of 2016

Eerdmans is hiring a Project Editor. NT specialization, Master’s, and proficiency in Greek.

Lecturer in Classics and Archaeology Faculty of Arts The School of Historical and Philosophical Studies The University of Melbourne, Australia (closes November 15th).

Postdoc in Religion and Media in Contemporary Societies at Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany for 2015-2018

Catholic Biblical Association lists job openings, including for Old Testament and New Testament posts at Loyola.

Ambrose University is hiring a professor in Christian Theology.

Postdoc in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament at Uppsala University in Sweden.

Mignon Jacobs on Biblical Narratives of Migration

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Dr. Mignon Jacobs is associate professor of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary, as well as associate provost for accreditation and educational effectiveness and accreditation liaison officer. She speaks on the topic of migration and the Old Testament in response to a lecture by Dr. Daniel Carroll Rodas on  “People on the Move: Biblical Narratives of Migration and Their Echos Today.” She is introduced and begins speaking at the 11 minute mark.

Biblical Witness, Ethics, and Good Romance Novels: An Interview with Celia Wolff

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This interview of Celia Wolff by Clifton Stringer was first published at Ministry Matters. It has been reproduced here with permission. The interviewer, Clifton Stringer, is a Ph.D. student in Historical Theology at Boston College and the author of “Christ the Lightgiver” in the Converge Bible Studies series.

Recently I was able to visit with Celia Wolff about topics ranging from Christian faith to her scholarly work on the book of Acts to the goodness of reading (good) romance novels. Celia Wolff teaches at Northwest Nazarene University. She is also a Th.D. candidate at the Divinity School at Duke University, where the focus of her studies is Christian Scripture and Ethics. She blogs at The Spirit’s Witness and tweets too (@CeliaWolff).

Clifton Stringer: Many of our readers are committed Christians, and not a few work as pastors or in Christian leadership of some kind. How did you wind up being a committed Christian? And what led to your becoming a Christian theologian?

Celia Wolff: My parents are both committed Christians and we rarely missed a Sunday at church when I was growing up. I was very young when I became a committed Christian, but of course I’ve been learning what that looks like ever since.

I was interested in theological questions well before I knew to call them that. The first job I remember considering seriously was teaching. When I was a high school senior my history teacher encouraged me to consider teaching at the college level, and I remember thinking that was good advice. Going to Seattle Pacific University for my undergraduate degree played a huge role in helping me stay a Christian and moving me toward graduate theological education. I started out studying philosophy, but ended up enjoying Bible classes most for how they brought together a range of skills and questions. By the spring of my second year, I was planning to major in theology and taking a class from a professor with an M.Div. from Duke Divinity School. From there on, the doors kept opening up for me to pursue graduate theological education. While in the M.Div. program at Duke I had an important meeting with Richard Hays where he told me about the Th.D. program starting up, and that I should apply for it. I found my area of focus — Christian Scripture and Ethics — during a course that he and Allen Verhey co-taught. The Th.D. program has been a wonderful venue for pursuing this area of study, and prepared me well to begin teaching at NNU a year ago.  More→

Rebekah Eklund on Why Study the New Testament

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Dr. Rebekah Eklund is Assistant Professor of Theology at Loyola University Maryland. Her most recent publication is Jesus Wept: The Significance of Jesus’ Laments in the New Testament.

Interview: Lissa M. Wray Beal

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Lissa Wray BealThe Rev. Dr. Lissa M. Wray Beal is the Professor of Old Testament at Providence Theological Seminary, where she has taught since 2004. She is also a priest in the Diocese of Rupert’s Land in the Anglican Church of Canada, serving as an honorary assistant in a local parish. Dr. Wray Beal completed a BTh at Northwest Bible College and an MDiv at Taylor Seminary (both in Edmonton) before completing her PhD at the Toronto School of Theology at Wycliffe College.

How did you decide to become a biblical scholar? Share your autobiographical journey.

My decision to become a biblical scholar has personal and pastoral roots. I grew up in a church context and from a very young age recall a sense of God’s love. In my teen years that experience became particularly personal. While reading through the book of Romans with a small group, I discovered and responded to the person and work of Christ. That remains a powerful reminder of the encounter scripture facilitates. It also awakened a desire to understand the Bible and its presentation of God’s character and work in the world. That desire has never left me and my life path of theological education and teaching ministry has been a source of joy as on a daily basis my work immerses me in scripture.

On a pastoral level, my early ministry experience was in the pastorate. In preaching, I was drawn to the Old Testament’s stories and the presentation of God’s great actions in history and intimate interactions with humanity; in teaching, I discovered congregants were often perplexed about the value of the Old Testament for Christian discipleship. Seeing the “lights go on” for people as I taught showed me a need in the church that coincided with my own gifts and interests. I wanted to teach, not only in the church but in an academic setting committed to ministerial formation that was embedded in scripture. Although I was at that time in a denominational context that did not value higher education, I decided to begin graduate studies. My hope was to be schooled by the text and those who studied it so as to bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to teaching.

It was during my PhD work that I determined my research and pastoral interests would be best expressed in a seminary. This context focuses my scholarship so that historical, literary, and theological questions are pursued rigorously and find their telos in the whole canon and for the life of the church. More→

Web Round Up #12

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SAVE MONEY AT SBL/AAR! Women scholars looking to share housing with other women scholars to cut costs send an e-mail to: women.biblical.scholars@gmail.com

Cynthia Shafer-Elliott blogs about experimental archaeology on her dig this summer.

Ellen F. Davis to serve as interim dean at Duke University Divinity School following Dean Hays stepping down for medical reasons.

Wil Gafney writes an article on Hagar.

Need syllabus ideas and resources for this fall? Browse resources at Bible Odyssey.

Carrie Schroeder starts a popular hashtag called #mySBL. Check out all the great comments.

Jobs:

Assistant Professor job at Yale in Ancient Christianity. Review of applications begins October 1st.

Harvard University is now hiring for a Senior Professorship of the Archaeology of Israel.

Review of Biblical Literature:

Jennifer Houston McNeel
Paul as Infant and Nursing Mother: Metaphor, Rhetoric, and Identity in 1 Thessalonians 2:5-8
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9921

Laura C. Sweat
The Theological Role of Paradox in the Gospel of Mark
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9726

Leann Snow Flesher, Carol J. Dempsey, and Mark J. Boda, eds.
Why? … How Long? Studies on Voice(s) of Lamentation Rooted in Biblical Hebrew Poetry
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9724

Lisbeth S. Fried
Ezra and the Law in History and Tradition
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=10026

Rivka Ulmer and Moshe Ulmer
Righteous Giving to the Poor: Tzedakah (“Charity”) in Classic Rabbinic Judaism
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=10023

Clare K. Rothschild, Jens Schröter
The Rise and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries of the Common Era
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9214

Angela Thomas
Anatomical Idiom and Emotional Expression: A Comparison of the Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9923

Kathryn D. Blanchard and Jane S. Webster, eds.
Lady Parts: Biblical Women and The Vagina Monologues
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9089

Judy Fentress-Williams
Ruth
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=8831

Amy L. B. Peeler
You Are My Son: The Family of God in the Epistle to the Hebrews
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9870

L. Juliana Claassens and Klaas Spronk, eds.
Fragile Dignity: Intercontextual Conversations on Scriptures, Family, and Violence
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9439

Patricia Dutcher-Walls
Reading the Historical Books: A Student’s Guide to Engaging the Biblical Text
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9834

Jörg Frey and Angela Standhartinger, eds.
Neues Testament und frührabbinisches Judentum
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9540

Amy-Jill Levine
Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9937

Shelly Matthews
The Acts of the Apostles: Taming the Tongues of Fire
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9647

Joan E. Taylor, ed.
The Body in Biblical, Christian and Jewish Texts
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=9867

Journal for Biblical Literature articles:

“A Stratified Account of Jephthah’s Negotiations and Battle: Judges 11:12–33 from an Archaeological Perspective”
Elizabeth Bloch-Smith
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“’The Thoughts of Many Hearts Shall Be Revealed’: Listening in on Lukan Interior Monologues”
Michal Beth Dinkler
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“The Afterlives of New Testament Apocrypha”
Annette Yoshiko Reed
abstract

 

Amy-Jill Levine on Who Did They Say Jesus Was?

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Amy-Jill Levine presents on “Who Did They Say He Was? Jesus in Text and Context” at Westminster Town Hall, Minneapolis (March 31, 2015). The lecture explores how first century Jews perceived Jesus. Levine is University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt University Divinity School and College of Arts and Sciences.