Category: College

John Piper in Brisbane…

Everybody’s favourite tweed jacket wearing preacher – John Piper – is coming to Brisbane. August 25. The Brisbane Entertainment Centre. Don’t waste this opportunity. You should totally book now. I’ll be there.

Here is the page to watch, book, register, and tell your friends about.

Do it.

Who is John Piper? John Piper has written about a million books. Good books. About what he calls Christian hedonism. He is a minister and scholar in the states. He looks like this:

Pretty awesome and grandfatherly.

He runs a great website called Desiring God where you can get billions of free resources.

He seems like a lovely guy, and I’m really looking forward to being in the same room as him.

Here’s a video.

You can register at the qtc website. Do it. Go on.

Gary Millar on Preaching OT Narrative (Liveblog)

Gary Millar is back at QTC, and he’s talking us through preaching OT narrative in our preaching lecture today. He’s cool because he knows U2. Well, he knows the Edge’s parents.

Four Obstacles to preaching OT

1. Familiarity – we all think we know what the Old Testament narratives mean – because we’ve been through Sunday School and learnt about the characters and the “moral” lessons of the stories. We’re not so good with the theology of the OT narratives.

For example – Joshua 2 – what is it about?

The majority would say that it’s about the miraculous way in which God saved Rahab, which is an element of the passage – but it’s almost a footnote when compared with the disobedience and ungodliness of the spies – who when entering the promised land head straight to a prostitute, and when given an opportunity to speak about God ask “are you going to save our lives”… the main thrust of the chapter isn’t Rahab, it’s on the spies.

When we come to this narrative, and we realise people know this story, we need to remember that their main focus is going to be on Rahab – because that’s what they’ve been taught.

People already think they know what the Old Testament means.

2. Perceived irrelevance

People think the Old Testament is obscure and obsolete. The only Bible reading that ever got a round of applause at the end of it was Nehemiah chapter 3. It’s a long and boring list of insignificant names. In the context of Nehemiah it’s a crucial chapter. Some people, the nobles, thought they were above the rebuilding of the wall. It has huge implications for the book. But we read it and say “this has got nothing to do with me”… sometimes that can work well, sometimes people sit back and say “there’s no way he can connect this to us today” – which gives us an opportunity.

3. Genre – we don’t know what to do with stories

We treat all these stories like they’re one of Paul’s epistles. The problem is that often OT Narrative is one story – like the book of Ruth – not a series of messages. But when we’re preaching the narrative we break it up into pieces. Chapter 1 of Ruth becomes a story about sad women. Which has nothing to do with the point of the book, which at the end of the book is about preparing for the coming of a Messiah.

4. Time – limited time to prepare, limited time to talk

So what do you do with a story that is really long? The Samuel narrative – from Israel asking for a king, to Saul becoming king, is really long. How do we cover it all? There are two problems – we’re probably not familiar with all the details of the story – how many commentaries are you going to read? Two or three. If you engage with that many, that’s a good week. That’s ok if you’re engaging with a short pericope in the New Testament. You go to 1 Samuel 8-11, and you’ve got sixty pages to read through, and the text is huge. Simply to read it in English takes forever. Handling it from the pulpit is difficult. You could just read it. And your time would be up.

If we followed Haddon Robinson’s approach to preaching narrative, working out the characters etc, not only would we have no time to do anything but preparing our sermons, ministry wise, we’d also never see our families.

So…

Five Simple Rules for Preaching

1. Read what it says, not what you always thought it said.
Example – Daniel 1 – is really not about vegetables. They have a purpose in this story, but they aren’t the purpose. Daniel 1 is about setting up Daniel in the king’s court.

2. Learn to feel with the story

Gary quotes from this article by Roy Clements.

“In this respect we must listen humbly to the criticism that expository preaching has been too wedded to rationalistic modes of interpretation. The intention of God in Scripture is certainly to impart objective knowledge of himself but it goes far beyond that. In addition to informing the mind, God seeks to address the will and the feelings. He may wish to encourage or to warn, to praise or to challenge; he may wish to make us weep, or laugh or frown. The purpose of the imperative ‘rejoice!’ is not just to impart objective knowledge about joy but to make the reader feel joyful!

Any Bible exposition will have failed if it locates the intellectual content of the text, but neglects to communicate the emotional texture in which that content is embedded. Good exposition invites the listener to feel with the text as well as to think about it.”

Look for hints, pregnant pauses, what’s left out, the unexpected, mood markers…

You’ve got to get people into the text. Standing beside Daniel as he prays in Daniel 9. Get them to feel with Daniel. Don’t take them away from the text to make them feel by analogy. We don’t want to manipulate people. How does Daniel feel at the end of the prayer? Desparate. It’s not a model prayer, it’s Daniel’s emotional response to learning that spiritual exile doesn’t end with the physical exile.

The best way to help people to read the Bible properly is to read the Bible properly, and to preach it.

The hardest narrative books to deal with are the longest.

Understand the way stories work – Neb isn’t described as a pompous king, but the way chapter 3 of the book unfolds it’s clear that he’s pretty full of himself just by how many people he surrounds himself with in court. We don’t need subtitles in movies to spell out “this is a pompous man” (Me: we do, however, have musical cues to frame a narrative – perhaps we should put music to the passages in our heads as we work through the story…).

Remember just because something is described doesn’t mean it’s prescribed – so when Nehemiah pulls out everybody’s hair we’re not to make an ethical judgment about hair pulling, we’re to understand the frustration that is driving his actions.

3. Zoom out as far as you need to

Get the whole story – don’t make a sermon out of Joshua 1:6-9 where the young men are told to be courageous. See it as part of the broader story. We underestimate the death of Moses. Joshua’s need to be strong and courageous isn’t about entering the land, so much as dealing with his own people.

Don’t be afraid to preach really big chunks. Genesis 38-50. It’s a long story spelling out one basic principle. That God used the evil acts of Joseph’s brothers for his purposes.

Question:What would you say about drawing ethical principles from the text?

Answer: I don’t have a problem with that. Because they are there. Sometimes they are made very clear from the story. But they’re always the minor point – but we get into problems when we focus on the minor thing rather than the major flow. This is the last resort for busy preachers, minor points are better than no point…

Big picture is important. Understand the driving force behind the narrative.

Question: Isn’t there a problem of reductionism if we reduce a book to a big idea and ignore all the other bits – aren’t we ignoring divine revelation by summing everything up in a big idea and preaching it

I would say that understanding the big idea is paying attention to, and respecting revelation. Which we’ll cover in point 4.

Understand the point of the details that seem odd – like the Levitical laws – where the point might be – it’s really important to take God seriously.

4. Make sure you keep pace with the story

There’s a lot of stuff going on at the start of 2 Samuel, and then you come to 2 Samuel 7. The story has been rolling on, and then bang. You get a massive event. And then you’re back into the chronological “this happened, then this happened” rolling out of the text. We should move at the pace the story does. See how the threads of 1-6 move, preach them. Then because chapter 7 makes a big deal about one event, make it important.

5. Preach the story, not the detail

The message of the text should be the message of the sermon. Get the message of the text right, don’t bring your own agenda or favourite parts of the text into the spotlight. Daniel’s prayer life isn’t the focus of the book of Daniel, it’s about the sovereignty of God and the transition out of exile.

The story of Deborah in Judges isn’t about women in leadership. We have to make sure the main message of the talk is the main message of the narrative.

Question: How much Bible do you read on the Sunday morning?

Answer: We’ll focus on the key “jump out” section, or extracts, with somebody giving the flow of events before and afterwards.

New Page: College Resources

I’ve collated all the useful posts I’ve written about being a student at QTC (predominantly being a first year student) into a single page. I’m adding apps, links, and other resources I’ve found useful. If you see any gaping holes in any areas – like apps I might find useful. Let me know.

David Cook’s top 10 tips for preaching

David Cook is the outgoing (and departing) principal at SMBC (Sydney Missionary and Bible College). He’s here today at QTC (Queensland Theological College) sharing his top ten tips for preaching (and other stuff).

Tip one: Learn to shake hands and greet somebody. By the name they give. If they give a surname go with Mr or Mrs. Use names. Don’t just say “hello”… the sound of one’s name is the “sweetest sound in the whole world”…

But that isn’t about preaching.

  1. Have a clear big question – avoids the knowledge dump. Why should I listen to you? Because you have a good answer to a good question. Great questions are answered by the passage and are marketable. You need to show how the text answers that question and why that answer is important to the listener. Every time I get up I answer a question. Opening with “last week we looked at” isn’t really helpful. It is an intro to a knowledge dump. Why do I need to hear this? That’s the question we should open with.
  2. Stress the indicative before you stress the imperative – Liberalism imposes the imperative – it tells you what you should do. And often it’s wrong. The “distinctive difference” between liberalism and Biblical Christianity is that the latter begins with the triumphant indicative – on the basis of what God has done, this is what you do. We need both the indicative and the imperative or we either lean towards license of liberalism. The Bible uses the indicative first. Romans, up to chapter 6, is indicative, indicative, indicative. The first imperative is ch 6:11. The Qu’ran opens with the imperative. This is the distinctive difference between Christianity and every other religion. This is our point of difference. The triumphant indicative. The Catholics have blended the two in an untrustworthy manner. Get the indicative first. Followed by the imperative. Not just what I’ve got to do, but why… knowledge of the verbal moods in Greek is absolutely vital. Be able to identify the imperative verbs. Taste of God through the gospel of God’s grace before you move to our response.
  3. Make the heart of your sermon explanation, not illustration/application – the text has the power. Not your illustration. Better the textual and dull preacher than the interesting but not textual. Better to be both. Don’t rush to illustration before you’ve preceded it with explanation.
  4. Work on your angle – tell me something I don’t know. Don’t just bounce superficially off the text. You must work off the angle of the text, and tell me something I don’t know. What’s the point otherwise? What is my angle here? How can I preach on something you know backwards that gives you a new slant on something? Anticipate the questions people are asking about the text.
  5. The art of preaching is the art of summary – Learn to summarise. You are not saying everything the passage says. You are saying less than the whole. You are making a judgment about what not to say and what to say. The other cardinal rule is that the summary does not interpret. We aren’t interested in what you think – just tell us what is says. Get to the author’s mind – not your take.
  6. Cultivate a close reading of the text – show respect to the text. Avoid humourous populism. Don’t go for the laugh. Get people watching the text. Closely. Use the original languages to check for puns, rudeness, wordplay – figure out what’s going on in the text. And communicate it. Bring passages to life by picking up the little details when they drive your text. Observe. It is there. It is there for a reason.
  7. Don’t be negative – why put barriers in the way. Don’t attack the other guys. Don’t be negative. Be winsome and persuasive. Know what you’re talking about – what is good about x that makes people so loyal to it. Think about the way you sound, and whether you’re looking angry or smiling. Don’t attack, provide a positive alternative. Use simple words and propositions. Repeat them again and again and again. Read good books about persuasion. Don’t confront. Just talk in a winsome way. “The Gentle Art of Persuasion” is a good book. How to win friends and influence people is another one.What is my point? What am I trying to achieve. It is a foolish advocate who insults the person who is there to try the case.
  8. Work hard at the sermons you pay least attention to – the occasional sermons (funerals, weddings, Christmas, Easter, children’s talks etc). These are the sermons that people who aren’t members of the congregation come to. Why do you go easy on the occasional sermons while working hard on the inside sermons. Don’t just preach a stock ball sermon for funerals and weddings. Every person is unique. Prepare a fresh sermon for each person. Don’t let people die alone, that’s not your job as the pastor of your flock. The elderly and disabled are victims of the church planting movement. We’ve discriminated against the people who need us the most. Work really hard at using the children’s talk as a free hit – a chance to summarise your talk in a new way for a new audience to clarify your thinking, teach the children, and engage the adults.
  9. Be Clear – You’re not writing an essay. Don’t preach your footnotes. You are writing a sermon. In a sermon you will illustrate. Repeat. Emphasise. You are turning ears into eyes. You are striving to be clear. Don’t just say one thing. Say it again. And again. And again.
  10. Preach Christ. Preach Grace. Preach Faith. Preach encouragingly.

The relationship between the Big Question, the Big Idea and the Big Answer
Big Question -> Big Idea -> Big answer

Use the subject and the compliment – what is he talking about? What is he saying about that?

Turn the big idea into a big question.

The easiest answer for a preacher to give is to the “how” question – but “why” is much more important if you don’t want to breed superficiality. How to questions are good, but shallow.

John 3:16 case study

The subject looks like God (use the first and the last words) – but almost every passage is about God – so lets go with Eternal Life.

The Big Idea: Eternal life comes through Jesus, God’s gift of love.

Big questions: How can I have eternal life? Is death the end? What will happen when you die?

Format of a sermon

State the truth of the passage -> explain the passage -> illustrate the passage -> apply the passage.

If you illustrate first it’ll be without power. Explain first.

The Pyramid

At the bottom level you are summarising with verse references.

At the next level you are looking at the movements in the passage. Which determine the structure of the sermon.

Next. The dominant picture (from On teaching and preaching with creativity – “the human brain is a picture gallery, not a debating hall”).

Subject and compliment.

 

The Big Idea.

 

The tip is the Big Question.

 

Five Keys to Clarity

  1. Isolate the dominant thoughts of the text.
  2. Structure your material. Don’t hide your structure. Build your sermon around structure. You’re communicating. Don’t be scared of communicating. Use stuff like alliteration and things people will remember.
  3. Don’t use too many quotes. Who cares what John Stott or Don Carson say. This is not an essay. If they’ve said it, it’s probably not original to them – so just say it. Don’t always quote people. Only quote if you can memorise the quote and if the person who said something is particularly relevant or significant to the quote. Ideas are there to be used. Sometimes you can add weight to a quote. But too much quoting is bad.
  4. Be dialogical. Dialogical preaching is very, very important. Have a dialogue. Anticipate questions, and answer them. “Do I hear some of you say” “But Billy, you say…” do it in the form of a conversation.
  5. If you are going to be clear. Watch your vocabulary and grammar. The plural of you is you. Saying youse is not ok. Really. In any context. You don’t want your kids hearing people saying “youse”… sweat the details. Work hard on your grammar and your vocab. Play by the house rules. Dress for the host. Use their version of the Bible.

 

Why I bought Logos not Accordance

If you’re a Bible College student, minister, or just generally interested in purchasing some top quality Bible software for Mac – then I suggest you read this post alongside this post from two days ago. Buying Bible software, especially if you’re a student, is a big budgetary decision. Thanks to a job I lined up over the college break I was in a position to spend some money on some software that’ll hopefully make Greek, Hebrew, and essay writing a little less arduous this year.

The Situation

My wife and I are both studying full time at Bible College (Queensland Theological College). We are both, predominantly, Mac users. We both have iPhones. And one of the other pre-conditions in my negotiations with my wife re taking a job over summer was that if the new iPad looks good, I’ll get one. So finding software that plays nice with Macs and their offspring was a factor. I also have a desktop PC at home that I don’t use as much as I used to. But that I still like. Especially if I’m playing with any design stuff.

So right off the bat I ruled out BibleWorks – because I wanted a native solution. I don’t like parallel operating systems or emulators. I don’t know why. It just seems to add an extra degree of difficulty.

The Hive Mind

I didn’t want to make a purchase decision of this magnitude on my own. I don’t like the idea of buying anything without some idea of what I’m getting my hands on. My church history lecturer has probably the world’s biggest brain. And he recommended Logos. He’s not the computer geek type (though he does run Logos on his netbook, iPad, and office computer – he only got the iPad at Christmas time). He had no complaints about speed. Because he is a real person, not somebody who wants everything at the tip of their fingers immediately. My college principal uses Accordance, he’s a Mac man, and it was chosen for him by the tech guru at Tyndale House, where he was previously employed. He’s very happy with it – and says, alongside his Diogenes Greek software, the program has significantly reduced the time taken to conduct language work (and he works a fair bit in that sphere – his PhD involved research into just about every extant written work from Corinth and Alexandria (and this was BC – before computers)). So that’s one all. My friend Jeremy Wales also uses Logos, and his brain is almost as big as our church history lecturer’s.

Not content with these recommendations from friends who used one, or the other, I put the call out to Facebook and Twitter. I love Web 2.0. I got a great string of responses from both. The Twitter responses were particularly in favour of Accordance because the @accordance account retweeted my tweet. Here are some notable tweetsponses:

  • @nm_campbell I tried both but rather Accordance. I just wish Accordance worked better on a PC. But on a mac -Accordance!
  • @nm_campbell I’ve had Accordance for years and love it. Developers are very active in the community and quick to listen to user requests.
  • @nm_campbell If working in original languages, @AccordanceBible hands down. If not, depends on your needs.
  • @nm_campbell I assume you have a Mac. Whatever you decide, be assured that you will not make a mistake if these two are your choices.
  • @nm_campbell accordance is better for getting into the text (faster too). Logos is better if you want tons of books and commentaries.
  • @nm_campbell went with @AccordanceBible because it was what I needed: fast and without a ton of stuff I never use. Both are good though.
  • (from @accordancebible) @nm_campbell we’re also going to be in Brisbane for a training seminar May 9th. Great opp to learn from the best http://t.co/h4kZ6hR
  • @nm_campbell using Acc since 5.x(?) & used Logos in Seminary. Hate Acc’s UI, but LOVE results. Indispensable: it’s like having X-ray vision!
  • @nm_campbell you may want to check out this forum post. Users chiming in on the reasons they chose @accordancebible http://t.co/3xbXWGh
  • @nm_campbell in case you haven’t read it, this piece is good, too: http://t.co/EQs1H8I

Happy campers. Nobody really has anything negative to say about either product. Which is a good sign. Accordance has a good rep for being amazingly speedy. And both companies seem to have embraced social media marketing in a big way. I was in no way prepared for what happened next. But first. To the responses on Facebook.

  • We went with Accordance. Has been stress-free thus far.
  • Whatever you decide, buy the biggest library you can on first purchase.It’s the incremental pieces where it gets expensive. Buying Greek and then Hebrew (for example) is much dearer than getting them all in one hit.
  • I can’t comment on accordance. But with Logos you need to start with scholars at a minimum for original languages study, lower levels come with only very low level tools and supporting databases for this type of work. Original Languages library is also ok, but it is limited in breadth of resources e.g. no commentaries so hence scholars is a better starting point. The negative side of base scholars is while it has breadth for a more general purpose library it is limited in grammars etc and you need to go for silver scholars to pick up the broad range of grammars etc
    Logos also has an iPhone 4 app, and a Android App is under development so you can access the majority of your library on the go ( a few publisher’s were holding out on licensing rights for users to access both on computer and mobile platforms). Logos also has a web platform under development so you can access your library from any terminal that has access to the internet ( http://biblia.com/ ). No extra charge for access your library from either of these platforms. Logos also allows you to use your library from either MAC or Windows, you don’t have to pay to switch between platforms.
    And of course there is also an iPad app as well which you can access your library from… And they do offer the option of a 12 month payment plan on your purchase so you don’t have to pay for the full package all in one hit…
    A couple of blogs I know that do comparisons between these pieces of software are:
    http://bibleandtech.blogspot.com/
    http://www.biblicalexegesis.org/
  • Depends what you want it for. Accordance was made for language work, and works better than Logos at that. Logos was made initially for reading online, so does that better. Both added the other option but do their native task best. I generally hate reading books on the computer, but you have a kindle so might not be an issue. In terms of books I much prefer when sermoning to have a heap of commentaries out lying everywhere for comparison. Plus, any books should last the extent of my ministry. I don’t care about digital storage in this instance. That is all.
  • It’s worth considering how commercialized logos is, too: the app’s homepage, their emails, their twitter feed are all pushing more resources all the time.If you struggle with self-control on book purchases, this could be unhelpful.I’ve found logos to be easier and more intuitive to work with, but there’s a new version of accordance I haven’t tried yet: maybe it’s easier.
  • It’s worth chatting to the sales people at accordance – they’re very helpful, and can give you an idea around current and upcoming titles.
  • Bible Works was the rage when i was at college. has it fallen out of favour?
  • Bibleworks is still kicking strong, but to run on a MAC you need to use virtualization software. Logos and Accordance run native on MAC. Bibleworks and WORDSearch are now just starting to work together, with modules now being to developed to run on both platforms (only 6 resources so far). Bibleworks is great for OL but lacks the breadth and depth of Logos, so they are clearly looking for a way to address that , which is also indication of how far Logos has come in its OL tools and databases, that Bibleworks now feels they need to expand their business model beyond being OL.

These two strings of responses gave me a lot to think about. And at that point I turned to my trusty steed. This blog. To see if any of my readers had any advice, or experience. And wow. When I said that both companies have embraced marketing via social media in a big way. I mean it. Very sharp. Reps from both Accordance and Logos joined the discussion to make sure that any of the misconceptions created by any of the previous comments from users were cleared up. And, in an even more impressive step, Dan from Logos emailed me with some personalised (and very Godly) advice. He basically sold the other guy’s product. Here’s a snippet (he said he would prefer me not to post his whole email).

“All I can say about the choice is, why choose? Why not get what you need from both? Even if you decided to go with Accordance, Logos has over 12,000 titles that you could pick and choose from. Our software engine is free, so you can just buy the titles you want.”

I think that’s an incredible example of graceful sales and marketing. He basically, in that paragraph, has encouraged me not to blow my money on stuff I won’t use, and suggested I go with the other guy as well. Which, in a bizarre way, was probably the biggest factor in my decision to use Logos exclusively at this point. It’s quite possible that I’ll decide I want a faster language tool and end up getting a hold of Accordance. It has a very enthusiastic fan base.

But the conversation in the comment thread is enlightening – and I think highlights the real problem I had with Accordance. Accordance is designed for the Mac. By all accounts it is intuitive to use and seamless in its implementation. Its website is not. Its website looks like the software is designed for the PC. I made the comment in the last post that the Logos website looks like a product designed for PC and marketed for Mac, while Accordance is the other way around. It is just really difficult to intuitively figure out how to add bits and pieces to the package, and clunky looking. There are a lot of misconceptions going around about Accordance – as evidenced by the times their company rep stepped in to correct misinformation in that thread. Even for Accordance users. And I think part of the problem is that information is so much harder to come by on their website. Neither site is perfect at this point, and the signal to noise problem of throwing my search out to everybody and being influenced by their answers may have made the process of finding information more difficult. But in order to find out whether I could install the software on my wife’s laptop as well as my own was a matter of finding an answer to that specific question in the FAQ section (which I admittedly found pretty easily by typing licensing into the search box – though the answer on that page suggests that if both of us are studying full time we both have to buy licenses, but I got a different vibe in the comments on my post). There’s no obvious statement about licensing restrictions anywhere on any of the product pages, which would have made the process a little simpler. I made a couple of comments about Logos being more extensible in the meta of that last post – which others disagreed with. But I ran a couple of little tests – looking to add specific books, or commentary series to the software – and here are the results of my query (looking for commentaries by Ben Witherington III): Accordance v Logos – in both cases I simply used the search box on the site. I’ve switched over to digital distribution (ok, I still like the tangibility of a book – but the convenience of digital means I’m buying many more resources electronically – if either of theses platforms offered some sort of Kindle support I’d be absolutely sold, though an iPad with Kindle and Logos installed will fix all of that).

Why I ultimately chose Logos

Rick from Accordance did a great job in the comment thread allaying concerns I had about the Accordance platform. Some of my initial objections to Accordance (licensing for both Robyn and I across all our computers, the availability of other resources, and the nature of the program – ie that it wasn’t just a language tool that had tacked on a library). I essentially decided that Logos and Accordance were both equally viable products. Offering a great service to people wanting to study the Bible.

These were the factors in my decision, all other things being equal:

  1. Price – I was convinced by the wisdom of friends who suggested going for the biggest bundle I could afford in the initial purchase, and Logos offers a 30% discount, which mean that the Silver Scholars package came within the ball park of the rack price for the Accordance bundle I was looking at, and the rack price for the base level Scholars pack in Logos.
  2. Technology – In the end having a PC to throw in the mix with two Macs was a factor. I could have used an emulator on my PC, but I just don’t want technologically clunky solutions. Especially when it comes to support issues. Having a third party piece of software as a middle man is no fun.
  3. Upgradability – I am convinced that Logos’ strength as a distribution channel for further works is greater than Accordance’s (I’m convinced Accordance is faster and better suited to the Mac environment it’s designed for).
  4. Marketing. Logos wins the marketing war. And I’m a marketer at heart. I switched to Apple for its aesthetic as much as for the technology. Form just edges out function for me. And that’s a personal preference.

I want to thank both David and Rick from Accordance, and Dan from Logos for the way they carried out the conversation here, and for taking an interest in seeing students like me get the software that suits. And I’d urge you to read their comments and make your own decision when it comes to these products on careful research, and thinking about your needs. That was the best, and most consistent, advice I received in the process.

 

 

Bible Study Software: To buy, or not to buy, and if to buy, which to buy

Accordance, or Logos. That is the question.



One of the perks of having slaved away over a hot computer over the holidays in my holiday job (more on that later) is that I can afford to invest in some Bible study software that will hopefully make my attempts to grapple with Greek, Hebrew, and essay writing, a little bit easier.

There are three options out there (fourth if you include just using the interwebs).

I’ve basically ruled out BibleWorks – because getting it to work on a Mac requires clunky parallel operating systems and I pretty much flat out refuse to do that – why would I go back to an inferior operating system? If I were a Windows user I may well go with it – because it has the benefit of being a cheap and easy language parser. But, because I’m a superficial marketing driven purchaser I can’t get past the ugly website and shoddy looking, WIndows 95esque user interface.

Next option, by price, is Accordance – and specifically the Scholars Premier + Library Premier option, currently on special for $599. Now. Accordance is designed for Mac. But I don’t like its website. It was designed for language work, and kind of tagged on the library stuff later. Twitter loves it. I put a call out yesterday and almost every response I got (possibly because the @accordance account retweeted my tweet) was in favour of Accordance.

 

The option I’m currently leaning towards is Logos. Logos just looks schmick. And it has multiplatform support in built. And the ability to add module after module of good stuff. Accordance has modules as well – but it doesn’t have the same publishing base (as far as I can tell) that Logos obviously offers. The base level Scholars pack is $629. It just looks schmick too. And as a marketer I like that. It looks like a Bible software package marketed by Apple, rather than made for Apple.

 

My college principal, a Mac user, uses Accordance, while possibly the widest reading lecturer at college uses Logos. Both have suggested their product of choice is a good choice.

Should I flip a coin?

Some helpful links if you’re facing this decision:

Arthur wrote a good little post pondering the merits of these packages here. There’s a lot of bloat – but the bloat might be useful if ever I do decide to pursue further study (a possible option in my mind).

This Ligonier comparison is worth a read too.

Movement at the QTC station

Speaking of press releases… it was announced to us yesterday at college, and released to the world via a media release, that the Rev Dr. Bruce Winter is stepping down from his role as principal at our college and moving into a role as a research professor, lecturing in New Testament and Systematic Theology.

It’s cool that he’s sticking around, sad that he’s stepping down. So a little bittersweet. I’ve really appreciated Bruce’s hermeneutic and his emphasis on family based ecclesiology. Plus he’s a leading expert on the socio-historical context of the New Testament and going to Greece and Turkey with him was a pretty life changing experience.

That photo sits on his desk. In a frame. Because I put it there.

If you’re an Old Testament/Hebrew expert who wants to fill theses big shoes – then QTC would like to hear from you.

2010 on St. Eutychus

I missed my end of year wrap up yesterday because I was reading a book. Sorry. But here are some facts, figures and highlights from the year that was.

Stats

In 2009, 31,705 Absolute Unique Visitors made 48,733 Visits, making 82,916 Pageviews
In 2010, 31,869 Absolute Unique Visitors made 52,965 Visits, making 83,668 Pageviews.

At the time of writing I have 78 Facebook fans (become a fan – I’m now sharing links to stuff I don’t blog, or that is in my queue, to Facebook fans ahead of time), and 22 Google Connections.

So small increases across the board – but more importantly. No decreases. Hooray.

In 2009 I posted 1,106 posts here on St. Eutychus. In 2010 I managed 1,434. A 29% increase. And some people said being a college student would slow down my blogging. As it was – I used college as an opportunity to create more content.

My favourite college related series and posts from the year.

1. Some language resources (some for Mac, some for typing on a Mac)
2. Reflections on the “Disciplines of a Godly theological student”
3. My guide to First Year Greek
4. The things I love about College
5. The things I’d change about College
6. My Wisdom Literature Essay (part two, three, four, five, six) – my favourite essay of the year.
7. Pre-exam prep: New Testament 101, New Testament 102, Old Testament 101, Old Testament 102, Church History 101, Hebrew 102
8. Greece and Turkey Report(s).
9. Liveblogging Ben Witherington.
10. Liveblogging Gary Millar (one, two, three, four, five)

My favourite useful posts from this year

1. How to write a Media Release to promote your church event
2. How to talk to Atheists about Christianity
3. Awareness Raising is Overrated, (and the prequel – The Facebook Booby Trap, and the sequel about Movember, and a follow up about Social Media)
4. How to not raise bitter ministry children
5. Social Media Strategies for Churches (and a follow up on Venn Theology)
6. How not to be very good at Facebook
7. My election posts – Julia Gillard’s atheism, my Christian values election scorecard, why I won’t vote for Family First, wrap up.
8. Coffee and ministry.
9. Five cheap ways to exegete your suburb.
10. My Five Steps to Better Coffee series

Many of these are the type of thing I hope to post at Venn Theology this year (2011).

My favourite coffee posts this year

1. Seven Deadly Coffee Sins
2. From Cherry to the Cup – a look at processing and roasting coffee: part one, two, three, four, five
3. Brisbane cafe reviews: Dandelion and Driftwood, Cup, BlackStar
4. The sin of Instant Coffee.
5. Coffee and Ministry
6. A coffee gift guide.
7. Science says “don’t freeze your coffee”
8. How to make Greek Coffee.
9. A beautiful guide to coffee drinks
10. My “Five Steps to Better Coffee” Series

My favourite frivolity
But it wasn’t all serious. Here are some of my favourite posts/series from this year.

1. Ten steps to planting a mega church (with a follow-up “how to name your megachurch“)
2. 23 Bacon products that will take your breath away.
3. Mark Driscoll Ruined Facebook.
4. The Devil Wants you Fat (series – that I probably should finish now I have a scanner).
5. Backwards Masking Unmasked (The Jacob Aranza Series)
6. Mad Skillz Week
7. Liveblogging Chuck Norris’ Invasion USA (part 2, part 3, part 4, Robyn’s report).
8. The Make Me A Mexican Challenge
9. About “Hot Wives”
10. About Church Slogans (a bad example).
11. A Guide to Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse (part one b, part two, part three)
12. The definitive and authoritative guide to the six basic plot lines
13. A look at “Objective Ministries” crazy Christian conspiracy to take over the moon
14. Reverse engineering the perfect chip
15. The Art of Improvised weaponry
16. K-Strass the Yo-Yo guy

Most popular posts in 2010
Here are the most popular posts (mostly because google loves them) by visits this year. A couple of these were written last year and continue to attract a steady stream of traffic.

1. How to make Sizzler’s Cheese Toast (2009), the 2010 follow up was equally popular
2. Five things that would make atheists seem nicer: this accounted for about a quarter of 2009’s traffic. By itself. Not so much in 2010, but still enough to rank second.
3. Mark Driscoll Ruined Facebook: This one had a bit of a spike in traffic around publication, but continues to get about 10 hits a day.
4. Ten steps to planting a megachurch: This was one of my favourites, so I’m glad it did well.
5. Chuck Norris Jeans: The little engine that could. Google loves this post.
6. How to get the Facebook Like Button working on WordPress: Certainly my geekiest post of the year.
7. Bible Stories for Boys: Ehud the Left Handed
8. Eight things I’ve learned from arguing with atheists online (and why I’ve mostly given up).
9. Let’s not fly Jetstar: a 2009 post about a Jetstar nightmare.
10. Facebook Login Fail: a little post about a funny story about people googling “facebook login” and landing in the wrong place.

Most popular posts from 2010
A slightly different list – because it does away with a couple of “long tail” posts from last year.

1. Mark Driscoll Ruined Facebook
2. Ten steps to planting a megachurch
3. Chuck Norris Jeans
4. How to get the Facebook Like Button working on WordPress
5. Bible Stories for Boys: Ehud the Left Handed
6. Eight things I’ve learned from arguing with atheists online (and why I’ve mostly given up).
7. Facebook Login Fail: a little post about a funny story about people googling “facebook login” and landing in the wrong place.
8. Some Greek and Hebrew Resources
9. How to make Sizzler’s Cheese Toast How to Make Sizzler’s Cheese Toast: The 2010 follow up was equally popular
10. Typographic Moustaches

Thanks for reading.

Trials and Tribulations

After a few days holidaying in Airlie Beach and catching up with friends in Townsville, which have been really nice, tomorrow sees me “trial for license” – part of the ongoing process of becoming a Presbyterian minister.

I’m preaching at a fairly old school Presbyterian Church in Townsville in front of a few members of the North Queensland presbytery who will “appraise” my performance and pass judgment on my ministry suitability.

I’m preaching on the Beatitudes. Here’s a paragraph from my sermon.

“But I want to suggest, at this point, that we’re not looking at the beatitudes right if we understand them as a set of rules to follow to be part of God’s kingdom. I grew up thinking that the word “beatitude” was a description of what these verses mean – I thought they were a set of instructions for how we should behave, and what our attitudes should be. The beatitudes. But I think the meaning of these verses does hinge on what the word beatitudes actually means. It’s latin. It means “blessings.” And it picks up on that repeated “blessed are” phrase at the start of each verse.

The beatitudes aren’t about what we have to do to be in the kingdom – and in fact, as soon as we read them that way we’re slipping into the same trap as the Pharisees. We’re making rules and regulations for belonging to the kingdom.”

Then I say that the beatitudes are about God’s blessing of us, through Jesus, whose life and ministry are modeled on the beatitudes. Doesn’t seem heretical to me… how about to you?

Hebrew 102: Vocab Memory Hooks

My last exam is tomorrow. It’s a Hebrew exam. Urgh. Here, in the hope that typing these makes them stick in my head. Are my vocab memory hooks. For the English speakers amongst us the italicised words represent the pronunciation of the Hebrew (approximately).

זקן = to be/grow old = when you’re old you need za cane to walk.
יכל = to be able = ye call an expert when you want to be able
ירא = to be afraid = I’m not agist, I’m just afraid of people from a different yira.
כבד = to be heavy/important = that is a very heavy and important cabed (cupboard)… maybe…
מלא = to be full with = the mail bag is full with letters
שכב = to lie down = they shackev up together.
דם = blood = Out damn spot.
יראה = fear, reverence = the old man grabbed that kid by the yira and put the fear of God into him.
כלי = vessel, utensil = I had a boat called Kelly, a good vessel.
למה = why? wherefore? = Why do llamas look so silly?
מה = what? = What is that in ma soup?
נאל = to redeem, protect = Boaz hit the na-al on the head when he redeemed Ruth.
שמח = to be glad = Sometimes when parents samach their children in public it makes me glad.
שלח = to stretch out = we stretched the other team’s defence and gave them a real shelaching.
שפך = to pour = I poured water on my computer, now she f#$ked (apparently the ruder the better, and I can’t get this one out of my head).
אף = nose = when I sneeze I go aph-choo
חיל = power, valour = Hitler was powerful so people had to say “hayil Hitler”
צאן = flock, sheep = Once we shear the sheep we can get some new clothes sown (sic)
קהל = assembly, congregation = We have to have our assembly in the qahall
אחר = other, another = I have another tooth acher
אל = No. = You can’t call me al
נא = particle of entreaty (now or please) = Do it na, please…
פן = lest = I take a pen everywhere, lest I think of something and forget it.
ידע = to know = when you know how something goes you go yada yada yada
שכן = to dwell = I wouldn’t want to dwell near a chacane(sic) because people drive crazy through them
אדון = Lord, master = A good mafioso recognises A Don as master.
אהל = Tent = Camping is a taste of a hell.
בשת = shame, disgrace = that referee’s decision was absolutely bosh*t.
גוי = people, nation, gentile = It’s a joy to be a goy.
חשך = darkness, obscurity = The Darkness sound better on Cashek.
צרה = distress, strait = I need something for this one “tsara
שפה = lip, edge = and this one “sapha“…
כמו = like = when you’re in camo you look like a tree.
קדשׁ = holy, sacred, sanctuary = qadosh (again, I’ve got nothing…)
זבח = to slaughter, kill = Zavach is the sound a knife makes hitting bone.
חדל = to cease, leave off = he was going fast, but then ha dalled it back down to one…
חטא = to sin, miss the mark = he did the wrong thing, so he got a cata on his arm.
חפץ = to delight, have pleasure in = I delight in cafetz, a cafe for pets.
צעק = to cry out = If Graeme Kennedy had cried out “tsaak” instead he wouldn’t have been in trouble…
זבח = sacrifice = zebach.
חטאת = sin = If you sin you get the catath nine-tails.
מזבח = altar = mizbech
צדקה = righteousness = zedecha, I remember this one because Melchizedek was the king of righteousness.
אכל = to eat, consume = when you eat a tic tac you eat a calorie
יצא = to go out, come out = yatsa, yahtzee for people who go out…
נסע = to journey, travel = Nasa travels to the moon.
נשא = to lift up, carry = The other Nasa, we have lift up…
רדף = to pursue = Walker, Texas Ranger, rad off after some guys on a horse.
שאל = to ask = Nobody asks for sal-ad.
שכח = to forget = If you shake a baby they’ll forget everything they know.
תפש = to grasp, sieze = I like to grasp as many tapas as possible when the tray comes around.
הק = statute = there’s a statute somewhere that says you have to drink coke
משׁפט = judgment = mishpat
נפשׁ = life, living being = nephesh
איה = where? = Where the hell are ay?
עוד = still, yet = odie the dog never stays still.
בחן = to examine = bachan
ברא = to create = I created a story about the barra I caught.
משׁח = to annoint, smear (related to messiah) = I smeared peanut butter all over the bench and made a messach
עזב = to leave, forsake = azav
אמת = truth = emmeth
חן = favour, grace = The teacher showed me grace by not giving me the cane
מנחה = gift = Some body gave me a minka coat. I said I don’t wear whale.
עולם = forever = the guys from Prison Break were on the o-lam forever.
עון = iniquity, guilt, punishment = my guilt is my aon.
שׁבת = sabbath = sabbath
אז = then, at that time = az soon as.
עד = until, up to = I like to fast forward the programs until I get up to the ads
נלחם = to fight, do battle, rage war = nilcham
נמלט = to slip away, escape = If Ivan (ni)milat escapes he should be shot.
נסתר = to hide oneself = I’m (ni)star at hide and seek.
קרא = to call = qara
נשאר = to be left over, survivor (participle)
נשׁבע = to take an oath = I took an oath to shava my head
מועד = appointed time, season, meeting place = moed
נשׁיא = prince, chief = nisi
עדה = congregation = eda
עץ = tree = ets
שבט = rod, sceptre = you can take that rod and shevet
גם = also = gam
בקר = cattle = I like to cook cattle on the baqar beque
בקר = morning = Morning has boqer, like the first morning…
קץ = end, extremity = qets
שׁר = prince = sar
שׁרה = princess = sarah
בקש = to seek = baqesh
גדל = to be great = gadol
דבר = to speak = davar
הלל = to praise = halal
ספר = to count = saphar
קדש = to be holy = qadesh
אם = mother = em
רב = multitude = rov
תועבה = abomination, taboo = toeba
תמיד = continually = tamid

Old Testament 102: My sample Daniel answer

If there happens to be a question about the meaning of Daniel this is what my answer will look like (though I’ll pad it out with some Bible):

Ask a Christian doomsday cult fanatic what their favourite book of the Bible is, and in the mix with Revelation and Ezekiel will no doubt be the book of Daniel. Daniel is a tale of two halves – the latter half has been widely recognised as apocalyptic in nature – a cryptic condemnation of foreign rulers, and a message of hope for the people of God in the midst of foreign persecution. But what to do with the first half of the book? Chapters 1-6 read like a series of court tales in a foreign land, with enough similarities to a Disney movie to spawn countless retellings in children’s stories in churches around the globe. But could it be that simple?

Short answer, no. Like many stories that appear to be straightforward and geared towards children (Shrek for example) the story contains an undercurrent of harsh and satirical criticism of foreign rule – a mocking of inept kings, with a hopeful note for the people of God. God is in control, despite Israel’s political dilemma.

The identification of Daniel as a Menippean Satire was proposed by Valetta. Valetta identified the fourteen elements of satire from the late (second century) BC period. A recognition that has implications for the dating, and interpretation, of Daniel. Debate in scholarly circles has been largely settled on the question of a sixth century prescriptive dating of the second half of Daniel – while scholars are not ruling out predictive prophecy per say, some, such as Goldingay, note that such a level of detail is not common in Biblical prophecy (though such an assumption seems also to depend on ruling out a single, early, author of Isaiah), other problems presented for a sixth century dating include a series of historical inaccuracies that are best explained if the book is written in the second century with a sixth century setting. The only scholar of note still advocating a sixth century dating is Tremper Longman. Longman’s position sees him advocate a fairly simplistic application of Daniel’s first six chapters, he sees them as stories of bravery under fire, to be imitated by believers facing hostility.

Daniel as satire presents a more robust application – foreign rule is seen to be ridiculous, or worthy of ridicule, in comparison to the greatness of God’s rule. Clues for the satirical reading include the use of the language of the court (Aramaic) for much of the negative presentation of foreign rulers, the refrain “oh king may you live forever” occurring at intervals and incidents where the king is experiencing a particularly humiliating or traumatic time, and the presence of all fourteen elements of the Menippean Satire described by Bahktin. A satirical reading also integrates more comfortably with the apocalyptic undertones of the second half of the book – positioning the whole book as a rebuke of foreign rule designed to inspire hope within the oppressed people of Israel. The satirical take on the king (probably Antiochus IV) softens the target for the deadly blow of chapters 7-13, the prediction of his downfall. The book then contains a united condemnation of foreign rule, a message of judgment, and a message of hope for the oppressed.

Old Testament 102: Wisdom and Biblical Theology (an attempted answer)

Right. Here goes. This is my attempt to synchronise all of those posts on wisdom literature and the Old Testament the way I’d approach answering a question about how wisdom fits into Biblical Theology. I haven’t fact checked any of this – I put it together from memory. Under “exam conditions” except that I typed it, so it took about half the time to write that it will tomorrow…

The Wisdom Literature has presented a dilemma for scholars seeking to integrate it into popular Biblical theology framework – Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes contain no obvious allusions to redemptive history, especially to touchstones such as the covenant and promise fulfillment (especially the Abrahamic covenant of Genesis 12). A further challenge is presented by the appearance of a strong dependency on the wisdom literature of other Ancient Near Eastern nations, similarities that have prompted some scholars to treat the wisdom literature as an errant step-child of Old Testament theology.

Von Rad and Eichrodt were the first 20th century scholars to have a bash at piecing a theology of the Old Testament together, and both struggled to find a place for the Wisdom corpus in their ideas of redemptive history and covenant fulfillment. Von Rad even dismisses the most natural link in Proverbs to this redemptive work – the reoccurring phrase “the fear of the Lord” on the basis that it is simply an adoption of ANE wisdom through a monotheistic lens. I would suggest that the “Fear of the Lord” is a unifying theme of the wisdom books (reoccurring throughout Proverbs, and bookending Job and Ecclesiastes) – and rather than being the result of redaction, that it serves to locate wisdom alongside the covenantal responsibilities of Israel. Where the law establishes the floor of Israelite behaviour, the wisdom literature, in understanding how humans were created to live, establishes a goal for God’s people to strive for.

Goldsworthy, Brueggemann, and Goldingay have suggested worthwhile approaches to integrating the wisdom literature into Biblical Theology, approaches Wilson describes, and critiques at some length.

Goldsworthy’s Gospel and Wisdom suggests the “Fear of the Lord” and a linking of the wisdom literature to a wisdom movement patronized by King Solomon (ala the account of his reign in 1 Kings 4-10) provides fertile ground for understanding where wisdom fits into redemption history, and in particular into his rubric of God’s people, living in God’s place, under God’s rule. The wisdom movement, which emerged under Solomon’s reign, sought to understand how God’s place (creation) worked, and thus how best to live under it.

Christopher Wright goes a step further – suggesting that the wisdom literature was part of an international wisdom conversation, and that the 1 Kings account of Solomon dispensing wisdom to the nations is a fulfillment of the Genesis 12 promise of blessing on foreign nations. He suggests the link to Solomon expressed in both Proverbs and Ecclesiastes should be read with this in mind. This perhaps explains the presence of ANE wisdom both overtly (in the case of Proverbs, which includes contributions from foreign kings) and covertly (in similarities between the wisdom literature and contemporary documents – eg Ecclesiastes and the Gilgamesh Epic).

This approach highlights one approach traditionally used to bring the wisdom literature inline with the Old Testament – seeking to find elements of the redemption story in the wisdom literature (eg the link between the “Fear of the Lord” and Deuteronomy 4, and the explicit conclusion of Ecclesiastes that true wisdom is to fear the Lord and keep his commands), and to find elements of wisdom literature in other Biblical texts – an approach that Crenshaw has advocated for understanding such texts as the Joseph Narrative, and the book of Esther. Wilson suggests that Crenshaw takes his conclusion a bridge too far, wanting to see those accounts purely as wisdom when in fact wisdom is simply a part of the picture.

A second, no less fruitful approach to theologizing wisdom is that promoted by Brueggemann and Goldingay – Brueggemann suggests a dialectic approach, with twin poles of creation and redemption sitting at the heart of Old Testament theology, the wisdom literature then naturally explores God’s creation, and what it means to live within it. Goldingay proposes four pillars for approaching these poles – realizing that we live in a world that God created, realizing that the world God created needs redemption, understanding that we are called to live redeemed lives in the creation, and understanding that our hope is in redemption, or new creation – these four points provide a framework that can easily include the law, the prophets, and the wisdom movement.

There is no reason that both approaches will not find rich interactions between the wisdom movement and the rest of the Old Testament – where the Fear of the Lord and a Solomonic fulfillment of the promises of Genesis 12 help tie the Wisdom Literature to the people of the covenant, while the attempts of the books to help us understand the created order go some way to instructing God’s people in how to best live redeemed lives in his creation.

Old Testament 102: Just what is the go with Daniel?

Talk to anybody from the more “loony fringe” side of Christianity and if their favourite book of the Bible isn’t Revelation, it’ll be Daniel. Daniel has all the hallmarks crazy people look for – cool stories, cool symbolism that can be taken literally, and figurative descriptions of political entities that can be interpreted, or reinterpreted, in order to negatively describe just about any political institution that has developed in the last 2,000 – 3,000 years.

Daniel’s dating is a pretty hot topic amongst scholars, most, if not all, have now settled on a date somewhere in the second century B.C, which makes Daniel the last book (chronologically speaking) of the Old Testament, and gives us some picture of the kind of thinking happening in Israel 100-200 years pre-Jesus.

The M Div/Grad Dip question in the exam is likely to focus on the question of meaning in Daniel – and my lovely wife wrote a most excellent essay on Daniel’s genre, which overlapped substantially with the question of meaning. So this post is largely dependent on that work.

She settled on a definition of Daniel’s genre as satire in the first half, with a healthy dash of apocalyptic style in the second half – this means Daniel functions largely as a rebuke of foreign rulers, those who are oppressing Israel, and an affirmation of God’s rightful place with regards to those rulers.

Robyn’s essay says:

“Daniel is God’s assertion of his authority over foreign kingdoms and all who reject him.”

Daniel’s genre has huge ramifications on its meaning – and the genre is notoriously different to nail down. A guy named Valeta suggests 32 different genres have been identified for Daniel. Almost everybody thinks chapters 7-12 are apocalyptic. A satirical reading, as advocated by Valeta, requires a 6th century narrative setting, with a second century composition. Part of the argument for a second century dating is an assumption that Biblical prophecy is not as predictive as chapters 7-12 appear to be (which is an interesting assumption). There are, however, a few historical inaccuracies in the account of Israel’s history in 1-6 which make a satirical reading seem plausible.

Historical inaccuracies include the silence of 2 Kings concerning the siege of Jerusalem in the third year of Jehoiakim (Daniel 1:1),14 the lack of evidence for the historicity of King Belshazzar, Darius the Mede, or Nebuchadnezzar’s insanity. Second-century apologists also cite literary evidence such as the use of the term “Chaldeans,” and a bunch of Persian and Greek loan words as evidence for a later date of composition than the 6th century.

Here are some thoughts from Robyn’s essay about the dating and predictive prophecy:

On the issue of predictive versus descriptive interpretation, particularly in light of Daniel 8:23-25 and 11:3-45, evangelical second-century supporters ask not “could God prophecy?” rather “would God do it?” and “did God do it?” To which Collins (1993) replies “there is no apparent reason… why a prophet of the sixth century should focus minute attention on the events of the second century.” Goldingay (1989) adds that such specificity is inconsistent with God elsewhere in scripture for, “he does not give signs and reveal dates. His statements about the future are calls to decision now; he is not the God of prognosticators. He calls his people to naked faith and hope in him in the present, and does not generally bolster their faith with the kind of revelations that we are thinking of here.”

While it’s possible that some of these points rest on assumptions that may or may not be provable, it comes down to a question of balancing the pros and cons of both datings – and the application of the book if it is a late composition (God is more powerful than oppressive foreign rulers) is possibly or greater worth than the application of an early dating (be like Daniel). While this isn’t a great rubric for deciding between two options, none of the assumptions in the paragraph above are any less plausible than those put forward by sixth century advocates. And a satirical reading actually does away with a bunch of the objections (the book seems to be quite conciliatory to foreign rulers at face value).

Longman pushes a sixth century dating, as almost the lone scholarly horse in that race (though he may even be shifting – but I haven’t read his alleged shift yet).

Longman’s (1999) historical reading of Daniel finds the first six chapters as “deceptively simple stories of faith under pressure,” in which Daniel is a clear and encouraging figure to emulate. Longman recognizes the second half of the book as the prophetic visions of Daniel, the message of which are “in spite of present appearance, God is in control.”

Goldingay suggests the court tales narratives of Daniel 1-6 “portray a God who rules in heaven who is also sovereign over the realm of death, who is active in the past and trustworthy for the future.”

Valeta defines the function of satire within this court tale setting as:

“Satire is more than “linguistic and rhetorical cleverness,” it bears “a serious side that can be used to indicate judgments against individuals and institutions and to highlight reversals of status and importance.”

He argues that Daniel fits the criteria for Menippean satire, a serio-comedic precursor to the novel that was studied and defined by Bakhtin. Bakhtin characterises
Menippean satire with fourteen characteristics, all of which are present in Daniel.

Elements of satire include, “comic elements; a freedom of plot an philosophical inventiveness; a use of extraordinary, fantastic situations or wild parodic displays of learning to test the truth; some combination of both crude and lofty imagery, settings, and themes; a concern for ultimate questions; scenes and dialogue from the earthly, heavenly, and netherworldly realms; observation of behavior from an unusual vantage point; characters who experience unusual, abnormal moral and psychic states; characters who participate in scandals, eccentric behavior, and/or inappropriate speech; sharp contrasts and oxymoronic combinations;
elements of social utopia; a variety of inserted genres within the work; a multi-styled, multi-toned, or multi-voiced work that is dialogic based on inserted genres, voices and languages; and a concern with current and topical issues.”

The purpose of the book, employing a satirical reading, is the deconstruction of “kingly authority and power in favor of God’s authority and power” and in this way acts as resistance literature to the regime of Antiochus IV, and as such, the book is a cohesive work, characterized by “a consistent and persistent message of judgment.”

Chapter 1 is vital for establishing the genre of the book…

Here, a narrative reading would identify verse 8 as the lynchpin, honoring Daniel’s faithfulness and Jewish distinctiveness. Satire, however, may suggest verse 17, identifying God as the source of Daniel’s wisdom. Furthermore, irony is at work, undermining of the king’s power and dominance; firstly that his victory and looting occurs only because God allows it (Daniel 1:2); secondly, his unsuccessful and superficial attempt to limit God’s power through the changing of the captive’s names (Daniel 1:6, 17-20);45 and, finally, the negotiation and approval of Daniel’s request for vegetables and water proving favorable (Daniel 1:8-16). Additionally, the food episode is hyperbolic because of the profundity of the change in a short period of time.

What Menippean Satire looks like:

“Menippean satire is frequently characterised by fantastic, or otherworldly aspects. Such displacements from reality are frequent in Daniel51 and “shift the viewpoint from normal everyday reality to the unexpected and the divine.” It is used to mock its target and confront political and social norms. In Daniel, “these stories are humorous, ultimate expressions of the crowning and decrowning of authority that is so characteristic of the carnival and menippea. The stories of Daniel 1-6 reinforce again and again the critique of the accepted norm of relationship between the powerful and the powerless, representing the realities of the true authority that comes not from earthly power but by divine fiat.”

There is plenty of irony present in the narrative.

“Furthermore, the cry ‘O king, live forever!’ which resonates throughout is heard when the king is at his weakest. In the midst of the confusing dream of a grotesque tree (Daniel 2:4), at the dedication of the absurd state (Daniel 3:9), when being manipulated by his officials (Daniel 6:6), when kneeling beside the lion pit (Daniel 6:21) and, perhaps most amusingly, it is uttered by the queen when the king was ‘weak-kneed’, or had lost his bowels, before his dinner guests (Daniel 5:10). When read through a satirical lens, such a refrain, which has a facade of positive assertion for the king, is used for ridicule and mockery. To similar effect are hyperbolic multiple-synonyms lists of government officials, citizens, and musical instruments (Daniel 2:2, 6, 10, 27, 37, 40, 46; 3:7, 10, 15; 6:7, etc.) and outlandish actions (Daniel 2:12, 3:19).”

The presence of two languages in the manuscripts –  Aramaic, and Hebrew, suggests a satirical reading.

“The ‘official’ language of the royal court, is used in some very ‘unofficial’ ways’ such as paronomasia, repetition and consonance.” Aramaic itself is used to ridicule the king.”

Some concluding thoughts:

“Satire asserts the theme as condemnation for all who reject God’s rule; it enthrones God as supreme ruler and gives prominence Daniel’s prayer as a right response to God’s kingship.”

“God’s judgment is clearly evident in the apocalyptic chapters, particularly in the vision of the Ancient of Days and Son of Man (Daniel 7:1-13). It clearly attests to the destruction of earthly kingdoms and the inauguration of the eternal kingdom (Daniel 7:23-28).”

“The case for a satirical reading of Daniel is compelling. It negates the need for historical accuracy, a stumbling block for advocates of a historical and prophetic-apocalyptical reading. It gives meaning to the countless absurdities, ironies, wordplays and comedic elements that other readings brush over. Daniel conforms to the linguistic stipulations of Menippean satire, making sense of the interplay of voices, mixing of style, language and elements to create a piece that is both comic and serious, episodic and unified.”

Old Testament 102: Meaningful “meaningless” – An exploration of הבל in Ecclesiastes

The Hebrew word “Hebel” has a pretty broad semantic range – meaning that translating it as “meaningless” is just one of many potential meanings. Literally it means “breath” – but its use in Ecclesiastes is metaphoric.

Scholars are divided on how best to translate it – Fox, in a 1986 article in the Journal of Biblical Literature, settled on “absurd,” Waltke in his Old Testament Theology settled on “nonsense,” Provan, in his commentary on Ecclesiastes chose a “fleeting breath,” while Kidner, in his commentary chose “airy nothingness.”

Provan recognises a bit of circular reasoning involved in the process – Hebel is not used this way in the rest of the Bible, and to understand the way it is used we must understand Ecclesiastes, but to understand Ecclesiastes we need to understand the function of Hebel.

Fox, comments on the difficulty the word presents:

No one English word corresponds exactly to the semantic shape of hebel as Qohelet uses it, but it is possible to render the word by an equivalent that comes close to representing its range of meaning and that bears similar connotations. The best translation equivalent for hebel in Qohelet’s usage is “absurd, absurdity… The essence of the absurd is a disparity between two terms that are supposed to be joined by a link of harmony or causality but are, in fact, disjunct. The absurd is an affront to reason, in the broad sense of the human faculty that looks for order in the world about us.

Barry Webb’s Five Festal Garments follows the NIV’s “meaningless” translation, but agrees with Eugene Peterson that the notion of trying to pin down an exact translation of the word is futile. Peterson says “various meanings glance of its surface as the context shifts.”

Webb and Peterson suggest the word serves to demonstrate Qoheleth’s role as a debunker:

“He will not tolerate pretension or allow anything to appear more solid or satisfying than it really is. In a delightful image coined by Peterson, he uses hebel like a broom to sweep away all our illusions.”

Webb comments on the structure of the book, demonstrating a unity within the “frame” – “The body of the book is framed by a superscription, a thematic statement, and an opening poem at the beginning, and three corresponding elements in reverse order at the end: closing poem, same thematic statement, epilogue.”

He sees the internal structure of the book as a series of observations and instructions – hebel occurs 23 times in these observations (out of 38 times in the book). In the observations it is almost always used in a stereotyped conclusion: “This too is hebel.”

Hebel appears as a negative refrain, a “chasing after the wind” eight times. The observations made are to back up the introductory thesis that everything is meaningless.

Webb believes that ultimately hebel refers to the universality of death – it doesn’t matter what we achieve, we’re going to die. He says that’s part of the purpose of representing Solomon’s works and achievements as meaningless – it’s not his apostasy, as the prophets suggest, but his mortality, that makes his great wisdom altogether hebel.

Webb suggests that the writer of Ecclesiastes has Genesis 1-11 in mind as he writes, and that Hebel is not a simple fact, but a reference to the judgment God has placed on the world, a manifestation of the fall.

“The special contribution of Ecclesiastes is to insist on the presence of Hebel as a universal datum of human experience which must be acknowledged, and to rule out of court any kind of wisdom that refuses to do this – even if its practitioners claim to be disciples of Solomon. It guards wisdom against unreality.”

Kidner, in his commentary on Ecclesiastes, suggests the “mere breath” of Ecclesiastes is a desperate and ominous description of that which is slight and passing. He thinks the doubling effect common in references “vanity of vanities” is a parody of “holy of holiness” – and thus utter emptiness stands in contrast with utter holiness.

Kidner both suggest the phrase “under the sun” is the key for defining the scope of the “hebel” statement – it’s not life under God, but life without him.

It is a phrase almost as common as “meaningless” – occurring nearly thirty times in the book. Others have suggested a temporal notion that goes with the phrase – that it means this lifetime, in this place.

Webb suggests that the “under the sun” is not exclusively used to exclude God from the picture.

“What is significant, however, is that the verdict of hebel is consistently maintained, whether God’s involvement with the world is on view at a particular point or not. Belief in God does not relieve the observed and experienced fact of hebel.”

Kidner believes that theologically, we need to read Ecclesiastes in the light of the epilogue to appreciate its place in the canon, and the nature of the discussion.

Webb suggests that the epilogue reintroduces the frame narrator, who seeks to put Qohelet’s thoughts into perspective. He suggests that the epilogue points to the one thing that remains when the searching of wisdom ends in frustration – the Fear of the Lord, which consists of keeping his commandments.

Andrew Shead makes an argument from the text itself, studying the form, and grammar to make a case for unity in style between the epilogue and the rest of the book, suggesting a single author, and a single voice. At this point, Tremper Longman’s objections that Ecclesiastes is a pagan book with no real redeeming features except the opening and closing statements fails to take into account Qoheleth’s purpose as identified by Kidner and others.

Old Testament 102: Kidner on Von Rad on Protest, Biblical Theology, and Wisdom

In his commentary on Ecclesiastes, Kidner addresses the opening salvo in Ecclesiastes (1:1-11), and particularly the statement “there is nothing new under the sun” and the idea that everything repeats itself (1:8-9), suggesting that it presents a new attitude in Israel – a weariness of doing much, and getting nowhere…

Von Rad, in his Old Testament Theology, thought at this point the author of Ecclesiastes, and thus the Wisdom Literature:

“lost its last contact with Israel’s old way of thinking in terms of saving history, and quite consistently fell back on the cyclical way of thinking common to the East,… only… in an utterly secular form.”

Kidner suggests that might be a fair assessment of the outlook, but that this is an outlook adopted by Qoheleth to expose the views of worldly man, in order to create a hunger for something better.

Von Rad’s views only work because he gets rid of the “Fear of the Lord” bits because he thinks they get in the way of the real message of the book.