I am slotted to give a paper in San Diego on 17 November 2007. My focus is on a few verses towards the middle of Psalm 102. Full details for the session, including links to abstracts, are as follows.

S17-108

Book of Psalms

11/17/2007
4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
Room: Windsor BC - GH

William Bellinger, Baylor University, Presiding

Daniel R. Driver, University of St. Andrews
For a Generation to Come: The Addressee of Psalm 102 in Reception and Recent Research (30 min)

Robert E. Wallace, Shorter College
Back to the Beginning: Yahweh as King, Moses as Mediator and Psalms 104-106 (30 min)

Judith Gärtner, Universität Hamburg
The Tora in Psalm 106 and Psalm 136 (30 min)

Jinkyu Kim, Nyack College
Strategic Arrangement of Royal Psalms in the Last Two Books of the Psalter (30 min)

Charles Rix, Drew University
Note the Silence: Reading Psalm 137 Through Messiaen and Bak (30 min)


Since my proposal was supposed to have a paragraph break in it, and since what else is a blog for?, and since it'll be good to keep the thing out in front of me as November approaches, here's my proposal/abstract:

In recent years, some attention has been paid to Psalm 102 by scholars interested in the canon’s final form, though in very different ways. Odil Steck, for instance, has argued not just that the psalm be read as a whole (contra an older form-critical understanding), but that its singularity be explained with reference to a body of scripture largely extant at the time of its composition. For him, the psalm arises at a late redactional phase in the formation of the canon, testifying to the confluence of distinctive prophetic and sapiential streams of tradition. Somewhat differently, Brevard Childs has discussed Psalm 102 as an instance of the authority scripture increasingly accrued in textualized form: it was “recorded for a generation to come” (19a). Despite fairly substantial disagreements in a number of areas—including about the place of intentionality as such—Steck and Childs agree that the intended audience is in the remote future. On analogy with late prophecy, perhaps, the generation addressed is not near, but distant; in Steck’s word, the psalm voices “Fernerwartung.”

The burden of the present paper is to query the history of reception of Psalm 102, particularly verse 19, to see whether there is any “family resemblance” (Childs) with these more recent interpretations. Which generations have been found in the psalmist’s purview? The results may have an important bearing on Childs’s program, which has long sought to hold the history of interpretation together with modern research (most recently, cf. The Struggle to Understand Isaiah as Christian Scripture). If preoccupation with an original cultic context is a modern oddity, what can be said for the theory of a radicalized eschatology?

Obviously, the whole thing is kinda supposed to relate to the last chapter of my dissertation.

Tags: Childs, Psalms, PhD

There's a conference taking place here in St Andrews over the first part of next week, hosted by ITIA (Institute for Theology, Imagination & the Arts).

It's called The Offence of Beauty: What can a theological perspective on beauty offer to the arts today? Not exactly my area, but I'm in to both offence and beauty, and some of the sessions look pretty good. I'll go along if I can swing it, and you should too if you're in the area. (Sorry that you're not, DW, as I'm sure you'd strike up at least three energizing conversations.) Keynote speakers will be:

Trevor Hart – 'Ugly as Sin? Beauty, Holiness and the Crucified'

Nicholas Wolterstorff – 'The Troubled Relationship of Art with Beauty'

Carol Harrison – 'Kind of Blue: Beauty and Broken Images'

Patrick Sherry – 'The Holy Spirit and Beauty'

Bernard Beatty – 'Beauty and the Opening of Distance: Defending the
Two-Dimensional'

Robert Jenson – 'Deus Est Ipsa Pulchritudo'

Inside scoop: One postgrad here giving a short paper may not make it because his wife might be in labor at this very moment.

Tags: St Andrews

Early this fall there will be a public memorial service for Brevard Childs. It will take place on Tuesday, 25 September, at 5:00, at Yale Divinity School in Marquand Chapel. A reception will follow in the common room. (I'd try to attend if I weren't a continent away.)

Later, at the November SBL Congress in San Diego, a panel will reflect on his career. The members of the panel are still to be announced, though I know at least Christopher Seitz is involved. As it stands on the SBL site today, the details are:

S18-50

Reflections on Brevard Childs

11/18/2007
1:00 PM to 3:00 PM
Room: 30 E - CC

A panel of scholars, in light of Child's death in July 2007, is being assembled. The panel will reflect on the contributions of Brevard Childs' career. Among the topics to be covered will be his influence on form criticism, reception history, Old Testament introductions, New Testament studies, and theology.


As I am giving a paper there the day before, I do of course plan to be in attendance. A much smaller session was hosted in Vienna (on Wednesday, 25 July 2007), thanks to quick arrangements by Kent Richards. Memorable comments after Seitz's paper included those of James Kugel and Erhard Gerstenberger. The latter recalled splitting some obstinate wood for the Childs household on one visit to Yale, and contributing a critical essay to the first Childs FS that was nevertheless received with warmth and gratitude.

Because a little more time has passed, the November session promises to be more comprehensive, and more directed to Childs' diverse scholarly efforts.

In Vienna there was also a session for James Barr. I am sorry that it does not look like a similar session has been planned for him in San Diego.

Tags: Childs

It can take a while to find your legs again after a period of non-PhD-related reading. At the end of this week, with HP 7 long behind me, and a list of things to grab at the library starting Monday, I'm finding my stride again. This week I enjoyed dabbling in or pushing through:

*Brandt, Peter. Endgestalten des Kanons: Das Arrangement der Schriften Israels in der jüdischen und christlichen Bibel. Bonner biblische Beiträge 131. Berlin: Philo, 2001.
*Dohmen, Christoph. Exodus 19–40. Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Alten Testament Freiburg/Basel/Vienna: Herder, 2004.
*———. Die Bibel und ihre Auslegung. 3rd, revised edition. Munich: C. H. Beck, 2006.
*Levin, Christoph. Das Alte Testament. 3rd, revised edition. Munich: C. H. Beck, 2006.
*MacDonald, Neil B. Metaphysics and the God of Israel: Systematic Theology of the Old and New Testaments. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007.

With a little French practice thrown in each day, it starts to feel like I'm making headway again. I've been saying I'll be done in a year for how many months now?

Tags: PhD

We finally got around to selecting a few (59) photos from our month in Paris. I've linked them on the photos page, but have decided on using Picasa as our free host. Older photos may be posted again in due course.

Tags: Personal

The course in Paris is over (sigh), and we're back in St Andrews again. I've been working on French on my own a little every day this week. Hopefully our memories and photos will motivate the practice for some while.

The French say that culture is like jam: the less you have, the thinner you spread it. Scotland has some culture (more than Kansas at least) but Paris is unbeatable in that regard. We've come back determined to find as much as we can. For example, food markets don't compare (I balked when I saw the word boulangerie today) but we're trying out Bellfield Organic Nursery, which we've heard recommended. As for the arts, again no comparison, but the Pittenweem Arts Festival is this weekend, and the Fringe Festival lasts all month.

As for the beach, why stay along the Seine (better photo here)? Most Parisians don't. After all, we have the East Sands just outside our door, and the West Sands across town.

Are we psyching ourselves up? Well, in view of a last year to write up, and of another Scottish winter, and of the end of Harry Potter (I keep trying to feel superior to it, but it's great), yes. What other choice do we have?

Spreading it thin, but with relish,
DnA

Tags: Personal