SBL in San Diego is fast approaching, particularly as I travel that way early to see my family and home state (Oregon) for the first time in ages. My paper on Psalm 102 (or read the proposal) is nearly ready, and for those of you who may wish to acquaint yourselves with the subject matter, I post below Robert Alter's new translation of the psalm in question.

1 A prayer for the lowly when he grows faint and pours out his plea before the LORD.
2 LORD, O hear my prayer,
and let my outcry come before You.
3 Hide not Your face from me
on the day when I am in straits.
Incline Your ear to me.
On the day I call, quickly answer me.
4 For my days are consumed in smoke,
and my bones are scorched like a hearth.
5 My heart is stricken and withers like grass,
so I forget to eat my bread.
6 From my loud sighing,
my bones cleave to my flesh.
7 I resemble the wilderness jackdaw,
I become like the owl of the ruins.
8 I lie awake and become
like a lonely bird on a roof.
9 All day long my enemies revile me,
my taunters invoke me in curse.
10 For ashes I have eaten as bread,
and my drink I have mingled with tears—
11 because of Your wrath and Your fury,
for You raised me up and flung me down.
12 My days inclined like a shadow,
and I—like grass I withered.
13 And You LORD, forever enthroned,
and Your name—for all generations.
14 You, may You rise, have mercy on Zion,
for it is the hour to pity her, for the fixed time has come.
15 For Your servants cherish her stones
and on her dust they take pity.
16 All the nations will fear the name of the LORD,
and all the kings of the earth, Your glory.
17 For the LORD has rebuilt Zion,
He is seen in His glory.
18 He has turned to the prayer of the desolate
and has not despised their prayer.
19 Let this be inscribed for a generation to come,
that a people yet unborn may praise Yah.
20 For the LORD has gazed down from His holy heights,
from heaven to earth He has looked
21 to hears the groans of the captive,
to set loose those doomed to die,
22 that the name of the LORD be recounted in Zion
and His praise in Jerusalem
23 when peoples gather together
and kingdoms, to serve the LORD.
24 He humbled my strength on the highway,
he cut short my days.
25 I say, “O my God.
Do not take me away in the midst of my days!
Your years are for all generations.
26 Of old You founded the earth,
and the heavens—Your handiwork.
27 They will perish and You will yet stand.
They will all wear away like a garment.
Like clothing you change them, and they pass away.
28 But You—Your years never end.
29 The sons of Your servants dwell safe,
their seed in Your presence, unshaken.”

My only question: I get why you'd want to keep as much of the ancient character in the translation as possible, but does "Yah" in verse 19 really count as a translation? Seems like punting.

Tags: Psalms

Professor of Old Testament: the job vacancy left by Christopher Seitz has at last been filled by Kristin De Troyer. She will take up the post on 1 June 2008.

Tags: St Andrews

In preparing for the seminar discussion I'm leading tomorrow, I dug up some papers I haven't looked at for a while, including the very rare transcript of Karl Barth and the Future of Theology: A Memorial Colloquium Held at Yale Divinity School January 28, 1969—held barely a month after Barth passed away. Brevard Childs and Hans Frei were among the panelists.

Charles Scalise made a lot of the piece in his dissertation on Childs and Barth (1987), and again in a follow-up article in SJT 47 (1994): 61–88, which has sometimes been cited by those wishing to criticize Childs by associating him with Barth. (The Childs essay in question is: “Karl Barth as Interpreter of Scripture.” Pages 30-39 in Karl Barth and the Future of Theology. Edited by D. L. Dickerman. New Haven: Yale Divinity School Association, 1969. When I first tried to get my hands on it, the librarian at St Andrews told me there was no copy in Britain.)

Childs' essay was reworked in 1989, though it remains unpublished. (It was pulled out again at the Beecher lectures, where Childs filled in for Lee Keck, who had been in a car accident.) But what Scalise, and to my knowledge everybody else too, fails to mention about the YDS colloquium volume is that, at the back, it includes a transcript of the Q&A which followed the paper session.

It's really illuminating stuff. A while back I OCRed it (it appears to have been transcribed from a cassette tape by a research assistant way back). As I think virtually nobody has seen this, and it's chatty and informal, and it highlights a number of important points, I'm posting the script here.

Points of note:

1. Childs lines up with Frei (indeed, partly learns from Frei) on "the heart of the problem: that for Calvin, the sensus literalis IS Jesus Christ. And it was only when you have the eighteenth century identification of the literal sense with the historical sense that you’re just hopelessly lost."
   
   
2. When they say this (Frei: "That's right.") nobody knows what they're talking about.
   
   
3. Allegorical readings can't be dismissed out of hand for either Childs or Frei.
   
   
4. But when it comes down to a few finer details, Childs differs from Frei on the matter of reference.
   
   
5. Specifically, for Childs the "ontology" issue at stake means "the scope of the canon; namely, the reality which is in dialectic with the text, defined by its canonical context. I don’t see how you can avoid a dialectic between text and reality, in some sort."
   
   
6. For Childs, this is why "the new hermeneutic is not only mistaken, but it one colossal cul de sac."
   
   
7. 1969 is incredibly early—the year before Childs' Biblical Theology in Crisis, and five years before Frei's Eclipse of Biblical Narrative.

The full discussion (minus a few digressions):

STUDENT: I have a question. You’ve commented tonight on the truthfulness of Barth’s use of scripture. You’ve commented on the wide-ranging homiletical force of much of his writing. But when you look at it closely enough in some respects in some places, it is not textually predicated or warranted sometimes, and may even sometimes be allegorical. How do you appropriate, still, some of this live genius that’s there, and yet at the same time remain more controlled by the text? That would probably be one question.

And the second question would be, Do you see any person on the horizon who shows promise of being as crucial, as forceful, and yet takes more seriously what the text is saying—controlling himself at this point more than Barth?

BREVARD CHILDS: Well it seems to me for the last twenty or thirty years people have been trying to combine the orthodoxy of Barth with the historical-critical approach. It seems to me that this enterprise has now come to and end and has proven unfruitful—that you are now at the turn of the road, you have to go either right or left; that the type of move that said Barth is right in seeing theological dimension, but now we have to take history more seriously and bring in the whole baggage—I don’t think this can—

In other words, I’m suggesting that the problem is far deeper than this. It’s a problem that certainly didn’t just arise with Barth. (And much of what I’ve learned about this has come from talking with Hans Frei.) But it has often bothered and puzzled me. You see, when you read Calvin, he fights against the whole medieval tradition by saying it’s the sensus literails that counts—it’s the literal sense—and you have page after page against the whole church dogma. But then you read Calvin on the Old Testament, and here’s Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ. How could it possibly be? And everybody just says that Calvin is just inconsistent.

It seems to me that this doesn’t at all touch the heart of the problem: that for Calvin, the sensus literalis IS Jesus Christ. And it was only when you have the eighteenth century identification of the literal sense with the historical sense that you’re just hopelessly lost. And it seems to me that it’s something along that line—that we’ve just been unable to understand what Barth is doing.

HANS FREI: That’s right.

JULIAN HARTT: Would you mind repeating that?

CHILDS: It sounds better in German, though.

STUDENT: Is it something we can do today?

FREI: Sure, because you see [tape unintelligible] in his exegesis he’s looking at the text. He’s not looking through the text at the person who wrote it. He is, I think, a highly literal reader—what’s set before you there—whereas I noticed that one goes back (in questioning his exegesis) constantly to and earlier version of Barth that he pretty clearly forsook very soon: namely, the Barth for whom the letter became transparent and pointed him to something deeper, something else.

I think, because one thing about Barth is that he’s very much controlled by the letter—no spirit without letter—very much controlled by the letter, and in regard to that and historical criticism, he simply made the move: when you’re doing historical criticism, you’re doing a pretty fine thing, I’m sure. But it’s just logically different from reading the text, burrowing under it, and cropping out all over it, lots of nice things. And I’m sure that there’s an awful lot of illumination to be gained by that. But you’re not reading the text, you see. Barth reads the text. It cannot be qualified with other things.

In Scripture we know that when we read a story, a historical investigation of the story is a very good thing to do. But we need to know how that text works, what’s in the text. And though we have a hard time describing how we do that, in fact when we compare about what we think it says we often find that we can agree on things, and I think fundamentally it is as simple as that. That’s how it works for Barth.

SALIERS: . . . [But the] assumption that we can treat things as a literary whole which gives us a certain critical concept of literalness, which we can then employ, is a thing that the Biblical people, at least the ones who knit their brows when you said that, are probably worrying about.

CHILDS: Well, it’s a real problem. I wouldn’t go quite with Hans in this direction. It seems to me that the problem came up very early in church history when Jerome attempted to translate the Bible from Hebrew. Augustine called him into question. He said the New Testament and the Church is receiving the Old Testament in terms of the Septuagint, and therefore this is the context and there’s no use going behind it. You can’t go behind it. And Jerome of course just killed him at this point in defending the need for seeing the original context.

Here, it seems to me that both had a point. Obviously, Augustine was right in taking seriously the fact that the Old Testament had taken another form and had assumed another context by being passed through the Septuagint. But Jerome obviously was right in claiming that the next context of the church did not obliterate the older context in which it was seen. In other words, what I’m saying is that the problem that remains the most thorny one is how the various contexts relate. And Barth, in criticizing the historical critics’ insistence that you read the original context but take seriously the theological-confessional context, it seems to me, is in the danger—just as Augustine—of obliterating the need for dealing with the original context.

[. . . After a few minutes, the discussion returns to Childs’ differences with Frei.]

CHILDS: But you see [Barth] doesn’t use the term “context,” but he talks about the canon, namely: that Scripture is the apostolic, prophetic testimony all linked together. Don’t go behind this, don’t separate it. And this is a context; in other words, this is a theological context—

ROBERT JOHNSON: You’re speaking, then, of the historical context that Barth says is in the word “history.”

CHILDS: No, no. That’s the whole point: that Barth objects to everyone who does this.

JOHNSON: So, from the point of view of what Hans is arguing, what he’s really talking about is not the historical context but the literary context.

CHILDS: That’s where Hans and I differ somewhat. I move in a little different direction here. In other words, it seems to me that there are problems when you get—I would agree fully with Hans when he’s combatting those historical critics who would want to go behind the text, but it’s interesting when you begin to deal with the narrative text, as a context. One has to keep in mind that the early church, in the controversy with Judaism, took quite a different move. When the Jews were saying, read the text! read the text!, the Christians said, there’s something behind the text. It’s what the text points to, namely: Jesus Christ. And there was a dialectic between the reality and the text.

It seems to me, what buttresses this from getting into the kind of ontology you’re talking about is the scope of the canon; namely, the reality which is in dialectic with the text, defined by its canonical context. I don’t see how you can avoid a dialectic between text and reality, in some sort.

[. . . The conversation turns to a student, Johnson and Frei momentarily.]

CHILDS: It seems to me that this question about the Jesus that Paul—excuse me, that Barth—raises, was very much a part of the mood of the early churchmen. They are concerned: How do you know what the Old Testament is talking about? You hear the Gospel; that is, the dialectic between old and new. Who is Jesus? You don’t get it just from reading the narrative of the Gospel. That’s the whole point that the early church worked on: He’s the Servant; He’s Suffering Israel; He’s the eye of the Sun; all this sort of thing. It seems to me, therefore, that I fully agree that the new hermeneutic is not only mistaken, but it one colossal cul de sac.

[This is Childs’ last comment for the evening.]

Tags: Childs, Theological Exegesis, Frei, St Andrews

I'm still digging into Psalm 102 for my upcoming SBL paper. Today I left the dusty library shelves and turned instead to a few online resources. Commentators of note include:

• Augustine (and here and here in the Confessions)
• Thomas (OK, not yet to 102, but mentioned here etc)
• Calvin (esp here and here; cf Gn 36, 25, Ex 15, 32, Lam 5, Is 16, 29, 37, 49, 51, 54, 63, 66, Jonah, Dn 2, 7, Jer 19, 31, Ps 22, 51, 72, 114, 109, and here, here, here, etc)
• Adolf Harnack on Athanasius
• Metered by Isaac Watts
• Calvin and Augustine are also here

I'll keep looking, of course.

Tags: Psalms, PhD

David Congdon, currently editor of the Princeton Theological Review (and from further back my wife's cousin), has announced a call for papers relating to theological exegesis. I quote from his blog:

The Spring 2008 issue of the Princeton Theological Review will be on the topic of “theological exegesis,” and we are currently accepting submissions. The PTR is a journal of evangelical theology which seeks to be academically rigorous, ecumenically sensitive, and ecclesially faithful. The current PTR is a student-run manifestation of the old PTR that was originally founded by Charles Hodge in the 19th century. We have a national and international readership, and the journal is held at a number of theological institutions.

If you are interested in submitting to the PTR for our spring issue on theological exegesis, see our submission guidelines. Articles should be between 5000-7000 words, though we can be flexible with the length if necessary. Articles can be works of original theological exegesis, or discussions of the work of others. We especially welcome any articles focusing on the work and legacy of Brevard Childs. If you would like, submissions may be sent directly to me (via email link in my profile) or to the executive editor at ptr-at-ptsem.edu.

In addition to articles, we also accept reflections on the chosen theme and sermons that demonstrate theological exegesis at work in a pastoral context. Reflections (and sermons, if possible) should range between 1200-2000 words.

I for one will be submitting a piece on Childs (who else?). Those with interest should contact either David or PTR's executive editor.

Tags: Childs, Theological Exegesis

I confess I don't know what category to put this in. Late last month the NYT ran a piece on the New St Andrews, the one in Moscow, Idaho. As the piece explains:

Doug Wilson, 54, the pastor who spearheaded New St. Andrews’ founding, puts the college’s purpose simply: “We are trying to save civilization.”

All I can say to that is, wow. What I want to know is, Why St Andrews?

The school has adopted trappings of Oxford and Cambridge: professors are called “fellows,” and students dress in academic gowns for thesis defenses and public final exams. Proudly Anglophile, faculty members lead a summer tour of English castles and abbeys. C. S. Lewis and G. K. Chesterton are ubiquitous on class reading lists — revered for their godly wit and their fondness for fine drink. N.S.A.’s campus is proudly wet, in deliberate contrast to the average fundamentalist Bible college.

Is it because students here, at the old St Andrews, sometimes still wear gowns? (It's certainly not because most here read Thomas, or in Latin.) Or because this St Andrews is sufficiently remote that a comparison doesn't strain all credulity?

Molly Worthen, who is evidently writing a book about evangelical intellectual life and who authored the NYT piece, is a good writer. Somebody remind me to take a look at her book when it comes out.

Tags: St Andrews

Look, I know this is occasional stuff at best, but I've had at least one request lately for better RSS support. Well, I've turned to Feed Burner. You may also notice that I've added a box for select feeds. That way, even when I don't post often, you can see what web content I don't feel I've wasted my time in reading. ("Wasting time" is a major category now, in my mind, as I push to the end of this interminable PhD.)

Here's the new syndication link for Occasional Publications.

 Subscribe in a reader

Next Wednesday (24 October, 9:15 a.m.), at the Scripture and Theology seminar here, I am giving a paper and leading a discussion on the topic of Brevard Childs and his followers.

Discussion will proceed on the basis of my paper and two readings, circulated in advance. The first and more involved of these is G. T. Sheppard's introduction to a Puritan commentary he edited for re-publication.  Toward the end it picks up the issue the seminar discussed yesterday—whether there is an alternative to "story" for coordinating our exegetical efforts.

•Sheppard, Gerald T. “Between Reformation and Modern Commentary: the Perception of the Scope of Biblical Books.” Pages xlviii-lxxvii in A Commentary on Galatians, William Perkins. Edited by Gerald T Sheppard. Pilgrim Classic Commentaries New York: Pilgrim Press, 1989.

The second is a short piece by C. Seitz—I think originally a review of Childs' 1992 Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments.  Among other things, it gives some feel for the minority position Childs' followers feel themselves to be in.

•Seitz, Christopher R. “'We Are Not Prophets or Apostles': The Biblical Theology of B. S. Childs.” Pages 102–109 in Word Without End: The Old Testament as Abiding Theological Witness. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1998.

If you are not a usual participant but wish to come along—on the condition I guess that you are also reasonably near St Andrews—contact me and I can circulate the readings.

Tags: Childs, Theological Exegesis, St Andrews

After a fortnight of long days, and in them the sudden onset of a cold, my Friday afternoon was brightened when a postal worker knocked and handed me a package from Amazon. (It's the first mail I've received since the postal strikes.) Couldn't guess what it was—it had been routed through Germany and I'm pretty much the only one in the house who orders German books—and was most pleased when it turned out to be copies of the two books I last blogged about. I've only glanced at them now, but they look well worth the time I want to give them. I may say a word about them later if I get the chance.

Most of all thanks to fuller (my dad, and undoubtedly this blog's longest standing reader). It was a most thoughtful gift.

Tags: Psalms