I spotted this sign on a local field:
I’m somewhat surprised not to see it knee-deep in litter, given that no fines apply!
Feb 26
Feb 09
Once again Eisenbrauns is running their annual Valentine’s Day competition inviting original expressions of love in an ancient Near Eastern language.
A shame that the entry I’d like to post has already been created by another, as you can see here where the late Ronnie Barker interprets hieroglyphics:
Feb 03
Job, we are told in the opening verses of the book which bears his name, was תם וישר וירא אלהים וסר מרע — “blameless and just, fearing God.” Much of the point of the book rests upon the veracity of this assertion. Job did not deserve to suffer as he did.
David Clines claims that this presents a somewhat difficult conundrum to Christian readers of the book. I’ll let him explain:
A Christian perspective on the Book of Job first attends to the very first sentence of the book, which depicts Job as “blameless and upright,” the first of these epithets also being conventionally translated as “perfect.” for a Christian reader such language, if meant literally and seriously, is inappropriate for any human being; Christian theology and culture takes for granted that no one is perfect and that even the best of people can never be wholly free of sin.1
To expand, the Christian claim is that all deserve death for “the wages of sin is death” and “all have sinned…” Thus any claim that Job was innocent faces this theological objection founded in the NT’s assertion that all are under sentence of death. Why, then, should Job (or his reader) be surprised by his suffering — on this view it is no longer unjust, is it? Further, this leads one to suppose that Job’s friends do have a point, for Job has sinned as all have sinned.
Where this reading fails, however, is in its incomplete understanding of the measure of Job’s righteousness within the context of the OT. Job’s prologue does not claim that Job was sinless, indeed it offers hints that he may have been sinful. In spite of this, however, it is not incorrect for the author to affirm Job’s blamelessness and hence the incongruous nature of his suffering.
What hint is there of these things? It comes in Job 1:5:
והשכים בבקר והעלה עלות מספר כלם
he would get up early in the morning and offer burnt offerings for all of them…
This verse highlights the fact that Job was a sacrificing man. Sacrifices were designated as the means by which the offence of sin was removed. They implicitly incorporated an acknowledgment of the sin and were provided by God as the means by which sin was atoned.
Hence Job did not need to be sinless in order for the description in Job 1:1 to be accurate, rather he had to be faithful in making atonement for sin. In this manner he fulfilled the requirements of the Law and in so doing could be described as “blameless and just” and consequently underserving of punishment for any sin.
Furthermore, it is worth examining the terminology in Job 1:1. First, the adjective תם which I’ve translated “blameless.” My electronic copy of HALOT says the following: “It should be noted in general that in accordance with the meaning of the root תמם to be complete, perfect, the general sense of the adj. is also complete, perfect, a sense which develops in different ways with different usages: a) physical perfection as applied to the body; b) socially perfect; c) correct in law; d) ethnically [sic] and morally correct.” (I assume that’s meant to read “ethically” not “ethnically”!) I do not think this compels us to see in Job some form of sinless perfectionism, rather, as I’ve argued above, it highlights Job’s diligent observation of protocol when it comes to maintaining his relationship with Yahweh. It is also noteworthy that the adjective תם is not used of God anywhere in biblical Hebrew.
Neither can the adjective ישר, which I’ve rendered “just” above, easily be understood to refer to sinless perfection.
Hence I think the problem Clines identifies is ultimately no problem at all. Doubtless it is a problem for some readers who fail to account for the fact that God had provided a means through which sin could be dealt with. What is important, however, is to recognise that the prologue clearly depicts Job as one who is blameless because any sin he may have been guilty of has been appropriately dealt with so that the claim of Job’s friends that he suffers for some sin is without merit (as is demonstrated conclusively in the epilogue to the book).
1. David J. A. Clines, Job 1–20 (WBC 17A; Word: Dallas, 1989) p. lv.
Jan 11
It appears that Ellen Van Wolde’s article about the meaning of ברא in Genesis 1 has appeared in JSOT (link to the reference is here). There has already been some discussion over her claim on other blogs, so I’m hoping to get a copy of her article soon (if anyone feels motivated to send me a copy please let me know!).
The abstract at the above link provides the summary (here reproduced in unicode rather than using the BFI method adopted at Sage):
The linguistic and textual examination of the seven usages of the verb ברא in Genesis 1 leads to the conclusion that the verb ברא in Genesis 1 does not mean ‘to create’ but ‘to separate’. This hypothesis is subsequently tested against external evidence from cognate literature in Mesopotamia. In these Mesopotamian accounts of creation, the opening lines often describe the (divine) acts of separation of heaven and earth. The Sumerian verb bad and the Akkadian verb parāsu employed in these texts designate clearly ‘to separate’. Textual evidence from the Hebrew Bible appears to support this hypothesis, too, for example, the fact that in the Hebrew Bible the noun ‘creator’ is never expressed with the participle of ברא, but always with the participle of other verbs. Thus, based on internal and external linguistic and textual evidence and on a controlled argumentation, it is highly plausible and very likely that the type of action expressed by the verb ברא in Genesis 1 is of a very concrete, spatial and physical character, and can be rendered by ‘to separate’. Finally, an analysis is made of the differences between הבדיל and ברא.
The verb ברא in Genesis 1 has been the subject of quite a bit of focus, beginning with Walton’s assertion that it does not imply “to create” but rather describes the assignment of function to that which already exists, and now Van Wolde’s claim that it means “to separate” rather than “to create.” Once I can get a copy of the article I may venture to make further comment.
Jan 05
A recent article in the UK paper The Guardian reports that a newly translated by Irving Finkel (although not, apparently, newly discovered) tablet of Atra-hasis makes reference to the Mesopotamian ark as being “circular” (I assume it means more cylindrical than spherical). Although the provenance of the tablet seems unclear, there has been no doubt cast upon its authenticity that I’ve seen.
The relevant portion of the text is translated thus:
Wall, wall! Reed wall, reed wall!
Atram-Hasis, pay heed to my advice, that you may live forever!
Destroy your house, build a boat; despise possessions And save life!
Draw out the boat that you will built with a circular design;
Let its length and breadth be the same.
As I’ve noted previously, the Mesopotamian conception of the ark recorded a vessel with equal width, breadth, and height, and so it has been widely assumed to have been cubic (a shape with significant cultic connections), but a cylindrical vessel would also easily fit these dimensions.
There are, however, a couple of notes of caution worth raising.
First, I have only seen Finkel’s translation. Without seeing the tablet itself it is difficult to judge how certain the translation “circular” is for whatever term was used on the tablet. The semantic range of the term could be less precise or script on the tablet itself could be unclear and allow some room for movement.
Second, the reports that this was the original shape of Noah’s Ark are simply wrong. The Bible records clear dimensions for its conception of the Ark and they simply cannot be circular (whatever that means in 3D). The biblical account is not merely a retelling of an older story, and hence it cannot be “corrected” by reference to older versions.
Nonetheless, I may need to go back to the drawing board for my lego Ark…
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