Blue Cord

Ah, the benefits of teaching in Eastern Europe!  Just now, one of my theology students came by the office and gave me a large (10″x8″x2″) block of homemade goat cheese from her family’s farm.  I had mentioned last year that I liked goat cheese, so she brought some by last spring as well.  Usually, this is not the type of gift one gets at an American college.  There is always something new here.

I wanted to take this opportunity to wish my wife Stephanie a very happy birthday. I won’t give her age, but my son this morning said she looked 23. I couldn’t agree more.

For those of you who don’t know, my wife is an Episcopal priest.  While we are in Lithuania, she is serving as the pastor of the International Christian Fellowship, an English speaking congregation.

If there is one piece of advice I could give to someone looking for a wife, it would be to make sure that you marry a strong, intelligent woman.  Although it make may things more difficult sometimes, it makes your life together much more enjoyable.

The BBC has a report today about a mix-up at the official tourism office in Israel. Apparently, the pamphlet that they translated from Hebrew to English was supposed to read: “Jerusalem - There’s No City Like It!” Instead, the translation they got was: “Jerusalem - There’s No Such City!” The pamphlet had been out for a while before someone noticed the gaffe.

Of course, advertising that a city does not exist is sure to cut down on tourism. I can see how the conversations would go:

• Man: “Honey? Why don’t we do to Jerusalem for our vacation?
• Woman: “I heard it doesn’t actually exist.”
• Man: “Oh. How about Cairo, then?”

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I have been working with a course management system this semester. I wanted to add an on-line component to my classes, so I installed Moodle on my server. Although I do not teach classes through this software (I value the face to face interaction with my students), I have used it to point students to ANE texts, to provide them with additional documents, and to give them easy access to the syllabus and other resources. I am also using it to give quizzes, which frees up time in class for other matters.

If you would like to check out what I am doing, you may visit via a guest account. Just go to the site, click on ‘login’ in the upper right hand corner, and then click on the guest access button. There are several courses being offered there, but guest access will allow you to visit only my Intro to Bible I course. When you click on that course, you will be asked for an enrollment key. The key is biblioblog.

I would appreciate any feedback my readers could give, especially if you have used course management systems before. This is my first semester using it, so any suggestions would be appreciated.

The SBL Symposium Series has a new book out on recent European research concerning the Yahwist. It is entitled A Farewell to the Yahwist? The Composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Interpretation. The contributors to this volume are the top scholars in source criticism, with European scholars providing the main papers and American providing the responses. If you have followed the source criticism debate in the SBL Forum recently, you will recognize many of the contributors.

The main trend in European scholarship is to move more towards a tradition critical approach (following Rendtorff). Many scholars in Europe think that the five main blocks of tradition (patriarchs, exodus, wilderness, law, and conquest according to Noth) were first joined by the Priestly author.

If you have been to the Pentateuch sections at the SBL lately, you will have heard most of these papers, but it is nice to have them all in one place. Some were delivered as recently as last year, so it is definitely up to date.

If you would like to read my summary and comments on a particular paper, please click on the title of the paper below.

Contents

• Introduction, Thomas B. Dozeman and Konrad Schmid

Part 1: Main Papers

• “The Elusive Yahwist: A Short History of Research,” Thomas Christian Romer
• “The So-Called Yahwist and the Literary Gap between Genesis and Exodus,” Konrad Schmid
• “The Jacob Story and the Beginning of the Formation of the Pentateuch,” Albert de Pury
• “The Transition between the Books of Genesis and Exodus,” Jan Christian Gertz
• “The Literary Connection between the Books of Genesis and Exodus and the End of the Book of Joshua,” Erhard Blum
• “The Commission of Moses and the Book of Genesis,” Thomas B. Dozeman

Part 2: Responses

• “The Yahwist and the Redactional Link between Genesis and Exodus,” Christoph Levin
• “The Report of the Yahwist’s Demise Has Been Greatly Exaggerated!” John Van Seters
• “What Is Required to Identify Pre-Priestly Narrative Connections between
  Genesis and Exodus? Some General Reflections and Specific Cases,” David M. Carr