Blue Cord

I just updated to WordPress 2.1.  Most of the update seems to have gone well, but suddenly all of my sidebar links to other biblioblogs are gone.  WordPress seems to have updated the syntax for the PHP command to get_links, but as far as I can tell they have not yet updated their documentation.  I apologize to my fellow bibliobloggers for not sending readers their way.  I promise to get it fixed as soon as I figure out how?

100 points will be awarded to anyone who can tell me how to fix this.

A few days ago, Steve Cook posted a piece on the social location of Ezra. Steve suggests that there were three groups of priests in postexilic Yehud: Zadokites, Aaronides, and Levites. I asked Steve a brief question about Ezra and the Holiness School, to which he kindly responded. I wanted to push the conversation a bit farther, though in a slightly different direction.

I am wondering (actually wondering, having not made up my mind) whether these three groups can be isolated and whether all of them actuall existed. Certainly the Levites did, as they are scattered all over 1 and 2 Chronicles. Where the uncertainty creeps in for me is with the Aaronides and Zadokites. That a group that identified itself as the “sons of Zadok” is clear from Ezekiel 40-48. The question is whether they can be separated from the Aaronides.

According to the Pentateuch, Aaron had four sons: Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. Nadab and Abihu are killed in Leviticus 10, so there is no priestly line descended from them. Eleazar is presented in Numbers as succeeding Aaron as the high priest, so the main priestly line descended from him. But what of Ithamar? It is interesting to note that there is no line given for Ithamar anywhere in the OT. The closest we come is 1 Chronicles 24, which calls Ahimelech the son of Ithamar. This would mean that the Ithamar line was banished to Anathoth by Solomon and therefore ceased to function as priests. This suggests that while in theory there were non-Zadokite priests by the late preexilic period, the reality was that only Zadokites were functioning as priests.

This is further strengthened by the fact that every preist mentioned in Chronicles is listed as coming from Aaron through Zadok. We have no priestly lineage that is not descended from Zadok. In her book Missing Priests: The Zadokites in Tradition and History, Alice Hunt argues that Chronicles does not make a big deal of Zadok. This is true. In each case, Zadok is simply mentioned without any focus placed on him.

But while this suggests to Hunt that the Zadokites were not important or even existant at the time, to me it suggests that the Zadokites did not need to press their lineage in Chronicles because by that time their position was secure. If it wasn’t, we would expect to see Chronicles at least giving us the lines of other priestly houses, if only to discredit them. The only challengers to the Zadokites in the exilic period were the Levites, and Ezekiel 40-48 and later Numbers 16-18 (Steve would reverse this order) had already taken care of them.

In other words, it seems that there are Zadokites and Aaronides in the postexilic period, but they are the same group.

I am sure Steve has evidence for these groups being separate, and I look forward to hearing it. If anyone else has some ideas one this subject, I encourage them to jump in as well.

Next post in this series: An Ithamarite Priesthood?

I wanted to take a moment to offer my congratulations to my brother, Kenyon Wilson. Kenyon is a tuba player and teaches low brass at University of Tennessee - Chatanooga and Austin Peay University. He also plays with several orchestras around the south. He holds a doctorate in music from University of Georgia.

Kenyon did his undergraduate work at Tennessee Tech University, which (believe it or not) is one of the top low brass schools in the world.  While he was there, he played with the Tennessee Tech Tuba-Euphonium Ensemble.  If your picture of a tuba is oom-pa-pa music or heavy, ponderous tones, I encourage you to visit their web site and listen to some of the cuts off of their new CD.  For forty years, Winston Morris, the director, has been pushing the boundaries of tuba music.

To celebrate his 40th year, Winston Morris pulled together ten of his best euphonium players and twelve of his best tuba players from those forty years.  My brother was one of the ones selected.  Morris commissioned nine new pieces of music from some of the best composers in the world.  The ensemble has been playing at several venues since November.  They finished up the tour this past weekend.  I was able to hear them when they played at The U.S. Army Band “Pershing’s Own” Tuba-Euphonium Conference on Saturday.  From there, they headed up to New York City, where they played at Carnegie Hall on Sunday.  This was my brother’s second time playing at Carnegie Hall, and he was once the guest conductor there when they played one of his compositions.

A CD from this group featuring all nine of the compositions will be available later this year.  It has some amazing pieces on it.  One of them, Epitaph IV, is a meditation on Coventry, England, and Dresden, Germany, both of which were destroyed by bombs during WWII.  It focuses on the churches in each of those towns.  It was a very powerful piece.

One of the other pieces was not so successful (in my opinion).  The composer wrote ten different euphonium parts and twelve different tuba parts, which means that this is the only group in the world that could play this piece.  The piece could have been entitled Night Sweats, as that is the feeling it evoked in me.  It just goes to show that just because a piece can be written does not mean it should be written.

All the rest of the pieces were amazing, however.  My brother said it was the most difficult music he had every played.   Congratulations to him and to Winston Morris for pushing the boundaries of what is possible with low brass.

Due to my current situation (i.e., not employed in academia), I am thinking that I will need to change my research agenda for the foreseeable future. Because I don’t have access to a research library, I will need to switch to a project that does not require regular trips to a library. Fortunately, an idea that I had two years ago fits the bill.

Since the late 1980s, a number of Christian talk radio programs have begun that focus on political issues. These programs attempt to address political topics from a Christian point-of-view. Research I did in 2005 located twenty-one such programs, although I am sure there are more out there. They include both local and nationally syndicated programs.

Because most of these programs are from the Evangelical branch of Christianity, the Bible should play a significant role in how they deal with questions of politics. Why I would like to do, therefore, is examine the shows to see how the Bible is used in their discussions. Most of the research would be done by listening to their broadcasts, many of which are available online. This would be supplemented by a questionnaire that would be sent to each of the shows, asking them to explain their own hermeneutics and what training (formal and/or informal) their host and program researchers have in biblical studies.

This research program would allow me to make use of my double major from my undergraduate work. In addition to being a religion major, I also majored in political science. I have always been fascinated by the intersection of the two spheres, and this project would allow me to focus on how some very public Christians enter into political debates.

If any of my American readers know of any Christian political talk shows, I would appreciate it if they could let me know. As research progresses, I will share it here on the blog.

Here is a wonderful theological consideration of the different restaurants available for your dining pleasure.