Blue Cord

Chris Heard at Higgaion is currently reviewing Political Archaeology and Holy Nationalism by Terje Oestigaard.  So far he has covered chapter 1 and chapter 2a.  Oestigaard criticizes archaeology in Israel for being used far too often for political purposes and for not being engaged with archaeology in other countries.  According to Chris, Oestigaard sees Israeli archaeology as falling outside the mainstream and not engaging with the rest of the field in theoretical discourse.

You would probably find few who would argue with his first point, although I would argue that archaeology in Israel is motivated by theological reasons as often as it is political.  Neither make for particularly good science.  But like Chris, I am more interested in his claim that Palestinian archaeology is detached from the rest of the field.

While this was true by and large during the era of biblical archaeology,¹Â  today it is not the case, at least among the archaeologists I know.  Archaeologists who work in Israel are very familiar with the scholarly literature on archaeology in the ancient Near East and are very engaged with scholars who work in Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Arabia, Greece, and Mesopotamia.  When I did seminar work in Levantine archaeology, we were very focused on the theoretical literature, even though the majority of the class were philologists.

One of the areas where this is clearest is in the recent focus on ethnicity.  Archaeologists in Israel are certainly engaged in this debate within the larger field, as can be seen by some excellent works that have come out in the past few years.  This larger debate has certainly been affecting our understanding of certain key issues within the history of the Levant, such as the transition from the Late Bronze to the Iron Age.

It is true that archaeologists who work in Israel are less engaged — but not totally disengaged — with archaeology in other parts of the world outside of the ancient Near East and the Mediterranean world.  There are a couple of reasons for this.  For one thing, most other areas in the world did not have developed civilizations at this time, which means there is little comparative material from the same time period.  We can have a discussion that involves a Levantine archaeologist and a specialist in 13th century German archaeology, and such discussions will yield some benefit.  But the methods and constructs used are going to be different, if for no other reason than the fact that we are talking about wet vs. dry archaeology.²

1. For the non-specialists, I should define the term biblical archaeology, since most people assume it means nothing more than archaeology in Israel.  Biblical archaeology was a movement in the mid-20th century that used the Bible the primary mean for interpreting archaeological finds.  Archaeology, in turn, was seen as demonstrating the historicity of the Bible.  The movement is closely associated with W.F. Albright and his student G. Ernest Wright.  Few in the field of archaeology today would use this approach, but the term biblical archaeology is still used by non-specialists to refer to archaeology in Israel. [back]
2. I.e., archaeology done in an area with high rainfall vs. that done in arid climates.  Moisture in the soil has a huge effect on how you excavate and the condition of the finds. [back]

Several Bible podcasts are actually readings from the Bible with no commentary. I thought I would discuss a couple of these briefly.

One such podcast is simply called The Bible Podcast (which seems to be a very popular title). This particular podcast is a reading from the New English Translation (NET). It presents one chapter from the Bible each weekday. It has been going since 2005 and is up-to-date, although the archives indicates there have been occasional short hiatuses. The readings are done by Michael Lee, a professor of music at Azuza Pacifice University.

The sound quality of this podcast is very good and the reading is clear. It is not done with any dramatization or background music, which makes it easy to make out the words. Although I don’t know anything about the NET Bible, this podcast is certainly one worth having if you want to hear a chapter a day on your iPod.

The Bible Experience podcast is produced by Zondervan. Although it is presented on iTunes as a podcast, it is actually just a sample episode from their The Bible Experience audiobook, which has to be purchased. The one episode available for free is the Passion story taken from Matthew 26-28 in the TNIV. Zondervan’s web site describes the audiobook as follows:

Hear the words of the Bible brought to life like never before. Inspired By… The Bible Experience: New Testament Audio CD is a fully-dramatized reading of the complete Bible performed by an unprecedented ensemble of distinguished African-American actors, musicians, and personalities. The cast is scheduled to include such recognizable voices as: Denzel Washington, Blair Underwood, Angela Bassett, Juanita Bynum, Shirley Caesar, Kirk Franklin and more. The dramatization is further enriched by an original musical score composed by Grammy award-winning producers. And the recording is truly contemporary, using the accessible and trusted Today’s New International Version (TNIV) of the Bible. The features of The Bible Experience provide a rich listening experience, helping you hear the words of Scripture as if for the first time. The Bible Experience is available in both traditional and mp3 CD formats.

The quality of the audio is excellent and the readings are well done, as you would expect from such a cast and a professional publisher. Unfortunately, the podcast that is available for free is just a sample.

Verbum Domini (also called ReadingForToday.com) is a podcast that includes the readings from the Catholic daily lectionary. The podcast begins and ends with a short musical bumper, while the reading is done without background music. The podcast is featured on SQPN.com, which is a repository of Catholic podcasts. Different lectors do the reading on different days.  I couldn’t tell from the website which translation they use.

A final readings podcast is called DTS Devotional, which is listed on iTunes as a daily devotional reading from the NET Bible. A better description would be a devotional reflection on a daily reading.  The podcast is done by Reg Grant, professor of pastoral ministries at Dallas Theological Seminary.  The podcast takes one minute, although almost twenty seconds of that is advertisement for the NET Bible and something called Earsight.¹

1. A search of the web could not turn up any reference to ear sight, earsight, earsite, or other variations.  If someone happens to know what this is, please let me know. [back]

Boston has taken the last nine series against Baltimore. Today was the third game of this series. The O’s had won the first game while the Sox took the second. Baltimore’s starting pitcher was a guy who had only started three games before. He has always been a relief pitcher. Yet he took us into the 9th inning with a shutout game and a 5-0 lead. All the bullpen had to do was get two more quick outs and Baltimore had their first series win against Boston in the last ten tries.

Now, keep in mind that Baltimore spent $41 million on their bullpen this last off-season. That is an unheard of amount for relief pitcher. But it was supposed to improve our weakest area. One would think it would be no problem for guys who are worth that much to go two-thirds of an inning without giving up 5 runs.

Apparently, that was too much to ask. All it took was two relief pitchers to blow the game. The worst was Danys Baez, who finished out the game. On the last play of the game he gave up two runs while covering first. The ball was hit to the first baseman, who threw to Baez. All Baez had to do was catch the ball (which was thrown directly to him) and step on the base. The inning would be over. Instead, he dropped the ball. If this guy isn’t sent back down to AA by tonight, something is seriously wrong in Charm City.

Final Score: Baltimore - 5, Boston - 6.

I thought I would take a couple of days to blog about the podcasts that are available on the topic of the Bible. I started by going to the iTunes podcast page and doing a search on the term Bible. After weeding out the podcasts that were church services from congregations with “Bible” in their name, I was left with nine podcasts. If anyone else knows of podcasts that should be added to this list, just let me know.

In each of the reviews I will look at the organization or individual that makes the podcast, the focus of the podcast (e.g., news, Bible study, reflection on the Scriptures, etc.), and the perspective from which the author approaches the Bible. The aim of all this is to point people toward the best Bible podcasts that are out there.¹

I started slow with a 45 second podcast from the Bible News Network, which is run by the Canadian Bible Society. The content of the podcast is a short piece of news related to the Bible. The show I happened to hear talked about the annual “Scripture in School Day” organized by Bob Pawdon as a way to “return the Bible to public schools.”  This doesn’t seem to be an active podcast, as the most recent entry was from September 2006.

The second podcast I surveyed is called, simply enough “Bible Podcast.”  It is done by Tony Walker, who calls himself Preacher Tony. Tony is 23 years old and became a Christian six years ago. He doesn’t have a bio on his site — other than his testimony — so I don’t have any more information on him. The podcast is taken from his radio show “Bible Broadcast,” which is heard Friday afternoons at 5:00 on WRIX-AM 1020 out of Anderson, SC. Tony uses the KJV throughout.

The podcast is described as a verse-by-verse study of the Bible. The episode I heard was from May 4, 2007, and it focused on Romans 7:1-6. The majority of the podcast is spent talking about vv.1-3, and he pulls in 1 Corinthians 7 and Matthew 19 as additional verses. The topic of this passage, according to Tony, is divorce. He says that this passage shows that Christians are not to get divorced, except in the case of fornication.

This is rather odd, because Romans 7:1-3 never mentions divorce. Instead, its focus is on the fact that a woman is bound by to her husband while he is alive, but is free if he dies. The whole point is to set up an analogy to the status of Christians with respect to the law (Romans 7:4-6). Tony only gets around to these last three verses in the final three minutes of the broadcast. After reading those verses, he spends most of that time talking about what a wonderful and faithful husband Christ is to the believer. That Christ is a faithful husband is true, of course, but it is not the point of Romans 7:4-6.

Preacher Tony took an odd pot shot at Catholics at one point. When discussing what Jesus had to say about divorce in Matthew 19, he says that this chapter shows that Jesus believed the literal² account of Genesis 1-11, unlike some Catholic people. Why Catholics get singled out as not believing that Genesis 1-11 is historical is unclear.

All in all, this is not a very promising podcast. It certainly does not seem to take an informed approach to the Scripture. Instead, it seems to be the reflections of one guy who reads the text and talks about what it suggests to him. I may listen to a few more episodes, but this doesn’t seem to be one I will keep on my computer for very long.

1. Please note that the word “best” in this context is a synonym for “that which I like the most. [back]
2. ”Literal” in this case seems to mean “historical,” as is often the case in evangelical circles. [back]

For those non-specialists who have been reading about the discovery of Herod’s tomb, I thought I would provide here the account of Herod’s funeral found in Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus. Josephus was a Jewish historian during the first century CE. The text presented here is taken from Book 17, Chapter 8, Section 3. The full text can be found in numerous online sources, including the Christian Classics Ethereal Library run by Calvin College.

Josephus writes:

After this was over, they prepared for [Herod’s] funeral, it being Archelaus’s care that the procession to his father’s sepulcher should be very sumptuous. Accordingly, he brought out all his ornaments to adorn the pomp of the funeral. The body was carried upon a golden bier, embroidered with very precious stones of great variety, and it was covered over with purple, as well as the body itself; he had a diadem upon his head, and above it a crown of gold: he also had a scepter in his right hand. About the bier were his sons and his numerous relations; next to these was the soldiery, distinguished according to their several countries and denominations; and they were put into the following order: First of all went his guards, then the band of Thracians, and after them the Germans; and next the band of Galatians, every one in their habiliments of war; and behind these marched the whole army in the same manner as they used to go out to war, and as they used to be put in array by their muster-masters and centurions; these were followed by five hundred of his domestics carrying spices. So they went eight furlongs to Herodium; for there by his own command he was to be buried. And thus did Herod end his life.

By the way, for those of you who might be worried about the ethics of reproducing such a large chunk of text here, I should point out that the Josphus translation that is widely available on the Internet is the translation by William Whiston. Because it was produced in the early 18th century, the copyright has now expired, which means it is legal to reprint the translation.