Blue Cord

This month’s Review of Biblical Literature contains a review of Maria Brutti’s The Development of the High Priesthood during the Pre-Hasmonean Period. I had not heard of this book. It is published by Brill, but since I am not independently wealthy I cannot afford books published by Brill, so I rarely go by their exhibit at SBL meetings. I was excited when I saw the title, however, because of my interest in the history of the priesthood. I am not as concerned with the period that this book covers (301–152 BCE), but knowing the state of the priesthood at the point would make it possible to work backwards into the periods that do interest me.

Unfortunately, the book review, written by Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer, does not leave me hopeful about the book’s usefulness. Here is her opening paragraph, which sums up what she has to say in the rest of the review:

This erudite and meticulously researched book, the author’s revised doctoral thesis from the Pontifical Gregorian University of Rome, leaves the reader with mixed feelings. On the one hand, the book constitutes a wealth of information about the pre-Hasmonean high priesthood. The author is very well read, confidently citing Anglo-Saxon, German, French, and Italian research, and she is fully in command of the primary Greek sources. On the other hand, the book is somewhat unsatisfactory. After reading the book, I have undoubtedly become more knowledgeable about the state of research in the field of the pre-Hasmonean high priests, but I do not know very much more about the high priests. Brutti does not pursue a specific thesis, nor does she advance a particular theory pertaining to the role of the Jerusalem high priests during the Ptolemaic and the Seleucid periods. Rather, the book is descriptive, as it outlines what we can or, more often, cannot know about the tasks and roles of the high priesthood during these time periods. Caution is a virtue, but this book is overly cautious, leaving the reader ever so slightly disappointed. [emphasis mine]

While I appreciate a good review of the literature and a survey of the data as much as the next scholar, those are only the first two steps in scholarship. Analysis is only the beginning. At some point we have to do a synthesis. It sounds like Brutti never gets around to that step. The italicized sentence in the paragraph above is particularly damning. When we read a book, we ultimately want to find out about the topic at hand, not just about the state of research on the subject.

I don’t think this book would be on my “to buy” list for the SBL this year even if I could afford it.

I just got final word today that I will be teaching two sections of “Introduction to Religious Studies” at Merrimack College this fall. Merrimack is a Roman Catholic liberal arts college in the Augustinian tradition. It is located about three miles from my apartment here in Massachusetts, which makes it much more convenient than teaching in Iowa (which I did last semester). Since I am only teaching two sections, I will be able to continue working as an editor on the New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible.

The Grand Rapids Press and and Channel 8 News in Grand Rapids, Michigan, are reporting that a man is suing two publishers, Zondervan and Thomas Nelson, over their publication of Bibles that contain the word “homosexual” in 1 Corinthians 6:9. The Thomas Nelson suit is over the NKJV translation, while the Zondervan suit appears to be connected to the NIV.¹

The plaintiff, Bradley Fowler, says his parents’ pastor used a translation that condemned homosexuality, which caused his parents to oppose homosexuality, which caused them to cause him to endure “emotional duress and mental instability.” He claims that it was “the intent of the publisher was to design a religious, sacred document to reflect an individual opinion or a group’s conclusion to cause ‘me or anyone who is a homosexual to endure verbal abuse, discrimination, episodes of hate, and physical violence . . . including murder’.”²

Setting aside the fact that neither Thomas Nelson nor Zondervan did the translation work and therefore may not be the right defendants, Fowler is going to have a very difficult time proving a causal linkage between the emtional duress he has suffered (which I am sure is quite real) and the particular translation his parents’ pastor used. Given that this is a church that used either the NIV or NKJV, it is probably a conservative church that was been opposed to homosexuality long before either of those two translations came out. Even when they read translations that did not use the word homosexuality, they were led by the Bible (and other factors) to conclude that homosexuality was wrong. The new translations may have given them some extra ammo, but it certainly did not create their opinions. And even if it did cause his parents to oppose homosexuality, it is still up to them to decide how to repond to their son. It is possible to disagree with someone who is gay without causing them emotional distress.³

The case also raises a lot of questions over academic freedom, translator responsibility, and freedom of the press (which includes any publishing activity, not just newspapers). For example, while I disagree with using the word “homosexuals” to translate 1 Corinthians 6:9 because it is inaccurate and somewhat anachronistic, it is a defensible translation. One can hardly claim that the translators (or publisher) were being irresponsible by translating it this way.

I suspect Fowler has one of two motives for bringing his suit. Either he is just trying to get money, in which case he is probably going to be disappointed, or he is attempting to get the publishers to change the translation. If it is the latter, I think arguments from solid scholarship are going to much more effective than a frivolous lawsuit.

1. The news sources do not discuss the translations, but as far as I can tell the NIV is the only translation they carry that uses the word “homosexual” in 1 Corinthians 6:9. The TNIV may also use the word, but I don’t have a copy to check. [back]
2. Only the part in single quotations is a direct quote from Fowler. The first part of the quote is the wording of the news report. [back]
3. I know our culture says that anyone who disagrees with you is automatically judging you, but that isn’t the case. [back]

It has been almost three weeks since I last posted, so I thought I would let people know there is a good reason for my absence.

This whole month I have been busy writing articles for the New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. I wrote about one hundred articles for it when assignments were first made, but last month they contacted me to ask if I would be willing to write a number of articles that other scholars had failed to submit on time. Since I had just finished up at Wartburg College, I agreed to do it.

Two weeks ago they decided that they needed additional editors working on the project as well, and they asked if I would be able to do that. I was more than happy to agree, so I am pleased to announce that I am now working as an editor on the fourth and fifth volumes of the New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. No, I am not one of the big-name editors who are listed on the front of the book. Instead, I am just one of a number of editors who reads through the articles to format them correctly, double check citations, insert transcriptions, and make any number of other changes as needed.

I am thoroughly enjoying the work. Basically, I get to read Bible dictionary entries all day, which I do often enough even when no one is paying me. And since I have to read articles that I wouldn’t necessarily read otherwise, I am picking up a lot of new information.

Nicholas Carr has a fascinating article in the current issue of Atlantic entitled “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”¹ In the article he discusses the fact that the Internet is changing not only the way in which we access data but also the way in which we process it. Drawing on his own experience and the research of others, Carr discusses the way that the media through from which we draw information actually rewire our brains. He laments his own transformation from someone who used to be able to delve deeply into books and process their arguments into someone who gets distracted easily when a complex argument goes on for more than a few pages.

Carr states:

Thanks to the ubiquity of text on the Internet, not to mention the popularity of text-messaging on cell phones, we may well be reading more today than we did in the 1970s or 1980s, when television was our medium of choice. But it’s a different kind of reading, and behind it lies a different kind of thinking—perhaps even a new sense of the self. “We are not only what we read,” says Maryanne Wolf, a developmental psychologist . . . “We are how we read.” Wolf worries that the style of reading promoted by the Net, a style that puts “efficiency” and “immediacy” above all else, may be weakening our capacity for the kind of deep reading that emerged when an earlier technology, the printing press, made long and complex works of prose commonplace. When we read online, she says, we tend to become “mere decoders of information.” Out ability to interpret text, to make rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largely disengaged.

As a biblical scholar, this is troubling to me. The Bible is not exactly a book that rewards skimming. Of course, the style of biblical study that we do now is very different than that done by Christians and Jews throughout most of our history, since easily flipping back and forth between passages became possible only when we developed the technology to print comparatively small books that contained the entire Bible. And up until the last few centuries, the vast majority of Christians didn’t read the Bible themselves; they only heard it read, usually in the setting of worship.

Of course, Carr is aware of history enough to know that previous changes in technology also changed our way of thinking, so he admits that his predictions of doom may not come to pass. After all, as he points out, Socrates lamented the spread of writing, predicting that it would lead to people receiving information without receiving instruction in critical thinking (a charge that has also been leveled against the Internet). But while some of Socrates predictions concerning the effects of writing did come to pass, writing has also benefited us in ways that he could not have imagined. The same is true of the Internet. We do, however, need to recognize that the boon of the Internet also carries with it the possible bane of losing the ability to read deeply.

I have to admit that my own experience mirrors that of Carr. It takes more of an effort for me to read large sections of text (with the exception of fiction). I used to attribute this to the fact that I am getting older² or to my depression³. But now I know the truth: the Internet maked me unsmart.

1. Nicholas Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid,” Atlantic 302.1 (July/August 2008): 56–63. [back]
2. I turned all of 40 this year. [back]
3. Which affects my ability to concentrate and retain information. [back]