Blue Cord

I am pleased to announce that the newest volume in the Conversations with Scripture series is available. The current release is 2 Isaiah by Steve Cook of Biblische Ausbildung. As a member of the editorial board of this series, I saw an early version of this book and I can highly recommend it.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the series, it is published by Moorehouse Publishing in conjunction with the Anglican Association of Biblical Scholars. It is intended for use by groups in church or for personal Bible study. So far the series comprises volumes on the Gospel of John, the parables, Hebrews, and the book of Revelation. My own contribution was on the law in the Old Testament.

Congratulations to Steve on his latest publication!

I was editing an article yesterday on the Acts of Philip, a 4th–5th century apocryphal work about the Apostle Philip. As I read it, I came across a line where the author says that Philip “converses with a penitent leopard.” It made me giggle, because obviously the author meant to say that Philip was talking with a penitent leper. Of course, the spell checker wouldn’t catch this, because both “leopard” and “leper” are valid words.

Just because I am a stickler for detail, however, I wanted to make absolutely sure that it was supposed to be a leper and not a leopard before I made the correction. So, I found the Acts of Philip online. And, lo and behold, it contains the story of Philip conversing with a leopard who is sorry for having attacked a goat (Acts Phil. 96–101).

So there you have it: a penitent leopard. I guess they can change their spots after all, at least metaphorically (Jer 13:23).

At the SBL meeting in 2006 I picked up Alice Hunt’s book Missing Priests: The Zadokites in Tradition and History. I wrote a review of it on this blog a couple of months later. While the book does make some good points, I ultimately did not agree with the conclusions. Hunt argues that there are no Zadokites until the Hasmonean period because she sees no stress on Zadokites prior to that, while I would say they were around in the preexilic period, but because of their position of power they did not need to justify their position.

This month’s Review of Biblical Literature has a review of Missing Priests by Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer. Tiemeyer has a slightly more positive view of the book, so if you are looking for a review with a different take on the book, check it out.

As part of my writing for International Biblical Studies Writing Month (held over for a second month due to popular demand), I am writing an exegetical essay on Isaiah 65:17-25 for the Feasting on the Word lectionary series. I came across an interesting aspect of the passage that I thought I would discuss.

It is widely recognized that Isaiah 65:25 alludes to Isaiah 11:6-9. Isaiah 65:25a states:

The wolf and the lamb will graze together; the lion will eat straw like the ox; and the serpent will have dust for its food.¹

It occurs to me that this is a rather odd statement. The first two phrases quoted above envision a return to the conditions of the Garden of Eden. The imagery is right at home in this passage, which envisions God creating a new heavens and a new earth (Isaiah 65:17). It also matches the heavenly vision of Isaiah 11:6-9.

But what is going on with the serpent? In Isaiah 11:8, the child will play with the asp and the adder without being hurt. This would make us think that the serpent eating dust is in contrast to its previous predilection. But Genesis 3:14 (which was probably known to Third Isaiah) states that eating dust is the serpent’s punishment. This would suggest that while the other animals are returning to the peaceful existence of the Garden of Eden, the serpent still bears its punishment. This doesn’t match with the thrust of the verse or with the material to which it alludes in Isaiah 11:6-9.

Blenkinsopp offers the following suggestion:

[The author] was apparently convinced that, having been cursed from the very beginning, snakes are the one exception to this ideal scene of harmony in the animal world. The snake is therefore excluded from this transformation of the natural world, this return to the first creation, in which humans and animals are to live in harmony and none will kill for food.²

This explanation leaves me less than satisfied. After all, nothing states that the serpent is not going to live in harmony. It won’t be killing for food, since it will eat dust. And the main animosity in Genesis 3 is between the serpent and humans, not between serpents and other animals.

But I still don’t have a satisfactory explanation for what is going on with the serpent. Does Isaiah 65:25 see this as a positive or negative for the serpent? Is the serpent going to eat dust instead of attacking humans? Or is the serpents fate contrasted with the fate of the other animals through a reiteration of the curse in Genesis 3:14? What is going on?

Anyone have any ideas?

1. My translation. [back]
2. Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 55-66, Anchor Bible 19B (New York: Doubleday, 2003), 290. [back]

By the lack of power vested in him, Chris Brady at Targuman declared January to be International Biblical Studies Writing Month. Bibliobloggers have been announcing what they will be writing about during this month–long burst of writing energy, so I thought I would do the same.

I am a contributor to the new lectionary series put out by Westminster John Knox Press entitled Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary.  For those unfamiliar with this series, it provides commentary on each of the four assigned readings from the Revised Common Lectionary for every Sunday in the three year cycle. The commentary for each reading consists of an exegetical essay, a theological essay, a homiletic essay, and a pastoral essay. I have been asked to contribute the exegetical essays for three readings from Year C:

• Exodus 14:10-31, 15:20-21
• Isaiah 65:17-25
• Acts 5:27-32

Why I have been asked to write the commentary for a passage from Acts is unclear, but I will happily accept the $0.08 per word for writing it.

So, in the spirit of International Biblical Studies Writing Month, I hereby vow to have this assignment finished by the end of the month.