Okay, actually, this post is about source criticism. What's the difference? I'm so glad you asked! When it comes to Biblical scholarship, there are a lot of critical fields, each of which focuses on a different aspect of the Scriptures. Textual criticism investigates the physical text, the words on the paper (or papyrus, or vellum), and tries to figure out which manuscript or reading is the most accurate. Literary criticism examines the Scriptures from the point of view of literature; for example, considering the poetic elements used in a passage. There are many more. Today, I thought I'd talk about source criticism, which examines the possible sources of a text. Who wrote a particular book of the Bible? Where did the author live? When was he or she writing?
One example of source criticism would be, who wrote the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible? They are traditionally attributed to Moses, but anyone who reads the end of Deuteronomy quickly realizes that Moses could not have written an account of his own death. Through this and many other more complex considerations, scholars try to determine the authorship of the Scriptures.
In the case of the Gospels, one of the major questions posed by source criticism is, "Which Gospel was written first?" Traditionally, Matthew was thought to be first, which is why it was placed first in the New Testament. Scholars today generally agree that Mark is the oldest Gospel, followed by Luke and Matthew (though there is disagreement about which of these two was written first), with John being the latest Gospel. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are referred to as the "synoptic Gospels", which means that—as can be seen easily from reading them—they are roughly parallel. John is the oddball; it includes stories none of the other Gospels include, and leaves other, sometimes very significant, stories out. One of the most striking examples of this is the Last Supper; John has no account of this meal with Jesus and his disciples.
The question came to be raised, "Why are the synoptic Gospels so similar, with John being so different from all three?" It would seem reasonable to assume that the Synoptic Gospels were drawing on similar material, such as stories passed down by word of mouth, or even that the authors were aware of one another's work in some way. The most popular (though certainly not the only) theory regarding the Synoptic Gospels is called the "Two-Source Hypothesis", along with its closely related cousin, the "Four-Source Hypothesis". These theories assume that Mark was the earliest Gospel, and that Matthew and Luke both knew Mark's Gospel when they wrote their own accounts. This would explain why most of the stories in Mark are repeated in Matthew and Luke. However, there is also material found in both Matthew and Luke which is not in Mark, suggesting another common source used by Matthew and Luke, but not Mark. This source, which has never actually been found, is theoretically known as Q (from German Quelle, meaning "source"). Mark and Q, thus, are the two sources of the Two-Source Hypothesis. Since Matthew and Luke also have material unique to their Gospel accounts, some scholars imagine that they had other sources, possibly oral, possibly written, which were not shared by the other Gospels writers. These sources are referred to as M, for Matthew's source, and L, for Luke's. (source criticism does not require creativity in coming up with these names). Adding M and L to Mark and Q gives you the Four-Source Hypothesis.
Again, this is a very simplified explanation, but I think it gives a pretty good overview of source criticism and the understanding of how the Gospel sources relate to one another. I promise, I won't keep doing Biblical criticism posts all semester.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
Hebrew or Greek?
My class on Exodus began today. A large portion of the classwork, as I mentioned in my last post, will be translation from either the Hebrew or the Greek. It's pretty much assumed in seminary, as it was back at St. John's, that reading a text in its original language is important–even vital—to understanding it. In the case of the Old Testament, this raises a question: why the Septuagint?
The Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Old Testament, commonly referred to as LXX, the Roman numerals for 70. LXX refers to the legend surrounding the Septuagint: 70 rabbinic scholars went out in pairs to translate the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. When they returned, all 35 translations were identical, proving (according to the legend) that the Greek translation was inspired by God. Even here, we can see the question being raised: if the Scriptures have been translated, are they still as reliable as the original? That is a question even today. In the case of translating from the Septuagint, we run up against the issue: the Septuagint is a translation. Isn't it on the same level as reading an English translation?
In short, the answer is no. The Septuagint is something of a special case as far as translation goes. To understand why, it is necessary to look at textual criticism—the study of the physical texts, the words that were written onto actual pages (papyri, technically) and passed down to us. In the case of the Hebrew text, the standard text used is called the Masoretic Text, or MT, which actually refers to a family of texts recorded by the Masoretes, who worked in the period from about 600 to 900 CE. You can see how late this is relative to the Scriptures themselves, which were in a finalized oral tradition as early as 400 BCE (in the case of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament)—a thousand or more years before. The specific text used, the one you find if you buy any copy of the Hebrew Scriptures in Hebrew, is called the Leningrad Codex, and it dates from about 1000 CE. In short: when you're translating the Old Testament from Hebrew, you're actually using a manuscript that was written down 1400 years after the texts were finalized, not to mention when they were originally composed. Now, to be fair, the oral tradition which passed down the Hebrew Scriptures, and the Masoretes who eventually recorded them in the form we know today, treated the words with the utmost veneration. Even obvious errors, the typos of the ancient world, were not corrected because the Word of God was too sacred to change. (Instead, the Masoretes made marginal notes with the corrected text.)
What about the Septuagint? Well, for one thing, the text is much more complicated. It's actually a patchwork of many different texts, fragments that have been edited together to make a cohesive whole. But the translation into Greek began not all that long after the Pentateuch was finalized—sometime around 250 BCE. So the Greek translation is actually much closer to the origins of the Hebrew Scriptures than either the Masoretes or the Leningrad Codex.
Obviously, this is an oversimplification of the issue, and text criticism is a very complex field (in which I am clearly no expert). But the point I'm trying to make is simply that the Greek translation of the Old Testament is very ancient, so it bears more weight in terms of its authority that just any translation made from Hebrew manuscripts today. Another interesting note is that, in the case of Exodus, the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint are effectively identical. That is, there are not clear differences in the texts—the Septuagint seems to be a faithful translation of the Hebrew text we have today. Again, the oral tradition from which both derive was held in extremely high regard; it was passed down with great care, as we can see from the stability of the text over more than a thousand years. And there's your very brief introduction to text criticism. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!
The Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Old Testament, commonly referred to as LXX, the Roman numerals for 70. LXX refers to the legend surrounding the Septuagint: 70 rabbinic scholars went out in pairs to translate the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. When they returned, all 35 translations were identical, proving (according to the legend) that the Greek translation was inspired by God. Even here, we can see the question being raised: if the Scriptures have been translated, are they still as reliable as the original? That is a question even today. In the case of translating from the Septuagint, we run up against the issue: the Septuagint is a translation. Isn't it on the same level as reading an English translation?
In short, the answer is no. The Septuagint is something of a special case as far as translation goes. To understand why, it is necessary to look at textual criticism—the study of the physical texts, the words that were written onto actual pages (papyri, technically) and passed down to us. In the case of the Hebrew text, the standard text used is called the Masoretic Text, or MT, which actually refers to a family of texts recorded by the Masoretes, who worked in the period from about 600 to 900 CE. You can see how late this is relative to the Scriptures themselves, which were in a finalized oral tradition as early as 400 BCE (in the case of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament)—a thousand or more years before. The specific text used, the one you find if you buy any copy of the Hebrew Scriptures in Hebrew, is called the Leningrad Codex, and it dates from about 1000 CE. In short: when you're translating the Old Testament from Hebrew, you're actually using a manuscript that was written down 1400 years after the texts were finalized, not to mention when they were originally composed. Now, to be fair, the oral tradition which passed down the Hebrew Scriptures, and the Masoretes who eventually recorded them in the form we know today, treated the words with the utmost veneration. Even obvious errors, the typos of the ancient world, were not corrected because the Word of God was too sacred to change. (Instead, the Masoretes made marginal notes with the corrected text.)
What about the Septuagint? Well, for one thing, the text is much more complicated. It's actually a patchwork of many different texts, fragments that have been edited together to make a cohesive whole. But the translation into Greek began not all that long after the Pentateuch was finalized—sometime around 250 BCE. So the Greek translation is actually much closer to the origins of the Hebrew Scriptures than either the Masoretes or the Leningrad Codex.
Obviously, this is an oversimplification of the issue, and text criticism is a very complex field (in which I am clearly no expert). But the point I'm trying to make is simply that the Greek translation of the Old Testament is very ancient, so it bears more weight in terms of its authority that just any translation made from Hebrew manuscripts today. Another interesting note is that, in the case of Exodus, the Masoretic Text and the Septuagint are effectively identical. That is, there are not clear differences in the texts—the Septuagint seems to be a faithful translation of the Hebrew text we have today. Again, the oral tradition from which both derive was held in extremely high regard; it was passed down with great care, as we can see from the stability of the text over more than a thousand years. And there's your very brief introduction to text criticism. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!
Friday, January 23, 2009
New Classes
So it's Friday... time for one of those blog things. I just completed my paper for my January term course: Music of Spiritual and Religious Formation. The class was very enjoyable; the paper, significantly less so. Still, it's done, and that is a relief.
I also just finished my first two days of classes, so today seemed like a good day to let you in on my spring class schedule. This semester had room for a few electives, which I'm really looking forward to. First, the required courses: I'm taking a history class on Luther and the Reformations, focusing mostly on Luther but also on Zwingli and Calvin as well as the Catholic and English Reformations. I'm also continuing with Church's Worship and Integrative Seminar from last semester. The last required class is Witness of the Gospels, the introductory New Testament class on (believe it or not) the Gospels. It involves a lot of work with Greek, not translation but exegesis based on the original text. Getting back into Greek after three years' absence will be quite painful.
I'm taking two electives, both on the Old Testament. The first is on Exodus, taught by the professor I had last semester for Intro to the Old Testament and for Hebrew. It's going to have a heavy translation component, with passages to translate each week from either the Hebrew or Greek (using the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament), depending on which language the student knows. (Hebrew is not required for students here, so they give the Septuagint option for those who have only studied Greek). The class should be really interesting, considering that Exodus is the central story of the people of Israel. I'm also excited to keep using my Hebrew from last semester. The other is titled Daniel and Apocalyptic; it's primarily about the book of Daniel, but it's also covering apocalyptic literature in general.
So all in all, a lot of Biblical classes this semester. I'm basically getting all of my Old Testament electives out of the way at once. Still, I have to say the electives sound much more interesting than the required classes. Once the learning starts up again, you can look forward to blog posts that are actually about something.
I also just finished my first two days of classes, so today seemed like a good day to let you in on my spring class schedule. This semester had room for a few electives, which I'm really looking forward to. First, the required courses: I'm taking a history class on Luther and the Reformations, focusing mostly on Luther but also on Zwingli and Calvin as well as the Catholic and English Reformations. I'm also continuing with Church's Worship and Integrative Seminar from last semester. The last required class is Witness of the Gospels, the introductory New Testament class on (believe it or not) the Gospels. It involves a lot of work with Greek, not translation but exegesis based on the original text. Getting back into Greek after three years' absence will be quite painful.
I'm taking two electives, both on the Old Testament. The first is on Exodus, taught by the professor I had last semester for Intro to the Old Testament and for Hebrew. It's going to have a heavy translation component, with passages to translate each week from either the Hebrew or Greek (using the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament), depending on which language the student knows. (Hebrew is not required for students here, so they give the Septuagint option for those who have only studied Greek). The class should be really interesting, considering that Exodus is the central story of the people of Israel. I'm also excited to keep using my Hebrew from last semester. The other is titled Daniel and Apocalyptic; it's primarily about the book of Daniel, but it's also covering apocalyptic literature in general.
So all in all, a lot of Biblical classes this semester. I'm basically getting all of my Old Testament electives out of the way at once. Still, I have to say the electives sound much more interesting than the required classes. Once the learning starts up again, you can look forward to blog posts that are actually about something.
Monday, January 19, 2009
That Tricky Thing Called "Love"
I had a conversation with a friend recently in which she confessed that she had been reading Twilight. I was somewhat horrified, unjustly so because I have not read the books nor seen the movie. Still, there's something about angsty teenage vampire romance that I just can't handle.
This post is not about Twilight. But the conversation I had with my friend got me thinking about love, in all its confusing meanings. Part of the problem, of course, is that the English language uses "love" to refer to a lot of different things. In Greek, there's eros, erotic love, philos, friendship or non-sexual love, and agape, charity or Christian love. In modern society, there is something of an obsession with romantic love, and I think that is what most people mean when they talk about love. We see it in movies and on TV—nearly every film or show has to have a romantic interest of some sort. You can't watch an hour of TV without seeing ads for dating services and the people who fell madly in love thanks to them. Books like Twilight feed on our infatuation with love stories. It is not a purely modern phenomenon, of course—look at Jane Austen, or Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. The idea of people being meant for each other, of finding one's true love and living happily ever after, is powerfully present all around us.
Please don't misunderstand me. I don't have anything against romantic love itself. I am very much in love with my husband, and the romantic love that we share is a great blessing in my life. What concerns me, what I want to bring up in this post, is the idea that romantic love is the be-all and end-all of human endeavors. Too often I think that romantic love is placed as the highest goal for people to achieve, and the goal which we must not fail to reach. There is a sense that, if you cannot fall in love with someone and have a storybook romance, you have failed in some deep, unforgivable way.
The Bible points to a different reality. There, we find an image of God who is loving, and God's love is extraordinary: "The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation" (Exodus 34:6-7). This is not human, romantic love; it is something wholly different. Then we discover that there is a different, transforming human love as well; in the New Testament, it is called agape. Paul famously described it in 1 Corinthians 13: "Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."
How different is this from our idea of romantic love! Romantic love is jealous, suspicious, and self-centered—and it is understandably so. If you love one particular person, and want that person to love you in return, your love is naturally going to be particular and selfish. Again, there is nothing wrong with this love; but isn't agape a higher form of love? I think of C. S. Lewis' The Great Divorce, where he describes an image of heaven. His character meets a woman there and his mentor tells him, "Every man who met her was her lover." What he means is that this woman's love was so pure and divine, that it was shared with every person around her. This woman did not share romantic love with one person; she shared agape with every person, selflessly and universally.
Soren Kierkegaard also described agape in his Works of Love. He says that a good test of your love for others is to go to a cemetery and love the people in the graves. That way, you know you are not loving them because of who they are or what they could do for you—you are not even loving them in order to receive love from them in return. Your love is truly universal and selfless.
While romantic love certainly has a place in our human relationships, I would like to see a greater focus given to the love described by Paul, C. S. Lewis, and Kierkegaard. That is the love we are called to as Christians; that is the love towards which we should aim.
Update: I swear, I did not read the following before I wrote this blog post, but check out the Dinosaur Comic from last Wednesday. Might as well close up shop here, I've been outclassed.
This post is not about Twilight. But the conversation I had with my friend got me thinking about love, in all its confusing meanings. Part of the problem, of course, is that the English language uses "love" to refer to a lot of different things. In Greek, there's eros, erotic love, philos, friendship or non-sexual love, and agape, charity or Christian love. In modern society, there is something of an obsession with romantic love, and I think that is what most people mean when they talk about love. We see it in movies and on TV—nearly every film or show has to have a romantic interest of some sort. You can't watch an hour of TV without seeing ads for dating services and the people who fell madly in love thanks to them. Books like Twilight feed on our infatuation with love stories. It is not a purely modern phenomenon, of course—look at Jane Austen, or Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. The idea of people being meant for each other, of finding one's true love and living happily ever after, is powerfully present all around us.
Please don't misunderstand me. I don't have anything against romantic love itself. I am very much in love with my husband, and the romantic love that we share is a great blessing in my life. What concerns me, what I want to bring up in this post, is the idea that romantic love is the be-all and end-all of human endeavors. Too often I think that romantic love is placed as the highest goal for people to achieve, and the goal which we must not fail to reach. There is a sense that, if you cannot fall in love with someone and have a storybook romance, you have failed in some deep, unforgivable way.
The Bible points to a different reality. There, we find an image of God who is loving, and God's love is extraordinary: "The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation" (Exodus 34:6-7). This is not human, romantic love; it is something wholly different. Then we discover that there is a different, transforming human love as well; in the New Testament, it is called agape. Paul famously described it in 1 Corinthians 13: "Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."
How different is this from our idea of romantic love! Romantic love is jealous, suspicious, and self-centered—and it is understandably so. If you love one particular person, and want that person to love you in return, your love is naturally going to be particular and selfish. Again, there is nothing wrong with this love; but isn't agape a higher form of love? I think of C. S. Lewis' The Great Divorce, where he describes an image of heaven. His character meets a woman there and his mentor tells him, "Every man who met her was her lover." What he means is that this woman's love was so pure and divine, that it was shared with every person around her. This woman did not share romantic love with one person; she shared agape with every person, selflessly and universally.
Soren Kierkegaard also described agape in his Works of Love. He says that a good test of your love for others is to go to a cemetery and love the people in the graves. That way, you know you are not loving them because of who they are or what they could do for you—you are not even loving them in order to receive love from them in return. Your love is truly universal and selfless.
While romantic love certainly has a place in our human relationships, I would like to see a greater focus given to the love described by Paul, C. S. Lewis, and Kierkegaard. That is the love we are called to as Christians; that is the love towards which we should aim.
Update: I swear, I did not read the following before I wrote this blog post, but check out the Dinosaur Comic from last Wednesday. Might as well close up shop here, I've been outclassed.
Monday, January 12, 2009
New Year, New Term, New Blog Post
Hello all! I'm back from vacation: rest, relaxation, and many hours of my life devoted to playing Mass Effect. I started my J-term class today—Music of Spiritual and Religious Formation. Hopefully Dr. Folkemer will forgive me for saying so, but it's a music appreciation class. We're going to learn about different kinds of music in different times and places, from Gregorian chant to black Gospel to Taize to Asian music, while considering how music affects spirituality and religion. But at the end of the day, it's a class where we sit around and listen to music. It'll be a nice, relaxing way to spend J-term. Oh yeah, and we have to write a ten-page paper when we're finished. I guess you can't win 'em all...
While I was on blogging hiatus, I decided to do things a little bit differently here this semester. I'm still interested in posting and keeping you all up-to-date with my seminary experiences, but the amount of time the blog has been taking up has been pretty substantial. I've decided to go to updating twice a week instead of three times a week. That means less time commitment for me, and fewer lame filler posts for you all. Look forward to new posts Mondays and Fridays!
While I was on blogging hiatus, I decided to do things a little bit differently here this semester. I'm still interested in posting and keeping you all up-to-date with my seminary experiences, but the amount of time the blog has been taking up has been pretty substantial. I've decided to go to updating twice a week instead of three times a week. That means less time commitment for me, and fewer lame filler posts for you all. Look forward to new posts Mondays and Fridays!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
