This will be an experimental Carnival in that I hope to build it with only nominated posts. That is, you either need to self-submit one or two of your own relevant posts to the Carnival or nominate posts from other bloggers for them to make it into the Carnival.  There are a lot of nominations already, so I think this is certainly the way to go. If you are worried about something not being represented in the Carnival, then the best thing to do is nominate it.

To nominate posts you have two options:

1. Send the following information to the following email address: biblical_studies_carnival AT hotmail.com. If you’re not sure whether a post qualifies, send it anyway and the I will decide whether to include it.
   • The title and permalink URL of the blog post you wish to nominate and the author’s name or pseudonym.
   • A short (two or three sentence) summary of the blog post.
   • The title and URL of the blog on which it appears (please note if it is a group blog).
   • Include “Biblical Studies Carnival [number]” in the subject line of your email
   • Your own name and email address.
2. Use the submission form provided by Blog Carnival. (This is probably the easier option if you only have one nomination.) Just select “biblical studies carnival” and fill in the rest of the information noted above.

For more information, please see the Biblical Studies Carnival Homepage.

Doug presents a three directions the Carnival could go:

1. No change (I see this as problematic)
2. Rely on Biblical Studies Carnival submissions (either via the BSC submission page or email), rather than the hosts being responsible to troll the blogosphere for the contents of the Carnival.
3. Have the host do a theme post with people commenting.

In addition, Mike Kok commented about the possibility of dividing the carnival (a New Testament and a Hebrew Bible one, for instance).

In my mind, the second option is the only real live option. The first option is not viable. The Carnivals are too much work and too big (if you look back through my regular call for hosts, you will see I have regularly noted this). A Carnival is supposed to be a collection of links with commentary on a common topic (in this case biblical studies). When you start getting more than a hundred links, it is just too big. One month is also quite a long period in the blogosphere, so perhaps more frequent Carnivals?

The third option is, well, problematic because such a post is not a Carnival. I’m not saying that it is not a good idea; it is just not what a carnival is.  Mike’s idea of splitting the Carnival is a possibility, although I am not interested in too much specialization. I personally am far more interested in integration and having the various sub-disciplines within biblical studies talk to each other.

My proposal is thus:

• Have Biblical Studies Carnivals twice a month. This will cut down on the workload and make the Carnivals more relevant and useful.
• Keep the focus on academic biblical studies. The host is the editor and one of his/her jobs is to keep the Carnival on track; if something is submitted that is not deemed on target, then it gets ignored.
• Focus primarily on nominated submissions. It is not possible for a typical blogger to be apprised of everything that is going on in connection with biblical studies on the blogosphere. Few if any of us keep on top of all of the people that blog in the area of biblical studies. This will also mean that there is no reason for someone to feel put out because his or her post was not mentioned. We all will have to do a better job submitting links to the Carnival; but I am sure once we get used to the idea it will work well (because there is an unwritten expectation that the host will gather links, most people do not submit posts regularly — I know because I take care of the email account!).

What do you think? Eventually we could move to weekly Carnivals, but twice a month seems like a better plan for now.

If this seems like a good idea, then let’s go for it. Since I am the host of the next Carnival, I will rely solely on nominated links. Since I am the coordinator of the Biblical Studies Carnivals I will only pick hosts that agree to this new procedure (having someone host who doesn’t rely only on submissions would be subversive since it wouldn’t help train people to submit their own posts or those they like).

Let me know what you think!

As I said last month, it’s a huge job to host the monthly Carnival (just ask any mortal who has hosted it before), and it makes it a lot easier if you nominate posts. Part of me wants to do what many carnivals do (e.g., the Christian Carnival) and only note posts that were actually nominated. Then the job of hosting would actually be reasonable and no one could complain about the host not mentioning their post, since you would be responsible to self-nominate. Enough of my rant…

Help Doug out and nominate some posts today! To nominate posts you have two options:

1. Send the following information to the following email address: biblical_studies_carnival AT hotmail.com. If you’re not sure whether a post qualifies, send it anyway and the I will decide whether to include it.
   • The title and permalink URL of the blog post you wish to nominate and the author’s name or pseudonym.
   • A short (two or three sentence) summary of the blog post.
   • The title and URL of the blog on which it appears (please note if it is a group blog).
   • Include “Biblical Studies Carnival [number]” in the subject line of your email
   • Your own name and email address.
2. Use the submission form provided by Blog Carnival. (This is probably the easier option if you only have one nomination.) Just select “biblical studies carnival” and fill in the rest of the information noted above.

For more information, please see the spiffy new  Biblical Studies Carnival Homepage.

(I was remiss and failed to note the posting of Kevin Scull’s superb Biblical Studies Carnival XLVII at his  Paul of Tarsus blog. If you haven’t already, make sure to check it out!)

The conference was good. It seems a bit more manageable without AAR (first time I can recall having enough space in the conference rooms), though there are some sessions which I miss not having the opportunity to attend. I heard some good papers in the Chronicles/Ezra-Nehemiah, Septuagint, and Psalms sections, among others. I also had a nice time at a dinner organized by fellow blogger John Hobbins. The dinner featured a local chef who was superb (I now can say I like collard greens; I had them before in Arizona and thought they were awful, but now I know it was just the way they were prepared).   Michael Fox was the special guest at the dinner; after a great introduction by Ray Van Leeuwen, he chatted about the second volume of his AB commentary on Proverbs (which will be the leading commentary on Proverbs for quite a while). I also met up with other bloggers at the function organized by Jim West. It was great to put some faces to the names.

The book displays were also in fine form. I spent far too much money on too few books (the prices were right, but the fact is books are just getting more and more expensive). I’ll have to post about some of my purchases at a later date.

Now to get back into lecture prep and grading mode… bah!

Disturbing Divine Behavior:
Troubling Old Testament Images of God
by Eric A. Seibert
Fortress Press, 2009
Buy from Amazon.ca | Amazon.com

In this work Seibert examines the disturbing narrative portrayals of God in the Hebrew Bible and explores some ways in which we may (as Christians) read these narratives in a responsible and faithful manner today. I am not necessarily convinced by Seibert’s solution to the problem, but he does a great job focusing the issue and helping us understand the function of biblical narrative and its relation to history. I only wish that he would have expanded his coverage to at least include the negative images of God found in the prophetic literature. Moreover, I really wish he expanded his work to cover the entire Christian Bible (Old and New Testaments), so the issue isn’t even framed as an “Angry God of the Old Testament versus the Loving God of the New Testament” debate.

Another book that deals with the same problem by focusing on the book of Joshua and the conquest/Canaanite genocide is Walter Brueggemann’s recently published, Divine Presence Amid Violence: Contextualizing the Book of Joshua (Cascade, 2009; Buy from Amazon.ca | Amazon.com).

The conference examined the troubling portrayals of God in the Hebrew Bible — something which I am very interested in since that will be the focus of one of my courses I am teaching next semester. Here is the write up for the conference:

Adherents of the Abrahamic religious traditions contend that human beings are made in the image of God and that modeling the character of God in one’s life represents the pinnacle of human flourishing and moral perfection. Defenders of this tradition commonly point to passages in the canonical texts of the Jewish and Christian faiths that portray God as loving, merciful, patient, etc. in support of such a position. Since the seventeenth century, however, numerous critics of these Abrahamic traditions have argued that God, especially in the Hebrew Bible, is often portrayed as anything but a moral role model. On the one hand, historical narratives in these texts describe God apparently committing, ordering, or commending genocide, slavery, and rape among other moral atrocities. On the other hand, a number of commands purportedly issued by God seem to commend bigotry, misogyny, and homophobia. In recent days, similar criticisms of the Abrahamic traditions have been raised by philosophers (Daniel Dennett), scientists (Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris), social commentators (Christopher Hitchens), and others.

Are these apparent commendations and commands of the Hebrew Bible consistent with the claim that the Abrahamic God is perfectly good and loving? Those defending this tradition have two avenues of response open to them. The first response would be to argue that the aforementioned troubling narratives or commands should simply be rejected. Those taking this approach would have to explain how they think such passages could be rejected without placing in peril the Abrahamic religions, which have traditionally claimed that the Hebrew Bible is, represents, or contains the inspired word of God. The second response would offer explanations aiming to show that the apparently untoward consequences can be avoided without rejecting the narratives or commands. Those taking this approach must explain either why the untoward consequences do not follow, or why they are not, in the end untoward.

However, while defenders of this tradition have both routes available to them, few of these defenders seem to have taken the challenge to heart. Despite these recent, forthright criticisms, only a handful of theologians or philosophers in these traditions have sought to respond to the criticisms.

The present conference aims to remedy this deficiency, taking as its focus the charge that the Abrahamic tradition should be rejected because of its foundation in the Hebrew Bible, which portrays God as immoral and vicious. The presenters and commentators include philosophers—both theistic and nontheistic—as well as Biblical scholars.

The conference had an impressive list of speakers, including Christopher Seitz, Nicholas Wolterstorff, James L. Crenshaw, among others. And if you were not able to attend the conference (as I), we can still enjoy the papers and interaction via the web!

Here is the program with links to the videos:

Thursday, September 10, 2009:

• Mike Rea: Welcome and Introduction
• Louise Antony: Does God Love Us?

Friday, September 11, 2009:

• Edwin Curley: The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
• Evan Fales: Satanic Verses: Moral Chaos in Holy Writ
• John Hare: Animal Sacrifices
• Mark C. Murphy: God Beyond Justice
• Eleonore Stump: The Problem of Evil and the History of Peoples: Think Amalek

Saturday, September 12, 2009:

• Richard Swinburne: What does the Old Testament Mean?
• Nicholas Wolterstorff: Reading Joshua
• Gary Anderson: What about the Canaanites?
• Christopher Seitz: Canon and Conquest: The Character of the God of the Hebrew Bible
• Concluding Remarks: Howard Wettstein
• Panel Discussion: Gary Anderson, Paul Draper, Daniel Howard-Snyder

I encourage you to check out the papers!

In my sad post lamenting the fact that Edmonton was not among the first North American cities for the U2360° Tour, I begged Bono and the Edge (sorry Larry and Adam, but I didn’t think you had the pull) to reconsider and make Edmonton one of the stops, and I am pleased to announce that they listened to me and U2 is coming to Edmonton 23 June 2010!

Presales start tomorrow and I can buy my tickets Wednesday at 10:00 am. Tickets are available to the public 2 November 2009.

If last night’s Rose Bowl show was any indication, it is going to be a great night on 23 June 2010! I can’t wait!

It’s a huge job to host the monthly Carnival (just ask any mortal who has hosted it before), and it makes it a lot easier if you nominate posts. Part of me wants to do what many carnivals do (e.g., the Christian Carnival) and only note posts that were actually nominated. Then the job of hosting would actually be reasonable and no one could complain about the host not mentioning their post, since you would be responsible to self-nominate. Enough of my rant…

Help Kevin out and nominate some posts today! To nominate posts you have two options:

1. Send the following information to the following email address: biblical_studies_carnival AT hotmail.com. If you’re not sure whether a post qualifies, send it anyway and the I will decide whether to include it.
   • The title and permalink URL of the blog post you wish to nominate and the author’s name or pseudonym.
   • A short (two or three sentence) summary of the blog post.
   • The title and URL of the blog on which it appears (please note if it is a group blog).
   • Include “Biblical Studies Carnival [number]” in the subject line of your email
   • Your own name and email address.
2. Use the submission form provided by Blog Carnival. (This is probably the easier option if you only have one nomination.) Just select “biblical studies carnival” and fill in the rest of the information noted above.

For more information, please see the spiffy new  Biblical Studies Carnival Homepage.

That being said, I find Saul’s problematic regnal formula in 1Samuel 13:1 intriguing. A quick look at the Hebrew text of this verse will quickly highlight the problems with this verse:

בֶּן־שָׁנָה שָׁאוּל בְּמָלְכוֹ וּשְׁתֵּי שָׁנִים מָלַךְ עַל־יִשְׂרָאֵל

Literally translated the text would read: “Saul was son of __ years when he began to reign, and he reigned two years over Israel.” There are two issues with this verse.

1. The most obvious problem with this verse is that there is no number associated with Saul’s age when he took the throne. The Hebrew convention to say someone is twenty-five years, for example, is to say literally, “he was son of twenty and five years.” This is more than likely a textual problem.
2. The second issue is both grammatical and historical in nature. Historically, most scholars consider two years to be too short for Saul’s reign if you need to fit all the events narrated in 1Samuel. Grammatically, the syntax of the regnal formula is usually an cardinal in absolute state followed by the absolute noun “years”; in this verse you have a cardinal in construct form followed by an absolute noun (e.g., in 2Samuel 2:10 Ishbaal’s two-year reign is found with the expected form: וּשְׁתַּיִם שָׁנִים מָלָךְ). This departure from the standard formula may suggest a textual issue where some numbers dropped out.

When we look to other textual witnesses, there is little help. Codex Vaticanus omits the verse, while some of the Lucianic Greek manuscripts put Saul’s age at thirty, but they reproduce the two year duration of his reign. The Aramaic Targums translate the verse creatively as “Saul was like a one year old with no sins when he became king; then he reigned two years over Israel.”  Josephus puts Saul reign as twenty years long in Ant. 10.143, but as forty years in Ant. 6.378 (The latter agrees with Acts 13:21).  And modern scholars have suggested a bunch of different numbers (For a good discussion trying to figure out how long Saul’s reign actually was, I encourage you to check out Claude’s post, Rereading 1 Samuel 13:1; Chris Heard over at Higgaion also has a related post dealing with the length of Saul’s reign on the Accordance timeline).

All of the apparent textual issues aside, I still wonder if the MT text may be purposeful — it would certainly fit in with the anti-Saul polemic found in the Deuteronomistic History, Chronicles, and other parts of the Hebrew Bible (e.g., Esther). I recall a course I was in at the University of Toronto with Dr. Stanley D. Walters on 1 and 2 Samuel and I believe he suggested that the reading of the MT was intentional. This is also the perspective of Hertzberg in his commentary on Samuel in the OTL series. He suggests in regards to the awkward syntax of the MT’s two year reign that

the number is given because it was the later view that Saul was actually ‘king’ for only quite a short time (cf. also on 15.1). In fact, the number 40, which is geven both in Josephus and in Acts 13.21 as the length of Saul’s reign, may originally have stood here; as has been said, it would have been replaced by the figure two on dogmatic-historical grounds” (I & II Samuel: A Commentary, p. 103; emphasis mine).

Thus, while historically Saul’s reign was perhaps over a decade or two, in reality, from a theological perspective, his reign was only two years since Yahweh removed the crown from him and “turned the kingdom over to David son of Jesse” (1Chron 10:14). And the MT reflects precisely this theological reading.

The last quarter-century has seen a remarkable resurgence in scholarship on the book of Chronicles. The Ancient Historiography Seminar of the CSBS invites papers evaluating the state of Chronicles research, including papers exploring the text, context, or subtext of the Chronicler’s work and Yehudite Historiography in the late Persian/Early Hellenistic Period. While the focus of the session will be on Chronicles, papers on other examples of early Second Temple historiography, especially as they contribute to our understanding of the Chronicler, are welcome.

To be considered for our program, please submit a 250 word abstract to the seminar chair, Tyler Williams (tyler [dot] williams [at] kingsu [dot] ca) by December 1, 2009.

The seminar will meet as part of the annual meeting of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies, held at Concordia University, Montréal, PQ, May 29-31, 2010.

The Ancient Historiography Seminar / Groupe de Travail sur l’Historiographie Ancienne is a professional, academic working group of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies / Société canadienne des Études bibliques (CSBS/SCÉB). Last year’s schedule and papers may be found here, while the papers from the 2006, 2007, and 2008 meetings may be found here.