Septuagint sneak preview

Would you like some guidance in reading the Greek Old Testament?

Many lexicons and reading helps only cover vocabulary found in the New Testament, making it challenging for students to make the jump into reading the Septuagint (the ancient translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek). Help is on the way!

Introducing the brainchild of Dr. Karen Jobes, expert in Septuagintal studies: Discovering the Septuagint: A Guided Reader. This new resource is a companion to the Septuagint, focusing on selected passages to give students exposure to the vocabulary and translation styles exhibited by various books. Each chapter includes a brief introduction and relevant bibliography, glosses and syntactical notes on difficult or unusual words, a translation from NETS (the New English Translation of the Septuagint), and a chart highlighting New Testament citations.

Selected passages include Genesis 1–3, Exodus 14–15, 20, Ruth, 2 Reigns 7 [2 Samuel 7], Additions to Greek Esther A, C, D, and F, Psalm 21 [22], 22 [23], 99 [100], 109 [110], and 151, Hosea 1–3, 6, and 11, Amos 1–2, and 9, Jonah, Malachi, Isaiah 7 and 53.

CONTRIBUTORS:
Jesse Arlen
Kimberly Carlton
Hannah Clardy
John Coatney
Caleb Friedeman
Carmen Imes
Judy Kim
Jeremy Otten
Chris Smith

Yours truly created the chapter on the Decalogue (Exodus 20:1–21 // Deuteronomy 5:6–21) and helped edit the entire volume to bring all the contributions into stylistic conformity. It was a fun project! For an interview with Dr. Jobes about this book, click here.

Note: This guided reader does not cover the entire Septuagint. It is like a set of training wheels for intermediate students who want to gain the skills they need to continue reading on their own. Kregel hopes the book will be available early in 2016. Perhaps you know of a course at your school for which this book would be just right. Request your copy today!

best books in Christian publishing 2015

Dr. Daniel Block

Dr. Karen Jobes

Dr. Douglas Moo

The Evangelical Christian Publishers Association has just released their list of finalists for the 2015 Christian Book Award. There's quite a bit of overlap with Christianity Today's top picks of the year. Wouldn't you know . . . my dissertation committee makes up half of the finalists in the Bible Reference category!? I guess that means I'm in very good hands!

Congratulations to Dr. Block (my advisor), Dr. Jobes (my second reader), and Dr. Moo (who will chair my defense) for their excellent publications.

Daniel Block, For the Glory of God: Recovering a Biblical Theology of Worship (Baker)
Karen Jobes, 1, 2, and 3 John: Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the NT
Douglas Moo, Galatians: Baker Exegetical Commentary on the NT

The ECPA will announce the winners in each category as well as the overall winner on May 5th. In the meantime, you can check out the finalists in Non-Fiction, Fiction, Inspiration, Bibles, Bible Reference, Childrens, and New Authors on their website.

the latest publication by Daniel Block

The latest entry in Daniel Block's growing bibliography is now in print! Dr. Block has long been known for his fine 2-volume commentary on Ezekiel in the NICOT series.  It is widely used in both seminaries and university classrooms (The University of Wisconsin - Madison, for example) and still recognized 15 years after publication as the most thoroughly exegetical commentary available. It's no wonder Tremper Longman gave it 5 stars in his Old Testament Commentary Survey. More recently he helped bring the late Jacob Milgrom's commentary on the latter part of Ezekiel to press.

While for the past 10 years Dr. Block's attention has centered on the book of Deuteronomy, his 3 decades of involvement in the SBL seminar on Ezekiel continues to draw him back to that book. Over the years he has presented and published dozens of essays on Ezekiel, covering aspects of the book that even a 2-volume commentary did not allow him adequate space to discuss. Now, for the first time, nearly all of Dr. Block's additional work on Ezekiel is available in two handy volumes (akin to his 2-volume collection of essays on Deuteronomy). The first volume is hot off the press and the second should be released within the next month.

By the River Chebar: Historical Literary, and Theological Studies in the Book of Ezekiel includes the following 9 essays:

Preaching Ezekiel
The Theology of Ezekiel
The God Ezekiel Wants Us to Meet
Divine Abandonment: Ezekiel's Adaptation of an ANE Motif
   Excursus A: The Prophetic Speech of Marduk
Chasing a Phantom: The Search for the Historical Marduk
The Prophet of the Spirit: The Use of ruach in the Book of Ezekiel
Beyond the Grave: Ezekiel's Vision of Death and Afterlife
Text and Emotion: A Study in the "Corruptions" in Ezekiel's Inaugural Vision (Ezek 1:4–28)
   Excursus B: Ezekiel 1:6, 8–10, 15–21, and 10:9–22 in Parallel
Ezekiel's Boiling Cauldron: A Form-Critical Solution to Ezekiel 24:1–14
   Appendix: In Praise of Moshe: A Tribute to Moshe Greenberg

These essays appeared in academic journals and edited volumes between 1988 and 2010, with at least three entries that are not yet in print elsewhere. But now you can have them all at your fingertips, complete with subject, author, and Scripture indices as well as a full bibliography. The bibliography alone is a testimony to the rich conversation in which Dr. Block has been engaged over the course of these years. For those involved in detailed study of the book of Ezekiel, Ian Duguid calls these books an "essential resource."

Congratulations, Dr. Block!

How to Find the BEST Old Testament Commentaries

Last week Baker Academic sent me a free copy of this really useful book. (Thanks, Baker!) I've already fulfilled my obligation to them by blogging about it here, at the Wheaton Blog, but it's such a nifty book that I just had to tell you about it as well. (For my full review, check out the other site).

If you've ever had trouble knowing which commentaries will be worth owning, or even where to start research for a sermon or paper or Bible Study, this is the book for you. It's one book that will save you both time and money. At under $12, you actually can't afford not to own it. Longman is a well-respected Evangelical scholar with decades of experience teaching and writing commentaries. Consider him your own personal tutor when it comes to choosing commentaries.

So how does this book work? Longman lists at least a dozen commentaries on each book of the Old Testament, grouped by book. He evaluates each one in a few sentences, telling you what's unique, what's done well, and what's not. Each entry is coded to show the intended audience (L=laypeople; M=ministers and seminary students; S=scholars). Then he gives it a rating between one and five stars to help you find the best commentaries at a glance.

This book came at a good time. For my current dissertation chapter I needed to quickly check the best commentaries on Psalms to see what they said about a tricky passage. I flipped to the section on Psalms in Longman's book and within about 2 minutes I knew which commentaries to grab from the reference section and which to avoid. My only regret is that I didn't know about this book years ago. It will stay within arm's reach at my desk from here on out. And later this fall, when the New Testament counterpart by D. A. Carson is released, it will be in good company.

Tuesday Tidbit: Gospel Coalition interview with Daniel Block

The Gospel Coalition recently interviewed Dr. Block regarding some of the controversial statements he makes in his recently-released NIV Application Commentary on Deuteronomy. For the full text of the interview, click here.

If you're surprised to hear that Block does not see Moses as a "lawgiver" and that he thinks those who see Jesus as a "new Moses" have a "low Christology," then be sure to check out the interview!

hot off the press

Just a few moments ago, I left my study carrel and took a momentous walk across the campus to the Billy Graham Center, where I ascended 5 stories and hand-delivered my first complete dissertation chapter to Dr. Block.
In 63 pages I explore the entire history of interpretation of Exod 20:7 and Deut 5:11, categorizing, listening, and finally critiquing each view. It's been a fun chapter to research and write, but I'm glad it's over (for now).

[Big Satisfied Sigh]

Dr. Block returned the favor by handing me my very own copy of Jacob Milgrom's commentary on the final chapters of Ezekiel. It's so hot-off-the-press that even Amazon doesn't have it yet!

It was a tremendous privilege to be part of bringing this book to press. This volume represents the last 5 years of Milgrom's scholarly work before his untimely death in 2010.

Dr. Milgrom, eminent Jewish scholar known for his work on Leviticus in the Anchor Bible series, was asked to write the final volume on Ezekiel for the same series, completing the work begun by Moshe Greenberg. Of all the commentaries available to him, Professor Milgrom found Daniel Block's Ezekiel commentary in the NICOT series to be most helpful. Block became his prime conversation partner. Since the evolving "conversation" no longer fit the parameters for the Anchor Bible series, Milgrom asked Block if they could pursue co-publication of the volume. Shortly thereafter Milgrom died, leaving the work to Dr. Block to finish. After a year of wrestling with fonts and footnotes, indices and italics, transliteration and bibliography, the book is finished. And isn't it beautiful! Wipf & Stock did a tremendous job with the cover and proved themselves once again to be the fastest and friendliest publisher on the planet.

To Dr. Block, and to the Milgrom family, with whom I've had an indirect connection all these months, Congratulations! Thanks to all of you for your persistence in publishing Dr. Milgrom's work. Students of Scripture will reap the benefits for many years to come.

It's a . . . book!

Name: NIVAC Deuteronomy
Delivered: August 21, 2012
Height: 9.1 inches
Weight: 2.4 pounds
Length: 880 pages
Proud Parent: Daniel Block

It's true, Daniel Block's NIV Application Commentary on Deuteronomy has hit the shelves. Remember the sneak preview I gave you back in February?

The gestation period for this one was more than 10 years.  All of us who have had the privilege of studying Deuteronomy with Dr. Block are delighted to see a safe delivery. Now all of you can share our joy. Congratulations, Dr. Block!

on being a ripe mom . . .

The kids all climbed in bed with us this morning and watched while I opened their carefully-wrapped gifts: a butterfly pin and a tiny clay pot from Emma (age 6), a rock painted to look like a lady bug and a hand print from Easton (age 4), a picture frame for the kids' artwork from Danny, and a card full of coupons from Eliana (age 11). Eliana's coupons had me in stitches. Does she know her mom or what?

• I'll bake you brownies for your study carrel.
• You can force me to help you with your dissertation.
• I will clean up your desk (presumably after I eat the brownies).
• I'll give you a free lecture.
• You can force me to read your "thesus".
• I'll write you a commentary for free! (This, she figured, would be cheaper than buying me one.)

I'm eager to think of a way that Eliana can help with my dissertation. Perhaps helping me pack and move my books into my larger study carrel will be just the thing. I'll get an upgrade later this summer with more shelf and desk space. But meanwhile, my kids are bringing lots of joy to the journey.

Emma wrote an acrostic poem using the letters of my name in honor of Mother's Day.

Creative
Artistic
Ripe (Emma tells me this is much better than being rotten. 
         I trust she does not mean ripe as in "ripe old age" . . .)
Mousy (And this, apparently, means I slowly tell my kids what to do,
             which seems very unlikely, but it does, in fact, start with the letter "m,"
             which is the main thing.)
Encourager
Nice

Another of her "pomes" goes like this:

roses are red
vilot are blue
evreyone loves you
lu! lu! lu!

I'm such a ripe mom, in fact, that this week I took the kids on a spontaneous field trip to Blanchard Hall with Flat Stanley, who was mailed to Emma by a friend in North Carolina.  

 We ate snack together and the kids did their homework, and then we explored all the fun staircases, round rooms, and odd windows in the 140-year-old building that houses Wheaton's top administrators and is named after the school's founder.

I showed them the room where I had my proposal defense last month, and we peeked out of a round window in the main tower to get a view of the Billy Graham Center, where my classes are held. As you can see, we took lots of pictures along the way to document Flat Stanley's historic visit to Blanchard Hall. We'll send pictures back to Emma's friend, Logan.

It's great having places like this just a few steps from our front door, and having children to explore them with me! I am a happy mother indeed.

Ideas for Family Devotions

Something about the new year always gets us thinking about how we can make sure we're reading the Bible with our kids.  We've tried a lot of different ways to do "Bible Time," and since we're always in need of new ideas I thought I'd post some of ours in hopes that you'll comment with some of yours.

I've already recommended my two favorite children's Bibles: one for 0-5 year olds, and one for 5-10 year olds.  One way to make sure that you're actually reading the Bible with your kids is to plan it for the time of day that is the most structured.  Dinner time has not worked for us, but maybe it would for your family.  Bedtime has been a lot more successful at our house.  The kids always ask for a bedtime story, and so last year we decided that the Bible would always be their bedtime story.  We made it through our big children's Bible (for 5-10 year olds) by mid-year.  The Big Picture Story Bible (for 0-5 year olds) lasted only a couple of weeks because it does what the title suggests: gives the big picture, rather than a lot of details.  It would be great for a weekly family Bible time, and does an excellent job of tying the whole story of Scripture together.

Other ideas we have used:

• Read a proverb or two each night at dinner and talk about what it means.
• Read through the New Testament in a year by doing a few chapters each week on Saturdays and Sundays.  Danny did this with Eliana in 2010.  They listened to the Bible being read aloud online and followed along in the NIV.
• Work through a children's devotional.  We're going to start off the year with "Keys for Kids," something from way back in the early 80's that I loved as a kid.  Our kids have also really enjoyed Under the Tagalong Tree, a book that includes Bible stories followed by modern-day stories for kids along the same theme.  I read it over and over as a kid. 
• Read a missionary biography together or a book like Hero Tales.  This works well with children ages 6 and up.  Now is the time to inspire them to ask what God wants them to do with their lives!  Most people who become missionaries were first exposed to missions during their childhood.
• Work on memorizing questions and answers from a Children's Catechism (Q & A about the meaning of life from a biblical perspective).  You'd be amazed at what young children can memorize! (Note: I haven't used this one in particular, but it appears to be similar to ours.)
• Light a candle and spend time quietly listening to God, followed by prayer.  Think your kids won't be quiet long enough?  Having a dark room with a candle lit makes a big difference!
• Work on memorizing familiar passages of Scripture together.  Some of our favorites are Psalm 1, Psalm 23, Psalm 100, Deuteronomy 6, and John 1.  Make it a family contest!
• Eliana and I are going to work our way through Genesis this spring while reading our new commentary written just for kids her age.  This is the first kids' commentary I've ever seen, and I'm excited to try it out!  We plan to do it together on Sunday afternoons while the younger kids are napping.

Whether first thing in the morning, dinner time, bedtime, or Sunday afternoons, family devotions will not just happen unless you decide they are important and make it part of your routine!  There isn't a 'right way' and a 'wrong way' to do it.  Just find something that works for your family and go for it!

I'd love to hear your ideas, too.  Post a comment below...

how does a poem mean?

The intellectual highlight of my time at ETS/SBL in Atlanta was the Sunday morning session on the Theology of Hebrew Poetry.  An outstanding line-up of scholars presented papers and responses on the topic of how Hebrew poetry conveys theology. It's common, I think, to assume that we have to rely on the prosaic sections of Scripture for our theology (the Old Testament law, for example, or Jesus' Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, or Paul's letter to the Romans).  This group of scholars explored the ways in which poetry makes a distinctive contribution to theology.


John Goldingay, of Fuller Theological Seminary, suggested that poetic metaphors make it possible to say things that are difficult to express otherwise.  He said, "Poetry makes it possible to describe the indescribable." At the same time, the genius of poetry is that it obscures things.  It makes people think and yield before they fully understand. Difficulties in the text are sometimes deliberate, requiring readers to wrestle with the message.


Andrea Weiss, from Hebrew-Union College, also talked about metaphors.  She focused on cases where mixed metaphors are used to describe God (for example, see Isa 42:13-14, where God is like a warrior and a woman in labor).  She concluded that no one metaphor alone can capture what needs to be communicated about God.  When metaphors are mixed, it sparks our attention and invites our consideration, delight, and surprise.


Julia O'Brien, from Lancaster Theological Seminary, gave the most thought-provoking address. She spoke about the poetry of the Old Testament prophets. The style itself is violent, disruptive and jarring, seeking to shock the reader into new insights about our inscrutable God. Poetry obscures reality, yet translators and commentators try to smooth out and soften it, making the text more coherent. O'Brien urged us to stop trying to tame the Bible, and to enter the fray and experience it the way it was written.  She says that the prophets, by jarring us from our complacency, show us the absolute power of Yahweh.


After a semester of translating Hebrew poetry, I can say that O'Brien is right. The poetry of the Old Testament is jarring.  Short, choppy lines with hardly any connecting words, bizarre metaphors and rapid changes of subject are the norm.  I have always loved the prophets for their boldness and willingness to say what is unpopular because the Spirit of Yahweh burns within them.  Perhaps we do a disservice to the readers of Scripture when we try to tame the text so it can be clearly understood.  We are meant to wrestle with its message, bitter though it may be, so that we can know the will of God.  He is serious about sin and not interested in mincing words.  God is love, but he is also holy, and we cannot have one without the other. 

Psalm 24

The Psalms are beautiful in English; they are stunning in Hebrew.

Hebrew poetry is laid out in exquisitely balanced lines where several components work together to give the sense that the second line belongs somehow with the first and enhances its meaning.  Biblical poetry doesn't have rhyme, rhythm, or meter (the way we think of it), but it is artistically captivating.  If you have studied Hebrew (or if you haven't but are highly motivated), I highly recommend two books on the subject: The Idea of Biblical Poetry by James Kugel, and The Dynamics of Biblical Parallelism by Adele Berlin.  Both were very, very helpful to me.

I've immersed myself in Psalm 24 this week, writing an exegesis paper on it.  Here is my translation, with a few notes on what has stood out to me.

Psalm 24
1 Of David, A song.

The earth and its fullness (are) Yahweh’s,
the world and those dwelling in it.
2 Because he himself laid its foundation upon the seas,
and established it upon the rivers.

Yahweh is the God of the whole earth.  This is remarkable, because other nations of that day claimed to have their own deity, specific to their region.  Israel declares that her God is the Lord of the whole earth.
Why does the whole world belong to Yahweh?  Simple.  He made it!
He subdued the chaos of nothingness and made a place we can inhabit.

3 Who may go up on the mountain of Yahweh?

And who may stand in his holy place?
(One who has) clean hands and a pure heart
who does not lift up my soul to vanity
and does not swear deceitfully.
5 He will carry a blessing from Yahweh
and righteousness from his saving God.
6 This (is the) generation seeking him,
the seekers of your face. Jacob. Selah.

How, then, can those who are citizens of this world made by Yahweh please Him? We must have clean actions and pure motives.  What we say we will do, we must do. That is the kind of person Yahweh blesses.  The descendents of Jacob, the deceiver, are unlikely candidates, but God delights in new beginnings!  Take note that the one who ascends is not bowing in worship but standing, perhaps making a request.  Those who want their prayers to be heard need to be this kind of person.

7 Lift up your heads, O gates

and be lifted up, O ancient doors,
so the glorious king may come in.
8 Who is this glorious king?
Yahweh, strong and mighty;
Yahweh, mighty (in) battle.
9 Lift up your heads, O gates,
and lift up, O ancient doors,
so the glorious king may come in.
10 Who is he then – this glorious king?
Yahweh of armies;
He (is) the glorious king. Selah.

Most commentators suppose that this section of the Psalm is a liturgy celebrating the bringing of the ark of God into Jerusalem.  If they are right, Yahweh would have been seated above it with his feet resting on the cherubim.  The gates would certainly have needed to 'lift their heads' for God to fit through! 

But here's my nagging question, and none of the commentaries are asking it.  David asks who may ascend the hill of the Lord (i.e. Jerusalem), and describes the kind of righteous person who is allowed to stand in the presence of God.  Next we see Yahweh Himself making the ascent and entering the city.  Is this to suggest that He alone is righteous?  Does this hint that He will have to be the answer to the quest for a righteous person who can intercede for the people?  If so, David's song points forward to the New Testament (see John 12:12-16).

N. T. Wright says this: "Jesus' prophetic vocation thus included within it the vocation to enact, symbolically, the return of YHWH to Zion." (Jesus and the Victory of God, 653)

Lift up your heads, O Gates,
And be lifted up, O ancient doors,
That the glorious king - JESUS - may come in!

missing diamonds ... and the gift of heresy

A diamond is missing from my wedding ring (not the big one, thankfully, but one of the little accent diamonds).  It could be anywhere ... the laundry, the shower, the bedsheets, the library, the kitchen sink, my sunday school classroom, outside.  If our carpet was made of black velvet it would be much easier to find!

And that got me thinking about how heresy is a gift to the church.  A gift??!!  This past week I gave a library tour to two batches of exegesis students who are getting ready to research and write their final paper for the semester.  I took them to the shelves of commentaries on the Bible.  I said, "Do you see these two sets of commentaries?  These are the ones I can't stand.  When I read them I get so angry I want to throw them across the room.  Be sure to consult them for your papers." 

Someone who missed my introductory comments was understandably confused.  "Did you just say you don't like them but we should use them?"

"Yes," I explained, "because a paper that only cites commentaries that agree with you is a boring paper.  In order to see how the truth matters, you've got to show what happens when it gets set aside or diluted.  The commentaries I don't like are liberal commentaries that take scripture and slice and dice it, throwing out all the parts that they say that Jesus couldn't have done or said, either because it's too supernatural, or the theology is too highly developed, or whatever.  Those commentaries may have something valuable to say to you, but you'll have to sift through the chaff to find the wheat.  And the ways they mis-read scripture will be like black velvet, so that that diamond in the text can shine all the brighter."

That, incidentally, is why meeting with Jehovah's Witnesses has been so valuable for me.  I don't know what they are getting out of it, but I for one am no longer taking the precious truths of God's Word for granted.  The deity of Christ, my assurance of salvation, the personality of the Holy Spirit, the promise of eternal life with God himself, and the gift of communion have become all the more vibrant to me against the black backdrop of their misreadings of Scripture.  It truly makes me wonder whether God allows heresy to grow up around his people precisely in order to enliven our grasp of the truth.

well, well, well

What I'm about to write is not a startling new insight in the world of biblical studies. Scholars have long noticed it. But I'm not sure the average Bible reader appreciates how radical and suggestive Jesus is being in John 4. We call the story, "The Woman at the Well", but does it jog our memory? This is not the first biblical story where a man meets a woman at a well. It's not the second either. And both Jesus and John leave us plenty of clues to alert us to the fact that they have these earlier episodes in mind.

Genesis 24 - A man (Abraham's servant) on a long journey outside the promised land stops to rest at a well. A woman (Rebekah) comes to draw water. He asks her for a drink. Her offer is the grounds for a marriage proposal to his master (Isaac).

Exodus 2 - A man (Moses) on a long journey far from home sits down by a well. He helps some girls by watering their flocks. His kindness spawns a marriage proposal (Zipporah).

John 4 - Jesus, tired from a long journey, sits down by a well. A woman comes and he asks for a drink. She is shocked. (And we should be, too!) He offers her living water. Is this a marriage proposal? She may suspect it, because she denies having a husband.

Craig Keener (whose commentary is quite good once you make it past the 400-page introduction!) notes the possibility that we are to see a parallel here: “The Son had pursued this woman for the Father, perhaps as Abraham’s servant pursued Rebekah for his master”, implying that she is His bride (619). The story has already included direct references to Jacob, one of the patriarchs. It is his well where the incident takes place. Keener suggests, "The allusion to the finding of matriarchs for Israel may invite the reader to contemplate the ultimate identity of this Samaritan woman whom God is seeking, not on the basis of her past but on the basis of God’s calling: she will become foundational to a new community of faith and obedience.” (586)

This should shock us as readers. The Samaritan woman is a poor parallel to virgin Rebekah. She's been through 5 marriages already and is trying out a 6th. But Jesus offers her living water. And in doing so He makes a loud statement to His disciples that His kingdom will be built by sinners and outcasts -- those who have come to grips with their desperate need for His life-giving presence, not by the religious elite -- those who think they have it all. Well, well, well ...