#SBL10 Highlights

Chronologically, natch:

First off, at ETS (the week before Thanksgiving week) Michael Licona spoke about his new book The Resurrection of Jesus:  A New Historiographical Approach.  I missed that session, unfortunately, but bought the book.  It's an absolute pleasure to read, and I'll probably blog more about that real soon.

Nick Perrin responded to Darrell Bock & Robert Webb about their IBR Jesus book, Key Events in the Life of the Historical Jesus, and about historiography and the gospels in general.  Among his other comments, Nick said that he'd like to see more constructive historical work and less defensiveness.  Amen, a thousand times, amen.

NT Wright and two other guys argued pleasantly for a few hours, Friday morning.  I came in for about 15 minutes near the end, and pretty much confirmed that the whole "Justification" debate is almost purely semantical.  As is becoming increasingly common, the reformed gentlemen aren't defending scripture, but their own reformation-based traditions.  ((Dear God, thank you for the increasingly post-denominational nature of present day Christendom.))

Also at ETS, I found a wonderful little book called HISTORY-ies and fallacies, by reformed blogger Carl Trueman (subtitle:  Problems Faced in the Writing of History).  I hadn't realized it, but Carl's a Church Historian, who apparently specializes in John Calvin.  Well, wonders never cease.  Considering the above paragraphs, however, I must wonder if Trueman considered that he's implicitly also defending our right to do [with the Gospels] that which his tradition would seem to prefer that we NOT do - namely, Writing History.

Ah well.  So much for ETS.  ;-)

The IBR meeting kicked off SBL Friday night with a message much discussed on other blogs.  (Check my reader.)  It was great.  In response, Mike Bird was very entertaining.  Personally, I think Wright's correct that conservatives these days largely miss the Kingdom in speaking, but I think we miss it in practice, far more.  I tried to press Tom & Mike to consider anachronism - how are we missing, in spoken rhetoric, that larger sense of the Kingdom which only recently became missing in practice?  But that night - as, probably, now - I wasn't able to express myself well enough to be understood.

At any rate, the main weakness of Tom's message was a lack of brass tacks.  Precisely what, Dr. Wright, are you proposing that we should actually do?  I don't think anyone knew.  And I suppose that's how Tom wants it... for now.

On Saturday, Amy-Jill Levine, discussing "nativity myth" in Matthew's Gospel, remarked that if the so-called Star of Bethlehem was anything, it was an angel.  An astronomical star could not only not lead them to a house, it could not stop above the house, or the whole thing would be incinerated.  (Not to mention the whole Earth along with it, surely.)

Personally, I'd sure love to hear more "IF" statements like that from A.-J.  I keep hoping SOMEONE who's genuinely skeptical of the Gospels could try on the faith hat apply reason to it.  I don't think their conclusions would be like anything we've seen before.  And I'd LOVE to see what they came up with, from that perspective.

On Sunday, A.-J. responded to Bock, Webb & Craig Keener in the session about whether 'conservatives' and 'liberals' can engage with one another in the Historical Jesus enterprise.  For context, I refer you to Derek Leman's write-up.  Personally, as much as I enjoyed this entire session, it left me completely uninterested in attending any further HJ sessions for the rest of the SBL conference.

On that note, I must say I'm skeptical about Derek's reported discovery the next morning:  "the willingness to suspend many issues of “proving history” and to recreate the story of Jesus as best possible given the sources, not overly worrying about criteria that supposedly make for more or less likely history."  That sounds like just what I'm after, but I'm not sure what D's referring to.  One particular paper?  Or the fact that John's Gospel is officially "in play" now, for critical scholarship.  (What was it, Derek?)

Anyway, still on Saturday, I moved on to rediscover why a room full of Classicists can be so mentally and emotionally bracing, when the topic is ancient history.  Erich Gruen expressed skepticism about Philo's claim that Caligula ordered all those statues to be sent towards Judea - could he really have been so naive?  In her response, Tessa Rajak confessed feeling a temptation to tell Eric "truth is stranger than fiction" and to leave it at that!

That one brief moment was the most memorable sound bite of the whole week.  She didn't leave it alone, of course.  One more reason I love sitting in on the Philo/Josephus group(s).

Sunday night was the Bibliobloggers' get together at Gibney's pub, and it was easily the social highlight of my week.  I saw several folks from last year's SBL, and met a few for the first time, including a Bird, a Barber, a Platypus, and an, uh, Aubrey.  Among others.  I also met some new (?) folks whose blogs I've not read yet (got to catch up!) But I can't figure out how Philip J. Long and I missed each other for a full week.  Oh.  Maybe because I decided to stick with Gospels and Classics, and Philip was probably in Acts & Epistles all week.  That could explain it.

This being my second Big Bible Rodeo, it was nice to have scholars like Ken Schenck & Chris Tilling give me genuinely warm smiles and just say, "Hey, Bill".  You know, like they know me.  (!)  And Michael Barber (don't hold this against him) said to a colleague, "Bill's done some good work."  Albeit bloggership isn't scholarship, but that was very gracious on Michael's part.  Encouraging, to say the least.  I should start doing some more...

Again, on Monday, another two or three dozen SBL bloggers ordered lunch in the Hyatt, after which most of us met up at the session on Blogging and Online Publication.  (For all the latest links, see McGrath, here.)  It was the first time I knew all five presenters personally, and - as Mark Goodacre also remarked - it was the first time I completely agreed with everything I'd heard from a panel.  Overall, an utterly delightful three hours.  (Yes, we ran long.  Go figure!)

I'm skipping plenty of other interesting bits from various sessions and personal meetings, of course.  But as promised, these are the highlights.  And somehow, for me personally, the best presentation of all happened to come in the last paper of the last session on the last day.

On Tuesday morning, Steve Mason talked about doing history from narrative in Josephus.  Using a test case from Josephus' War (2.499ff) about Cestius Gallus' retreat from Jerusalem (AD 66), Mason illustrated the difference between "High School History", and "Critical History", and... a third category he's promoting, the name of which I forget, but the practice of which I'm very eager to see advance.

Essentially, Mason suggested that arguing endlessly over historicity gets us nowhere, and stressed an emphasis on hypothetical reconstruction.  I can't hardly stand waiting for the book version to come out (2012?) so I can blog about it.  But I'll have to.  You'll still be reading me two years from now, I trust.  (!?!)

I also tweeted quite a few times from the conference, but sometimes forgot the hashtag.  To see it all, find me on Twitter.  Or Facebook.  Yes, you should be on Facebook.  So you can friend me.  :-)

That's all I've got.  I bought five other books that I may mention someday.  And I may have come to a decision or three that I'll blog about soon, as well.  However soon soon may be.  (Now's a great time to subscribe to this blog, so you don't miss a thing.)

Thanks for reading, dear reader.  But thanks most of all to my dear wife for giving me a week to go play in Scholarpalooza.  It was not only tons of fun, but I obviously learned a lot.  Like how even Biblical Scholars disagree on how to pronounce their own trademark terms.

She says:  Sep-TOO-a-gint?

He says:  SEP-twa-gint?

Let's call the whole thing off.  ;-)

When Joseph heard Archelaus... (2 of 2)

According to Matthew, who should Joseph have thought was the ruler of Galilee, when he chose to move there instead of to Judea?

This is not a simple situation to suss out.  (See part one.)  We know that Archelaus was officially sole ruler of both Judea & Galilee until Caesar ruled differently, and the Emperor's ruling did not come until October or November of 4 BC (after Varus' war was wrapped up, Philip had sailed to Italy late in the season, and Caesar had deliberated some more).  In other words, from late March of 4 BC until the end of the year, no one in Palestine had any reason to think Archelaus was not ruling Galilee, as well as Judea.

Now, Matthew and most of his readers certainly knew what happened later on - that Archelaus, Antipas & Philip returned from Rome early in 3 BC having each received only 1/3 of the Kingdom.  Furthermore, Matthew draws a definite contrast here between Judea and Galilee, almost as if he's deliberately reminding us (perhaps only with his subtext) that we know why Galilee turned out to be safe, after all.  But at face value, Matthew's use of "Judea" seems very odd.  If Joseph departed the night Herod died, and (most likely) reached the outskirts of Judea just after Passover, then Joseph should have been fully aware that Galilee was also within the jurisdiction of Archelaus the horrible.

Once more, the question at hand is this:  according to Matthew, who should Joseph have thought was the ruler of Galilee?  The answer must be:  Archelaus.  That is, according to Matthew, Joseph was afraid to go into Judea AND he had not considered Galilee EITHER, because, of course, Archelaus was ruling there also.

This brings us to Matthew's point.  The dream was necessary.  Having been instructed ('warned' is a poor translation of χρηματισθεὶς here, and an editorial completely unnecessary, because Joseph was already afraid.  The word simply means receiving a divine message, as from an oracle) in a dream, Joseph went to Galilee, a bit further from Archelaus' center of power, which was Judea.

By any reading, it should already have been apparent that Joseph would not have gone to Galilee without having that dream.  But by reconstructing the details - and assuming that all Matthew's statements are entirely accurate - we see more clearly why Joseph needed the dream in the first place.

Of course, if anything Matthew said is non-factual, then the whole thing might be hooey.  But if taken at face value, it all actually fits.  And it fits very well.  That's worth considering.

Fini.

When Joseph heard Archelaus... (1 of 2)

According to Matthew, Joseph & Mary left Egypt the night King Herod died, traveled towards home, but were frightened because "Archelaus was reigning over Judea".  Even accepting the miraculous departure, there are several odd things about this return.  At least three, in particular:

First, which son of Herod did Joseph think would be ruling?  Second, why was it Archelaus in particular that caused Joseph to fear?  Third, who did Joseph think was in charge of Galilee, at that time?

To the first question:  If the Massacre of the Innocents took place before mid-6 BC, Joseph would have remembered Herod's famous son Antipater as the chosen successor.  If Joseph & Mary lived in Alexandria, or anywhere that heard big news from Judea, they would also have learned about Antipater's imprisonment (for deviously sending two of his brothers to the executioner) but probably did not know which remaining son (Archelaus, Antipas or Philip) would be taking Antipater's place.  As if anyone did, before Herod died.  (The choice of Antipas, confirmed by Caesar over the winter, may not yet have been made public knowledge, and Herod changed his mind almost as soon as Caesar's approval arrived.)

Thus, it actually makes sense that the succession of Archelaus would have been news to Joseph.

To the second question:  All that we know about Archelaus suggests the young prince had virtually no reputation whatsoever around the Kingdom before his announcement.  Optimistic crowds entreated him before Passover and all indications are that these crowds held at least modest hopes for a kinder more generous King.  Why, then, could Joseph have been afraid?  The only reason we can supply is that Archelaus presided over a massacre of 3,000 pilgrims that year, on the Passover Day.  In that light, the text of Mt.2:22 could shift slightly towards a very strong sense of ἀντὶ - on behalf of, or in place of - meaning, for example, something like, 'much in the way of'.*

Thus, it was probably not so much that Archelaus ruled which frightened Joseph, as much as how he was ruling.  He was ruling ἀντὶ Herod the Great.

That's two down.  But our third question may be the most difficult.

To be continued...

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*Note: Matthew's other uses of ἀντὶ are also very strong. An eye ἀντὶ an eye, a tooth ἀντὶ a tooth. Pay the tax ἀντὶ [both] me and you.  [I came] to give my soul as ransom ἀντὶ many.  (Mt. 5:38, 17:27, 20:28)  It's not just "okay, now it's your turn".  If ἀντὶ means "in the place of" it means fully in place of, or as if he were him.