Daily Dose of Biblical Languages

We all know that language acquisition and retention occurs with repetition. Zondervan has made it easier for students of the biblical languages to get daily repetition through their Daily Dose of Hebrew and Daily Dose of Greek video mini-lectures. In about 2 minutes a day (4 minutes for both languages), students can review grammar and vocabulary while watching Mark Futato (Hebrew; Reformed Theological Seminary) and Rob Plummer (Greek; Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) work through a verse of the Bible. Subscribers will receive an email first thing in the morning with links to the day's dose.

Resources for OT Textual Criticism

Brian Davidson of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has put together a helpful resource page for students embarking in Old Testament Textual Criticism. Check it out here.

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New Fragment of Epic of Gilgamesh Tablet V

According to Ancient Histtory, et cetera, 

The new T.1447 tablet, according to the article Back to the Cedar Forest: The beginningand end of Tablet V of the Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgameš published in June, 2014 is:

• The revised reconstruction of Tablet V yields text that is nearly twenty lines longer than previously known.
• The obverse (columns i-ii) duplicates the Neo-Assyrian fragments which means the Epic tablet can be placed in order and used to fill in the gaps between them. It also shows the recension on Tablet V was in Babylonia, as well as Assyria and that “izzizūma inappatū qišta” is the same phrase that other tablets being with.
• The reverse (columns v-vi) duplicates parts of the reverse (columns iv-vi) of the late Babylonian tablet excavated at Uruk that begins with the inscription “Humbāba pâšu īpušma iqabbi izakkara ana Gilgāmeš”.
• The most interesting piece of information provided by this new source is the continuation of the description of the Cedar Forest:
• Gilgamesh and Enkidu saw ‘monkeys’ as part of the exotic and noisy fauna of the Cedar Forest; this was not mentioned in other versions of the Epic.
• Humbaba emerges, not as a barbarian ogre, and but as a foreign ruler entertained with exotic music at court in the manner of Babylonian kings. The chatter of monkeys, chorus of cicada, and squawking of many kinds of birds formed a symphony (or cacophony) that daily entertained the forest’s guardian, Humbaba.
• The aftermath of Gilgamesh and Enkidu’s slaying of Humbaba is now better preserved.
• The passages are consistent with other versions and confirm what was already known. For example, Enkidu had spent some time with Humbaba in his youth.

Review of Ancient Israel's History

Benjamin Kilchör, Staatsunabhangige Theologische Hochschule Basel (Switzer-land) gives a chapter-by-chapter review of Bill T. Arnold, Richard S. Hess (ed.). Ancient Israel's History. An Introduction to Issues and Sources. 

This book, edited by Bill T. Arnold (Asbury Theological Seminary) and Richard S. Hess (Denver Seminary), is initiated by the Institute for Biblical Research (IBR). It contains fifteen contributions, written by fifteen scholars, all of them specialists in the fields they deal with. Within the whole spectrum of research on ancient Israel's history, these scholars are rather conservative, which means that they "hold in common a respect for the biblical text as a legitimate source in the study of Israel's history" (p. 4), but within this consensus they represent a variety of different standpoints. The book is intended to serve as an introduction to ancient Israel's history. The first contribution lays the "Foundations for a History of Israel." It is followed by fourteen chapters that move forward "roughly according to the biblical story of Israel" (p. 21).

NEA 78:3 Special Issue: The Cultural Heritage Crisis in the Middle East

"There has probably never been a time when Near Eastern antiquities have been more a part of the public consciousness than in the past year. Sadly, it has not been to celebrate the richness of the region’s archaeology and history, but rather to collectively watch its destruction in horror and disbelief. The political turmoil and military conflict that has engulfed the Middle East in recent years has produced unprecedented threats to the region’s cultural heritage, including widespread looting of archaeological sites, direct conflict-related damage to monuments, unregulated demolition of historic buildings, and ideologically-motivated destruction of ancient and religious sites. Simply put, there is no historic parallel to the severity and geographic scope of the cultural heritage crisis, now impacting entire countries from North Africa to Central Asia."

In light of this crisis, the editors of Near Eastern Archaeology have made volume 78 open access, dedicated to the concerns over the recent destruction of antiquities.

Mesopotamian Chronicles

Chuck Jones at AWOL provided a link to the Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles, complete with scholarly editions and translations.

Resources on Science and Christian Faith

The American Scientific Affiliation has put together a very impressive website to help people find quality resources related to the issue of science and Christian faith. Topics include Adam & Eve, Age of the Earth, Bioethics, and Environmental Stewardship, among others.

Scripture and Cosmology: Reading the Bible Between the Ancient World and Modern Science

I am pleased to announce that my book, Scripture and Cosmology, is due for release in about 7 weeks.

Christians often claim to hold a biblical worldview. But what about a biblical cosmos view? From the beginning of Genesis we encounter a vaulted dome above the earth, a "firmament," like the ceiling of a planetarium. Elsewhere we read of the earth sitting on pillars. What does the dome of heaven have to do with deep space? Even when the biblical language is clearly poetic, it seems to be funded by a very different understanding of how the cosmos is put together. As Kyle Greenwood shows, the language of the Bible is also that of the ancient Near Eastern palace, temple and hearth. There was no other way of thinking or speaking of earth and sky or the sun, moon and stars. But when the psalmist looked at the heavens, the delicate fingerwork of God, it evoked wonder. Even today it is astronomy and cosmology that invoke our awe and point toward the depths of divine mystery. Greenwood helps us see how the best Christian thinkers have viewed the cosmos in light of Scripture―and grappled with new understandings as science has advanced from Aristotle to Copernicus to Galileo and the galaxies of deep space. It's a compelling story that both illuminates the text of Scripture and helps us find our own place in the tradition of faithful Christian thinking and interpretation.

New Links Added

I've added a few new links over the summer, including:

Marc Brettler's Tools for the Study of the Hebrew Bible

Dan Wallace's Basics of New Testament Textual Criticism

University of Pennsylvania's Openly Rich Annotated Cuneiform Corpus

The International Association for Assyriology

If you know of other online resources that fit within the scope of this blog, please pass it along.

Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Library: Biblical Texts

The Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Library Biblical Texts presents a complete Hebrew transcription and English translation of the Biblical texts, together with high-resolution images. The contents of this online publication is identical to that of the Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Library Biblical Texts CD-ROM, published by Brill and Brigham Young University but its interface is adapted to Brill's online platform for reference works. Note that Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Library Biblical Texts is also available from Brigham Young University. Not in the form of a CD-ROM, but as a set of electronic books which can be read and linguistically analysed through the WordCruncher software.

May 2015 Biblioblogger Carnival

Claude Mariottini hosts the May, 2015, biblioblogger's carnival. It's hard to keep up with all the latest scuttlebutt on the webernet (as my daughter likes to call it), so get caught up to speed with the monthly carnivals. 

Interview with Charles Halton, General Editor of Genesis: History, Fiction, or Neither?

Today's the big day, when Charles Halton's book becomes available to the hoi polloi. If you've been tracking here, you know that I've been posting a play-by-play of each chapter. If you're wondering about the review of Halton's last chapter, "We Disagree, What Now?", I guess you'll just have to buy the book.

As promised, Charles agreed to engage in a little interview about the book. We sat down together over a meal in San Diego, but that's not where this interview took place. We just emailed each other.

Hi, Charles. Thanks for taking the time to chat with me about the upcoming release of Genesis: History, Fiction or Neither? Tell us a little about the book itself. What are its goals? Who is it geared for?

Hi, Kyle, thanks for hosting this interview.

The book discusses whether or not the events described in Genesis 1-11 happened--whether this section of Scripture is historical or fictional--or whether that binary association is even a helpful way of thinking. Three senior Old Testament scholars present their views on this and then critique the positions of the other two contributors. This format is designed to help anyone think through the strengths and weaknesses of various viewpoints regarding the historicity of Genesis.

To be honest, everyone should be interested in this. Since there are around a billion people who can read English I’m hoping we sell around eight hundred million copies (accounting for the mooches who will read the book at a library).

80% of the English speaking world is a good start. Speaking of "start," you begin the book with a chapter about genre. Why do you think genre is so important to a faithful reading of Scripture? As Wenham states in his chapter, "recovering the message of Gen 1-11 is more important than defining its genre" (p. 95). A lot of people will resonate with that, so why make a big fuss about it?

I agree with Wenham’s statement that the message of Genesis is more important than understanding its formal genre. The labels that modern scholars assign to Genesis are a bit contrived. That is, ancient writers generally did not assign genre classifications to their prose writing (they sometimes did to poems, prayers, and songs though). However, meaning and genre are tied together and one cannot arrive a proper sense of a text’s meaning unless one understands the kind of text one is interpreting.

Normally, genre is not a big deal. We intuitively understand the type of writing that we encounter--say, an advertisement or a traffic ticket--and interpret its meaning accordingly. But genre is a big deal when we are not able to intuitively understand the way an author structures his or her work. This is the situation that we face when we encounter the Bible. It is a collection of documents that were composed within extremely different cultural contexts, customs, languages, literary expectations, and time periods than our own. In order to more fully understand the meanings of Scripture we must make explicit what we normally intuit. We must self-consciously determine the genre of the section of Scripture we are reading in order to understand how we should interpret its meaning.

As I say in the introduction, no one encounters Jesus’s statement, “I am the vine,” and believes that Jesus was literally saying that he is a plant. This is because we understand this statement as a metaphor and not a horticultural description. That interpretive conclusion hinges upon a decision that we have made regarding the purpose and structure of this sentence. Similar dynamics are in play when we consider groups of sentences and textual units. Get the genre wrong and you could completely and utterly bungle the meanings of a text.

The market has been flooded in recent years with books on origins-related topics. Why do you think there has been such a surge in interest? Are evangelicals becoming more open to alternative interpretations of Gen 1-11, are scholars finally taking a more focused interest in communicating to a lay audience, or is it something else?

I think there are probably many reasons for the interest in origins-related topics. Many people are coming to realize that the evidence for human evolution is so overwhelming that it is a virtual fact and it is silly to continue to argue against it. This means that we must rethink some of our traditional readings of Scripture. On the other hand, many people feel threatened by this and want to find a way to retain the interpretations of the Bible that they grew up with or find comforting. People from these two groups often worship together in the same church or if not that then within the same denomination. Sometimes the people in one group are silent about their beliefs but they are there nonetheless. This brings tension to religious communities. There are also generational concerns. Younger people are finding the faith they have been taught unattractive and they are no longer practicing or they are changing their religious affiliation. One reason for this is that young people tend to embrace scientific consensus more readily than the leaders of some evangelical communities. These leaders then make life within the faith community intolerable for those with differing opinions. This brings even more tension.

As to whether evangelicals are becoming more open to alternative interpretations of Genesis 1-11 I think that, unfortunately, the evangelical world is fracturing along this and a handful of other lines. Some evangelicals are more open to alternative interpretations and others are not. For the most part, the leaders of these two groups do not mix. But as I said above, if we look to our churches, both of these dispositions are there. Openness to alternative interpretations is especially common in youth and college groups and some churches and denominations should stop pretending otherwise. And when they do realize that the existence of this openness is within their midst, I have seen religious leaders respond in a most unhelpful way by shutting down those that they disagree with--saying that their questions or perspectives are dangerous and they merely need to tow the line and embrace traditional beliefs which conveniently coincide with the beliefs of the leadership.

Instead of using power to enforce a coerced compliance, religious leaders need to engage the thoughtful and questioning people in our pews with respectful conversation that takes their concerns--and the data that aroused them--seriously. We also should turn these questions onto ourselves and try to assess whether our views are in need of change. This should not be threatening, particularly to Protestants who in theory embrace a central ethos of the Reformation that the church is always to be reformed. I hope that this book is a help to that end.

We also should remember that readers of Scripture ask questions of the Bible in response to their own contextual situations. In other words, if we look back in history we find that the most common topics people look to the Bible to answer are some of the most common topics that society at large is asking. A person in the eighth century AD is not going to have as many questions about the precise scientific origin of the universe as someone living in the age of the Hubble telescope. The culture we live in gives us the vocabulary which we use to think about the Bible. The vocabulary of our age is hyper-scientific.

So, why are certain segments of (predominantly American) evangelicalism opposed to reading Gen 1-11 as anything but an eye-witness account of actual past events? Where does that viewpoint come from and what is at stake for them theologically and intellectually?

I am venturing into armchair psychoanalysis here but I think that some American evangelicals are fearful that if they begin to question Genesis 1-11 the entirety of their faith will come apart. This view is explicitly propagated by a few religious entrepreneurs and it is self-serving to their fundraising efforts but unhelpful for the rest of the Christian community. This fear mongering short circuits clear thinking and genuine conversation. Fear is understandable--change is often scary because it is unknown--but in this case it is unfounded.

Christianity does not live or die on whether Genesis 1-11 is history or not. Christianity is the good news that Jesus is risen and death is defeated. Genesis 1-11 is related to this because we learn of Jesus primarily through the Christian Bible but the story of Jesus is not dependent upon the precise genre of Genesis 1-11. The Apostle John creatively reinterprets Genesis 1 and in Acts 7 Stephen skips over Genesis 1-11 and begins the story that leads up to Jesus with Abraham. This is not to say that neither John nor Stephen believed that Genesis 1-11 was historical--whatever we mean by that--but it does show, at least to me, that a literal reading of Genesis 1-11 is not essential to understand Jesus and the Christian faith.

Tell us a little about the project. Who came up with the idea for the topic? What was it like to work with such prominent scholars as Hoffmeier, Wenham, and Sparks?

I have this problem. I generate more ideas than I have time to complete. They all begin with a question which I then try to answer. I was interested in the genre of Genesis and I knew that it was a hot topic that others were interested in too. I was familiar with Zondervan’s Counterpoints series which I thought would be a good format for trying to address the questions I had about Genesis. I already knew an editor at Zondervan, Katya Covrett, through another project and I pitched the idea to her and she asked me to draw up a preliminary list of contributors and a structure for the book. After I did this she presented it to the publication committee at Zondervan which approved the proposal. I solidified the contributors--a couple dropped out of the project--and tried as best I could with middling success to keep the project on deadline.

Working with Hoffmeier, Wenham, and Sparks was a little like herding well-behaved cats. They are independent people who have clearly marked out ideas that they are not afraid of expressing. They are also scholars and scholars do not take well to editing. We prefer the way that we have written a sentence and bristle when someone else tells us to rewrite it. But for the most part they accepted my suggestions. If I were in their shoes I’m not sure I would have been as gracious with a youngster giving me notes on a subject that I was an expert in so I’m thankful for their patience with me and for their work on this book. It was a real joy to produce this with them.

If you’re going to sell 800 million copies, they should listen to you. Let me finish by asking about what’s next for Charles Halton. You have a couple other writing projects in the hopper right now. When can we expect to see your anthology of women authors in Mesopotamia or your other books? 

I am co-writing the anthology of women authors in Mesopotamia with Saana Svärd, a brilliant assyriologist at the University of Helsinki, and we are just now completing the manuscript. Hopefully it should be out in the beginning of 2016. I’m working on a biography of one of the women included in this anthology--the very first author in human history that we know of by name, Enheduana--which I think should be published at the end of 2016 or early 2017. About this time another book I’m working will hopefully be published, The God of the Old Testament. In this book I try to answer the question: What if we took the passages of Scripture that we normally term “anthropomorphic” and base our theology of God on them instead of throwing them out in favor of what we think are the Bible’s propositional statements about the nature of God? Lastly, I know, this is getting a bit out of hand, I’m co-writing with Joseph Kelly A Moral Vision for the Old Testament which presents our attempt at understanding Old Testament ethics.

Thanks for taking the time to talk about your book. Best wishes on its success.*

I couldn’t have done this without your inspiration, Kyle. You’re the best.

*The interview officially ended here. Although Charles didn’t actually say those last comments, he surely felt them in his heart.

Review of Genesis: History, Fiction, or Neither? Part IV (Sparks)

The final contributor to Genesis: History, Fiction, or Neither? is Kenton Sparks, professor of biblical studies and vice president for enrollment management at Eastern University. His books include the Ancient Texts for the Study of the Hebrew Bible (a fantastic resource for students and non-specialists on the pertinent literature of the ANE), and God's Word in Human Words.

For Sparks there is too much internal (Gen 1-11 itself) and external evidence (scientific discoveries and ANE literature) to expect Gen 1-11 to behave as a literal historical past. "Whatever the first chapters of Genesis offer, there is one thing that they certainly do not offer, namely, a literal account of events that actually happened prior to and during the early history of humanity" (p. 111). Drawing on arguments Sparks has made elsewhere, he finds no reason to dismiss the Bible as the Word of God based on genre considerations.

The bulk of Sparks's essay attends to the issue of composition. Using the genealogies as a starting point, he sees three authors behind the text of Gen 1-11: Antiquarian Theologian, Ethnic Apologist, and the Ethnic Anthologist. According to Sparks, the Anitquarian wrote the creation myth of Gen 2-3, the genealogy of Gen 4, the Yahwistic elements of  Gen 6-9, and the Tower of Babel episode in Gen 11. The Apologist wrote Gen 1, the genealogy of Gen 5, and the Elohistic elements of Gen 6-9. (One can readily see a strong connection to Wellhausen's J and E sources with Sparks's Antiquarian and Apologist). An editor called the Anthologist brought these stories together to form a literary unit. However, the Anthologist was not concerned with smoothing out any contradictions between the sources. "The editor so valued tradition, and was so fixed on collecting these sources, that he or she did not care (or did not care much) about whether the traditions fit together nicely" (p. 137)

Unlike his forerunners, Sparks does not treat the three test cases specifically. Instead, he deals with them each in broad brush strokes in the context of their literary composition. In each case, though, he emphasizes the fact that these were not intended to be written as historical accounts of real past events, but serve to point the reader to broader theological concerns about the fall of humanity and the resulting separation between God and humanity, and humans with other humans, something with which each of us can relate.

Sparks asks, and answers, three overarching questions. First, "Did the authors intend at every point to write reliable history?" Sparks says no. Second, "Did the authors believe that history stood behind their narratives?" Sparks says yes. Third, "Did the author accept as history anything which cannot in fact be historical?" Sparks says sometimes (pp. 138-139).

Finally, I'll leave you with Sparks's closing comments. "Humanity will not be saved by accurate historical recollections or scientific facts. We are saved through God's actual intervention in our world through the person of Jesus Christ. Gen 1-11, when read well, points us to him" (p. 138)

The Serpent in the Garden of Eden

The serpent in the Garden of Eden is popularly equated with the Devil. However, modern scholars agree that this was a later identification and not the original meaning, but there is no consensus as to what the original background of the serpent was. This brief article critiques a number of the proposals that have been made and suggests a possible background for the serpent. More generally it also discusses other questions of interpretation that have arisen in connection with the serpent in Genesis 3, in particular the suggestion that the serpent should be viewed more positively than has been customary and questions associated with the so-called Protoevangelium in Genesis 3:15.

Adapted and expanded from: John Day, From Creation to Babel: Studies in Genesis 1-11(LHBOTS 592; London/New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013), 35-37.

Review of Genesis: History, Fiction, or Neither? Part III (Wenham)

Chapter Two in Genesis: History, Fiction, or Neither? was written by Gordan Wenham, tutor in Old Testament at Trinity College in Bristol, England. Wenham has contributed significantly to discussions on Genesis, most impressively with his two-volume Word Biblical Commentary on the book. He brings to the table a sophisticated reading of the biblical text, with special attention to its literary features. It is fair to say that few, if any, scholars on Genesis read the text itself with as much care and attention to detail as Wenham does.

When it comes to identifying the genre of Gen 1-11, though, Wenham does not show much concern. Like Hoffmeier, Wenham thinks the term myth is an appropriate designation, but is not helpful given the negative connotations associated with the word. He does show partiality to Westermann's descriptions of these chapters as "overture," since Gen 1 acts like an overture to an opera, "and introduces some of the key themes and tunes that will develop later" (p. 80). In another place, he refers to these portions of Scripture as "expanded genealogy" (p. 78), allotting 5 1/2 pages to demonstrating this idea. Elsewhere, however, he calls it "protohistory" (p. 87). "It is proto in that it describes origins, what happened first. It is also proto in that it is setting out models of God and his dealings with the human race. It is historical in that it is describing past realities and the lessons that should be drawn from them" (p. 87). But, ultimately, he seems not to care what we call it, so long as we get its message right, stating that a "secure definition of its genre would clarify the interpretation of this text somewhat, but not fundamentally alter our understanding of it" (p. 95).

Wenham is not impressed by the various ways the Nephilim have been explained away in biblical interpretation, so he adopts the straightforward reading of Gen 6:1-4 that "the sons of God are spirits or angels" (p. 89), tying the narrative to cult prostitution (p. 90), a sin severe enough to prompt divine punishment through a flood (p. 91).

As for the flood account, Wenham notes the parallels with the Babylonian Atrahasis epic. Despite their similar plots, however, Wenham draws special attention to their theological differences. He states, that "Genesis takes the traditional ancient Near Eastern account of the flood and by retelling it, presents a fresh and challenging vision of God and man" (p. 93).

His approach to the Tower of Babel follows the same pattern. Whereas Mesopotamian ziggurats reached the heavens, the tower in Gen 11 did not, such that "God had to come down to see it" (p. 94). Whereas Babylon (Babel) means "Gate of God," the tower could well be called "Folly of Babylon" (p. 94-95).

Wenham's chapter briefly introduces his readers to some of the literary intricacies that he has developed more fully in his WBC volumes. In doing so, he attempts to show how the implied author of Gen 1-11 has rooted his narrative in history, but is not really concerned with history.

Review of Genesis: History, Fiction, or Neither? Part II (Hoffmeier)

Keeping with the custom of the Counterpoints series, Genesis: History, Fiction, or Neither? is set up so that each of the contributors has the opportunity to present his position (I have only identified two female authors within the entire series), followed by responses from the other two contributors. Since each essay is critiqued within the book itself, I will try to present the views of the contributors in their best light.

The first contributor for this volume, James Hoffmeier, is well known in conservative evangelical circles. He is professor of Old Testament and Near Eastern archaeology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and has been a champion for the historical reliability of the exodus event. In this volume, he has been given the unenviable charge of presenting the view that the narratives of Genesis 1-11 "are dealing with real events involving historical figures" (p. 32). I say "unenviable" because while Hoffmeier is a maximalist in terms of the biblical narratives, he is by no means a fundamentalist. As the most conservative member of the panel, his views will not sit well with a large constituency of evangelicals for whom anything but a literalist view of Genesis is seen to be outside of orthodoxy. For example, one of the reasons why Hoffmeier's historical view is distinctly different from, say, Ken Ham's historical view, is that Hoffmeier embraces the ancient Near Eastern texts as not only relevant, but crucial for our understanding of Gen 1-11.

Hoffmeier begins by stating that Gen 11:32 is an arbitrary dividing point between the so-called "primeval history" and the "patriarchal history." He sees Gen 1-11 "as a vital unit of the larger work" (p. 25). While he acknowledges the work of sources (for example, the toledot formalae are the work of the Priestly writer - p. 30), he sees the final, redacted (edited) whole as a seamless literary unit. He especially makes this point with reference to the flood narratives (p. 50).

Hoffmeier is quite comfortable with Gen 1-11 being classified as myth, so long as myth is rightly defined. Citing Mircea Elieade definition as "an event that place in primordial Time," Hoffmeier argues that myth is founded on historical events, offering examples from ANE historical texts that employ mythological images. "Consequently," Hoffmeier argues, "it is reasonable to assume that while Genesis 1-11 uses mythic language, that such language does not necessarily make its contents fiction" (p. 28).

While most scholars of the ANE see the genealogies as problematic for the historical nature of Gen 1-11, given their typical rhetorical (rather than ancestral) function, Hoffmeier argues just the opposite. He notes this rhetorical function in the Sumerian and Assyrian king lists, "but the differences in function do not mean that both the Genesis genealogies and those from the ancient Near East were not interested in an accurate and orderly sequence of ancestors. Lists could be truncated and schematically organized, but the names refer to real people, not fictitious figures" (p. 31).

After laying out his case for a historical reading of Gen 1-11, Hoffmeier then turns his attention to the three case studies as prescribed by the book's general editor, Charles Halton. The three topics each contributor is mandated to address are (1) The story of the Nephilim (Gen 6:1-4); (2) Noah and the ark (6:9-9:26); (3) Tower of Babel (11:1-9).

Before tackling the three test cases, Hoffmeier establishes his methodological framework by briefly demonstrating in his mind how the Garden of Eden is situated "within  the known geography of the ancient Near East, not some made-up mythological, Narnia-like wonderland" (p. 32). He argues that the four rivers: Gihon, Pishon, Tigris and Euphrates are known waterways (or were known by the authors of Genesis), that place the garden in Mesopotamia. The Tigris and Euphrates are well known and their location is without dispute, but the Gihon and Pishon are generally seen as evidence against a specific Mesopotamian region. Hoffmeier argues that Shuttle Imaging Radar technology has located the long defunct Pishon River as flowing from Saudi Arabia to Persian Gulf near modern day Kuwait. He says, "The 'Kuwait River' appears to have dried up sometime late in the third millennium BC. The fact that Genesis 2 knows about this river is remarkable indeed" (p. 34). As for the Gihon, Hoffmeier assigns this not to the land of Cush known as Nubia (Egypt), but to the land of the Kassites in Babylon. Hoffmeier's point is that since we can locate the Garden of Eden due to the details provided in Gen 2, the remainder of Gen 1-11 is set in real time and real space.

Since this review is getting on the long side, let me quickly run down Hoffmeier's conclusions for the three test cases. With respect to the Nephilim, Hoffmeier asks (rhetorically?), "[C]ould it be that in Genesis 6 we have an ancient...and authentic story, that in the course of time had been mythologized and part of the shared memory of the ancient Near East, but was demythologized for the Israelite audience when recorded?" (p. 41). Surely, he concludes, the raison d'etre for the flood would "not be the result of some made up story!" (p. 41). On the flood narratives, Hoffmeier demonstrates their literary cohesion and theological distinctiveness from their Mesopotamian counterparts. His conclusion is that given "the Mesopotamian origins of Abraham and his ancestors (Gen 10 and 11:10-32), it should not surprise us that the flood story should be part of the shared memory of the Israelites and the Babylonians" (p. 55). Hoffmeier concedes that the Tower of Babel episode is etiological in nature, but that doesn't meant they "are necessarily fictitious accounts" (p. 55). Drawing on parallels from the Sumerian text, "Enmerkar and the Lord of Atta," Hoffmeier suggest that "it is possible to propose that both the Sumerians and Gen 11 preserve a common memory by one language" (p. 57).

For those who are familiar with Hoffmeier's writings, his contribution to Genesis: History, Fiction, or Neither? is fairly predictable. He does not dismiss the ancient Near Eastern material as irrelevant literature from the pagan world. He does, however, make every effort to harmonize the material with a historical reading of the biblical text, allowing for the fact that modern definitions of history do not generally coincide with what the ancient authors would have deemed history.

I'll conclude this review by allowing Hoffmeier the last word: "If one reduces the narratives of Gen 1-11 to fictitious stories and legends, the history of salvation lacks its raison d'etre. Fortunately, the Christian committed to Scripture need not commit intellectual suicide by embracing the historicity of the events described in early Genesis, for the text itself is written in such a way to reinforce this view" (p. 58).

Review of Genesis: History, Fiction, or Neither? Part I

The folks at Zondervan figured out nearly twenty years ago that their market audience is interested in hearing more than one side of a particular theological debate. Recognizing that Generation X, and now Millennials are less than satisfied with black-and-white answers to rainbow-prism questions, the Counterpoints series provides interpretive options for (predominantly) evangelical readers looking to make up their own minds on a host of topics.

On one hand, the success of the series demonstrates that today's evangelicals may be more eager to engage in dialogue over controversial matters than their forerunners. On the other hand, I have to wonder whether the readers are looking to explore new evidence, or hoping to bolster preconceived notions by situating their pet doctrine alongside a verified scholar.

The latest addition to the Counterpoints collection is a topic I am especially interested in. What makes Genesis: History, Fiction, or Neither? even more appealing is that the General Editor is my good friend, and fellow Hebrew Union College alumnus, Charles Halton. Charles is assistant professor of theology at Houston Baptist University (but resides in the beautiful Bluegrass State). He has contributed to the IVP Dictionary of the Old Testament: Prophets and Reading Akkadian Prayers and Hymns: An Introduction. Frankly, he's got too much going on to list here, so just Google his name if you want to know more.

Genesis: History, Fiction, or Neither? is scheduled to release on May 12. As a run-up to its publication, I intend to provide a chapter-by-chapter review, culminating with an interview with Charles on May 12. So, let's get started.

To set the tone for the book, Halton draws his readers' attention to the issue of genre. He notes that "competent readers" "calibrate their expectations regarding the range of meanings of words based upon the type of text being read" (p. 16). But, competent readers need help from "competent writers" who "signal the type, or genre, of the texts they pen by adopting commonly accepted forms" (p. 16). Halton points to the example of the phrase, "Once upon a time," which readily alerts its readers that what's about to follow should not be taken as a historical reconstruction of past events.

Halton moves from the abstract to the concrete, or at least the general to the specific, when he poses the question, "But what happens when we leave our culture and inhabit a different one, a culture that may or may not have the same rules and expectations that govern its genres, and may even have entirely different genres than those we are familiar with?" (p. 17). The question is pivotal for the study of Genesis 1-11. The Bible is composed in a wide range of genres, and if we fail to recognize a genre shift it doesn't matter whether we know the meanings of all the words and phrases. We'll miss the meaning of the passage altogether. Halton asks us, "Is Genesis 1-11 similar to the genres of our culture? If so, what genre is it? Is it factual history, fictional fable, or somewhere in between? And how does its overall genre affect our interpretation of individual passages?" (pp. 19-20).

The implications are rather clear. If we don't concern ourselves with the issue of genre, we will read the entire Bible exactly the same. Jesus' parables are no different than Jeremiah's prophecies. Solomon's proverbs are no different than Paul's proclamations. Micaiah's satire is indistinguishable from Matthew's sermons. As Halton concludes, "Unless we know what we want from the Bible, we cannot begin to understand its authors" (p. 21)

Tov's Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (2nd Ed) Online

THE go-to source for Old Testament textual criticism is Emmanuel Tov's 3rd edition of Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (Fortress, 2011). But, if you're in a pinch, the second edition is available online as a PDF.

W. G. Lambert's Notebooks

From ORACC:

W. G. Lambert (1926-2011) was an Assyriologist who spent much of his research time transliterating and copying cuneiform tablets in museums, especially the British Museum. His Nachlass included eight notebooks filled with handwritten transliterations of Babylonian and Assyrian texts. The notebooks contain more than five thousand transliterations, spread over nearly fifteen hundred pages. They are an astonishing record of sustained first-hand engagement with cuneiform tablets.

The pages of these eight notebooks have been numbered, scanned and indexed by Lambert's academic executor. They are placed online at ORACC as an open-access resource. It should be borne in mind that the transliterations are first drafts. Lambert invited a few colleagues to browse his notebooks during his lifetime but he did not write them for widespread distribution. The transliterations are therefore not to be taken as definitive, nor should any inaccuracies therein be held against their author.

Lambert's notebooks are made available here so that present and future scholars can use them to advantage in their own research. It is hoped that users of the notebooks will be encouraged by his example not to rely unhesitatingly on the work of a colleague but to visit museums and read cuneiform tablets at first hand. Should it be necessary nevertheless to quote the notebooks' contents, the recommended style is "Lambert Folio" followed by page number, e.g. K 9208 (Lambert Folio 9578).