Old Testament Faculty Position at Briercrest College

I am happy to report that Briercrest College is looking to fill a faculty position in Old Testament: 

Briercrest College invites applications for a full-time faculty position in the field of Biblical Studies - Old Testament commencing August 1st, 2022. 

The successful candidate will be an enthusiastic teacher and researcher. Τhey will contribute to an established Biblical Studies Department in Briercrest's engaging intellectual and spiritual environment where the liberal arts, alongside biblical studies, stand at the core of all undergraduate degree programs. Candidates should possess a Ph.D. (although exceptional ABDs may be considered) and demonstrate potential for excellence in teaching, research, and service to the church. Experience teaching Biblical Hebrew using the communicative approach will be an asset.

More details about the position are here. 

Faculty Job Openings at Briercrest College and Seminary

Briercrest College and Seminary is looking to fill faculty positions in Old Testament, Music/Worship Arts, TESOL/Modern Languages, and Psychology.

The Old Testament position was announced on January 29 and closes on March 1, so applicants will need to act quickly. Here is the job description:

Briercrest College and Seminary invites applications for a full-time faculty position (rank open, commensurate with qualifications) in Old Testament and Hebrew, beginning 15 August 2016 with primary appointment in Briercrest Seminary. The successful candidate’s teaching will support ministerial and academic degrees in the seminary along with occasional undergraduate teaching. Candidates should demonstrate a commitment to the Gospel, possess a PhD (or equivalent), and show potential for excellence in teaching, in service to the Church, and in research supporting ministerial education. Prior ministry and teaching experience will be highly regarded.

More information is available on the Briercrest website here.

And here are links to the other faculty position profiles--no less important, but probably of less interest to my readers:

Music
Worship Arts
TESOL/Modern Languages
Psychology

Deuteronomy 18 and Moses' Successor

Is it true that Deuteronomy 18 is the only passage in the Pentateuch that speaks abstractly about a successor to Moses?

• Numbers 27:12-23, Deuteronomy 31 and 34:9 present Joshua as Moses' successor, but I'm looking for passages that talk about a transfer of leadership without mentioning Joshua (or someone else) by name.
• Deuteronomy 17:14-20 provide instructions about kings, but Deuteronomy doesn't view kingship positively or present it as succession.
• Deuteronomy 17:9, 12 mentions "the judge who is in office in those days," but again a direct connection with Moses is not made explicit.

What am I missing?

Unfulfilled prophecy in Jeremiah

Early last year t. and I decided to read the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament backwards. It has been far too long since I read through the OT, and the idea was to start with the least familiar. We are reading the NJPS TANAKH translation in the Jewish Study Bible, but following the usual Protestant order. This morning we finished Jeremiah.

The translation is different enough to be refreshing, and the notes--references to Rabbinic discussions mixed in with standard historical-critical commentary by first-rate Jewish scholars--are often interesting and thought-provoking.

On the thought-provoking side, Marvin Sweeney's commentary on Jeremiah points to several apparently unfulfilled prophecies. I did not recall encountering these before, so I decided to check the old NIV Study Bible (notes on Jeremiah by Ronald Youngblood) that I was using the last time I read Jeremiah.

What follows is a comparison of these two Study Bibles, with the HarperCollins Study Bible (notes on Jeremiah by Leo Perdue and Robert Wilson) as a control. The quotations are from the JPS TANAKH translation:

1. Jeremiah 34:1-5 The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, when King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon and all his army, and all the kingdoms of the earth and all the peoples under his sway, were waging war against Jerusalem and all its towns: 2 Thus said the LORD, the God of Israel: Go speak to King Zedekiah of Judah, and say to him: "Thus said the LORD: I am going to deliver this city into the hands of the king of Babylon, and he will destroy it by fire. 3 And you will not escape from him; you will be captured and handed over to him. And you will see the king of Babylon face to face and speak to him in person; and you will be brought to Babylon. 4 But hear the word of the LORD, O King Zedekiah of Judah! Thus said the LORD concerning you: You will not die by the sword. 5 You will die a peaceful death; and as incense was burned for your ancestors, the earlier kings who preceded you, so they will burn incense for you, and they will lament for you 'Ah, lord!' For I Myself have made the promise -- declares the LORD."


• Jewish Study Bible (JSB) note on 34:5: "The promise of a peaceful death for Zedekiah resembles the oracle of the prophetess Huldah to Zedekiah's father Josiah....Jer. 52.7-11...states that Zedekiah is in a Babylonian prison, having seen his sons slaughtered before his own eyes were put out, thus this is likely an unfulfilled prophecy of Jeremiah. It is quite remarkable that such prophecies were preserved."
• NIV Study Bible (NIVSB): No comment. No reference forward to Jer 52:7-11.
• HarperCollins Study Bible, Revised (HCSB): "Zedekiah was blinded and exiled to Babylon, where he died in prison (39.7; 52.8-11; 2 Kings 25.5-7). In contrast to Jehoiakim (see 22.13-19), Zedekiah will have a funeral and be lamented."


2. Jeremiah 43:8-13 Then the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah in Tahpanhes: ..."I am sending for My servant King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon, and ...11 He will come and attack the land of Egypt, delivering Those destined for the plague, to the plague, Those destined for captivity, to captivity, And those destined for the sword, to the sword. 12 And I will set fire to the temples of the gods of Egypt; he will burn them down and carry them off. He shall wrap himself up in the land of Egypt, as a shepherd wraps himself up in his garment. And he shall depart from there in safety. 13 He shall smash the obelisks of the Temple of the Sun which is in the land of Egypt, and he shall burn down the temples of the gods of Egypt."
   


• JSB on 43:13: "Although the Babylonians never conquered Egypt, the Persian king Cambyses, who also ruled Babylonia, conquered Egypt in 525 BCE. This is another case (see 34.5) of a prophecy that is preserved although it was not fulfilled."
• NIVSB on 43:11: "A fragmentary text now owned by the British Museum in London states that Nebuchadnezzar carried out a punitive expedition against Egypt in his 37th year (568-567 B.C.) during the reign of Pharaoh Amasis."
• HCSB on 43:13: "Nebuchadrezzar did invade Egypt in 568/7 BCE and fought Pharaoh Amasis, though the outcome of the battle is not known. However, Babylonia did not conquer Egypt."
  


3. Jeremiah 50:1-3, 14-15 The word which the LORD spoke concerning Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans, through the prophet Jeremiah: 2 Declare among the nations, and proclaim; Raise a standard, proclaim; Hide nothing! Say: Babylon is captured, Bel is shamed, Merodach is dismayed. Her idols are shamed, Her fetishes dismayed. 3 For a nation from the north has attacked her, It will make her land a desolation. No one shall dwell in it, Both man and beast shall wander away....14 Shoot at her, don't spare arrows, For she has sinned against the LORD. 15 Raise a shout against her all about! She has surrendered; Her bastions have fallen, Her walls are thrown down -- This is the LORD's vengeance. Take vengeance on her, Do to her as she has done!
   

• JSB on 50.1-51.58: "Much of these two chs emphasizes that Babylonia will be destroyed through violence. In reality, however, Cyrus bloodlessly took over Babylon in 539 BCE, when the powerful priests of Marduk preferred him to the reigning Babylonian King Nabonidus." On 50:3: "The nation from the north is a common motif in Jeremiah's oracles....Many see this as a reference to Persia, which conquered Babylonian in 539. Persia actually lies to the east of Babylonia."
• NIVSB on 50:3: "In Jeremiah, the foe from the north is almost always Babylon....Here, however, the reference is probably to Persia." On 50:14 "you who draw the bow. Including the Medes."
  
• HCSB on 50:3: "The imagery of the 'foe from the north'...is transferred to the enemies of Babylonia (the Medes and the Persians)." On 50:11-16: "Babylon surrendered to the armies of Persia, led by Gobryas. It was not taken by force and destroyed."

My impressions: The NIVSB papers over (#2) or ignores (#1 and #3) puzzling features of Jeremiah. Boo!! JSB exaggerates the problems (#1 and #3 on Jer 50:3). HCSB wins the prize for balance. I'm curious to see how the new ESV Study Bible fares, but I don't have a copy and I am not going to purchase one this year.

Passage #1 is easily harmonized if one regards a natural death in prison as "peaceful" and imagines people mourning for Zedekiah. Passage #3 is not especially troubling if one recognizes the metaphorical nature of biblical prophecy. I am still puzzled by #2. If any OT specialists have read this far, I'd be glad for their thoughts.

What's so new about the 'New Covenant'?

I suggested earlier that the command to "hear" Jesus in Luke 9:35 is covenant language. The setting of the transfiguration recalls Sinai, where the covenant promise--"you will be to me a chosen people"--is matched to the demand--"hear my voice and keep my covenant" (Exod 19:5 LXX). The people of the covenant are now Jesus' family--those who hear and obey what he says (Luke 8:19-21; 11:28).

The word "covenant" never appears in the Transfiguration (Luke 9:28-36), however. And when Luke uses the term he normally refers to the covenant with Abraham:

• "Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has remembered his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve [or: worship] him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days." (Luke 1:72-75 NRSV)
  
• "You are the descendants of the prophets and of the covenant that God gave to your ancestors, saying to Abraham, 'And in your descendants all the families of the earth shall be blessed.'" (Acts 3:25 NRSV)
  
• "Then God gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision." (Acts 7:8)

There are also several allusions in Luke-Acts to the covenant with David in 2 Samuel 7, and scholars have noted how Luke "collapse[s] the Davidic and Abrahamic covenants together into one. The Davidic covenant becomes a specific way the Abrahamic covenant comes to fulfillment" (Brawley 1995).

While the covenants to Abraham and David may be combined, most people seem to assume that Luke would not have had anything positive to say about the Sinai covenant. After all, so the assumption goes, "Luke connects the Sinai Covenant with the law which he rejects as a means of salvation with a vigor...which almost matches that of Paul" (O'Toole 1983). If Luke does refer to the Sinai covenant, then, it must be to demonstrate Jesus' superiority to it.

But Luke does portray the Sinai covenant positively:

• Pious people in Luke 1-2 such as Zechariah and Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph, are careful to obey the law.
  
• If the point of the Abrahamic covenant was to "serve/worship" God (Luke 1:74), Acts 7 explains that the point of the exodus and the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham (7:17) was to "serve/worship" God at Sinai (7:7).
  
• At the last supper, Jesus identifies the cup with the "new covenant in my blood." The reference to blood echoes the ratification of the Sinai covenant in Exod 24:8.
  

Of course, "new covenant" also echoes Jeremiah's promise of a new covenant:

31 The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt-- a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the LORD," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. (Jer 31:31-34 NRSV; Deut 30:1-6; Ezek 11:17-20; 36:24-28)

My unexamined assumption about the "new covenant" was that it renders the old obselete. This is certainly the view of the author of Hebrews (8:13), but I am not so sure anymore that Luke or his readers would have automatically read Jeremiah 31 in this way.

• For one thing, as the NET Bible note on Jer 31:33 explains, "The new covenant does not entail a new law; it is the same law that Jeremiah has repeatedly accused them of rejecting or ignoring....What does change is their inner commitment to keep it." (N.B. What is new about the 'new' covenant is debated: Zimmerli does think Jer 31 sets aside the Mosaic covenant; Lundbom in the ABD article on "New Covenant" thinks what is new is forgiveness.)
  
• For my purposes, what Post-Exilic Torah-observing Jews believed about Jeremiah is more important than what Jeremiah meant. Jubilees, for example, echoes new covenant passages (1:22-24), but insists that the Sinai covenant was really an extension of the covenant with Abraham. There is, for Jubilees, only one real covenant that lasts forever. The Dead Sea Scrolls also combine interest in the "new covenant" with earnest fidelity to the law of Moses. Without looking around too much in the literature, my sense is that this is common.

What of the New Testament? Is it true that "NT writers were uncomfortable with the term, using it only to point out that in Christ the covenant was not law but faith or life in the Spirit"? (Lundbom ABD 4.1090 citing G.E. Wright approvingly)

Luke certainly believed that Moses and the prophets pointed forward to Jesus, and that salvation comes to those who respond to Jesus, but I see no reason why he should avoid using the Sinai covenant as a positive model for Jesus and for the response that is required from his followers. In fact, I think Luke does precisely this at the transfiguration: Jesus does not bring a new law, but as the Son he is the mediator between the Father and humanity. The requirement--"listen!"--is analogous, and the consequences are the same.

Comments are welcome, if you made it this far!

Turkey Travelogue 11f - The Istanbul Archaeological Museum (Cont'd)

The museum complex also has a large collection of treasures from the Ancient Near East. I took pictures of a few highlights.

These are reliefs from the Ishtar gate in Babylon, which was constructed by Nebuchadnezzar II in 575 BC and excavated between 1902-1914 (according to Wikipedia):


Other reliefs from the same gate are apparently scattered in museums around the world including Detroit, Sweden and the Louvre.

According to the write-up beside this picture, this "winged genie" was taken from the northwest palace of King Assurnasirhpal II (ca. 883-859 B.C.):
And this is Shalmaneser II (858-824 BC), king of Assyria:
(In case you are wondering, the Shalmaneser mentioned in 2 Kings 17:3 and 18:9 is Shalmaneser V who ruled between 727-722 BC.)

The tile museum is housed in a building constructed in 1472. Lots of pretty things here. This looks like one of t's home-made Christmas decorations:
Wall decorations:

Click here for the Turkey Travelogue Index.

Turkey Travelogue 11d - The Siloam Inscription

Note: I will keep adding to the bottom of this post links to the ongoing saga of Israel's request for the return of the Siloam inscription.

Sometimes, it is more exciting not to read the guide books before visiting a site--or at least that's the excuse I make for not doing my research in advance. This time, however, the guide books would not have prepared me for what we stumbled upon as we made our way through the exhibits on the tomb-like third floor of the Istanbul Archaeological Museum. Neither the Blue Guide nor the Lonely Planet Guide, nor the brochure we picked up at the front gate mention what in Israel would be considered a national treasure--the Siloam inscription: The Siloam inscription was discovered in 1880 by a youth who was wading up from the pool of Siloam in Jerusalem toward the Gihon spring. The six line inscription is in the Paleo-Hebrew script and dated to the 8th century BCE. It describes how two construction crews, working from opposite ends, dug a tunnel through 500 meters of bedrock to channel water from the Gihon spring into the city of David. The inscription is famous not only because it is one of the oldest Paleo-Hebrew inscriptions ever discovered and because it describes an ancient engineering marvel, but also because of its connection to 2 Kings 20:20:

The rest of the deeds of Hezekiah, all his power, how he made the pool and the conduit and brought water into the city, are they not written in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Judah?

According to R.B. Coote in the Anchor Bible Dictionary, "It is the nearly unanimous view of historians that the Siloam tunnel is Hezekiah's conduit, and that the inscription in it was written shortly before 701 B.C.E." The conduit is also mentioned in 2 Chr 32:30; Isa 22:11 and Sir 48:17. Isaiah's perspective is a salutary reminder: "You made a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the old pool. But you did not look to him who did it, or have regard for him who planned it long ago."

Here's the text of the inscription (following Coote's translation):

1 [ ] the tunneling, and this was how the tunneling was completed: as [the stonecutters wielded] 2 their picks, each crew toward the other, and while there were still three cubits to g[o], the voices of the men calling 3 each other [could be hear]d, since there was an increase (in sound) on the right [and lef]t. The day the 4 breach was made, the stonecutters hacked toward each other, pick against pick, and the water 5 flowed from the source to the pool [twel]ve hundred cubits, even though the 6 height of the rock above the heads of the stonecutte[rs] was a hundred cubits! (Click here for a transcription of the original Hebrew text.)

As Jerusalem was still under the control of the Ottoman empire at the time, the inscription was moved to Constantinople (now Istanbul) around 1890 and added to the collection of the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, which opened in 1891.

The inscription is behind a protective covering, but unlike the statue of Artemis at the Selçuk Archaeological Museum, where no-flash signs are prominently displayed, the nearest museum guard was happy to let me photograph the inscription however I liked.
I hoped the guard was bemused rather than offended at my delight in photographing a non-Turkish artifact.

Obviously, we remarked as we walked away, Israel would like to have the inscription back. But it seemed hopeless. If you have to go to Berlin to see the great altar of Pergamum or to the Ephesus Museum in Vienna to see many of the artifacts from Ephesus, what hope does Israel have of acquiring the Siloam inscription? Everyone wants their own antiquities returned to the country where they were excavated, but beginning the process would set a dangerous precedent, because it would mean that the country requesting the antiquities would have to consider returning the antiquities in their possession that originate in other countries. In the case of popular exhibits, they would also run the risk of losing revenue--though that doesn't seem to be an issue in Istanbul.

My ears perked up this summer when I heard that Israel has been negotiating with Turkey for the return of the Siloam inscription. Various media reports made it sound as though negotiations are moving ahead. Back in September, in fact, Jim Davila noted a Washington Times article that announced a deal had been reached. Since I have heard nothing further since then, Todd Bolen's response--"Don't believe it"--seems correct. Negotiations to return the inscription have been underway for the last 20 years.

The saga continues:

• The Nov 15, 2007 edition of the Turkish newspaper, Today's Zaman, reports on Shimon Perez's request for the temporary loan of the inscription (HT: Jim Davila).
  

Click here for the Turkey Travelogue Index.

Jubilees and Abraham's Maternal Grandfather

One of the neat things about Jubilees is that it fills in all sorts of gaps left by the biblical text. For example, Genesis gives us the names of Abraham's male ancestors; what about his mother and grandmother? "Proto-feminist" Jubilees (a joke!) has the answer. Have you ever wondered why Abram was named Abram? Never mind Genesis 17:5, the real reason is that he was named after his maternal grandfather.

Take a look at Abraham's family tree as it is reconstructed from Gen 11:20-32 and 20:12:
Along with a lot of other new names, Jubilees (11:15) tells us that Terah and Edna named their son Abram after Edna's father Abram, who, it so happens, was married to Terah's aunt. Sound confusing? Look at the chart (names mentioned in Jubilees are in italics):
I'm a little surprised that Jubilees appears to list Sarai as Abra(ha)m's real sister, not his half-sister as Gen 20:12 would have it.

The only real evidence that the Byzantine chronicler, Cedrenus, was familiar with this part of Jubilees is a reference to Terah's wife Edna and her father (our Abram's grandfather) Abram.
In Cedrenus, however, it is not Edna's mother but her father who shows up as Nahor's brother.

I would not have bothered to work out Abram's family tree if I were not working through references to Jubilees in Cedrenus for the Online Critical Pseudepigrapha (mentioned already here). When I first read this section of Cedrenus, I thought I saw the name of Abram's maternal great-grandfather, and I wanted to know where in the world Cedrenus got that information. In the end, all I needed to do was slow down and read Cedrenus more carefully. As he often does, Cedrenus was merely synchronizing the biblical story with extra-biblical events. In this case, he was coordinating the year of Abram's birth with the reign of Ninus, the first king of the Assyrians, and the 16th dynasty of Thebes. But the chart was interesting anyway.

I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward

But why does God not grant to His saints continuous overflowing joy? Since the Lord had magnified Abraham's name among the heathen, he was in danger of becoming guilty of vainglory, for our nature cannot well bear the grace of being honored and of receiving divine benefactions. God therefore for a while turns His countenance away from us and permits us to face great fears and worries. Older people are tempted less by the sins against the second table, such as theft, adultery and murder, than are younger folk. But they are threatened by far greater dangers, namely, by the sins against the first table. They are tempted to trust in their own power and to glory in their own righteousness and wisdom. With these monstrous transgressions the saints must battle throughout their life. by nature we cannot do otherwise than pride ourselves on the gifts which God grants to us, and parade them before the public. Again, when God's blessings are withheld from us, we are inclined to despair. This vicious virus I soon discovered when I studied the various stories of Holy Scripture. Therefore at the beginning of my Gospel ministry, into which God led me in His wonderful way and, so to speak, against my will, I asked Him very earnestly to deliver me from this evil and keep me from so great a sin. God indeed hear my prayer and kept me from this vice, though not to such a degree that I did not feel it. But He burdened me with so many troublesome tasks, worries, dangers and heartaches that I could easily put all vainglory out of my heart."

Martin Luther, Commentary on Genesis 15:1 (Luther's Commentary on Genesis [trans. J. Theodore Mueller; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1958], 1.260)