This was a busy week on campus. Historian David McCullough was in Oxford on Monday night, giving a lecture entitled "Leadership and the History You Don't Know."
On Tuesday, archaeologist James Russell gave an Archaeological Institute of America lecture called "Chasing a Roman Soldier."
On Wednesday a representative of Feminists for Life spoke out on behalf of the unborn and their mothers.
On Wednesday and Thursday there was also a miniconference on the legacy of Lincoln, Darwin, and Poe, with historian Daniel Walker Howe as a keynote speaker.
Then on Friday there was a conference celebrating the creation of the new Statistics Department, with a number of alumni reminiscing about their time at Miami and reporting on how they've used their training in statistics and mathematics in their careers.
There wasn't much on the ballot for the November 3 election, but Sherry and I made sure to vote. We wanted to try to do our part to defeat State Issue 3, a proposal to build 4 gambling casinos in Ohio.
Unfortunately the measure passed by a 53-47 per cent margin. We're worried about what that will mean for Ohio.
Studies have shown that when a casino is built in an area, the number of gambling addicts in that area doubles. Crime rises, with increases in broken homes and suicide. The high social costs offset the revenue brought in by the casinos.
There's an important article on the social costs of casinos in the November 2009 issue of First Things. I have more to say on this subject at James Pate's blog.
My ongoing battle with the strep A bacteria continued this week. Sunday night an infection showed up in my left hand. It was not as bad as the one in April, but it was bad enough. I went into the hospital on Monday, and the surgeon wasted no time in drawing out the infection. He didn't want to give it any chance to become "flesh-eating." He waited until Wednesday night to close it up, making sure the infection was all gone.
Before the second surgery, I told the anesthesiologists that they had to be sure I woke back up, since I still needed to finish paying for the 5 times they knocked me out in April.
Maybe all these general anesthetics will help me get ready for death. I've trusted the anesthesiologists to wake me back up each time. How much more can I trust Jesus to wake me up from death!.
On October 10, the Church of the Messiah held its annual Feast of Tabernacles celebration at Beavercreek Church of the Nazarene.
The festivities began at 9 AM with some worship music. Then Dwight Pryor began a talk on the book of Ecclesiastes, a text traditionally read during the Feast. Following Walter Kaiser's excellent commentary, Dwight intended to explain why Ecclesiastes is a very appropriate book for a season of rejoicing, since it identifies the only source of lasting joy. Unfortunately he wasn't feeling well and was not able to complete the remarks he had prepared. (He was taken home and felt better after getting some rest.)
Next Lois Tverberg gave a presentation on Jewish prayer in the time of Jesus, summarizing the material in Chapters 6 and 7 of Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus. In particular, she discussed the meaning of the Lord's Prayer and explained the Jewish practice of saying short prayers of thanksgiving throughout the course of each day.
After eating a light lunch that we had packed, we took a walk around the neighborhood before the afternoon events. After lunch, Keren Pryor talked about how the annual cycle of festivals helps us to walk in...
Today was the first day of Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles. A special guest at the Church of the Messiah was Dr. Lois Tverberg. Lois noted that she had enjoyed celebrating the Feast with the Church of the Messiah since 1998. (The same is true for me.) That year Dwight Pryor gave a wonderful in-depth teaching on John 7:37-38, where Jesus proclaims at Sukkot in Jerusalem:
On the last day of the feast, the greatest day,Jesus stood up and shouted out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. Just as the scripture says, ‘From within himwill flow rivers of living water.’ ” (NET Bible)
Lois revisited the background of this verse, exploring the significance of water in Jesus' culture.
She noted that the Feast has traditionally symbolized both the abundance of the fall harvest and Israel's 40-year sojourn in the desert, an unusual juxtaposition. But this combination makes more sense when we realize that the Feast in Israel comes at the end of a lengthy dry season.
Because rain in Israel is both scarce and crucial, prayers for rain have always played an important role in Jewish festival observance. (Lois noted that modern Jewish...
Jesus in Jewish Context--Rediscovering a Messianic Prophecy
September 29, 2009
Malachi 4:2 has long been recognized by Christians as a messianic prophecy:
"But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings" (NIV).
In particular, this verse may be in view in Luke 1:78.
One detail of this verse's connection to Jesus is not so widely recognized, however, outside of the Hebraic roots/Messianic community. As Lois Tverberg explains in Chapter 11, footnote 8 of Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus, the Hebrew word for "wings'' in Mal 4:2 (kanafim) also refers to the "corners'' of a man's garment, to which tassels (tzitziot) were attached. And so when people received healing by touching the "hem" of Jesus' garment (Mark 6:56), they were being healed by his "wings".
I first learned about the connection between Malachi 4:2 and the tzitziot of Jesus from a Dwight Pryor tape in 1998.
New Testament scholar Dale Allison has found that this connection is not a new development in Christian exegesis. In a recent article, he reports that it is mentioned in the Testimony Book of Pseudo-Epiphanius, a Christian source that has been dated to the fourth century AD. He has also found it in the...
If you had asked me 30 years ago what the Kingdom of God was about, I would have mentioned the future reign of Christ over the whole earth. I might have quoted Dan. 2:44 or Rev 11:15, as Herbert Armstrong did in his booklet on the subject.
In those days in the old Worldwide Church of God (WCG), we placed a lot of emphasis on that coming kingdom. We were adventists, and the reality of Jesus' second advent was very important to us. And so in reading Jesus' teachings about the Kingdom in the Gospels, we tended to emphasize some verses and read past some other ones.
Later, when WCG instituted doctrinal reforms in the 1990s, it began to present a more complete teaching that recognized the Kingdom as both a present and a future reality.
In chapter 13 of Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus, Ann Spangler and Lois Tverberg give a wonderful summary of Jesus' multifaceted teaching about the Kingdom of God, enhanced by comparison with early rabbinic teaching.
Like the rabbis, Jesus seemed to see the Kingdom broadly in terms of God's reign. And so to pray "thy kingdom come" means not only to pray for Jesus' return, but also...
I was pleased to learn about a week ago that some of P.G. Wodehouse's early novels can be downloaded to the Amazon Kindle for free.
About 15 years ago, Sherry and I had a great time reading through all of Wodehouse's Jeeves stories. I'm now reading to her Uneasy Money, a romantic comedy that was first published in the U.S. in 1916 after appearing in installments in the Saturday Evening Post.
Although this novel was written during World War I, it mentions nothing directly about the war. Wodehouse's characters are concerned about things like golf, baseball, and marriage, but they live in a world without wars and rumors of wars. His readers, who were weighed down enough by world events, no doubt appreciated the opportunity to escape temporarily from the bad news reported daily in the press.
Uneasy Money was made into a silent movie in 1918. There's enough physical comedy (e.g., a pet monkey that throws eggs) and twists and turns of plot in the book to support a good silent movie, but there's no way the movie could have done justice to Wodehouse's dextrous use of the English language, the thing that makes his writing so much fun to read.
One detail that I'll always remember about September 11, 2001, is that it was a Tuesday.
I know it was a Tuesday because the Gideons, the folks who place Bibles in hotel rooms and elsewhere, were on campus that day, handing students tiny green King James Verson New Testaments. The Gideons always visit Miami University on a Tuesday, exactly eight days after Labor Day.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, I stopped to say hello to one of the Gideons as I walked across the campus on my way to work, and he was the one who told me about the terrorist attacks that were occurring.
Life in a college town has very regular rhythms. The same things happen year after year, on a predictable schedule. I take some comfort in that predictably.
Since today is eight days after Labor Day, I knew the Gideons would be on campus again. In preparation, I packed one of the tiny green New Testaments in my briefcase. That way when I walked past them I could show them that I had a copy already, and they would not feel obliged to hand me another one.
In 2008 my son Timothy gave me a wonderful Father's Day gift--an Amazon Kindle ebook reader.
It didn't take me long to fall in love with this amazing little gadget, which I find is often as pleasant to read from as a conventional book. (There are exceptions. The Kindle doesn't do well with pictures or graphs, and I can't imagine trying to deal with a mathematical monograph in this format.)
My favorite features of the Kindle include:
the ability to adjust the font size, effectively making every book a large print book.
the ability to easily look up endnotes with a simple click.
the fact that free samples are available. Most samples include about a chapter. One very generous one--for the recent book Newton and the Counterfeiter--gives the first 60 pages or so.
the fact that a number of classic literary works can be downloaded free of charge, and many others are just a few dollars.
the fact that one can order a book or free sample and start reading it right away.
Jesus in Jewish Context--The Meaning of Discipleship
September 12, 2009
One important part of Christianity's inheritance from Judaism is the concept of discipleship. As Lois Tverberg and Ann Spangler show in the fourth chapter of Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus, making disciples is central to both Jewish and Christian traditions--see Matt 28:19 and Pirke Avot 1.1.
Tverberg and Spangler explain that first-century discipleship was not just about conveying information; rather, it was about effecting a personal transformation. Like an apprentice to a skilled craftsman, a disciple entered into a prolonged close relationship with a teacher, imitating the teacher's actions as well as drinking in the teacher's words.
The prototype for the teacher/disciple relationship is the relationship between the prophet Elijah and his successor Elisha. When Elijah calls Elisha, Elisha puts his own plans aside to become Elijah's servant (I Kings 19:19-21). Elisha's dedication to Elisha becomes the model for the disciples of Jesus hundreds of years later--see e.g. Luke 5:1-11; 9:57-62.
There are more parallels here. Elisha will eventually see his beloved teacher ascend in a heavenly chariot after asking for a "double portion" of the spirit of Elijah (2 Kings 2), prefiguring the ascension of Jesus and the Pentecost event.
Today I learned that my friend, journalist Jared Olar, has been laid off from his job recently.
Jared gave our magazine Grace & Knowledge its name back in 1998 and is largely responsible for turning the magazine from an idea in our heads into a reality.
Let's pray that his period of unemployment will be short.
A few years ago, a Time Magazine article identified "Re-Judaizing Jesus"---especially, embracing the principle that Jesus can't be properly understood apart from his first-century Jewish context---as a major trend.
On the level of scholarship, this trend means that the "Quest for the Historical Jesus" is at long last fully living up to its name.
Originally, the "quest" was about skeptics describing a Jesus they could believe in. The goal was to separate the "Jesus of history" from the "Christ of faith". For example, American President Thomas Jefferson admired Jesus as a moral teacher but didn't believe in the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, or Jesus' healing miracles. He produced an edited version of the gospels, removing all traces of the miraculous.
Such efforts failed to pay sufficient attention to the historical background of the gospels. As a result, their authors created Jesuses in their own image. While critical of the gospel text, they uncritically passed along false negative stereotypes about first-century Judaism. These defects persist right up through the work of the modern Jesus Seminar.
But in the recent "Third Quest", the emphasis has been on the Jewishness of Jesus. There's been a great deal of fruitful interaction between Christian and Jewish scholars. Scholarly commentaries from...
Audiocassettes have gone the way of the slide rule. Considering all the cassettes I have had tangle up over the years, I can't say that I'll miss them.
But our 2001 Impala has a cassette player, not a CD player. So I'm glad I still have some cassettes around.
Recently I was preparing for a drive and looked around for a cassette to play in the car. I came across an old copy of Hooked on Classicsthat we had purchased in the early 1980s, back before we came to Oxford.
Here were medleys of some of the most famous snippets of Western music, skillfully blended together and set to a disco beat. (As Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up.) Take the Flight of the Bumblebee, add the opening of Mozart's 40th, a little Rhapsody in Blue, some Beethoven's 5th and 9th, some Lone Ranger music, the Hallelujah Chorus.... With such great ingredients, you can't miss. Start with the Wedding March. Put in the Brahms Lollaby, Peer Gynt, some Wagner Kill Da Wabbit music---why not?
I hadn't heard any of these arrangements in years, but it is still true that when one of these bits of music pops into...
On August 15 Messianic singer Jonathan Settel led worship at the Church of the Messiah. He was in Dayton attending a Haverim School of Discipleship on the subject of the Feast of Tabernacles.
This was at least the second time over the last 10 years that Settel had come to Dayton. A number of years ago he visited Dayton and gave a concert. He has a deep, rich, resonant voice,and I was glad for the opportunity to hear him again. We have his album Kol Ba'Midbar (Voice in the Wilderness) on cassette, and his voice has kept us company during a number of car trips over the years.
On August 1, 2009, James Whitman gave the sermon at the Church of the Messiah. His text was 1Tim 1:13:
"What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. " (NIV)
Mr. Whitman raised the question: What are the characteristics of "sound teaching'? He explained that the Greek word for "sound" comes from a root that is the source of the English word "hygiene". The same word is translated "enjoy good health" in 3 John 2. So "sound" teaching is sound in the sense of healthy.
To give further insight into this word, he went on to explore its use in the Gospels:
In Matt 12:9-13 Jesus participates in a halakhic discussion on the subject of healing on the Sabbath. He gives sound teaching and also heals a man's hand, restoring it to soundness.
In Matt 15:29-31 Jesus heals many people. The crippled are "made well" (Gk. hygios) , prompting those present to praise God.
In Mark 5:25-34 a woman who has suffered for 12 years seeks healing from Jesus and receives it. Later this woman would have been able to look back on this event with thanksgiving. It...
Yesterday the public library in Oxford held its annual used book sale. Hardback books were a dollar, paperbooks fifty cents. I browsed for about 90 minutes and picked up 6 hardbacks and 8 paperbacks for a total of $10.
I look forward to this sale every year. Since I've been to 25 of them now, I suppose I must have accumulated around 300 books from them all together. Out of all of these books, the one I've used the most has been a hardback copy of the NRSV, with apocrypha, that I picked up in excellent condition one year. (At that point, hardbacks were probably 50 cents.)
Some of the best bargains over the years:
Edersheim's Bible History, an old 7-volume set in decent condition, for $1.50.
James R. Newman's four-volume anthology, The World of Mathematics, in good condition for a dollar.
A 1969 edition of The Baseball Encyclopedia in good condition for a quarter (back in the 1980s when hardbacks were a quarter and paperbacks a dime).
Along with the gems I've picked up some junk that I'd never have purchased if the prices were higher. It is for a good cause, and funding for public libraries in Ohio is being slashed...
In recovering from my recent medical emergency, one helpful resource has been the website of the National Necrotizing Fasciitis Foundation (NNFF). They have lots of information, including stories from survivors. What I went through was nothing compared with what many others have experienced.
Dr. Lois Tverberg to Speak at Dayton Feast of Tabernacles celebration
July 25, 2009
Every year we look forward to the Feast of Tabernacles celebration in Dayton, Ohio, sponsored by the Church of the Messiah. We began attending these events in 1998, and they have enriched our lives greatly.
I have long been an admirer of Dr. Tverberg, who gave up a career as a biology professor in order to pursue her passion, sharing the excitement of learning about Jesus in his first-century Jewish context.
Zondervan has generously sent me a review copy of Lois's new book. Over the next few months I'll post comments on it from time to time.
