Friday, January 15, 2010
Blogger and Wordpress question
So I tried to alter Blogger to give me some static pages last summer. But this is a temporary fix. I need to find another platform and integrate website and blog.
My biggest concerns are threefold.
1. Is there a way to automatically move my subscribers to a new URL? Or not?
2. Is there a way to automatically move my past three years of blogging history/archives to a new platform?
3. Finally, is Wordpress what I should be looking at? Or are there other recommendations? I like to control the look of my pages, so I am concerned about Wordpress if it is the case (which I don't know) that I can't access the html code.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
The tragedy in Haiti
Want to help? Here is a LINK to some national organizations and some suggestions for local aid in the Houston area. Check your local newspaper for your own city's local help centers. Survivors are going to need clothing (consider an early spring cleaning of your closet), food, medicines, and water immediately.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Ohio Fragments of the Gospel of Judas
The Ohio Fragments of the Gospel of Judas are coming to light. In New Orleans, Professor Meyer distributed initial transcriptions of the fragments which were made by he and Professor Wurst last year from photographs they have access to. My understanding is that very soon the fragments will be moved to Europe and rephotographed, and those photographs will be distributed to scholars working on the Gospel of Judas.
Professor Meyer has kindly uploaded his SBL talk, transcriptions and translations of the fragments to his official website HERE.
I don't want to say too much about the fragments, because I do not yet have access to the photographs which I will need to make my own transcription and translation. I have put together a seminar here at Rice to begin this work with my graduate students, and hope that the photos will be available very soon.
From the transcription done by Meyer and Wurst, it appears that Jesus is the one who ascends in the cloud at the end of the gospel and Judas is left behind on the ground looking at him, only to betray him a few lines later, fulfilling the fate of his ignorant star.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Starting off the New Year: Announcements
Mark your calendars. Rice Religious Studies Department is hosting its Rockwell Symposium 2010, an international conference on April 15-18th in the Kyle Morrow Room, Fondren Library: Hidden God, Hidden Histories.
The symposium is designed to work on two distinct but related levels. On the first level, we intend the symposium as the inaugural event of the Department's new GEM Program, an area of graduate study at Rice that focuses on the traditional scholarly categories of Gnosticism, Esotericism, and Mysticism, but also seeks to revision, renew, and move beyond them in creative and positive ways.
On the second level, the symposium will serve as a platform to bring together a set of particular studies to be published under the title, Histories of the Hidden God. Papers will address the specific topic of the Hidden God and the relationship of that God to the universe and humanity. The “thesis” of this edited volume is the exploration of religious traditions that characterize an absolute being who is “beyond” the conventional gods and our cosmos, a being who may even be conceived of as existing outside the known universe. This absolute being may be portrayed in theistic or non-theistic terms. Its relationship with the cosmos and other beings may vary from a relationship that is utterly transcendent to one that is radically immanent.
By focusing on the manner in which these ideologies describe the relationship between this god-beyond-god(s), the cosmos, and humanity, one of the main goals of this volume is to attempt to view thinkers and groups, whose traditional labels (‘gnostic’, ‘dualist’ etc) have associated them with the history of heresy, within a broader world view that connects them with others who were conceiving God and the world in similar ways. Thus another goal of this project is the hope that our studies will engage academic language and discourse in such a way that will facilitate a better understanding of this type of ideology (transtheism?, metatheism? etc) as part of a continuum of forms of belief, rather than as something sharply distinct from more normative or mainstream theologies. If this can be accomplished, it would move us in the direction of opening up the study of gnosticism, esotericism and mysticism to non-judgmental, yet critical academic categories.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Friday, December 18, 2009
A call to dialogue between postmodernists and historical critics
It will be no surprise that I hold very similar criticisms to Aichelle, Miscall, and Walsh's position. I have been wanting to take a moment to respond on my blog to this 'call' for dialogue since I read it last summer. So now appears to be a great opportunity to do so.
1. It has become evident to me especially in the last year that postmodernism is not a method, and should not be confused with a method, and is not a substitute for empirical research. It does not move us "beyond" the rigors of historical criticism. Rather Postmodernism is a set of critiques and attitudes toward texts and their interpretation that are largely dependent on modernism and historical criticism's own hermeneutic of suspicion.
2. The historian relies on empirical data gathered by using a critical, rational, contextual approach to the materials being studied. In Europe this is called "the scientific" approach to the study of religion rather than the "theological approach".
3. The postmodern approach, which divorces literature from historical context and questing for 'authorial' intent, is more amenable to churched traditions and theological readings which have been at odds with historical methods for 200 years. It claims that texts have a diversity of meanings that are located in the point of view of those reading it and the intertextual associations that those readers make. Thus many postmodernists want to conclude from this that historical interpretation is no more meaningful or valuable than any other. It is as 'ideological' and 'mythic' as the next. This conclusion is very dangerous and very inaccurate for some of the reasons that I outline in #4.
4. The historian is no idiot. Every generation of historians has critiqued its outcomes, well aware that personal biases affect the interpretation or assemblage of the data. In fact, this is a point that I first learned when I was an undergraduate in college in a history class. My professor called it "our colored glasses", and how it was necessary for us to be aware of them because they would affect our interpretation of the data. The fact that we all have biases that affect the interpretative process does not suggest that the historical critical method does not work or that it is 'mythic' or equivalent in validity with any other interpretation. On the contrary! The historian's own hermeneutic of suspicion and agreement to employ a critical or scientific approach to understanding our past demonstrates that the historical method works and that over time, as more and more historical interpretations and critiques of these interpretations are generated, we get a better and better grasp of our past and what was going on.
That's all I have time for today. I need to get back to cleaning and organizing my office, but at least it is a start to the 'dialogue' called for by Aichelle, Miscall and Walsh.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
My Debut in BAR
What's Up with the Gospel of Thomas?
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
What's on your desk?
William Hartner, "The Pseudoplanetary Nodes of the Moon's Orbit in Hindu and Islamic Icongraphies," Ars Islamica 5 (1038) 112-154.What is buried on your desk?
Howard M. Jackson, "The Meaning and Function of the Leontocephaline in Roman Mithraism," Numen 32 (1985) 17-45.
Bryan Wilson, Religion in Sociological Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University 1982).
Michael Frede, "Numenius," ANRW 36.2: 1034-1075.
Elliot Wolfson, "Seven Mysteries of Knowledge: Qumran E/sotericism Recovered," The Idea of Biblical Interpretation (2003) 177-215.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Why do Americans believe so many different things?
The argument I have been developing about second century Christians is that they were eclectic, and that gnosticism was an amalgamation of Egyptian astrology and religion, Greek mysteries and Hermetism, middle Platonic philosophy, Judaism and Christianity, with its constituents comfortable attending more than one religious house or being part of a multiple of religious bodies. It is exactly the kind of 'hybrid' that we are seeing today, and may have been seeing since the 1800s. I think it has something to do with 'internationalization', when a variety of religious traditions become available for consumption within a given culture at a given point in history.
I will be returning to this report and analyzing it carefully, and expect to post more thoughts on it. For now I just want to bring it to your attention because it is so fascinating and representative of the religion of no religion that is sweeping America.
Empirical research
When I attended a humanities fellows luncheon at Rice a few weeks ago, a historian of French literature spoke directly to the point in her field. When we do not do the empirical research, but privilege theory and method, we are at a disadvantage, because theory and method are trends that shift and change and go away. But the empirical data does not, and so we need to be the best linguists, the best philologists, the best textual scholars we can be.
Although it is to our advantage to employ a variety of approaches and nuance our approach to history, there is no substitute for the hard work of facing the text at the manuscript level, checking decisions made by editors of critical editions we rely on, being immersed in the literature and culture of the era we are studying, and being attuned to the metaphysical and practical landscape of the text under analysis. None of this is "sexy" or "innovative," and it is not quick in terms of ease of publication. But without it, we are left with theory which is here today and gone tomorrow.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Mandaeans in Massachusetts
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Question about future of SBL
So I am curious, especially to hear from fellow members: would consolidation of some of the units be part of the solution? What are the pros and cons? Are there ways to re-envision the formation and structure of units to allow for more interchange among members in our society? Is it possible for units to consolidate while still maintaining individual agendas?
Those of you who are in other organizations that operate with discipline units, how do you organize?
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Open Letter about SBL
1. We were told at the Chairs' meeting about the gigantic increase in numbers of groups and therefore number of people participating by delivering papers and presiding. This was represented to us as a great sign of our vitality and growth.
But I don't think so. In fact it is the opposite. The drastic increase in the number of groups is alarming. We should not kid ourselves that this proliferation means growth and strength. Our groups have proliferated to the point that there is so much competition for audiences that entire sessions are beginning to have only a handful in attendance. Papers that may have taken a year to prepare may have an audience of five. This means that there is little discussion and little in terms of dissemination of research to the broader community. As more and more specialized groups form, they are breaking down the membership of the traditional larger groups, causing members to have to choose between the new specialized group (which will eventually run out of steam) and the traditional larger group it is co-opting. This means that the memberships of the groups are getting carved into smaller and smaller pieces, and instead of spreading our knowledge we are ending up talking only to ourselves.
We need to put the brakes on the formation of new groups, and find ways to connect together the ones that we have in place. Whenever possible, steering committees should be finding ways of absorbing groups into each other while maintaining their agendas. I'm not just talking about joint sessions. I am talking about a main group that might have subgroups or panels working on specific projects and these subgroups or panels might rotate sessions or years. What I'm saying is that we need a new model for group formation and maintenance. Limiting the number of sessions per group might help, but it isn't going to be the answer because there are just too many groups now.
2. We have to fix the problem of overlapping in the program similar groups or groups with similar interests. This is not just a complaint. This is a MAJOR problem that is forcing members of different groups to choose between groups that they should not have to, and we shouldn't want them to. Their membership in different groups and participation in those groups is vital to the 'health' of the Society. I think that SBL should consider hiring external consultants to resolve this scheduling problem for us. It is a persistent problem that has become much worse now that AAR is not meeting with us. It is not impossible to fix.
3. The problem comes down to this: AAR sessions are not overlapping with SBL sessions anymore. It was enough of a struggle for us when we competed with other AAR sessions. But now we have significant increase in the SBL sessions (but not an equally significant increase in the SBL membership) and these sessions are overlapping with each other in such extreme ways that the groups are not going to be able to sustain themselves, unless they have a membership that has no other interests or no other competing groups.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
The busiest SBL ever!
What do I think about this year's meeting?
1. The SBL staff in Atlanta have to figure out how to stop overlapping similar sections. This has been a problem since I started chairing a group fifteen years ago (which I no longer chair). It never gets better and it has never been solved. It was bad when groups were only allowed two sessions each, and it is worse now that the groups have proliferated. Our mysticism sessions were held at the same time slots as the Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism group, the Religious Experience group, the Pseudepigrapha, and a number of others. The problem is that many of us are members of several of these groups, and the overlap means that we have to choose between groups instead of supporting all of them.
2. More is not better. We have too many groups now that the Society has allowed them to proliferate after the split with AAR . The sudden drastic increase in groups means that there is more competition for audiences. I cannot tell you how many rooms I saw as I ran from one thing to the next that had five or less people in their audiences. This is embarrassing all around - for the presenters who prepared papers, for the groups who sponsored them, and for SBL.
3. We were told at the Chairs' Breakfast that 4,400 attended this year (compared to 5,000 last year). We were told that this is because the meeting was not in the northeast where there is more attendance, but this is not the reason I was hearing from colleagues who didn't come. I think this number is inflated since this must be the registered people, not the attendees. Many people who had preregistered canceled at the last minute and did not come as they had planned.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Report from New Orleans
This is the first SBL conference in a long time that doesn't feel 'magisterial'. It feels small(er), like the conferences I used to go to twenty years ago. The book exhibit is disappointing. It is packed into two rooms - small exhibit halls, and it looks to me like there are less booths and less books in those booths. In one way it was nice not running around a big convention center since the conference is based in two hotels across the street from each other. But the flip side is that things are cramped. And I really miss my AAR friends who I haven't seen now for two years.
The sessions have been going well, although many presenters decided not to come, leaving paper spots and panels vacated. Our working group on Friday lost its afternoon session because of cancellations. The EJCM book review session on Saturday was missing a reviewer, although his paper was read, and one of the coauthors, although his response was read. The James and Q session was missing half its panel, although I heard it was awesome (sorry I missed it). The Moshe Idel session suffered because Idel didn't turn up and one of the reviewers on the panel, so I feel bad for Francis' group on Religious Experience which had put that together. One of the panelists for Elaine Pagel's celebration of the Gnostic Gospels session that I was on couldn't come at the last minute. And these are just the groups I attended or heard about. It is the oddest year in terms of attendance that I have ever witnessed. Let's put it this way. I have been attending SBL for about twenty years now, and I can count on one hand the number of cancellations of papers I can recall. Until this year!
So I don't know what is happening, but I sure hope it is not a trend. And the sooner that we can join back up with AAR the better. And when I say this, I mean REALLY join back up with them.
And a note about food. I am sick of the same menu which includes shrimp, crawfish, catfish, oysters, in all versions and renditions everywhere. And since I am allergic to all these, my one and only menu choice has been steak. It was nice at lunch today to get the breakfast buffet where at least I could get an egg and some fruit.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
I'll be out of touch for a few days
Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism Sessions at SBL 2009
The first session includes a book review of Christopher Rowland's and Christopher Murray-Jones' long-awaited book on New Testament Mysticism.
Early Jewish and Christian MysticismThe second is on second-century mysticism in Christian sources. I'm going to be talking about my next project which is mapping the initiatory rites of the Gnostics (lots of astrology here). Grant Adamson and Franklin Trammell are my graduate students. Adamson will be presenting an important paper on the Gospel of Judas and horoscopes. Trammell will be talking about Hermas' view of the church as the androgynous body of God. Jonathan Draper will be discussing the Ascension of Isaiah.
11/21/2009
1:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Room: Napoleon D3 - SH
Reviews of Christopher Rowland and Christopher Morray-Jones’ book, The Mystery of God: Jewish Mysticism and the New Testament (Brill, 2009), and responses by the authors.Silviu Bunta, University of Dayton, Presiding
Alan Segal, Columbia University, Panelist (10 min)
Kevin Sullivan, Illinois Wesleyan University, Panelist (10 min)
Charles A. Gieschen, Concordia Theological Seminary - Fort Wayne, Panelist (10 min)
James R. Davila, University of St. Andrews, Panelist (10 min)
Christopher Morray-Jones, California, Respondent (15 min)
Discussion (20 min)
Break (15 min)
Elizabeth Morton, McGill University
The Role of Ecstasy in the Formation of Abraham, the Sage (25 min)
Dragos-Andrei Giulea, Marquette University
The Noetic Turn in Jewish-Christian Mysticism: Revisiting Esoterism, Mysticism, and Internalization with Philo, Clement, and Origen (25 min)
Discussion (10 min)
Early Jewish and Christian MysticismThe third session is on mysticism in early Judaism. I am not as familiar with the presenters and papers, except my colleague and friend Rebecca Lesses, and anything she is discussing is well worth hearing!
11/22/2009
4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
Room: Balcony J - MRTheme: Second-Century Christian Mysticism and Gnosticism
Kevin Sullivan, Illinois Wesleyan University, Presiding
April D. Deconick, Rice University
Star Gates and Heavenly Places: What Were the Gnostics Doing? (25 min)
Grant Adamson, Rice University
Fate Indelible: The Gospel of Judas as Horoscope (25 min)
Discussion (15 min)
Break (15 min)
Franklin Trammell, Rice University
The Tower as Divine Body: Visions and Theurgy in the Shepherd of Hermas (25 min)
Jonathan Knight, Katie Wheeler Research Trust/York St John University, UK
The use of Jewish and other Mystical Traditions in the Ascension of Isaiah (25 min)
Discussion (20 min)
Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism
11/23/2009
4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
Room: Southdown Room - SHTheme: Mysticism in Early Judaism
Silviu N. Bunta, University of Dayton, Presiding
Matthew J. Grey, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Joseph and Aseneth, Hekhalot Mysticism, and the “Parting of the Ways” between Christianity and Judaism in Late Antiquity (25 min)
Rebecca Lesses, Ithaca College
Female Jewish mystics in late antiquity: real women or literary construction? (25 min)
Discussion (15 min)
Break (15 min)
R. Jackson Painter, Simpson University
Mystical Identification with Christ in the Odes of Solomon (25 min)
David Larsen, Marquette University
And He Departed from the Throne: The Enthronement of Moses in Place of the Noble Man in Exagoge of Ezekiel the Tragedian (25 min)
Discussion (20 min)
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
The Codex Judas Papers to be released
The people at Brill have kindly offered a 25% discount for the book to my blog readers. It is an expensive book ($256) - nearly 700 pages - so this will be a substantial discount ($64) which reduces the price to $192.
People always ask me why these books are so expensive. I am not in the publishing business, but what I am told is that the reason that these kinds of academic books are so expensive has to do with the print run. They have very small print runs - just enough to sell to the world's libraries.
When you place your order with Brill, use the discount code 47900, and you will receive 25% discount. ISBN: 978-90-04-18141-0. The toll-free number for ordering in the States is 800-337-9255. The discount is valid until December 31.
New Testament Mysticism Project
UPDATE: meets in Edgewood AB - SH
Monday, November 16, 2009
Will I see you in New Orleans?
I am just finishing my presentations - thankfully! - but have come down with a bad sinus infection. My doctor raised her eyebrows when I said I had to get on a plane Thursday. I hope I feel better then than I do today!