Aristotle argued that an object needed constant attention from a source of motion in order to keep moving. … In the same fashion, Aristotle suggested, the planets revolved around the earth due to the constant force exerted on them by a “prime mover.” To the medieval monks of Paris [especially Jean Buridan, 1300–58, and Nicholas Oresme, 1323–82], this sounded like nonsense. Specifically, they questioned why God should have to continuously intervene to impart motion to one of the planets when a simple impetus of motion from the start of the cosmos should have been sufficient to last for the duration of the universe. What may seem today to sound like a theological quible actually cleared the cobwebs of Greek preconceptions out of the European mind, allowing a more abstract approach to the theory of motion, so that by the time of Leonardo da Vinci and Copernicus, the idea of inertial motion, imparted by and depending only an initial force, was virtually taken for granted by astronomers.

— John Farrell, The Day Without Yesterday: Lemaître, Einstein, and the Birth of Modern Cosmology (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2005), pp. 42–43

Earlier today, I was reading an article in which a philosopher discussed the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo, creation out of nothing. As I read his treatment of (potentially) relevant biblical texts, I felt disturbed, and tweeted the following:

Reading an article by a philosopher. The exegetical part feels like a speech by a college debater. Willy-nilly quotations with … (1/2)

… minimal context and little attention to whether the larger works from which the quotations are pulled are mutually compatible. (2/2)

Later, I read another article that was itself as response to essentially the same article, though published as a chapter in a co-authored book. The responding author wrote:

They make no bones about the fact that they are not engaging in an attempt to provide a balanced exegesis of the scriptures and documents that they discuss. Rather, their article and book are like a lawyer’s defense brief for the view that the scriptures teach creatio ex nihilo. A careful reading reveals that they are presenting their case as if they were debaters with no interest in giving a balanced assessment of the evidence.

Sometimes, it’s nice to know you’re not alone.

For the last couple of years, Michael Brown (Anachronism’s designer) and I have been working together on a new Bible-themed game called Crossroads. We like to describe Crossroads this way:

Crossroads™ is a game of epic adventure through the stories of the Bible. In Crossroads™, one to four players work collaboratively to chart their own course through the biblical story.The starter set presents four stories, each with its own particular challenges. Each player selects a vocation and a set of prayers to help the group meet the objectives unique to each adventure. Players then work together to build paths to reveal, face, and overcome the challenges of the game. Skill in navigating the maps and adept use of prayer to influence play will determine the group’s success. Which path will you choose?

Crossroads is a collaborative, expandable board game that features tile-laying, role-taking, and delivery of randomized and customized elements via cards and dice. Basically, when you play a game of Crossroads, you control a traveler who builds roads and then moves along them, facing challenges as you try to achieve your group’s overall goal. Your traveler has certain traits with values based on his or her vocation, and can offer prayers to alter gameplay. Crossroads scenarios are based on biblical stories; each story has a definite beginning and end, but the middle sections are randomized and a successful outcome isn’t guaranteed! The Crossroads Starter Set will include four biblical stories. Thereafter, periodic expansion sets and organized play opportunities will expand the library of Crossroads stories until, over the course of seven years, the list has grown to 80 stories available in the starter set and expansion packs plus 20 stories that you can experience in the organized play program.

If this interests you—and I certainly hope that it does—learn more on the Crossroads website and blog, like our Facebook page, and/or follow @CrossroadsGame on Twitter.

The book of Genesis “begins at the beginning,” as they say, yet it actually begins with two beginnings. Genesis 1:1–2:3 and Genesis 2:4–25 clearly stand as two structurally independent units separated by the “generations” (תולדות, toledoth) formula in Genesis 2:4. (Unlike many interpreters, I take the formula to function here as it does everywhere else in Genesis: as the beginning, not the end, of a unit.)

In some circles (expanding the farther back you go), Genesis 1:1–2:3 bears the name Hexaemeron, referring to the six days of creative activity narrated therein. The Hexaemeron views creation on a cosmic (we might say “planetary,” though this distinction would hold far less significance in an ancient Near Eastern context) scale. Genesis 2:4–25, on the other hand, focuses the camera close-up on individual human beings, who reside—at first—in a garden in Eden. Thanks to the ancient Greek translation(s) of Genesis, names given to this second (in canonical sequence) creation story usually contain the word “paradise” (with somewhat misleading connotations in English, since Greek παράδεισος, paradeisos, cognate with Hebrew פרדס, pardes, and surely deriving from an Old Persian ancestor, need not carry the connotations of bliss and perfection normally associated with the English word “paradise”).

In the Tanakh itself, the paradise narrative does not enjoy star billing. At most, one other text from the Tanakh—one of Ezekiel’s oracles against Tyre—clearly refers or alludes to the paradise narrative (and whether Ezekiel refers to the biblical paradise narrative or to another closely-related tradition remains up for debate). The Hexaemeron, however—while not going by that name within the Tanakh, of course—echoes repeatedly in the Tanakh, with passages from Job, Psalms, Proverbs, and Isaiah (to cite but four books, without prejudice toward other examples) using similar language to describe God’s creative activity. Apparently, the writers of other biblical books found more resonance in the Hexaemeron account (in whatever form it existed for them) than in the paradise account.

What about for you? Which of these two stories—the Hexaemeron and the paradise narrative—do you find more personally meaningful?

In December 2010, iTanakh added new listings in the following categories:

Texts > Septuagint > Judith
Texts > Tanakh > Torah/Pentateuch > Exodus
Texts > Tanakh > Torah/Pentateuch > Leviticus
Texts > Tanakh > Latter Prophets > Isaiah
Topics > God

In November 2010, iTanakh added new entries in the following categories:

Archaeology
Archaeology > Inscriptions
Archaeology > Sites
Context > History
Languages > Hebrew > Literary Devices
Languages > Hebrew > Terms
Methods
Methods > Historical-Critical Method
Methods > Historiography
Methods > Postmodern Interpretation
Texts > Septuagint
Texts > Septuagint > Sirach
Texts > Septuagint > Wisdom of Solomon
Texts > Septuagint > The Books of the Maccabees
Texts > Tanakh > Torah/Pentateuch > Genesis
Texts > Tanakh > Torah/Pentateuch > Exodus
Texts > Tanakh > Torah/Pentateuch > Leviticus
Texts > Tanakh > Torah/Pentateuch > Deuteronomy
Texts > Tanakh > Former Prophets > Judges
Texts > Tanakh > Former Prophets > Samuel
Texts > Tanakh > Former Prophets > Kings
Texts > Tanakh > Latter Prophets > Isaiah
Texts > Tanakh > Latter Prophets > Jeremiah
Texts > Tanakh > Latter Prophets > Jonah
Texts > Tanakh > Writings
Texts > Tanakh > Writings > Psalms
Topics > Animals
Topics > Purity
Topics > Royalty

I certainly haven’t retreated from the web—nothing like that. But after a month of using Gmail, I’m going back to using the Apple Mail client with Pepperdine’s Exchange server. Although I very much appreciated Gmail’s priority inbox feature, I simply found that managing multiple Gmail accounts was too difficult. With Apple’s Mail client, I can easily switch between various accounts, and even see all incoming e-mail in a single window. If I were trying to access my e-mail from various computers over which I didn’t have complete control, Gmail would seem like a much more attractive option. However, I usually read e-mail on my laptop, my iPhone, or my iPad. If I can access Gmail using one of these devices, I can also access the Pepperdine Exchange server just as easily. Plus, I find it much easier to switch between applications than to switch between tabs in a tabbed browser.

For these reasons, for better (I think) or for worse (some might say), I’ve said goodbye to Gmail … almost. Forwarding my Exchange e-mail to Google was incredibly easy; Pepperdine has a one-click solution for that. Going the other way is much more difficult. Using IMAP with Gmail is an absolute pain in the rear, because Gmail’s labeling scheme results in runaway duplication of e-mails when you access Gmail via IMAP … so now I’m neck-deep in cloned e-mails that just won’t seem to go away.

Dear readers, please update your links and spread the word: Higgaion has moved to a new home. The new URL is http://drchris.me/higgaion; visit the site to grab the new RSS feed or just substitute “drchris.me” for “heardworld.com” in your existing URLs.

At the e-publishing and blogging sessions that I attended during the 2010 Society of Biblical Literature meeting in Atlanta, presenters and respondents from the audiences repeatedly raised questions related to tenure and promotion committees’ esteem, or lack of same, for online journals. As far as I know, no one has done any kind of serious research project on this issue, at least as it relates to biblical studies. However, as a member of Seaver College’s Rank, Tenure, and Promotion Committee, I can certainly offer some anecdotal evidence related to this topic. As a blogger, I can also offer my personal opinion without having to pass it through any editorial control—and there’s there rub.

In my experience, it matters little or none whether you deliver your scholarship in physical or digital formats. Tenure and promotion committees, however, almost always draw their members from across the entire college or university. We have eight “divisions” in Seaver College, and our Rank, Tenure, and Promotion Committee consists of one tenured representative from each division plus one untenured representative elected by the faculty at large. Therefore, I—a biblical scholar—must evaluate research done by my colleagues in all other disciplines. The farther we get from the humanities, the farther we get from my ability to independently assess my colleagues’ research, never mind the time involved. Faculty sitting on tenure and promotion committees must therefore rely on the judgments of reviewers in the same field, and that’s why peer review is so important.

In my own applications for tenure and promotion, for example—as well as for research funding and such—I have no reason to think that the relevant committees have considered the Journal of Hebrew Scriptures inferior in any wise to Semeia (to use only two examples) just because Semeia was printed on paper and JHS is (note the different verb tenses!) distributed electronically (though you can get a paper copy). Quite the opposite, in fact: JHS rates higher than Semeia in the eyes of my Seaver College peers, because JHS is peer-reviewed while Semeia volumes were editor-reviewed. Both, however, carry much more weight with our tenure and promotion committee than my most brilliant Higgaion posts, precisely because the JHS and Semeia articles were reviewed by professionals in my field before they were published.

In short, the distinction between print and digital media matters far, far less than the path to publication, for most forms of research. Only if that path goes through an academic editor’s hands, and more desirably through several peer reviewers’ hands as well, will tenure and promotion committees consider the work to be “scholarship.”

When I came up for tenure, I asked Chris Brady to write a letter for my file addressing the value of iTanakh to the scholarly and student communities. However, I did not offer iTanakh to my tenure and promotion committee as “scholarship”; rather, I categorized it as “professional service.” Ditto with Higgaion; I (have) include(d) it in my applications for tenure, promotion, appointments, grants, and such as “professional/public service,” not as “scholarship.” The lack of peer review, in part, drives this categorization.

I very much support Chris Brady’s suggestion for a kind of peer review panel, under the auspices of the SBL, which could undertake such evaluations upon request. However, I think that tenure and promotion committees will still prefer material that has been reviewed before publication to material reviewed post hoc.

One final note: my comments here related to fairly traditional forms of scholarship, such as essays and papers. As Bob Cargill has pointed out repeatedly, including in the blogger session at SBL 2010, we still need to develop new forms of peer review for research that comes packaged in other media.

I must apologize, dear readers, for keeping you waiting so long. Way back on October 4, I started a four-part blog series on the idea—which I reject—that Genesis 21:9 depicts Ishmael as sexually abusing Isaac. Before continuing with this post, you might wish to read part 1 and part 2 if you didn’t read them in October or you don’t remember what I wrote back then.

Genesis 21:9 contains an important issue of textual criticism that one must take into account when interpreting this text. If you already know what “textual criticism” is, please feel free to skip to the next paragraph. For those who don’t already know: textual criticism is the study of the wording of the Bible—not the meaning, but the actual wording, not what the Bible means, but what it actually says. Modern translations of the book of Genesis usually rely chiefly on a family of Hebrew texts collectively called the “Masoretic Text” (abbreviated “MT”) a standardized form of the Hebrew Bible dating from about ad 800–1000, give or take. The various manuscripts that belong to this family differ slightly from one another. In addition, various ancient translations of the Bible attest to different textual families. The Greek manuscripts, collectively called by the family name “Septuagint” (abbreviated “LXX” for “seventy”) date especially from about ad 100–400; there are also Syriac, Aramaic, and Latin text families. Since all of these textual families originated as translations of Hebrew originals, it’s easy to default to the Hebrew MT as the presumptive original. However, the testimony of the Samaritan manuscripts of the Pentateuch and the biblical manuscripts and fragments found among the Dead Sea Scrolls—which are also in Hebrew, but are much older than the MT mansucripts—show that the MT may not always preserve the oldest form of the biblical text in question. On the whole, textual critics nowadays doubt whether it’s wise even to speak of an “oldest form” or “original” to our biblical texts. Rather, it appears quite clear now, given the evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls and similar “deposits” of ancient Hebrew manuscripts, that some of our biblical books (Samuel and Jeremiah, for example) existed in multiple forms from the very beginning. At any rate, textual criticism involves the meticulous examination of differences (often called “variants”) between manuscripts and versions of a particular text, with the goal of explaining how those various differences arose.

We must attend to textual criticism when studying Genesis 21:9 because the text appears in two different versions, and your interpretation of the scene will be colored by the version you read. Quite often, text-critical issues can come to your attention if you just read multiple English translations, though you’ll usually need some facility with Hebrew and Greek, and perhaps Latin, Aramaic, and Syriac, to solve the more difficult puzzles. Fortunately (for my non-Hebraist readers, at least), the text-critical puzzle in Genesis 21:9 can easily be recognized and considered without too much recourse to non-English technicalities.

Compare the following English translations of Genesis 21:9:

• And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne unto Abraham, mocking. (ASV)
• But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, laughing. (ESV)
• But Sarah saw the son mocking—the one Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham. (HCSB)
• Sarah saw the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham playing. (JPS Tanakh)
• And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, which she had born unto Abraham, mocking. (KJV/AV)
• But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking, (NIV)
• But Sarah saw Ishmael—the son of Abraham and her Egyptian servant Hagar—making fun of her son, Isaac. (NLT)
• But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac. (NRSV)

Notice that the NRSV and NLT differ from the rest of these translations by including Isaac in the verse. With the NLT, you might expect the translators to add a clarifying phrase that doesn’t explicitly appear in the source text, but that’s not what’s happening here, nor would you expect such from the NRSV. Rather, the NLT and NRSV follow one set of manuscripts, while the other translations cited follow a different set of manuscripts. The KJV family of translations, the NIV, and the JPS Tanakh all follow the MT, which does not mention Isaac. The Samaritan Pentateuch is identical to the MT, and this reading finds additional support in the Targums (Aramaic paraphrases). On the other hand, the Septuagint (Greek) does contain the additional phrase “her son Isaac.” NRSV and NLT follow the Septuagint; the other translations listed follow the MT.

In my judgment, to have any credibility at all, the “Ishmael molested Isaac” claim needs the extra prepositional phrase in order to work. If Ishmael is just “playing” or “laughing,” there is absolutely no reason to suppose that this activity was malicious toward Isaac or, indeed, had any effect on Isaac at all. However, if you wish to justify Sarah’s insistence on expelling Hagar and Ishmael, you can imagine all sorts of mischief, sexual and otherwise, if your text says that Ishmael is doing something with or to Isaac. I hasten to add that one can perceive sexual innuendo in Genesis 21:9 without the LXX’s prepositional phrase, as did the rabbinic authors of Genesis Rabbah:

And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, etc. (xxi, 9). R. Simeon b. Yohai said: R. Akiba used to interpret this to his [Ishmael's] shame. Thus R. Akiba lectured: And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne unto Abraham, making sport. Now making sport refers to nought else but immorality, as in the verse, The Hebrew servant, whom thou hast brought unto us, came in unto me to make sport of me (Gen. xxxix, 17). Thus this teaches that Sarah saw Ishmael ravish maidens, seduce married women and dishonour them. R. Ishmael taught : This term sport refers to idolatry, as in the verse, And rose up to make sport (Ex. xxxii, 6). This teaches that Sarah saw Ishmael build altars, catch locusts, and sacrifice them. R. Eleazar said: The term sport refers to bloodshed, as in the verse, Let the young men, I pray thee, arise and sport before us (II Sam. ii, 14). R. ‘Azariah said in R. Levi’s name: Ishmael said to Isaac, ‘Let us go and see our portions in the field’; then Ishmael would take a bow and arrows and shoot them in Isaac’s direction, whilst pretending to be playing. Thus it is written, As a madman who casteth fire-brands, arrows, and death; so is the man that deceiveth his neighbour, and saith: Am not I in sport (Prov. xxii, 18f.)? But I [R. Simeon] say: … (Quoted from the Soncino edition of 1939. If you want to know what R. Simeon thought, come back to the blog for part 4.)

So which version should we use? To tell the truth, the best course is probably just to treat the Hebrew and Greek traditions here as separate, parallel versions without necessarily subordinating one to the other. However, it’s hard to produce an English mass-market translation for sale that follows this most cautious course. Textual critics sometimes cite various principles that sound all the more impressive for being in Latin; one pertinent example is lectio brevior lectio potior (“the shorter reading is the more probable reading”) or lectio brevior praeferenda [est] (“the shorter reading is [to be] preferred”). All of these more specific “preference” sayings tease out likely implications of the true core principle of textual criticism: try to figure out which reading is most likely to have given risen to the other(s) (or, if you want it in Latin, utrum in alterum abiturum erat, “which would have changed into the other?”).

In the case of Genesis 21:9, I cannot figure out why anyone would excise, accidentally or on purpose, the words “with her son Isaac” if they appeared in a Hebrew text. Textual critics have developed quite reliable lists of different reasons for accidental omissions, and none of these seem to me applicable in this case. I suppose one might argue that a scribe could have deleted “with her son Isaac” from Genesis 21:9 to avoid embarrassment, if that scribe perceived a sexual connotation for the verb צחק (see part 2 of this series), but the same scribe apparently felt no such qualms about Genesis 26:8 or 39:14, 17, where a sexual connotation is much more likely. On the other hand, one could easily see how adding the words “with her son Isaac” adds information that a scribe might think the text needed.

Text-critically speaking, the translations that follow the MT rather the LXX here are on firmer ground. It’s not automatically better to follow the MT than the LXX, but it is in Genesis 21:9. Without the prepositional phrase in Genesis 21:9, you need a very dirty mind indeed (or, as I’ve said, one deeply wounded by too many episodes of Law & Order: SVU) to imagine that “Sarah saw Hagar’s son playing” suggests that Ishmael sexually molested Isaac.