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Recently read: Taylor’s ‘What Did Jesus Look Like?’

Joan E. Taylor, What Did Jesus Look Like? (T&T Clark, 2018).

Joan E. Taylor’s What Did Jesus Look Like? is a unique intersection of historical Jesus studies and art history with some theological and liturgical history thrown into the mix. Chapters 2-9 focus on what we might call the ‘reception history’ of Jesus’ appearance. In these chapters we learn about how Jesus has morphed over the centuries, whether he is a white European man (with which we are accustom); the ‘Byzantine Cosmocrator’; a younger looking man; a new Moses; a wise, bearded philosopher; or an unkempt vagabond. Sacred images of Jesus ranging from ‘The Veronica’ (pp. 30-37) to the Turn Shroud (pp. 58-66) are treated along with various icons, paintings, statues, etc.

For those interested in historical Jesus studies, chapters 10-11 are key. Taylor reminds us that little is said about Jesus’ appearance and nothing is said about any unique characteristics. In other words, ‘He was ordinary-looking.’ (p. 155) As a Judean who lived in Galilee, the forensics from skeletal remains of similar men from Jesus’ time, and literary descriptions of Judeans, can help us better understand how he may have appeared. Taylor evaluates the average height, appearance (including skin color/tone), hair (head and face), physique, clothing, shoes, and other aspects of dress, including differences between wealthier and poorer people’s clothing and gendered aspects of clothing.

Physically, Taylor concludes that Jesus, if as average as we imagine him to be, ‘would have been about 166 cm (5 feet 5 inches) tall, with olive-brown skin, brown-black hair and brown eyes. He was a man of “Middle Eastern appearance”, whose ethnicity can be compared to Iraqi Jews of today.’ (p. 194) She ends the book noting that this discussion regarding Jesus’ appearance isn’t settled but that she hopes that this book contributes and that it challenges modern artists to rethink how they depict Jesus.

A final note on this book. Here’s the picture Taylor drew of how she imagined Jesus (obviously black-and-white so lacking other detail):

From p. 192

It reminded me of one of my favorite TV Jesuses: the Jesus from ‘Jesus: His Life’ by The History Channel. Here are a couple images of Greg Barnett from the miniseries:

Seeing that this series is from 2019, it shows vast improvement over the Jesus from The Bible miniseries from 2013. Here’s that Jesus played by Diogo Morgado:

This latter Jesus is too pretty. He looks like the Jesus of traditional European art. But let’s end on a positive note with another one of my favorite Jesuses: Selva Rasalingam from the 2014-2015 dramatized ‘word-for-word adaptation’ of the canonical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Here are a couple shots of this Jesus:

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Recently read: Barclay’s ‘Paul and the Gift’

John M.G. Barclay, Paul and the Gift (Eerdmans, 2015).

John M.G. Barclay’s tome, Paul and the Gift, on Paul’s understanding of charis or a ‘gift’ is itself a gift to Pauline scholarship. If you’ve read literature from the ‘new perspective on Paul’, and the ‘old’ or Reformation perspective on Paul, and felt that both path get key things about Paul right, both paths get key things wrong about Paul, and yet the chasm between the perspectives seems too wide, Barclay’s work might build you the bridge you need.

It begins in Chapter 1, ‘The Multiple Meanings of Gift and Grace’ by examining the anthropological category of ‘gift’. One of the key takeaways is that the idea of a gift as a one-sided and altruistic is not only just one of many ways human cultures have understood the role of gifts but seemingly one of the more recent ways of understanding gifts. Since Paul was alive two millennia ago, we need to be careful when retrojecting modern standards back on Paul and his letters.

Chapter 2, ‘The Perfection of Gift/Grace’ is short but essential. In this chapter we find what is Barclay’s greatest contribution to understanding Paul. He lists six ‘perfections’ of gift/grace: superabundance, singularity, priority, incongruity, efficacy, non-circularity. Barclay shows that often when people interpret pure or perfected gift/grace they have one or more of these in mind. The danger is that our perfection(s) of gift/grace may not be Paul’s.

It’s with this in mind that Barclay engages reception history in Chapter 3, ‘Interpreting Paul on Grace: Shifting Patterns of Perfection’ where he summarizes the interpretations of Marcion, Augustine/Pelagius, Luther, Calvin, Barth, Bultmann, Käsemann, Martin, Sanders, as well as other ‘new perspective’ scholars and some philosophers (e.g., Alain Badiou). Barclay’s grid, the six perfections, help the reader see what aspect of gift/grace is being emphasized by their interpretation.

In Section II, ‘Divine Gift in Second Temple Judaism’, Barclay applies his grid to key Second Temple Jewish writings that show how variegated Jewish ideas about election, grace, and salvation could be. His focus is on The Wisdom of Solomon, the writings of Philo of Alexandria, the Qurman Hodayot (1QHa), Pseudo-Philo’s Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, and 4 Ezra.

It’s with the diversity of these texts in mind that Barclay engages Galatians in Galatians in Section III, ‘Galatians: The Christ-Gift and the Recalibration of Worth’ and Romans in Section IV, ‘Romans: Israel, the Gentiles, and God’s Creative Gift’. He not only juxtaposes Romans and Galatians with the aforementioned Jewish writings but also with each other showing that Paul’s thinking on the topic wasn’t static.

I highly recommend this book if you’re interested in Paul, his interpreters, his place within Second Temple Judaism, and his own unique theology of charis. It covers a lot of ground but the whole journey is worth it.

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Dietary practices in ancient Galilee

Rossella Tercatin of The Jerusalem Post reports on recent finding from a pit at Tel Bet Yerah that reveal the common Hellenistic (Greek) diet in Galilee from approximately 2,200 years ago. Jewish settlements from the time include ‘cattle, sheep, and goat bones’ while Greek settlements include ‘snail shells both from saltwater and freshwater species, as well as pig and gazelle bones, all of which are unconsidered unfit to eat by the laws of kashrut.’

This further supports to findings of scholars who have argued that Jewish Galilee was distinctly Jewish as they could be in the early age of Hellenization.

Read ‘Feast of snails and pigs sheds life on Hellenistic life in ancient Galilee’.

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Humans guarding/being guarded from the garden

This morning something dawned on me while reading Genesis 2. Maybe this is the first time this has stood out to me. I don’t know. But Genesis 2.15 says that YHWH Elohim (the LORD God) took the earthling (ha–adam), placed him the garden of Eden, and did so with the responsibility to ‘work and keep‘ or ‘serve and guard‘ it (laabedah ulesamerah/לְעָבְדָ֖הּ וּלְשָׁמְרָֽהּ). (On a side note, in 2.5 there’s also a comment about the earthling serving/working the earth/ground which provides an interesting juxtaposition with Genesis 1.26-28’s ‘dominion’ ecology.) Later in 3.24, once the earthling is driven from the garden, cherubim are placed at the entry with a flaming sword in order ‘to guard the way to the Tree of Life’ (לִשְׁמֹ֕ר אֶת־דֶּ֖רֶךְ עֵ֥ץ הַֽחַיִּֽים), which is done in order to prevent the humans from reentering the garden to consume from the tree (3.22-23).

Now, I know the semantic range of forms of shamar/שָׁמַר allow for the humans to ‘keep’ (as in ‘tend to’) the garden while the cherubim are to ‘guard’ (like ‘protect’) but it seems to me that this narrative is moving from the humans being the ones who guard/protect/keep to the ones from whom the garden must be guarded/protected/kept.

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First-Century Mark missed the mark

The June 2020 issue of The Atlantic will carry a rare story: a time when biblical studies was dramatic—like trans-Atlantic, criminal dramatic featuring world-renown scholars from Oxford University and billionaire evangelicals who own craft-store chain. Lucky for you, the story is available online already: ‘A Mystery at Oxford’.

When Daniel Wallace of Dallas Theological Seminary announced in 2012 that a fragment of the Gospel of Mark from the first-century had been found, I was a graduate student with a fairly popular ‘biblioblog’ (a blog focusing on biblical studies). I went back to see what I said about the news. I’m happy to report that I was cautious: see ‘The earliest manuscript of the Gospel of Mark?’ and ‘Agnosticism regarding the “earliest” fragment of the Gospel of Mark’. But also, by then, I had begun to seriously doubt the doctrine of inerrancy (if not having already secretly abandoned it) and wonder whether the so-called ‘autographs’ even mattered (if we could even speak of such things).

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Educating in the Era of COVID-19: Ending a School Year

The daily cycle of online learning has become the most cyclical cycle. Initially, I thought it would bring unique challenges I could document. Instead, as one of my friends call it, everyday is ‘Blursday’.

So, instead, as specific matters related to online education arise—and they will—I’ll blog about them. But this will be the last entry from the ‘dear diary’ approach.

On Facebook our school has been posting picture of the lawn signs we’ve dropped off to our graduates. Of course, they seem to be social distancing appropriately as they do this. It’s fun to see their pictures but sad to have to end their senior year this way.

Usually I take a class selfie on the last day of instruction. I’ve done it every semester since I started teaching. Then I shake each student’s hand and thank them for studying with me. There won’t be any selfies or handshakes this year. Ugh.

Anyway, we’re all doing our best. Let’s continue to do so. Next week is our school year comes to an end. But don’t worry, summer school starts June 1st…online.

Week 6
Week 5
Week 4
Week 3
Week 2
Week 1

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Recently read: Carr’s ‘Holy Resilience’

David M. Carr, Holy Resilience: The Bible’s Traumatic Origins (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014).

This isn’t hyperbole: David M. Carr’s Holy Resilience: The Bible’s Traumatic Origins may be the best book written about the Bible that I’ve ever read. In one sense, it does what the ‘Biblical Theology’ movement has attempted to do: provide an overarching canonology that accounts for the unification of this collection (or these collections). In another sense, it does what critical scholarship on the Bible often fails to do: show how the Bible can remain relevant, even life-giving, without resorting to a conservative Bibliology.

There are two threads that tied this book together for me and in turn that tie the Bible together for me: (1) the impact of collective and individual trauma on the creation of the Bible (Carr is a Christian so by ‘Bible’ he’s including the Jewish and Christian Bibles) and (2) the various waves of adaptation, adoption, or even supersessionism that make up the Bible.

Let me begin with the first thread. Carr emphasizes how collective traumas such as the Assyrian invasion, the Babylonian Exile (including the destruction of Jerusalem and the First Temple), the waves of returning exiles, the emergence of the Greeks and the counter-emergence of the Hasmoneans, the execution of Jesus, the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple by the Romans, and broad Roman disdain for the ‘atheistic’ Jews and Christians shaped these collections but also the movements that inspired them and in turn have been inspired by them.

This means re-reading popular Bible stories through the lens of trauma, such as Genesis’ Abraham (living in Babylonia, leaving, and having descendants in spite of the odds against it) or Exodus’ Moses (the Exodus itself, Passover, and the reminder of enslavement that comes with these stories). These stories were told as a means of addressing the experience of exiles.

As to the second thread: In Chapter 2, ‘The Birth of Monotheism’, Carr read the Book of Hosea as an important shift toward monotheism wherein the prophet doesn’t blame the Assyrians for the demise of Israel, but blames Israel, and in an effort to regain some sense of control, argues that Yahweh willed it all. Monotheism’s problem, ‘Theodicy’, is essential to monotheism because monotheism emerged as a way of addressing the chaos of life. Carr has a wonderful line on p. 248 for people that might be repulsed by these origins: ‘Those inclined to ridicule the idea of a powerful, violent God—whether Jewish or Christian—might well defer their disdain until they encounter someone for whom that idea is the only thing giving him or her a sense of control over an otherwise overwhelming chaos.’ That line stopped me and made me think of people I know, have known, and even stages of my own life and theology.

What Carr observes regarding supersessionism is this: Judah embraced Hosea’s ideas even though Hosea was a prophet from Israel. And then over time, Judah began to refer to themselves as ‘Israel’ once Israel was gone. And therefore, in some sense, it’s no surprise that partially by way of Paul, and partially by way of Rome’s treatment of Jews and Christians, the gentile Christians came to see themselves, in some way, as the heirs of ‘Israel’s’ story just as Judah once did. Additionally, we could add Islam to this discussion, which Carr does only in passing. But the trend is there, from Judah becoming the true Israel, to ‘the Church’ becoming the true Israel, to Islam becoming the truest version of both, supersessionism abounds.

As a final word, let me say if the Bible is meaningful to you, read this book. And let me share this paragraph from p. 250 that really summarizes the beauty of seeing the Bible through the lens offered by Carr:

‘I’m profoundly impressed with how the Bible is saturated with trauma and survival of it. If the Bible were a person, it would be a person bearing the scars, plated broken bones, muscle tears, and other wounds of prolonged suffering. It would be a person whose identity, perhaps average at one time, was now profoundly shaped by trauma. This person would certainly have known joys and everyday life, but she or he also would bear, in body and heart, the wisdom of centuries of trauma. He or she would know the truth of trauma and the survival of it. Just like the suffering servant of Isaiah or the crucified Christ, that person would not be pretty to look at. We might be tempted to avert our eyes. But for most of us, there will be a time when we need that person’s wisdom.’

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How I teach hermeneutics to my students

When I began my MA at Western Seminary, one of my first classes was with Dr. Gary Tuck. I took what is currently called ‘BT501 – Hermeneutics’ (and probably had the same name then). (Or maybe it was ‘BL501 – Interpreting Genesis to Song of Solomon’!) One of our first assignments was a group exercise where we had to gather together and come up with an extensive list of questions based on Genesis 1-2. Questions? Yes, questions.

Few exercises have shaped my study habits and teaching approach more than this one. The past two weeks I’ve asked my students to watch some of the interviews I’ve been with scholars and religious practitioners such as Joseph P. Laycock, Kevin Daugherty, James F. McGrath, and Michael Barber. I have not asked them to answer questions I asked as they watch the video but instead to come up with a list of questions they’d ask if they had a chance speak directly to the person being interviewed.

Unsurprisingly, several students found asking questions, rather than expressing opinions, or finding answers, to be one of the more difficult things they’ve done this semester. As I reflect back on the assignment given to me by Dr. Tuck, I am sympathetic. We’re not used to learning how to ask good questions. Instead, high schoolers are valued by their performance on tests like the SAT, which has nothing to do with asking good questions.

Now, this isn’t the first time I’ve had them do something like this. For students in classes like ‘The Hebrew Scriptures’ and ‘The Christian Scriptures’ they begin the semester with a similar exercise (which I’ll discuss below) and my students in ‘Religion in the United States’ are asked to read the famous ‘Religion, Religions, Religious’ article by Jonathan Z. Smith, summarize sections, and ask questions about the sections. This is one of their first assignments. So, three of the four classes I teach (‘Religion in Global Context’, formerly ‘World Religion’, is getting a makeover, so I’m sure I can add something similar) begin with question-asking exercises because I believe, as Dr. Tuck believed, that learning how to ask questions is an important skill.

Below you’ll see I’ve included a PDF of my first set of guided notes (called a ‘Course Guide’) for my online summer school class in June. I want to explain it. In order to guide my students toward a more academic approach to the Bible (no proof-texting!) I ask them to be prepared to read and ask questions from three perspectives:

  1. A Historian asking questions about (A) the historicity of events as described in the Bible but also (B) the history of events surrounding the creation of the Bible.
  2. A Literary Critic asking questions about genre, plot, character development, etc., but also about the audience (e.g., Reader-Response).
  3. A Philosopher/Theologian asking what worldview(s) are present in a text, how the text talks about god or gods, existence, purpose, morality, etc.

The last one is the most dangerous as concerns the possibility of slipping into unnecessary, personal debates but it also has proven necessary as my students rarely as able to find motivation for studying the Bible just as an interesting collection of historical documents or an example of interesting literary design. They want to know what it claims about the world. Who can blame them?

Let me share an example of the first lesson my students taking ‘The Hebrew Scriptures’ will engage so you can see how I teach this:

The Hebrew Scriptures: Course Guide #1Download

As you’ll see if you look over the assignment, they have to ask approach specific questions. If they’re reading as a Historian, their questions must be those of a Historian, and so on. This gets them used to approaching the text in a new way. They may have felt a bit unnerved asking questions of the Bible but this gives them the freedom to do so.

And this is how I teach hermeneutics:

  1. Teach them to be aware of the lens they’re wearing and even encourage them to be intentional about wearing a particular lens rather than embracing the myth of objective reading or resorting to an entrenched approach tied to their inherited worldview. In some sense, this is like role play, where a reader can experiment with seeing a text through a fresh perspective without committing to that perspective.
  2. Teach them that asking the right questions matters more than finding the answers they think they’re supposed to find.
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Educating in the Era of COVID-19: Week 6

Today I realized, again, how much I’m missing having students in a classroom setting. My ‘Religion in the United States’ students were given case studies: (1) Should the Scientologists be taxed? (2) Is The Satanic Temple’s First Amendment claims legit? (3) Could the IRS have prevented the Jonestown massacre? (4) Could the ATF have done a better job handling the Branch Davidians? Many of their answers differed to the point that I could tell if we had been together we would’ve had an amazing discussion.

Next year, I guess (hopefully).

Days 24-25
Week 5
Week 4
Week 3
Week 2
Week 1

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Educating in the Era of COVID-19: Day 26

Every Wednesday I host optional ‘office hours’ via Google Meet with my five classes. While online advisory is basically dead (I had a single student appear for about five minutes yesterday) my check-ins are just smaller but still populated enough to justify their existence.

That said, I am done with this year, and they are done with this year, and I think everyone is looking to the future now. As I’ve stated, personally, this means June when my summer school class is completely online, but we have to talk about the fall as well.

I’m part of our school’s task force for prepping for next year, so I’m trying to keep myself updated, and trying to project-by-reading. It’s probably useless but it makes me feel better, and more stressed, which is weird.

Here are a couple of articles I saw and skimmed that seem relevant: one for fall and one for the next few weeks:

  1. ‘A Case for a Virtual Fall Term 2020 (and Probably Spring 2021)’ by Stan Yoshinobu: This isn’t an optimistic take. It’s also about college campuses and I teach high school. But in spite of being sad, and being only adjacently relevant, it contains points we have to consider.
  2. ‘How Do We Wish Our Students a Good Summer During a Pandemic’ by Shannon Orr: Usually, I take a class selfie on the last day of the semester. I’ve done it since I started teaching. Then I shake my students’ hand as they leave and thank them for the opportunity to study with them. What do I do this year to say ‘thank you’ and ‘good-bye’?

Days 24-25
Week 5
Week 4
Week 3
Week 2
Week 1