Friday, November 07, 2008

Which Moses?

As I mentioned some time ago, I have recently written a paper on the way that Luke and Paul see and appropriate the character of Moses, particularly in Acts 7 and 2 Corinthians 3.  On Monday I submitted the final revision of that paper.  It is significantly improved from the initial submission but still needs a little bit of work.  I'll see what my professor says when I get it back and if the changes required look reasonable I may reformat it for publication.  In any case, this is one of the reasons blogging has been light lately so I thought it was only fair to reward my handful of loyal readers to read and critique the paper.  If you do bother to read it and have any thoughts, please do let me know.  Even if you think my argument is total bunk, it would still be nice to hear your thoughts.  Follow the URL below to enjoy (or, you know, not).

Toffelmire, Colin.  "Which Moses? An Exploration of the Function of Moses in Acts 7 and 2 Corinthians 3," McMaster Divinity College, 2008.

PS though it seems absurd that I need to make this explicit, I will anyways.  Please note that all content on randomcolin, including academic papers provided by external hyperlink, are the sole property of Colin M. Toffelmire and shall not be reproduced in any form without the express permission of Colin M. Toffelmire.  Brief citations may be used without permission on the condition that such citations include complete and accurate attribution.

2 comments:

TheCanoeGeek said...

It's the beginning of January and I must admit that I have fallen behind on your blogs (but still count me in amoungst your loyal "tardy" readers). I read the NIV version of the scripture and then your paper... twice! It struck me that the amount of background reading that you must do to understand, state and support a thesis statement at this level is phenominal. Not only did you do this reading, but apparently you referenced across two or three foreign languages (French, Greek and Hebrew?) You truly are a scholar. The depth of this paper made for difficult but interesting reading. I'll have to take your word for the meaning of the Greek quotes though! It hadn't ever occured to me that Luke and Paul may have had different viewpoints on the person of Moses. Like you say, they were parallel points of view but it made me wonder about their sources of reading material. Our popular culture will hardly read a book that isn't on the top ten sellers list in New York. They had a reading list, say 400 years old or older, mostly un-accessible and a somewhat weak or non-existant line up of supporting books or commentaries. By comparison we should never complain about the expense or availablity of materials to do scholarly work.
Lest I bore you with even more trivialities, I tip my hat to you for writing such works and taking on the role of father in the same time frame. From personal experience, I know that balancing all your responsibilities is difficult. Keep up the excellent work. We are well pleased!

Colin Toffelmire said...

I'm glad you enjoyed the paper...or got through it at least. What the NT writers had or didn't have is indeed an interesting topic. There's an awful lot of debate regarding what version of the OT any given writer used, and whether or not we have any extant copies of the OT that match what one of them might have used. There's a whole discussion out there regarding this stuff that lots of people know nothing about. It's good perspective for us for sure.