tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-288984712024-03-06T20:10:45.252-08:00Random ColinTheology, Biblical Studies, Philosophy and whatever other nonsense that's on my mind.Colin Toffelmirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857934895856384717noreply@blogger.comBlogger142125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28898471.post-58350274449765754152009-09-26T10:10:00.001-07:002009-09-26T10:10:42.801-07:00Moving Day...<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>The time has come to move Random Colin over to Wordpress. I've been thinking about it for awhile, and after looking Wordpress over it seems of offer all of the features that Blogger has plus a few, and I like the dashboard layout better too. So off I go. Posts and comments have all been moved over, and some new stuff has already been posted on the new blog. I'm still working on moving the blog list, but I'll get it done in the next couple of days I'm sure. I do hope that people will take the time to adjust their blogrolls and RSS feeds and links accordingly. So here's the new address:<br/><br/><a href='http://randomcolin.wordpress.com/' target='_blank'>www.randomcolin.wordpress.com<br/></a><br/><br/><div class='zemanta-pixie'><img src='http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=eb011fb8-7537-8962-9931-3a7b16a1839d' alt='' class='zemanta-pixie-img'/></div></div>Colin Toffelmirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857934895856384717noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28898471.post-84187280451044883152009-09-24T20:26:00.000-07:002009-09-24T20:27:10.752-07:00The Bible isn't a bible...<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>A while ago Julia O'Brien had <a href='http://juliamobrien.net/index.php/blog/the-bible-as-instructions.html' target='_blank'>a post</a> where she noted that in our culture we use the word "Bible" to refer to instruction manuals of all kinds. She suggested that as long as we keep labeling the Bible as such people will think of it as an instruction manual and avoid it as literature. She's right of course, but there's an even bigger problem for those of us who are Christians. The bigger problem is that people will think of the Bible as an instruction manual and ignore it as Scripture. No, the two things are not the same.<br/><br/>The Bible is a collection of a wide variety of literature which was written over a very long period of history (hundreds of years). The primary unifying qualities of the Bible are that it all has to do with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and that over the course of time these books came to be thought of as revelatory literature by the broad community of faith. That is to say, the Bible is about God and it was "chosen" (not in the sense of one time conscious decision, but in the sense of a long and organic progression) by the Church. The consequence of this is that the Bible has many witnesses that often stand in deep tension with one another. There is tension between the prophets and the Torah, between the prophets and the lament literature, between the Apocalyptic literature and the Gospels, and between the letters of Paul and the catholic letters. There is tension all over. The Bible does not have one, single, easily summarized, unitary message. It is not an instruction book. Your Bible is not a bible.<br/><br/>I have heard it said that all biblical passages fall into two categories. They are all either 1) promises, or 2) instructions. Wrong. Are there promises in the Bible? Sure. Are there instructions in the Bible? Sure. But there is a whole lot more as well. There is poetry that describes pain. There are narratives that tell tales of conflict and confusion, and of triumph and joy. There are longing love letters. There are instances of purest hate. In the Bible you will find a wide variety of literary genres, a wide variety of themes, a wide variety of people, a wide variety of really almost everything. That shouldn't be scary, but for some reason this scares evangelicals. It scares us so much that we aren't allowed to critique the Bible, we aren't allowed to ask it difficult questions. We accept it all dogmatically because we think it's all dogmatic, but it isn't. There is room to question and challenge the Bible. Do you know how I know this? Because the Bible questions and challenges itself. Ezekiel questions the Torah. Lamentations questions Deuteronomy and the great deuteronomistic history. Jesus questions the Law, even as he says that he does not set aside even one jot of it.<br/><br/>The great power and theological depth of the Scripture is found within these points of tension, and again within the tension between our lives today and the various parts of this ancient collection of books. The Bible is like a stringed instrument in this respect. It only works because of great tension. Stop trying to take the tension out of the Bible. If you take away the tension, smoothing over and dumbing down and making everyingthing instructions and promises, all you get is a poorly tuned instrument and really bad music.<br/><br/><div class='zemanta-pixie'><img src='http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=1564d635-4354-8c6e-a116-b191022ea249' alt='' class='zemanta-pixie-img'/></div></div>Colin Toffelmirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857934895856384717noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28898471.post-12575850454087795162009-09-16T08:09:00.001-07:002009-09-16T08:09:46.412-07:00Hmmmm, Perhaps Jim West is Right about Wikipedia....<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>My friend Beth tipped me off to this <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._Gregory_Jones' target='_blank'>Wiki entry for L. Gregory Jones</a> (<a href='http://www.divinity.duke.edu/portal_memberdata/gjones' target='_blank'>Dean of Duke Divinity School</a>). Written perhaps by his eldest son?<br/><br/><div class='zemanta-pixie'><img src='http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=9068f1c0-7ed8-85ba-94d0-c796d47c9840' alt='' class='zemanta-pixie-img'/></div></div>Colin Toffelmirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857934895856384717noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28898471.post-60267273485743710082009-09-13T10:53:00.001-07:002009-09-13T10:53:37.477-07:00Enoch and Daniel...<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>I've been plugging away at a second draft of my recent CSBS paper "(Re)Visionary History: Historiography and Religious Identity in the Animal Apocalypse," trying to get some extra research done so I can polish it up for publication in the volume of essays that are being published from the historiography seminar. In the course of this process I got a good tip to check out one of Michael Knibb's essays called "The Exile in the Literature of the Intertestamental Period" (pp.191-212 in Knibb's <i>Essays on the Book of Enoch and Other Early Jewish Texts and Traditions</i>). It's a great essay, but Knibb makes a move that's pretty common for Enoch scholars who analyze the AA that I've always thought was unnecessary and difficult to defend. He says on p. 194:<br/><br/><blockquote>"The use of animals to represent human beings was probably directly influenced by the symbolism of Dan 7 and 8, although the fact that Jacob and his descendants are depicted specifically as sheep no doubt reflects the idea, widespread in the Old Testament, that Israel is the sheep of God's pasture."<br/></blockquote><br/>Both of these statements are problematic, though the first much more so than the second. I won't give my full rebuttal here (I've got a full appendix on the subject in my MA thesis), but the parallels between the AA and Dan 7 and 8 are almost non-existent in my opinion. I'd go so far as to say that they are little more than parallels in genre (though the author of the AA probably knew Dan 7-12). The specific content as well as the rhetorical drive of the AA and Daniel are totally different, and the use of animal imagery is also completely different. Note that animals never represent specific people in Dan 7, and in Dan 8 none of the specific people represented is a Jew. Moreover the animals of Dan 7 are all composite monsters (i.e. creatures with bits from lots of different animals), and not at all reminiscent of the animals found the AA. The same could be said for the animals of Dan 8 which, though they are not composite monsters, are decidedly fantastical as they roam over the whole world. Again, not particularly reminiscent of the AA.<br/><br/>The second bit, that the use of sheep is connected to the common imagery of God's people as sheep in the OT isn't wrong so far as it goes. Certainly the sheep/shepherd image permeates the OT and is particularly important in later prophetic works (Zech, Ezek). But the assumption that this is the primary reason that the author of the AA selected sheep and rams as the image to represent the people of Israel ignores completely the fact that all of the antediluvian fathers and the eschatological people are not represented as sheep but as bulls. This suggests to me that, though there may be a tangential connection to the sheep/shepherd metaphor in the AA, some other factor is driving the selection of animal imagery in the AA generally.<br/><br/>What is that other factor? Simply put, the AA is all about clean/unclean divisions. Who is clean (i.e. elect) and who is unclean (i.e. non-elect) is possibly the single most important idea in the AA and is used as the criteria for the selection of all of the animal imagery in the allegory.<br/><br/><div class='zemanta-pixie'><img src='http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=9cb95134-c18f-81cf-8c13-2b20cccac8da' alt='' class='zemanta-pixie-img'/></div></div>Colin Toffelmirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857934895856384717noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28898471.post-33560404647121199442009-09-11T11:37:00.000-07:002009-09-11T11:38:00.403-07:00Oooo, Gots me an Endorsement...And On Officialization...<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>Bryan Bibb over on <a href='http://hevel.org/' target='_blank'>Hevel.org</a> gave me <a href='http://hevel.org/2009/09/random-colin/' target='_blank'>a very kind plug</a>. Thanks Bryan! And of course my readers should make a point of visiting Bryan's blog as well. And not just Bible nerds. Bryan's also a techie, and he's got stuff about Macs and iPods and such as often as anything else, and I <i>know</i> I've got Mac nerds who lurk here. So go check out Hevel, worth your time for sure.<br/><br/>He also makes a kind comment, saying that I'm a good member of the biblioblogging community. I do try to make the rounds on the blogs I enjoy, and I comment when I feel like it. I know how much I like to interact through comments with my readers (all three of you), and I'm also obscenely outspoken (in the sense of quantity, not content), so that bit is easy. This does make me think again about the idea of defining the biblioblogosphere. It's a topic that's been making the rounds partly due to the latest discussion of sexism that April kicked off, and partly due to Jim's announcement that there will now be an official biblioblogging session at SBL and an official relationship between SBL and...well and what? <a href='http://ancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.com/ancient_hebrew_poetry/2009/09/sbl-sessions-designed-by-and-for-bibliobloggers.html' target='_blank'>John Hobbins</a> and <a href='http://www.heardworld.com/higgaion/?p=1475' target='_blank'>Chris Heard</a> have raised some concerns on this front already, Chris most vehemently. I'm not so against the idea of a biblioblogger/SBL connection as Chris, but I agree with all of his points. The reason I'm not against the relationship is because the biblioblogosphere is going to keep on being what it is, regardless of official connections. It isn't a definable entity, no matter what anybody says. It's made up of bloggers and commentators and lurkers, not just bloggers alone. I also doubt very sincerely that it's one definable community or blogosphere, but is instead probably a bunch of different communities that overlap here and there. I know that I hardly ever read a ton of the blogs on the Top 50 list. I don't even have all of the top 10 on my blogroll. It's not because I have a problem with those blogs, it's just because they don't pique my interest. I'm guessing that's how most bibliobloggers work. So what is it that is being officially affiliated with SBL?<br/><br/>I'm not really upset by this, and it's entirely possible that it will be a very good development. <a href='http://ntweblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/more-on-sbl-biblioblogging-affiliation.html' target='_blank'>Mark Goodacre</a> is certainly right that there's no harm in trying it (and I'm <i>very</i> happy with <a href='http://jwest.wordpress.com/2009/09/09/a-further-bit-of-news-concerning-the-biblioblog-program-unit-in-the-society-of-biblical-literature/' target='_blank'>Jim's steering committee</a>). So I'm not vehemently opposed to the association like Chris appears to be. And though I don't think anybody should try to define the biblioblogosphere "officially", I don't care about the issue all that much because such attempts at definition are doomed to failure. That just ain't how the internet works.<br/><br/><div class='zemanta-pixie'><img src='http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=826bbe9c-0bc4-8627-affe-ac612d332e74' alt='' class='zemanta-pixie-img'/></div></div>Colin Toffelmirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857934895856384717noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28898471.post-75932984740707280712009-09-09T17:30:00.001-07:002009-09-09T17:30:29.233-07:00A New BH Resource...<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>HT to <a href='http://ancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.com/ancient_hebrew_poetry/2009/09/biblical-hebrew-portal-a-new-online-resource.html' target='_blank'>John Hobbins</a> for pointing out <a href='http://apww06.csumain.csu.edu.au/csp/zenlive/Zen.HomePage.cls' target='_blank'>Matthew Anstey's Hebrew Portal</a>. It looks to still be in production, but the <a href='http://apww06.csumain.csu.edu.au/csp/zenlive/Zen.Bibliography.cls' target='_blank'>bibliography</a> alone is worth the visit. Just getting through the whole bibliography (not the books mind you, just the list) is a daunting task...it's that long. I'm adding it to my bookmarks for sure, and so should you.*<br/><br/>*Unless you don't read or study Hebrew, in which case, nevermind.<br/><br/><div class='zemanta-pixie'><img src='http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=14f17c1a-dd1e-8735-b809-c8281b72f105' alt='' class='zemanta-pixie-img'/></div></div>Colin Toffelmirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857934895856384717noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28898471.post-78362445738275408592009-09-08T11:40:00.000-07:002009-09-08T12:04:46.102-07:00Updated blogroll...I've added a bunch of new blogs to the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">blogroll</span> today, mostly as a result of the recent discussion among a number of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">bibliobloggers</span> regarding women and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">biblioblogging</span>. Thanks to <a href="http://forbiddengospels.blogspot.com/">April</a> and <a href="http://patmccullough.com/">Pat</a> for pointing several of them out. I'd already been visiting some (especially <a href="http://boulders2bits.com/">Boulders to Bits</a>, which is a favorite that just never got added for some reason), but others were brand new to me and a couple of them even deal with Hebrew linguistics and discourse analysis, and so are particularly welcome. I freely admit that I cherry picked the blogs that talk about stuff I'm interested in, cause that's how my <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">blogroll</span> rolls (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">hehe</span>, get it? get it?).<br /><br />An aside regarding the conversation about sexism in the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">biblioblogosphere</span>. Though I think that the conversation has gotten a little nasty on both sides at times, <a href="http://judyredman.wordpress.com/">Judy</a> reminds us men that we just don't have as much invested in this issue as women do. That may seem obscenely obvious, but it's something that I know I often forget. That said it's not too surprising that some of the women who blog about academic biblical studies are a little pissed. But why are some of the men?<br /><br />As an aside to the aside. <a href="http://forbiddengospels.blogspot.com/2009/09/expanding-blog-list.html">April </a>writes, "I have to say that it is striking how immediately aggressive and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">sexualized</span> some of the male reaction to my gender blogging has been, and how the humor used (including the cartoons and some of my colleagues reactions to those cartoons and circulation of them) turned women like me into either bitches, madams, or <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">dominatrixes</span>." First of all, I agree that a lot of the vehement reaction from some <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">bloggers</span> was striking and aggressive (and not in a good way). Second, with regard to the cartoons, I assume she's referring to these cartoons posted by <a href="http://drjimsthinkingshop.com/2009/09/04/throw-another-blog-on-the-fire-gender-blender-bible-blogging/">Jim <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Linville</span></a>. The reason I mention these specifically is because I linked to them and noted they were funny in my previous post and I wanted to clarify. I don't think they are funny because they portray women as bitches or madams. I took them ironically, as attacks on men who think of women as "bitchy" when they behave in a way that would get a man the label "aggressive." In other words I saw them as ironic feminist digs at a sexist culture.Colin Toffelmirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857934895856384717noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28898471.post-899462788326666642009-09-04T11:24:00.001-07:002009-09-04T11:24:48.326-07:00Theology v. Religious Studies...<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>There was a recent round of discussion among some of the bibliobloggers regarding the old distinction between theology and religious studies. Seems it was sparked to a large degree by Kurt Noll's "<a href='http://chronicle.com/article/The-Ethics-of-Being-a/47442' target='_blank'>The Ethics of Being a Theologian</a>." I could go on about what I think, or give you all the links to all of the various conversations, but I'm lazy and don't want to do either, so I'll just skip to the end. <a href='http://biblical-studies.ca/blog/2009/08/07/religious-studies-and-theology/#comments'>Tyler Williams' response</a> was the one I agreed with the most, and also has the single funniest response of the day by <a href='http://drjimsthinkingshop.com/' target='_blank'>Dr. Jim Linville</a> (who also wins a prize for <a href='http://drjimsthinkingshop.com/2009/09/04/throw-another-blog-on-the-fire-gender-blender-bible-blogging/' target='_blank'>his post</a> regarding women and biblioblogging).<br/><br/><div class='zemanta-pixie'><img src='http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=70316373-fbb9-8c8e-b0c2-4fdb1b80ed7c' alt='' class='zemanta-pixie-img'/></div></div>Colin Toffelmirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857934895856384717noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28898471.post-72827531558556961612009-09-03T13:39:00.000-07:002009-09-03T10:40:06.423-07:00Why John Hobbins and Alan Lenzi are Awesome...<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Speaking of blogs I really like, I just read a great comment response over on John <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Hobbins</span>' <a href="http://ancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.com/ancient_hebrew_poetry/2009/08/the-relative-unimportance-of-the-questions-biblical-studies-likes-to-address.html#trackback" target="_blank">Ancient Hebrew Poetry</a>. The post itself is, of course, excellent and <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">stimulating</span> as usual, but his extended response to one of his commentators is just brilliant. Reading it was, for me, one of those moments when you find somebody else articulating perfectly thoughts you've been mulling over for a while but just couldn't quite spit out. I have this experience regularly on John's blog. Though, I should also note, he remains mistaken in his belief that Hebrew has a tense-based verbal system ;).<br /><br />Update: Not surprisingly John's response led to an extended discussion regarding the nature and respective merits of deism/theism and agnosticism between John and a reader (and scholar) named Alan <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Lenzi</span>. On the substance of the discussion I tend to come down on John's side (not very surprising), but I appreciated Alan's point of view and the way that he expressed himself. Very often discussions like this are filled with invective and varying levels of unkindness. John and Alan, however, manage to have a discussion in which they disagree strongly without (to be blunt) behaving like jackasses. This is rare and refreshing. I wonder if the reason for their ability to converse <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">civilly</span> on such an <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">incindiary</span> subject is a product of both intellectual humility and intellectual rigor. I think that it is.<br /><br /><div class="zemanta-pixie"><img src="http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=f0dd340b-611b-8968-af5c-6a8d80201ad6" alt="" class="zemanta-pixie-img" /></div></div>Colin Toffelmirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857934895856384717noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28898471.post-7327821902128447832009-09-01T08:05:00.001-07:002009-09-01T08:05:36.316-07:00Lurking...<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>I have a pretty extensive blogroll off on my sidebar there, and it represents a lot of the blogs that I frequent, but there are a few brilliant blogs out there that for whatever reason I haven't gotten around to including. I mostly get to those blogs only irregularly and via other people's blogrolls (especially <a href='http://thissideofsunday.blogspot.com/' target='_blank'>Jon's</a> and <a href='http://jwest.wordpress.com/' target='_blank'>Jim's</a>). But I've been thinking that those blogs deserve the very, very little bit of press that I can give them in the hopes that others will find them as entertaining and challenging as I do. So, here's where I lurk (I comment every once in a while, but mostly I lurk), check them out and enjoy:<br/><br/>First up is <a href='http://forrestasaurus.blogspot.com/' target='_blank'>the thoughts of forrestsaurus</a>. I don't think I know Forrest herself, but I'm pretty sure I know her in-laws. In any case she is an absolutely wonderful poet and photographer. I strongly recommend you go surf around and check out her work.<br/><br/>Next are two blogs that belong to a couple of Jon's old profs from Briercrest, <a href='http://scatterings1976.blogspot.com/' target='_blank'>Scatterings</a> and <a href='http://dguretzki.wordpress.com/' target='_blank'>Theommentary</a>. Fun, eclectic musings on life and theology and academia.<br/><br/>One of the best biblioblogs out there (again inexplicably absent from my blogroll) is <a href='http://scotteriology.wordpress.com/' target='_blank'>Scotteriology</a>, Scott Bailey's blog. He is very smart, outrageously funny, and used to be an <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Bailey_%28ice_hockey%29' target='_blank'>NHL goalie</a>. Especially good are his <a href='http://scotteriology.wordpress.com/hermeneutics-videos/' target='_blank'>hermeneutics videos</a>.<br/><br/>Another biblioblog I hit once in a while is <a href='http://clayboy.co.uk/' target='_blank'>Clayboy</a>. A fun read from an Anglican minister in the UK.<br/><br/>Finally there's Matt Wilkinson's <a href='http://sinnersbleeders.blogspot.com/' target='_blank'>sinnersbleeders</a>. A delightfully eclectic blend of indie film and music, with some cultural criticism thrown in for good measure. If you're looking for new music and new films you've never heard of but should watch, sinnersbleeders is a good place to find them.<br/><br/>There you are, a little PR plug for some blogs you should all try. Happy surfing.<br/><br/><div class='zemanta-pixie'><img src='http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=d22d1839-c6e9-81df-8212-27a1fc4260e1' alt='' class='zemanta-pixie-img'/></div></div>Colin Toffelmirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857934895856384717noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28898471.post-83239464869730110342009-08-20T09:40:00.001-07:002009-08-20T09:40:33.383-07:00Whose Metanarrative?<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>I've been watching TED lectures during my breaks for the last couple of days, and just now at lunchtime I watched <a href='http://www.ted.com/talks/alain_de_botton_a_kinder_gentler_philosophy_of_success.html' target='_blank'>this</a> talk by Alain de Botton. The talk, if you don't feel like watching it yourself, is about redefining success in modern culture. de Botton says an awful lot of things that I agree with very deeply.<br/><br/>His most interesting point is that, no matter how much we like to pretend they are, our societies are not strict meritocracies but that there are many accidental factors that go into the making of the life of any given person. This means that just because someone isn't "successful" in the minds of the general public (rich, famous, blah blah), it does not follow that they are intrinsically unworthy.* De Botton goes on to suggest that we should show much more <i>something</i> to people who are not "successful" in the popular sense. I say <i>something</i> because he never really defines what he means. It's like being nicer to those people, but without the sense of patronizing them. It's like understanding those people and understanding that given a different set of circumstances you or I could be in that self-same situation, but with the additional burden of also loving them. What he's talking about, though he never uses the term, is grace. Not ballet-dancer kind of grace, but the grace-of-our-Lord-Jesus-Christ kind of grace.<br/><br/>De Batton also talks about the importance of strong father/mother role models in the lives of men/women respectively, and how what we need in a father (or mother) is a combination of firm discipline to instill in us the sense that we are responsible creatures, and deeply compassionate love to remind us that we are also subject to the vicissitudes of life. He is describing, whether he knows it or not, the Christian conception of God and also the Christian conception of good human parenting.<br/><br/>When I had this thought during his talk it struck me that, though de Batton explicitly characterizes himself as a secularist, I was listening to the Christian metanarrative (that is, the Christian story or worldview). Note that when de Batton cherry-picks from another thinker he doesn't go to Nieztche or Plato, he goes to St. Augustine of Hippo. I was tangentially involved with a conversation on <a href='http://thissideofsunday.blogspot.com/' target='_blank'>Jon's blog</a> a few months ago where the claim was put forward that Christianity is basically just a religiousy version of the culture in which it is found. This is certainly true some of the time, but it is important to note that the waters run both ways on this issue. Whether he would admit it or not de Botton is, in this talk, pinching a Christian idea and dressing it in a secular waistcoat. The problem, I would contend, is that disassociating the idea of grace from God robs the concept of both its legitimate philosophical underpinnings and also of its ultimate power and authority.<br/><br/>*I freely grant the tension here between this and my recent post on personal responsibility. The tension is important, but that's not what I want to talk about here. Perhaps in a future post.<br/><br/><div class='zemanta-pixie'><img src='http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=b16c4875-8877-8281-904a-fcfd698be02c' alt='' class='zemanta-pixie-img'/></div></div>Colin Toffelmirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857934895856384717noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28898471.post-16626824014200267092009-08-18T19:00:00.001-07:002009-08-18T19:39:04.112-07:00TED...<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">My father-in-law put me on to this great site called <a href="http://www.ted.com/" target="_blank">TED</a> (Technology/Entertainment/Design...though they've branched out into other disciplines now). It has short presentations on all sorts of topics (from world poverty to physics) given by experts and public figures, some of whom are rather well known (e.g. <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/michelle_obama.html" target="_blank">Michelle Obama on education</a>). The best part? They're all absolutely free. I've only tapped bits and pieces so far, but what I've seen has been very interesting indeed. The catch-phrase for TED is "Ideas Worth Spreading." Seems to me spreading interesting ideas is a practice worth pursuing.<br /><br />Personally I'm going to start with <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/alisa_miller_shares_the_news_about_the_news.html" target="_blank">this</a> presentation by Alisa Miller on modern news-media, and then <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html" target="_blank">this</a> presentation by Ken Robinson on creativity-centred education.<br /><br />Update:<br /><br />Well I've listened to both talks now. Miller's was short and she clearly felt a little nervous, but her point was excellent and her visuals particularly drove it home. What she said, in a nutshell, is that the American news-media is almost entirely worthless if one wants to know anything apart from whether or not Britney Spears is sticking with her current diet. This is something I already knew, but it is always worth repeating.<br /><br />Robinson's talk was quite a bit longer, almost 20 mins, and was exceptional. His presentation was funny, engaging, and (most importantly) powerful and pursuasive. His point in a nutshell is that we need to radically rethink the way that we approach education. One of the most important and telling truths that he pointed out is that in the modern education system the "best" product that an education can produce is a college professor. Speaking as a doctoral student and somebody who someday wants to be a college professor, this is a very bad thing. It's not that college professors are not valuable, it's just that being good with (a very select and narrowly defined part of) your brain should not be the gold-standard<span style="font-style: italic;"></span> for worth in young people (or any person). Performance in school is one of the primary ways that we evaluate a person's worth in our culture, and with our school systems designed as they are we are doomed to underevaluate brilliance in children who are great at something other than mathematics or language. In any case, this lecture in particular is worth your time.<br /><br /><div class="zemanta-pixie"><img src="http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=3fdfa666-4aae-8d6d-8f3f-3522e9916906" alt="" class="zemanta-pixie-img" /></div></div>Colin Toffelmirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857934895856384717noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28898471.post-66853903153986476162009-08-17T09:26:00.000-07:002009-08-17T09:27:03.459-07:00Learning...<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><a href='http://hevel.org/' target='_blank'>Bryan Bibb</a> has a link to <a href='http://www.macalester.edu/geology/wirth/learning.pdf' target='_blank'>this</a> excellent essay on pedagogy and the concept of learning. There are any number of striking and intriguing bits in the paper, and I strongly encourage you to read it whether you are a teacher, student, or anybody else for that matter. Which parts jumped out at me most strongly?<br/><br/>"Intellectual growth has been characterized as the progression from ignorant certainty to intelligent confusion" (15). I don't think I know anybody with an advanced degree or similar expertise in their field who would disagree with that statement. The whole section in which this quotation is found is about how our attitudes to knowledge and learning change and develop throughout the educational process. Very interesting stuff.<br/><br/>The other bit that hit me really hard was a the point-by-point comparison of A and C students right at the end of the paper. There are two tables on pgs. 24-25 that compare the skills, attitudes, and habits of successful and unsucessful students. After reading these I would suggest that these tables aren't just about students, but in many ways could be re-applied to a variety of other social situations (the workplace and the home for instance). What struck me most about these comparisons is that C students generally see themselves as victims and tend to take on passive roles. This is especially notable in the second table. Passivity is a major component in every "unsuccessful" box on that table. This drives home an important truth that I think a lot people generally, and not just students, need to reflect upon. Your education, your job performance, your family life...you have the ability to affect all of these things. I'm not so naive as to suggest that these social situations are totally within a person's individual control, but it's equally ridiculous to think that they are totally out of our control. Your boredom with your classes, your complaints about your teachers, your whining about your boss or your co-workers, these are all things that you have the ability to affect. They are, to some degree, your responsibility. You will never find, in other words, an A student who doesn not take responsibility for her own education. You just won't.<br/><br/>In any case, read the whole article, particularly if you're an educator in any capacity.<br/><br/><div class='zemanta-pixie'><img src='http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=af2ecab9-749b-8ce6-a2f7-2314c0c57219' alt='' class='zemanta-pixie-img'/></div></div>Colin Toffelmirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857934895856384717noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28898471.post-38665081682672444472009-08-14T21:16:00.001-07:002009-08-14T21:16:44.566-07:00District 9...<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>Thanks to some generous friends we had chance for a night out this evening and went to see <i>District 9</i>, a new film produced by Peter Jackson and directed by Neill Blomkamp. My thoughts in brief? Go see this movie. There, now if you like you can just skip the rest, which are my thoughts at length.<br/><br/>The basic plot is pretty simple. An alien spaceship comes to halt in the sky above Johannesburg. It doesn't move for a long time so the government cuts into the ship and finds a whole host of aliens who appear to be starving. They are ferried down to the surface where a refugee camp is set up. When the story proper picks up the aliens have been in the camp, which has now taken on the form of one of the worlds worst ghettos, for some 20 years. The government of South Africa has contracted a company called Multi-National United (a private paramilatary firm, <i>a la </i>Blackwater) to clear the aliens (derogatorily called Prawns) out of the current camp in Johannesburg to a concentration camp hundreds of kilometers away. The main character is Wikas van de Merwe, an MNU employee who is heading up the team serving eviction notice to the Prawns. Things obviously get more complicated from there, but I'll let you go watch the actual film.<br/><br/>First of all the direction is superb, and I don't think I've ever seen a better use of CG in a film. Additionally, Sharlto Copley, who plays van de Merwe, is excellent and carries some very powerful scenes. He also provides a performance that convincingly captures every moment along a pretty extended arc of character development.<br/><br/>Some of the "bad guys" are a little too typical, and there are elements of the plot that might have felt formulaic in another movie. The thing is, those two issues are very easy to ignore in this film, because it is so conceptually original. I can honestly say that I've never seen an alien movie, or a sci-fi movie, anything like this. The whole thing just felt so completely <i>real</i> in a way that sci-fi and fantasy never quite do.<br/><br/>The one point of difficulty thematically is something that seems to afflict an awful lot of movies that explore otherness. It's the human being (read White Male) who saves the alien (read African, Asian, Woman, insert subaltern here). I'm never quite sure what to do with this problem. These kinds of films are trying to challenge oppression, and are particularly interested in creating a sense of filial love in the oppressor for the oppressed. <i>District 9</i> does this very well by humanizing characters who are, quite literally, not human. And it's also necessary to humanize van de Merwe, who represents the oppressor, in order that we the audience might identify with him. And it's even necessary for the oppressor to be the main character because that's who we as the audience must identify with most closely. We are the oppressors, so we must see our oppression. But how can you encourage an audience, particularly in Western culture, to identify with a completely non-heroic character?<br/><br/>Even taking this issue into account <i>District 9</i> is a brilliant piece of work that everyone should go see. If this film doesn't garner at least a whole host of award nominations, to say nothing of actual awards, it will just serve as further evidence that Hollywood is filled with dilettantes and tools.<br/><br/><div class='zemanta-pixie'><img src='http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=e7b1facc-e4d7-884f-82b4-5ddad23e3189' alt='' class='zemanta-pixie-img'/></div></div>Colin Toffelmirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857934895856384717noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28898471.post-10923642380952814542009-08-11T09:39:00.001-07:002009-08-11T09:39:54.386-07:00Me Read Hebrew Good...<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>In my continual attempt to break myself of some of my bad Hebrew habits (over reliance on Logos being the worst) I'm working on Hebrew pretty extensively this month. Currently this is taking the form of working through Ehud Ben Zvi's excellent workbook, <a href='http://www.amazon.ca/Readings-Biblical-Hebrew-Intermediate-Textbook/dp/0300055730/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250008762&sr=8-3' target='_blank'><i>Readings in Biblical Hebrew</i></a>. One of the great things about this workbook is that it requires that you have an actual Hebrew text open as you work through because the readings are not provided for you. I'm using my trusty hard-copy BHS (no Logos allowed, except for checking GKC and BHRG which I don't have in print...yes, even BDB is hard-copy, we're back in the stone age here), and I just committed one of the sillier, though probably not totally uncommon, mistakes that one makes when reading Hebrew. I was trucking along in 1 Sam 1, reading v. 12 which ends the first left hand page of 1 Sam in my BHS, and when the page ended I did what I always do when I finish a left hand page...I looked up and over and the right hand page. Then I spent a couple of minutes being very, very confused. Why is there a 3mp pronomial suffix here? What the hell is that <i>'sr</i> doing? Huh? What's going on here?!?!<br/><br/>Then I stopped, scratched my head sheepishly, and flipped the left hand page over where I found a perfectly sensible clause that fit very nicely indeed with the first part of v. 12. Yes Colin, Hebrew reads right to left. My lesson for the day. Sigh.<br/><br/><div class='zemanta-pixie'><img src='http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=544c2442-c1e9-897c-bf62-7a5f92944496' alt='' class='zemanta-pixie-img'/></div></div>Colin Toffelmirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857934895856384717noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28898471.post-89504368976326687042009-08-10T08:34:00.000-07:002009-08-10T08:35:20.205-07:00Uh-Huh...<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>John Hobbins has a great <a href='http://ancienthebrewpoetry.typepad.com/ancient_hebrew_poetry/2009/08/a-contrastive-approach-to-the-study-of-ancient-texts.html#comments' target='_blank'>post</a> over on Ancient Hebrew Poetry about comparing and contrasting texts from different cultures (Genesis and Atrahasis are his examples). Anybody interested in the relationship between the Bible and other surrounding cultures should read and think through what he says there, particularly the bit about contrastive approaches. And the dialogue with Angie Erisman (whose <a href='http://imaginarygrace.blogspot.com/' target='_blank'>excellent blog</a> seems to have gone the way of all flesh) is also very valuable. I like John's description of intertextuality as a cultural web. This serves as a corrective to those who use the term "intertextuality" to refer to any and every kind of allusion or reference and who constantly ascribe authorial intention to such connections. Sometimes allusions are intentional, but a lot of the time they are just a consequence of cultural (or inter-cultural) meta-data, and discussions of intention and ascription and dependence are illegitimate.*<br/><br/>Also John's notes regarding cultural divisions are very important. "Culture" is a tough concept. Where does one culture begin and another end? How do we know? Are these divisions simply arbitrary? Just heuristic devices we use to keep our questions and answers straight? I think they are probably more than arbitrary but it's hard to know where to draw those lines. One significant corollary for me is the question of the relationship between various levels of social interaction (family, community, culture, etc) and various sub-divisions of language (register, idiolect, dialect, language, etc). One of the papers I'll be writing in the near future will explore the possibility of using linguistic markers in concert with literary form in order to help identify and delimit passages in the Latter Prophets. I still haven't the faintest clue if it will work, but the problems inherent in inter-cultural relationships that John identifies in his post are the same problems that I'll be facing as I try to eke out my methodology in that paper (albeit my questions will probably be more intra-cultural).<br/><br/>The moral of the story? Whether inter or intra-cultural, these kinds of questions are difficult and lend themselves to tendentious arguments. Great care is required.<br/><br/>*As a brief side-note, there are notable post-modern authors (e.g. Umberto Eco) who do make intentional use of intertextual irony, but even here I think such authors (Eco for certain) would admit that there are significant and important instances of intertextuality that are not a product of conscious authorial intention. To extend John's web metaphor, some strands are woven on purpose, and some strands are not.<br/><br/><div class='zemanta-pixie'><img src='http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=93b08151-81a8-8fd2-a933-fca0f4ed6aca' alt='' class='zemanta-pixie-img'/></div></div>Colin Toffelmirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857934895856384717noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28898471.post-56934564939045440812009-08-10T08:08:00.001-07:002009-08-10T08:08:52.409-07:00A Three Hour Tour...<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>Well we're back from our visit to Saskatchewan. It was wonderful to be home with our families, and to let Grandma and Grampa, and Oma and Opa, and all of the aunties and uncles, dote on and spoil Liam. We had an early birthday party for the little man while we were home and needless to say the only grandchild/nephew in either of our families made out like a bandit. The vacation as a whole was lovely and relaxing and lots of fun. And the trip back to Hamilton was a gong show.<br/><br/>If one were to catch a direct flight from Saskatoon to Hamilton (an impossibility with Westjet, by the by), that flight would probably take about 3.5 hours. With airport waits and such the whole trip would probably take less than 5 hours door to door. But there aren't any direct flights from Saskatoon to Hamilton. Instead you have to fly to Calgary (an hour's flight in exactly the wrong direction) and catch a connector. So our initial itinerary for the trip home included the one hour flight to Calgary (that left at 6:10am, which meant we were at the airport at 5:10), a two hour layover, and then the 4 hour flight to Hamilton. The first bit went fine. The layover was going fine as well. We were keeping Liam happy and busy with various toys, stroller rides, and some strategic use of the portable DVD player Jin's parents gave us (thank you!). Then, with about 30 mins to go, we heard an announcement over the PA system. Our plane had been (no I'm not kidding) struck by lightning. Needless to say our flight was cancelled. So we trundled off to get our lugguage and then went to the Westjet counter to see what they were going to do with us. After standing in line for over an hour (where I chatted with some nice folks from Abbotsford) we were informed that Westjet could get us on a flight to Pearson Airport in Toronto with the promise of some kind of transport to Hamilton once we got there. They very kindly gave us some food vouchers good in any of the airport's restaurants, and we went off to wait some more.<br/><br/>We finally boarded our flight to Toronto at 12:30 or so (we'd been in the Calgary airport since shortly after 7am), and took off just before 1pm. Liam was great the whole time. He played well in the airport, and ate and played well in the restaurant, and when the plane finally took off he fell asleep on Jin's lap straight away. He slept for almost the whole flight, only waking up in time for the descent into Toronto.<br/><br/>We picked up our lugguage (which took forever...I hate big airports) and climbed aboard the shuttle bus Westjet had wrangled for us for the hour drive from Toronto to Hamilton. Traffic was mercifully light and we pulled in to the Hamilton airport at around 6 Central time (8 EST, which we were now on). Our friend Connan was kind enough to come pick us up, so we loaded up his minivan in the pouring rain (Hamilton rain, not Saskatoon rain...which to say real rain, not wussy rain) and set off for home. On the way home we got a flat tire. No, I'm not joking. Mercifully the rain had stopped, and Connan and I didn't get any wetter as we changed the tire. We finally arrived at home at around 7:30pm Central (9:30 EST), having been travelling since 5:10am Central time.<br/><br/>And the funny thing? Though we were horribly tired and rather hungry by the time we got home, it hadn't really been all that bad a trip. Liam was a trooper, Jin and I were mostly laughing about it by the end (the tire was particularly funny), and everyone got home safe (with the exception of Connan's tire). Still, I think I would have preferred the direct flight from Saskatoon to Hamilton.<br/><br/><div class='zemanta-pixie'><img src='http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=50e8c542-a358-8ce6-9f48-86bfc5925cc2' alt='' class='zemanta-pixie-img'/></div></div>Colin Toffelmirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857934895856384717noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28898471.post-10026509024593640202009-07-20T19:52:00.001-07:002009-07-21T10:24:11.948-07:00Deadwood and Deep v. Surface Structure...<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>I've been watching the first season of HBO's Deadwood. One of the bits of controversy that has surrounded this story of an old-west town is the use of profanity. Deadwood is the story of the real historical town of Deadwood, an outlaw settlement in the Black Hills of Montana in 1876. But here's the thing, the characters in the TV show swear like sailors. The language is so offensive that I won't even give examples. Of course these words that the writers use are not words that people really used in 1876. But the profanity of 1876 would sound silly to people in our time and culture, and so the writers decided to import modern profanity as a creative anachronism. On a visceral level at least, this works very well indeed.<br/><br/>This goes to the heart of an issue in linguistics that I've been thinking about lately. Linguists talk about deep structure and surface structure. Surface structure is the actual grammatical structure of a particular sentence or phrase or utterance as found in reality. Deep structure is the so-called "kernel" sentence or essence that underlies the surface structure. A passive sentence is the classic example. According to this thinking sentences 1a and 1b have different surface structure but identical deep structure:<br/><br/>1a: Wild Bill Hickok was shot by Jack McCall.<br/>1b: Jack McCall shot Wild Bill Hickok.<br/><br/>Linguists who believe in deep structure say that the semantic value (the meaning for lack of a better term) of these phrases is identical. Linguists who don't believe in deep structure might deny this.<br/><br/>In Deadwood the use of anachronistic language assumes that modern swearing has essentially the same deep structure as the swearing of 1876. Therefore replacing one with the other is actually a faithful way of translating. But I wonder, and here is where deep structure becomes a problem, if there isn't something else going on apart from semantics and if that something else might not be the same from 1876 to 2009. Like I said, I'm still thinking about it.<br/><br/><div class='zemanta-pixie'><img src='http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=4ef5f80d-6e52-850b-96ad-bd3d5206366d' class='zemanta-pixie-img'/></div></div>Colin Toffelmirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857934895856384717noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28898471.post-78998933289087444362009-07-20T19:16:00.000-07:002009-07-21T10:25:06.883-07:00Half-Blood Prince the Movie...**spoiler alert**<br /><br />Jinny and I had a rare night out on Friday night and went to see the newly release Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. This movie is based on one of my favorites of the 7 book Potter series and so I was curious (though frankly not excited) to see what they'd do with this one. My one word review? Mediocre. This film is more evidence that these kinds of books just don't translate well to the big screen.<br /><br />There was, however, a lot to love in the film. Dan Radcliff, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint (the actors who play Harry, Hermione, and Ron) seem finally to be coming in to their own. Grint's physical comedy was particularly good, and he and Radcliff had a number of great scenes together. All in all the dynamic between the three friends was very good, much better in fact than in any of the previous five films. Additionally, Michael Gambon's Dumbledore is a vast improvement over the absurdly intense Dubledore of Goblet of Fire and the ridiculously stoic Dumbledore of Order of the Phoenix. Gambon does a much better job this time out capturing Dumbledore's odd combination of brilliance, intensity, ferocity, and oddball goofiness. It's that eclectic nature that people like about Dumbledore, and I think that Gambon's failure to capture it represents one of the key failures of films 3-5. Here he gets it right.<br /><br />But those good things are not enough to make this a good film. It is just too choppy, too disjointed to ever be great. This choppiness notwithstanding it may have been a much better movie had it not been for the two worst adaptation decisions I've ever seen in a film. You'll have to watch the movie to know what I mean, but let me just say that for the life of me I don't understand what the Christmas scene was for, nor why they removed all of the action from the climax of the movie. Those writing/directing decisions were just plain weird.<br /><br />If you're a Potter fan by all means go and see the movie. There are enough fun bits to make it worth your money. If you're not a Potter geek, just wait for the DVD, you'll be glad you did.Colin Toffelmirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857934895856384717noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28898471.post-66280047185957804962009-07-16T06:45:00.001-07:002009-07-16T06:45:34.620-07:00Buyer Beware...<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>A discussion has been making the rounds regarding whether or to what degree amateur biblical scholarship is a legitimate enterprise. You can see the relevant history (and trace the backlinks for the longer backstory) on Matthew's page <a href='http://mjburgess.wordpress.com/2009/07/15/the-role-of-credentials-in-biblical-interpretation-part-ii/'>here</a>, Jim's <a href='http://jwest.wordpress.com/2009/07/15/as-i-told-matt-i-dont-mind-being-alone-on-this/'>here</a>, and Doug's <a href='http://clayboy.co.uk/2009/07/dilettantism-jim-i-blame-the-reformers-and-revivalists/'>here</a>. Though I find Jim's position (leave the Bible to the experts alone) to be extreme, I certainly sympathize with his point. There is an awful lot of nonsense out there that pases for "biblical scholarship." And it's not just silliness like ex-firefighters chasing down the "treasure" of the Copper Scroll. <a href='http://akma.disseminary.org/?p=2158'>AKMA</a> pointed to a <a href='http://www.bibleglo.com/'>new Bible software system</a> the other day, and I must say that the list of "biblical scholars" who contribute to the expert videos was very worrying. I mean, I've got nothing against Max Lucado, but he isn't a Bible expert of any kind. He's a very good preacher, and I'm sure a good pastor, but his reflections on Scripture in his books tend to be rather shallow to be frank. But people assume he's an expert because he's written and sold a lot of books. I'll let Jim and the others fight it out over whether Lucado is a bad guy because he hasn't got a PhD (I tend to think not), because I want to make a slightly different point here.<br/><br/>As much as non-specialists can be dangerous when they spout off, the fact is that they are only dangerous if people listen to them. The responsibility lies, in the end, with the reader to make good judgments about what is being read. Credentials don't equal correctness, but credentials do tell you one thing. They tell you that the person who's work you are reading has done his or her homework (literally). I don't care what anyone says, a PhD or ThD is not an easy get. So, dear reader, if you want to know about the Bible and you want to avoid the dangers of being misled by people who may or may not know what they are talking about, let me recommend the following:<br/><br/><ol><li>Ask why the person you're reading has the authority to say what he/she is saying. Why are his/her ideas more valuable than your own? Google the author, know who it is that you're trusting.</li><li>Ask where and to what degree the author is educated...and in what field for that matter (a PhD in Chemistry doesn't make you an expert in Biblical Studies).</li><li>Remember that the person who wrote the book you're reading probably borrowed some of those ideas from other books. Find out which ones and maybe read them too.</li><li>Get to know an expert personally and ask that person for advice. Most of the churches I've been a part of over the years have had at least one or two professors of theology or biblical studies hiding somewhere. If there's nobody in your congregation, then email a prof at your local denominational seminary. I'm betting you'd get a very cordial reply.</li><li>Instead of reading popular Christian literature about Jesus or the Bible, try reading a commentary along with your regular Bible reading. I'd recommend a very accessible series like NIV Application or Interpretation, or the New International Biblical Commentary. I talked my wife into doing this once and she said it was one of the richest devotional experiences she's ever had.</li></ol><br/>The long and the short of it is this: buyer beware. Getting a book about the Bible published is no harder than getting a self-help book published, and we all know what nonsense those things can be. If you are a Christian you should take the Bible very seriously indeed, so consider your supplimentary reading carefully as well. And by the by, all of this goes doubly and triply so for internet sources and blogs (including this one...I don't consider myself an expert on anything yet).<br/><br/><div class='zemanta-pixie'><img src='http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=7c116c47-e870-8028-a482-498746a179e3' class='zemanta-pixie-img'/></div></div>Colin Toffelmirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857934895856384717noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28898471.post-13554155183011923012009-07-15T18:10:00.000-07:002009-07-15T18:11:10.590-07:00The Road and Adaptation...<link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CColin%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><link rel="themeData" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CColin%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx"><link rel="colorSchemeMapping" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CColin%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> 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margin-bottom:10.0pt; margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; font-size:12.0pt; mso-ansi-font-size:12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} .MsoPapDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; margin-bottom:10.0pt; line-height:115%;} @page Section1 {size:612.0pt 792.0pt; margin:72.0pt 72.0pt 72.0pt 72.0pt; mso-header-margin:36.0pt; mso-footer-margin:36.0pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} </style> <![endif]-->Early this summer I finished the best work of fiction that I've read in a long while. It was The Road by Cormac McCarthy (No Country for Old Men). It is simultaneously the most haunting and most powerfully touching story I've read in ages. A post-apocalyptic journey tale, it seemed like an odd fit for McCarthy (admittedly I only know some of his other work), but he elevated the genre to perhaps its highest point. He sidesteps all of the post-apocalyptic clichés with grace. McCarthy's greatest accomplishment in this work is his ability to make you feel, down to your very bones, the emotions that his characters feel. Their dread is your dread. Their loneliness is your loneliness. Their despair is your despair. And most importantly, their fragile, precious, tenuous (even tendentious) hope belongs to the reader as well. I've never had an author capture me emotionally in that way.
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<br />One of the thoughts I had when I picked the book up at first was, "I bet somebody's gonna make a movie out of this." After all, post-apocalyptic stories are all the rage, and McCarthy's last book-to-movie adaptation was essentially perfect (No Country). But as I was reading I became more and more convinced that The Road is un-adaptable to the big screen. Or maybe it's better to say that Hollywood could never adapt it, because they would be unwilling to do what would be necessary to make the adaptation true. What makes an adaptation true? It isn't necessarily about detailed accuracy, making sure all the little characters and side-stories and inside jokes make the cut. It is about spirit. It is about ensuring that the emotion of the film, the themes, the main characters, the ethos and pathos mirror the book. The Road is, it turns out, being adapted into a film. I've only seen the trailer but I knew immediately that it will not be a good adaptation. I won't run down the specifics, but let's just say that all of those clichés that McCarthy side-steps, the film very clearly blunders straight into. It might be a good movie, and it will probably be a popular movie (maybe even critically successful), but I cannot see how it could ever be a good adaptation.
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<br />Let me put this another way. All of the things that the Coens did to make No Country perfect, Hillcoat (director for The Road) has clearly failed to do. It's too bad nobody got Joel and Ethan on board for The Road.
<br />Colin Toffelmirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857934895856384717noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28898471.post-78608035923234153332009-07-15T15:55:00.000-07:002009-07-15T15:56:05.064-07:00Crap...<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><font face='sans-serif'>Crap, I've been added to a list. I commented on a post over at <a href='http://hebrewandgreekreader.wordpress.com/' target='_blank'>Hebrew and Greek Reader</a> and in reward for my thoughts </font>Daniel and Tonya (they are two people right?) put me on their list of <a href='http://hebrewandgreekreader.wordpress.com/student-biblioblogs-2/student-biblioblogs/' target='_blank'>student bibliobloggers</a>.* Which means that now I have to actually pay some attention to my poor old blog. For the past three weeks or so I've been right on the verge of taking randomcolin off the air for good, but I suppose that, now I'm on a list and all, I should try to live up to this great trust. Though on an upnote, I did make their top ten list for their favorite comments recently, huzzah!<br/><br/>If you're into Greek and Hebrew or linguistics generally (and who isn't?!) go check out Daniel and Tonya's blog, it's excellent. Plus they like Derek Webb and so must be very nice people indeed. Plus they go to school at <a href='http://www.sun.ac.za/' target='_blank'>Stellenbosch</a> and study with <a href='http://sun025.sun.ac.za/portal/page/portal/Arts/Departments/ancient-studies/staff/CVdMerwe' target='_blank'>Christo van der Merwe</a>, which is unassailably cool.<br/><br/>*For the record I hate this term, but as there are whole websites and tracking systems and rankings devoted to biblioblogs (a blog devoted, at least in part, to biblical studies), to say nothing of the annual SBL bibliobloggers' dinner, the name is clearly here to stay.<br/><br/></div>Colin Toffelmirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857934895856384717noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28898471.post-80838917988902838052009-05-28T11:22:00.000-07:002009-05-28T11:51:28.613-07:00CSBS...Jin and I just got back from Ottawa where I was attending the annual meeting of the <a href="http://www.ccsr.ca/csbs/MainPageEnglish.htm">Canadian Society of Biblical Studies</a>. I had the opportunity to present my first paper at an academic conference. The paper is called "(Re)Visionary History: Historiography and Religious Identity in the Animal Apocalypse," and is based on some ideas that I worked on in my MA thesis. I presented it in the <a href="http://www.biblical-studies.ca/historiography/">Ancient Historiography</a> session, and in it I discuss the use of pseudonymous authorship and clean/unclean divisions in the imagery of the Animal Apocalypse of 1 Enoch 85-90. I won't publish the paper here as I'll be submitting it for publication in the edited volume that the session puts out each year, but if anyone wants a copy feel free to drop me an email.<br /><br />It was a great conference over-all. My presentation went very well, and the paper was well received. I had the chance to argue with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Van_Seters">Prof. John Van Seters</a>, which was an honour. There were any number of other interesting and enjoyable papers during the conference. I think that my two favorites were <a href="http://www.ualberta.ca/%7Eebenzvi/">Ehud Ben Zvi</a>'s paper on whether the label "Deuteronomistic" is anything more than a modern scholarly construct, and <a href="http://www.tyndale.ca/seminary/viewfaculty.php?id=18">John Kessler</a>'s paper on the "Empty Land" motif in Persian period Yehud. It was also great to meet some well-known OT scholars, as well as many other grad students. I got to put faces to a lot of names, which is always nice. Everyone was tremendously welcoming and though I was quite tired by the end, it was an excellent experience and I look forward to going again.<br /><br />As a side note, I was involved in an online discussion with <a href="http://akma.disseminary.org/?p=2101">AKMA</a> and <a href="http://ntweblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/presenting-papers-redux.html">Mark Goodacre</a> a few weeks ago over whether it is better to read from a manuscript or to use skeletal notes during academic presentations. Though I argued there for manuscripts, I decided to take Dr. Goodacre's advice and try presenting from notes alone. I must say, I believe that he was very right. I was able to hit all of my major points, I didn't get bogged down in the complicated technical language you find in lots of presentations, and my friends tell me that mine was one of the more relaxed and accessible presentations they saw. I think that I'll try the "notes only" formula again in future and see if it keeps working for me.Colin Toffelmirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857934895856384717noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28898471.post-31453802075041160542009-04-19T03:52:00.001-07:002009-04-19T03:52:53.526-07:00This Too...<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>I've been listening to <a href='http://derekwebb.com/index.htm'>Derek Webb</a> again today. His song "This Too Shall be Made Right" off of <a href='http://derekwebb.com/index.htm?id=7013'><i>The Ringing Bell</i></a> did what it always does to me; it took hold of me, shook me, beat me, and embraced me all at once. Here are the lines that cut the deepest, for me at least:<br/><br/><blockquote>There's a time for peace<br/>There is a time for war<br/>There's a time to forgive<br/>and a time to settle the score<br/>A time for babies to loose their lives<br/>A time for hunger and genocide<br/>and this too shall be made right.<br/><br/>Oh I don't know the suffering of people outside my front door<br/>And I join the oppressors of those I choose to ignore<br/>I'm trading comfort for human life<br/>And that's not just murder it's suicide<br/>and this too shall be made right.<br/></blockquote><br/>The world in which we live is broken. I am a part of that brokenness. I am a collaborator. I don't want to be, and I try not to be, but I am. Even that wasn't really true. I try to try not to be. I want to try to try not to be. You get what I mean. That's where this song cuts. But it heals as well. It heals with an honest belief in the possibility, the hope, that the God who made the universe still cares for it, and that he has determined that his creation shall be made whole.<br/><br/>This is the tension of true apocalypse. I'm not talking about <i>Left Behind</i> garbage, but about the late prophetic and early apocalyptic literature of the Bible. Joel, Obadiah, Micah, Daniel, and Revelation (among many others). This is the message of the writers of the apocalypses and the so-called proto-apocalyptic literature. God will intervene. Not just will, but must. The world is irrevocably and intrinsically broken, and though we try, and we try to try, and we want to try to try to fix it, to reconcile it, to be reconciled to God himself, we are unable. So he does it.<br/><br/>An honest appreciation for this biblical literature, and an honest attempt to hold it in tension with the rest of the canon, leads to the kind of paradoxical but true sentiment of Webb's lyrics. The world is filled with horror. We must be conscious of it, we must act against it, but we must also understand that it is God who will, in the end, bring it to an end.<br/><br/><div class='zemanta-pixie'><img src='http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=ce31dc16-136d-8903-a42c-660d5eccca31' class='zemanta-pixie-img'/></div></div>Colin Toffelmirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857934895856384717noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28898471.post-10609951882513371522009-04-04T20:32:00.001-07:002009-04-04T20:32:59.976-07:0012 Hours Ago...<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>I'm just getting ready to pack it in for the day and as is often the case I popped open my browser to check on my blogroll. I looked down the list at posts I had read earlier, around dinner time, and then I saw the most recent post over on 4712. It's a wonderful little question that I found in one of the comment threads and I encourage anybody who is interested to wander over there and check it out. What surprised me when I was looking at my blogroll just now is that I posted that question 12 hours ago. Twelve hours ago I was taking a 15 minute break from working on my major linguistics paper (pragmatic fronting of non-Predicate constituents in Obadiah...yeah, I know how to party). I just now finished working on it for the night. Twelve hours ago. This is just silly. Didn't quite finish either. I still have to write the conclusion. In theory that should be easy, so I'm gonna leave it till tomorrow when I go back to the library and work for another 16 hours. Two more days, two more days, two more days....<br/><br/>Goodnight.<br/><br/><div class='zemanta-pixie'><img src='http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=cf90e948-cc39-856b-9790-a4819eef50d5' class='zemanta-pixie-img'/></div></div>Colin Toffelmirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13857934895856384717noreply@blogger.com1