On my way to San Francisco
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AAR/SBL are back together and in San Francisco. Off to the meeting in a few minutes. So glad to be able to see friends from AAR that I haven't seen in years.
Forbidden Gospels Blog
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SBL has received NEH Award
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Congratulations to all involved in this wonderful project that will now be funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities:
SBL has been awarded an NEH grant for a new website that will showcase the work of SBL members and communicate the value that biblical scholars bring to the study of the Bible and to the humanities. More information >>
Hooray for SBL and AAR
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Here is what we have all been waiting for. Thank you to all of you who helped make this happen!
Dear Colleagues,
We are pleased to announce that the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature have selected concurrent Annual Meeting sites for the next several years. With anticipated attendance of more than 10,000 members, the gathering requires over 150 concurrent session rooms and 5,000 available hotel rooms. We are delighted to have secured premium meeting space and competitive accommodation rates at several of the most requested destinations for our attendees. We have generated a good deal of savings by booking meetings at the same venue for two separate years in advance. The meeting locations and dates are as follows:
2011 San Francisco, CA November 19-22
2012 Chicago, IL November 17-20
2013 Baltimore, MD November 23-26
2014 San Diego, CA November 22-25
2015 Atlanta, GA November 21-24
2016 San Antonio, TX November 19-22
2017 Boston, MA November 18-21
2018 Denver, CO November 17-20
2019 San Diego, CA November 23-26
2020 Boston, MA November 21-24
2021 San Antonio, TX November 20-23
These meetings will:
Feature a single, jointly managed Exhibit Hall;
Feature a single, jointly managed Employment Center;
Feature distinct and separate AAR and SBL programs planned with open communication between the organizations;
Encourage the organizations’ members to attend each other’s programs and events at no additional cost;
Allow the organizations to pursue their unique, if sometimes overlapping, missions;
Enhance cooperation, not competition, between AAR and SBL;
Encourage participation among other organizations such as AAR’s Related Scholarly Organizations and SBL’s Affiliate Organizations.
We believe that concurrent meetings will serve the interests of our members, will help to advance the many disciplines and areas of study we represent, and will maintain and advance the critical inquiry that characterizes the work of our societies. We invite you to join us in building this exciting new future.
Cordially,
John F. Kutsko Jack Fitzmier
Executive Director Executive Director
Society of Biblical Literature American Academy of Religion
Dear Colleagues,
We are pleased to announce that the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature have selected concurrent Annual Meeting sites for the next several years. With anticipated attendance of more than 10,000 members, the gathering requires over 150 concurrent session rooms and 5,000 available hotel rooms. We are delighted to have secured premium meeting space and competitive accommodation rates at several of the most requested destinations for our attendees. We have generated a good deal of savings by booking meetings at the same venue for two separate years in advance. The meeting locations and dates are as follows:
2011 San Francisco, CA November 19-22
2012 Chicago, IL November 17-20
2013 Baltimore, MD November 23-26
2014 San Diego, CA November 22-25
2015 Atlanta, GA November 21-24
2016 San Antonio, TX November 19-22
2017 Boston, MA November 18-21
2018 Denver, CO November 17-20
2019 San Diego, CA November 23-26
2020 Boston, MA November 21-24
2021 San Antonio, TX November 20-23
These meetings will:
Feature a single, jointly managed Exhibit Hall;
Feature a single, jointly managed Employment Center;
Feature distinct and separate AAR and SBL programs planned with open communication between the organizations;
Encourage the organizations’ members to attend each other’s programs and events at no additional cost;
Allow the organizations to pursue their unique, if sometimes overlapping, missions;
Enhance cooperation, not competition, between AAR and SBL;
Encourage participation among other organizations such as AAR’s Related Scholarly Organizations and SBL’s Affiliate Organizations.
We believe that concurrent meetings will serve the interests of our members, will help to advance the many disciplines and areas of study we represent, and will maintain and advance the critical inquiry that characterizes the work of our societies. We invite you to join us in building this exciting new future.
Cordially,
John F. Kutsko Jack Fitzmier
Executive Director Executive Director
Society of Biblical Literature American Academy of Religion
SBL and AAR remarry
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I can not tell you how thrilled I was today to receive a letter from Kent Richards announcing the reintegration of SBL and AAR from 2011 and beyond. This is such a big relief to me. I was one of the members that opposed the original divorce, and I have been unhappy with our separate meetings since they began two years ago. I wish to THANK Kent Richards and everyone behind the scenes for making our remerger a reality!
Here is the letter I received:
Dear Member,
We are pleased to announce that on June 10, 2010, the Society of Biblical Literature and American Academy of Religion signed a Letter of Intent that outlines an agreement to hold concurrent Annual Meetings beginning in San Francisco in the fall of 2011. These meetings will
Occur in the same city—though the venue will change from year to year;
Occur at the same time—the weekend before the US Thanksgiving holiday;
Feature a single, jointly managed Publishers/Software/Book Exhibit;
Feature a single, jointly managed Employment Center;
Feature distinct and separate AAR and SBL programs planned with open communication between the organizations;
Encourage the organizations’ members to attend each other’s programs and events at no additional cost;
Allow the organizations to pursue their unique, if sometimes overlapping, missions;
Enhance cooperation, not competition, between the organizations.
The advertising for these conventions will use the city name, the year, and will identify the SBL and AAR as hosts. For example, the first of these meetings will be known as “Annual Meetings 2011 San Francisco, hosted by the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature.” This name will appear on the registration gateway, on signage at the meetings, on promotional materials, and on other common elements.
A Conventions Management Committee, consisting of the Executive Directors and staff members from each organization, is developing operating policies and procedures that expand on the considerable detail that already exists in the Letter of Intent. Each year the Committee will review the most recent meetings with an eye toward making improvements in subsequent gatherings. Nine concurrent meetings are being planned for 2011 through 2019. Beginning in 2013 the organizations will begin operating on a seven-year planning horizon that includes a mechanism by which the organizations can, on an annual basis, extend the seven-year agreement for an additional year. Dates and venues of the first three concurrent Annual Meetings are as follows:
November 19-22, 2011 San Francisco
November 17-20, 2012 Chicago
November 23-26, 2013 Baltimore
We believe that concurrent meetings will serve the interests of our members, will help to advance the many disciplines and areas of study we represent, and will maintain and advance the critical inquiry that characterizes the work of our societies. We invite you to join us in building this exciting new future.
Cordially,
Jack Fitzmier Kent Richards American Academy of Religion Society of Biblical Literature
Here is the letter I received:
Dear Member,
We are pleased to announce that on June 10, 2010, the Society of Biblical Literature and American Academy of Religion signed a Letter of Intent that outlines an agreement to hold concurrent Annual Meetings beginning in San Francisco in the fall of 2011. These meetings will
Occur in the same city—though the venue will change from year to year;
Occur at the same time—the weekend before the US Thanksgiving holiday;
Feature a single, jointly managed Publishers/Software/Book Exhibit;
Feature a single, jointly managed Employment Center;
Feature distinct and separate AAR and SBL programs planned with open communication between the organizations;
Encourage the organizations’ members to attend each other’s programs and events at no additional cost;
Allow the organizations to pursue their unique, if sometimes overlapping, missions;
Enhance cooperation, not competition, between the organizations.
The advertising for these conventions will use the city name, the year, and will identify the SBL and AAR as hosts. For example, the first of these meetings will be known as “Annual Meetings 2011 San Francisco, hosted by the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature.” This name will appear on the registration gateway, on signage at the meetings, on promotional materials, and on other common elements.
A Conventions Management Committee, consisting of the Executive Directors and staff members from each organization, is developing operating policies and procedures that expand on the considerable detail that already exists in the Letter of Intent. Each year the Committee will review the most recent meetings with an eye toward making improvements in subsequent gatherings. Nine concurrent meetings are being planned for 2011 through 2019. Beginning in 2013 the organizations will begin operating on a seven-year planning horizon that includes a mechanism by which the organizations can, on an annual basis, extend the seven-year agreement for an additional year. Dates and venues of the first three concurrent Annual Meetings are as follows:
November 19-22, 2011 San Francisco
November 17-20, 2012 Chicago
November 23-26, 2013 Baltimore
We believe that concurrent meetings will serve the interests of our members, will help to advance the many disciplines and areas of study we represent, and will maintain and advance the critical inquiry that characterizes the work of our societies. We invite you to join us in building this exciting new future.
Cordially,
Jack Fitzmier Kent Richards American Academy of Religion Society of Biblical Literature
John Kutsko is appointed the Executive Director of SBL
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This just came through to me via SBL, and I have to say that I am thrilled! John Kutsko and I trained at the University of Michigan together in the 1980s, before Peter Machinist took a position at Harvard. He is a person of scholarly integrity and collegiality, and I look forward to his leadership in our society. Congratulations John!Kutsko to Become SBL Executive Director on 1 July 2010
Bruce Birch, chair of the SBL Council, has announced that John F. Kutsko has been named the new Executive Director of the Society of Biblical Literature, effective 1 July 2010. After an extensive international search chaired by Fernando Segovia, Birch reported that the search committee’s unanimous and enthusiastic support of Kutsko was affirmed by Council at its April meeting. Birch said, “Strong and insightful leadership has always been a quality valued by SBL whether in our publications, congresses, or programs for professional development. We are looking forward to Kutsko’s leadership of an organization committed to core values of ‘responsiveness to change, scholarly integrity, inclusiveness, collegiality, collaboration, and accountability.’”
Kutsko began his graduate work in Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East at the University of Michigan and completed his Ph.D. at Harvard University in 1997 under the mentorship of Peter Machinist. His revised dissertation was published as Between Heaven and Earth: Divine Presence and Absence in the Book of Ezekiel. He has been active in the SBL publishing program (contributing editor of The SBL Handbook of Style) and the Symposium series, as well as the Career Center Advisory Group, the SBL Forum, and the Ezekiel Seminar. And he has been a faculty mentor for fellows at The Fund for Theological Education, where he has taught a dissertation-writing and publishing workshop for over a decade.
In addition to his academic contributions, John has over twenty years of publishing, leadership, and executive experience. He has worked on projects such as the The Anchor Bible Dictionary (Doubleday) and Civilizations of the Ancient Near East (Scribner’s Sons), and he was Associate Editorial Director at Hendrickson Publishers until 2003.
“I am thrilled to serve the members and mission of SBL. I join a gifted and dedicated staff. I look forward to collaborating with and giving leadership to a scholarly community in ways that enhance and further its teaching and research. I am grateful to follow the remarkable accomplishments of Kent Richards, who is very much the founder of the modern SBL. Kent has digitized, internationalized, and broadened SBL. I’ll bring all my energy to expanding these accomplishments and fostering the future of biblical scholarship.”
He joins SBL from Abingdon Press, the main imprint of The United Methodist Publishing House, where he served as Associate Publisher and began as Director of Academic and Professional Resources in 2003. At Abingdon he directed such projects as The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible and The Wesley Study Bible, and led a digital publishing initiative.
“I believe that the skills and experience I have from my rather non-traditional academic c.v. will help guide SBL’s members through the challenges and opportunities the discipline faces in the scholarly academy and higher education today. I am grateful to SBL for allowing the second half of my career to integrate this level of professional experience.”
Question about future of SBL
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I am sorry to post again on SBL, but perhaps my frequency since the meeting reflects the intensity of my concern. I am a practical person and it seems to me that there has to be resolutions to some of the problems facing our society, especially as long as we remain divorced from AAR. I'm trying to brainstorm some possibilities for solutions.
So I am curious, especially to hear from fellow members: would consolidation of some of the units be part of the solution? What are the pros and cons? Are there ways to re-envision the formation and structure of units to allow for more interchange among members in our society? Is it possible for units to consolidate while still maintaining individual agendas?
Those of you who are in other organizations that operate with discipline units, how do you organize?
So I am curious, especially to hear from fellow members: would consolidation of some of the units be part of the solution? What are the pros and cons? Are there ways to re-envision the formation and structure of units to allow for more interchange among members in our society? Is it possible for units to consolidate while still maintaining individual agendas?
Those of you who are in other organizations that operate with discipline units, how do you organize?
Open Letter about SBL
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I have concerns about the Society of Biblical Literature. I have been on steering committees and functioning as a chair for different groups on and off for the last fifteen years. Since the AAR-SBL split, I am concerned about the 'health' of our Society.
1. We were told at the Chairs' meeting about the gigantic increase in numbers of groups and therefore number of people participating by delivering papers and presiding. This was represented to us as a great sign of our vitality and growth.
But I don't think so. In fact it is the opposite. The drastic increase in the number of groups is alarming. We should not kid ourselves that this proliferation means growth and strength. Our groups have proliferated to the point that there is so much competition for audiences that entire sessions are beginning to have only a handful in attendance. Papers that may have taken a year to prepare may have an audience of five. This means that there is little discussion and little in terms of dissemination of research to the broader community. As more and more specialized groups form, they are breaking down the membership of the traditional larger groups, causing members to have to choose between the new specialized group (which will eventually run out of steam) and the traditional larger group it is co-opting. This means that the memberships of the groups are getting carved into smaller and smaller pieces, and instead of spreading our knowledge we are ending up talking only to ourselves.
We need to put the brakes on the formation of new groups, and find ways to connect together the ones that we have in place. Whenever possible, steering committees should be finding ways of absorbing groups into each other while maintaining their agendas. I'm not just talking about joint sessions. I am talking about a main group that might have subgroups or panels working on specific projects and these subgroups or panels might rotate sessions or years. What I'm saying is that we need a new model for group formation and maintenance. Limiting the number of sessions per group might help, but it isn't going to be the answer because there are just too many groups now.
2. We have to fix the problem of overlapping in the program similar groups or groups with similar interests. This is not just a complaint. This is a MAJOR problem that is forcing members of different groups to choose between groups that they should not have to, and we shouldn't want them to. Their membership in different groups and participation in those groups is vital to the 'health' of the Society. I think that SBL should consider hiring external consultants to resolve this scheduling problem for us. It is a persistent problem that has become much worse now that AAR is not meeting with us. It is not impossible to fix.
3. The problem comes down to this: AAR sessions are not overlapping with SBL sessions anymore. It was enough of a struggle for us when we competed with other AAR sessions. But now we have significant increase in the SBL sessions (but not an equally significant increase in the SBL membership) and these sessions are overlapping with each other in such extreme ways that the groups are not going to be able to sustain themselves, unless they have a membership that has no other interests or no other competing groups.
1. We were told at the Chairs' meeting about the gigantic increase in numbers of groups and therefore number of people participating by delivering papers and presiding. This was represented to us as a great sign of our vitality and growth.
But I don't think so. In fact it is the opposite. The drastic increase in the number of groups is alarming. We should not kid ourselves that this proliferation means growth and strength. Our groups have proliferated to the point that there is so much competition for audiences that entire sessions are beginning to have only a handful in attendance. Papers that may have taken a year to prepare may have an audience of five. This means that there is little discussion and little in terms of dissemination of research to the broader community. As more and more specialized groups form, they are breaking down the membership of the traditional larger groups, causing members to have to choose between the new specialized group (which will eventually run out of steam) and the traditional larger group it is co-opting. This means that the memberships of the groups are getting carved into smaller and smaller pieces, and instead of spreading our knowledge we are ending up talking only to ourselves.
We need to put the brakes on the formation of new groups, and find ways to connect together the ones that we have in place. Whenever possible, steering committees should be finding ways of absorbing groups into each other while maintaining their agendas. I'm not just talking about joint sessions. I am talking about a main group that might have subgroups or panels working on specific projects and these subgroups or panels might rotate sessions or years. What I'm saying is that we need a new model for group formation and maintenance. Limiting the number of sessions per group might help, but it isn't going to be the answer because there are just too many groups now.
2. We have to fix the problem of overlapping in the program similar groups or groups with similar interests. This is not just a complaint. This is a MAJOR problem that is forcing members of different groups to choose between groups that they should not have to, and we shouldn't want them to. Their membership in different groups and participation in those groups is vital to the 'health' of the Society. I think that SBL should consider hiring external consultants to resolve this scheduling problem for us. It is a persistent problem that has become much worse now that AAR is not meeting with us. It is not impossible to fix.
3. The problem comes down to this: AAR sessions are not overlapping with SBL sessions anymore. It was enough of a struggle for us when we competed with other AAR sessions. But now we have significant increase in the SBL sessions (but not an equally significant increase in the SBL membership) and these sessions are overlapping with each other in such extreme ways that the groups are not going to be able to sustain themselves, unless they have a membership that has no other interests or no other competing groups.
The busiest SBL ever!
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I don't know about the rest of you but this was by far the busiest SBL meeting I have ever attended. I had so many meetings with various committees and projects, not to mention two presentations, that I found myself running from this thing to that and always being late for everything. I was on the go from 7 am to 10 pm every day. I apologize for missing some really key meetings and sessions, including presentations by my colleagues in the Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism Section, which were booked opposite my own presentation and other meetings I had.
What do I think about this year's meeting?
1. The SBL staff in Atlanta have to figure out how to stop overlapping similar sections. This has been a problem since I started chairing a group fifteen years ago (which I no longer chair). It never gets better and it has never been solved. It was bad when groups were only allowed two sessions each, and it is worse now that the groups have proliferated. Our mysticism sessions were held at the same time slots as the Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism group, the Religious Experience group, the Pseudepigrapha, and a number of others. The problem is that many of us are members of several of these groups, and the overlap means that we have to choose between groups instead of supporting all of them.
2. More is not better. We have too many groups now that the Society has allowed them to proliferate after the split with AAR . The sudden drastic increase in groups means that there is more competition for audiences. I cannot tell you how many rooms I saw as I ran from one thing to the next that had five or less people in their audiences. This is embarrassing all around - for the presenters who prepared papers, for the groups who sponsored them, and for SBL.
3. We were told at the Chairs' Breakfast that 4,400 attended this year (compared to 5,000 last year). We were told that this is because the meeting was not in the northeast where there is more attendance, but this is not the reason I was hearing from colleagues who didn't come. I think this number is inflated since this must be the registered people, not the attendees. Many people who had preregistered canceled at the last minute and did not come as they had planned.
What do I think about this year's meeting?
1. The SBL staff in Atlanta have to figure out how to stop overlapping similar sections. This has been a problem since I started chairing a group fifteen years ago (which I no longer chair). It never gets better and it has never been solved. It was bad when groups were only allowed two sessions each, and it is worse now that the groups have proliferated. Our mysticism sessions were held at the same time slots as the Nag Hammadi and Gnosticism group, the Religious Experience group, the Pseudepigrapha, and a number of others. The problem is that many of us are members of several of these groups, and the overlap means that we have to choose between groups instead of supporting all of them.
2. More is not better. We have too many groups now that the Society has allowed them to proliferate after the split with AAR . The sudden drastic increase in groups means that there is more competition for audiences. I cannot tell you how many rooms I saw as I ran from one thing to the next that had five or less people in their audiences. This is embarrassing all around - for the presenters who prepared papers, for the groups who sponsored them, and for SBL.
3. We were told at the Chairs' Breakfast that 4,400 attended this year (compared to 5,000 last year). We were told that this is because the meeting was not in the northeast where there is more attendance, but this is not the reason I was hearing from colleagues who didn't come. I think this number is inflated since this must be the registered people, not the attendees. Many people who had preregistered canceled at the last minute and did not come as they had planned.
Report from New Orleans
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Phew...I couldn't figure out how to use my Blackberry to post, but I did figure out how to use the wireless on my lap top, and from my hotel room nonetheless. I know you have to be laughing, but this wireless computing is all new to me and a little intimidating because I don't know the ropes. But once I figured out that my hotel had a wireless connection and how to hook up to it, well here I am.
This is the first SBL conference in a long time that doesn't feel 'magisterial'. It feels small(er), like the conferences I used to go to twenty years ago. The book exhibit is disappointing. It is packed into two rooms - small exhibit halls, and it looks to me like there are less booths and less books in those booths. In one way it was nice not running around a big convention center since the conference is based in two hotels across the street from each other. But the flip side is that things are cramped. And I really miss my AAR friends who I haven't seen now for two years.
The sessions have been going well, although many presenters decided not to come, leaving paper spots and panels vacated. Our working group on Friday lost its afternoon session because of cancellations. The EJCM book review session on Saturday was missing a reviewer, although his paper was read, and one of the coauthors, although his response was read. The James and Q session was missing half its panel, although I heard it was awesome (sorry I missed it). The Moshe Idel session suffered because Idel didn't turn up and one of the reviewers on the panel, so I feel bad for Francis' group on Religious Experience which had put that together. One of the panelists for Elaine Pagel's celebration of the Gnostic Gospels session that I was on couldn't come at the last minute. And these are just the groups I attended or heard about. It is the oddest year in terms of attendance that I have ever witnessed. Let's put it this way. I have been attending SBL for about twenty years now, and I can count on one hand the number of cancellations of papers I can recall. Until this year!
So I don't know what is happening, but I sure hope it is not a trend. And the sooner that we can join back up with AAR the better. And when I say this, I mean REALLY join back up with them.
And a note about food. I am sick of the same menu which includes shrimp, crawfish, catfish, oysters, in all versions and renditions everywhere. And since I am allergic to all these, my one and only menu choice has been steak. It was nice at lunch today to get the breakfast buffet where at least I could get an egg and some fruit.
This is the first SBL conference in a long time that doesn't feel 'magisterial'. It feels small(er), like the conferences I used to go to twenty years ago. The book exhibit is disappointing. It is packed into two rooms - small exhibit halls, and it looks to me like there are less booths and less books in those booths. In one way it was nice not running around a big convention center since the conference is based in two hotels across the street from each other. But the flip side is that things are cramped. And I really miss my AAR friends who I haven't seen now for two years.
The sessions have been going well, although many presenters decided not to come, leaving paper spots and panels vacated. Our working group on Friday lost its afternoon session because of cancellations. The EJCM book review session on Saturday was missing a reviewer, although his paper was read, and one of the coauthors, although his response was read. The James and Q session was missing half its panel, although I heard it was awesome (sorry I missed it). The Moshe Idel session suffered because Idel didn't turn up and one of the reviewers on the panel, so I feel bad for Francis' group on Religious Experience which had put that together. One of the panelists for Elaine Pagel's celebration of the Gnostic Gospels session that I was on couldn't come at the last minute. And these are just the groups I attended or heard about. It is the oddest year in terms of attendance that I have ever witnessed. Let's put it this way. I have been attending SBL for about twenty years now, and I can count on one hand the number of cancellations of papers I can recall. Until this year!
So I don't know what is happening, but I sure hope it is not a trend. And the sooner that we can join back up with AAR the better. And when I say this, I mean REALLY join back up with them.
And a note about food. I am sick of the same menu which includes shrimp, crawfish, catfish, oysters, in all versions and renditions everywhere. And since I am allergic to all these, my one and only menu choice has been steak. It was nice at lunch today to get the breakfast buffet where at least I could get an egg and some fruit.
I'll be out of touch for a few days
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I fly out to New Orleans tomorrow and I will be out of touch with my blog until I get back. I haven't yet mastered posting from my blackberry. I will post about the conference when I get back and settled at home.
Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism Sessions at SBL 2009
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Please try to make these sessions. All of them should be terrific. Our sessions are usually very productive and informative. I am posting here the information from the program book which includes the room numbers.
The first session includes a book review of Christopher Rowland's and Christopher Murray-Jones' long-awaited book on New Testament Mysticism.
The first session includes a book review of Christopher Rowland's and Christopher Murray-Jones' long-awaited book on New Testament Mysticism.
Early Jewish and Christian MysticismThe second is on second-century mysticism in Christian sources. I'm going to be talking about my next project which is mapping the initiatory rites of the Gnostics (lots of astrology here). Grant Adamson and Franklin Trammell are my graduate students. Adamson will be presenting an important paper on the Gospel of Judas and horoscopes. Trammell will be talking about Hermas' view of the church as the androgynous body of God. Jonathan Draper will be discussing the Ascension of Isaiah.
11/21/2009
1:00 PM to 3:30 PM
Room: Napoleon D3 - SH
Reviews of Christopher Rowland and Christopher Morray-Jones’ book, The Mystery of God: Jewish Mysticism and the New Testament (Brill, 2009), and responses by the authors.Silviu Bunta, University of Dayton, Presiding
Alan Segal, Columbia University, Panelist (10 min)
Kevin Sullivan, Illinois Wesleyan University, Panelist (10 min)
Charles A. Gieschen, Concordia Theological Seminary - Fort Wayne, Panelist (10 min)
James R. Davila, University of St. Andrews, Panelist (10 min)
Christopher Morray-Jones, California, Respondent (15 min)
Discussion (20 min)
Break (15 min)
Elizabeth Morton, McGill University
The Role of Ecstasy in the Formation of Abraham, the Sage (25 min)
Dragos-Andrei Giulea, Marquette University
The Noetic Turn in Jewish-Christian Mysticism: Revisiting Esoterism, Mysticism, and Internalization with Philo, Clement, and Origen (25 min)
Discussion (10 min)
Early Jewish and Christian MysticismThe third session is on mysticism in early Judaism. I am not as familiar with the presenters and papers, except my colleague and friend Rebecca Lesses, and anything she is discussing is well worth hearing!
11/22/2009
4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
Room: Balcony J - MRTheme: Second-Century Christian Mysticism and Gnosticism
Kevin Sullivan, Illinois Wesleyan University, Presiding
April D. Deconick, Rice University
Star Gates and Heavenly Places: What Were the Gnostics Doing? (25 min)
Grant Adamson, Rice University
Fate Indelible: The Gospel of Judas as Horoscope (25 min)
Discussion (15 min)
Break (15 min)
Franklin Trammell, Rice University
The Tower as Divine Body: Visions and Theurgy in the Shepherd of Hermas (25 min)
Jonathan Knight, Katie Wheeler Research Trust/York St John University, UK
The use of Jewish and other Mystical Traditions in the Ascension of Isaiah (25 min)
Discussion (20 min)
Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism
11/23/2009
4:00 PM to 6:30 PM
Room: Southdown Room - SHTheme: Mysticism in Early Judaism
Silviu N. Bunta, University of Dayton, Presiding
Matthew J. Grey, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Joseph and Aseneth, Hekhalot Mysticism, and the “Parting of the Ways” between Christianity and Judaism in Late Antiquity (25 min)
Rebecca Lesses, Ithaca College
Female Jewish mystics in late antiquity: real women or literary construction? (25 min)
Discussion (15 min)
Break (15 min)
R. Jackson Painter, Simpson University
Mystical Identification with Christ in the Odes of Solomon (25 min)
David Larsen, Marquette University
And He Departed from the Throne: The Enthronement of Moses in Place of the Noble Man in Exagoge of Ezekiel the Tragedian (25 min)
Discussion (20 min)
New Testament Mysticism Project
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Please note: the New Testament Mysticism Project will only be holding its morning session on Friday (9am-12). The afternoon session has had to be canceled due to several presenters canceling their trips to New Orleans. I don't know our room number yet.
UPDATE: meets in Edgewood AB - SH
UPDATE: meets in Edgewood AB - SH
Will I see you in New Orleans?
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I have heard from many of my friends and colleagues that this year they are not going to attend SBL - always a last minute decision. Why are so many people not going this year?
I am just finishing my presentations - thankfully! - but have come down with a bad sinus infection. My doctor raised her eyebrows when I said I had to get on a plane Thursday. I hope I feel better then than I do today!
I am just finishing my presentations - thankfully! - but have come down with a bad sinus infection. My doctor raised her eyebrows when I said I had to get on a plane Thursday. I hope I feel better then than I do today!
A response to Pastor Bob
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Pastor Bob left this in a comment, raising the issue that he too, as a theological blogger, has been on the receiving end of attack, and notes that the attack is not just positional but personal.
As for the viciousness of academia and the unwritten rule that we need to win at all costs, this is a climate we too can choose to change. Who made up this rule anyway? Who says that we have to fight like dogs in order to be good scholars? Now I don't want to be misunderstood here. Criticism is not a bad thing, but it needs to be constructive, it needs to work to move our thinking forward. We must take stands when a stand is needed. BUT let's face it, most of us are fairly close on our general views, and our arguments are generally (not always) over the small stuff.
Recognizing this, about fifteen years ago, I helped put together a group to study Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism. One of the things that was important to me was that the group function constructively, that the environment was not hostile and warlike, but collegial and cooperative. That group is still in existence, and I have had scholars come up to me more than once and say that the ONLY reason they bother coming to SBL anymore is to attend our group. Why? Because we are actually doing something constructive in an environment that is cooperative. Why most of our conference continues with this old model of fighting and bickering is beyond me. It serves none of us well, it does not move the field forward. It reflects a mentality of scholarship that is harmful not helpful. Academia is not a war. In fact, we can accomplish a lot more by putting our heads together in a think tank then we will ever be able to do fighting each other as individual scholars.
I blog on theological issues, issues in the PCUSA and sometimes Biblical issues as related to issues in the PCUSA. I'm male but have noticed the tendency to react by some bloggers with derogatory comments not only about what I say but also about me.Bob raises two issues I would like to respond to. Regarding biblioblogging, I think we need to agree among ourselves to cultivate an atmosphere of respect, and demeaning remarks need to be left out of our conversations. Fair criticism is one thing. Demeaning a position or a person is another.
Being a Calvinist I suppose I understand the reason people don't respond in calm and ration manners. Winning is more important than rational discussion and some believe the proper way to win is attack.
I have participated in April's blog for a while now and while I don't always agree with her I like her perspective.
If you can get more women who will participate in rational discussion (while I have noticed that males tend to attack more often some women do too.) I would love to participate.
BTW I am not surprised but also disappointed that disagreement in academia is as virulent and demeaning as it is in church circles.
As for the viciousness of academia and the unwritten rule that we need to win at all costs, this is a climate we too can choose to change. Who made up this rule anyway? Who says that we have to fight like dogs in order to be good scholars? Now I don't want to be misunderstood here. Criticism is not a bad thing, but it needs to be constructive, it needs to work to move our thinking forward. We must take stands when a stand is needed. BUT let's face it, most of us are fairly close on our general views, and our arguments are generally (not always) over the small stuff.
Recognizing this, about fifteen years ago, I helped put together a group to study Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism. One of the things that was important to me was that the group function constructively, that the environment was not hostile and warlike, but collegial and cooperative. That group is still in existence, and I have had scholars come up to me more than once and say that the ONLY reason they bother coming to SBL anymore is to attend our group. Why? Because we are actually doing something constructive in an environment that is cooperative. Why most of our conference continues with this old model of fighting and bickering is beyond me. It serves none of us well, it does not move the field forward. It reflects a mentality of scholarship that is harmful not helpful. Academia is not a war. In fact, we can accomplish a lot more by putting our heads together in a think tank then we will ever be able to do fighting each other as individual scholars.
2009 SBL Program Book
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Here is the LINK for the 2009 SBL Program Book. More on specific sessions I want to highlight later.
I was surprised too
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As a follow-up to my post last night, I want to stress that I was very surprised by the results of my experimental exercises. I had been taught as a form critic and a source critic and a redaction critic in university. So these were my standards, and I thought that their conclusions were reasonable given our evidence. So I set up my experimental exercises with the expectation that I would see some distinction in the memory distortions that occurred in the different media modes of transmission (OO, OW, WO, WW).
When I didn't, it struck me hard how much our field makes up theories with little to no hard evidence to support them. And then we go about using those theories as our assumption base and creating more theories on top of them. The only thing that we go on is the seat of our pants, and any reasonable scenario appears arguable and convincing. We tell ourselves it is okay because we cannot recreate the ancient world to study, and continue along our merry way. At least this has been my own personal experience.
But what happens when we compare the results of our modern day experiments to the texts we have and we discover comparable memory distortions, when human memory appears to be the big factor? In this case, the position that needs to justify itself is the one that continues to plead that we don't have the ancient people to study.
I want to emphasize that my sample was small and only was a pilot exercise. More testing needs to be done. To do this, I really need to set up a lab at Rice, and to do this is going to require money and a big time commitment on my part. I still have an entire data set from my earlier experiment sitting on my shelf in which I tested for secondary orality. This data is waiting to be collated and analyzed, but I haven't been able to get around to it yet. In this case, I asked the subjects to memorize the mustard seed parable from Mark. On a set date, I tested them on their memory of the parable by asking them to record it. Then I asked them to listen to a different version of the mustard seed parable. I then asked them after a period of 45 minutes (so we would be dealing with long-term memory instead of immediate recall) to record the version that they had heard. I have no idea yet regarding the results, because I haven't had the time to do the data analysis yet.
These experiments taught me more than I can even convey in writing, but they required a level of organization and computation and rigor which was taxing for me. I got little else done that year which was frustrating since my real academic interest is intellectual history. At the moment, I am trying to handle the new Coptic codex which contains the Gospel of Judas, and so any return to this type of cognitive classroom is going to have to wait for me. But I encourage my colleagues to consult cognitive psychologists at their universities and begin their own testing. Be open to what might happen, and do not be afraid to share what you learn. The way to move the field forward is to try new things and see what we can see. If nothing happens of importance, oh well. But if we learn something, doors might open to us that otherwise would remain closed.
When I didn't, it struck me hard how much our field makes up theories with little to no hard evidence to support them. And then we go about using those theories as our assumption base and creating more theories on top of them. The only thing that we go on is the seat of our pants, and any reasonable scenario appears arguable and convincing. We tell ourselves it is okay because we cannot recreate the ancient world to study, and continue along our merry way. At least this has been my own personal experience.
But what happens when we compare the results of our modern day experiments to the texts we have and we discover comparable memory distortions, when human memory appears to be the big factor? In this case, the position that needs to justify itself is the one that continues to plead that we don't have the ancient people to study.
I want to emphasize that my sample was small and only was a pilot exercise. More testing needs to be done. To do this, I really need to set up a lab at Rice, and to do this is going to require money and a big time commitment on my part. I still have an entire data set from my earlier experiment sitting on my shelf in which I tested for secondary orality. This data is waiting to be collated and analyzed, but I haven't been able to get around to it yet. In this case, I asked the subjects to memorize the mustard seed parable from Mark. On a set date, I tested them on their memory of the parable by asking them to record it. Then I asked them to listen to a different version of the mustard seed parable. I then asked them after a period of 45 minutes (so we would be dealing with long-term memory instead of immediate recall) to record the version that they had heard. I have no idea yet regarding the results, because I haven't had the time to do the data analysis yet.
These experiments taught me more than I can even convey in writing, but they required a level of organization and computation and rigor which was taxing for me. I got little else done that year which was frustrating since my real academic interest is intellectual history. At the moment, I am trying to handle the new Coptic codex which contains the Gospel of Judas, and so any return to this type of cognitive classroom is going to have to wait for me. But I encourage my colleagues to consult cognitive psychologists at their universities and begin their own testing. Be open to what might happen, and do not be afraid to share what you learn. The way to move the field forward is to try new things and see what we can see. If nothing happens of importance, oh well. But if we learn something, doors might open to us that otherwise would remain closed.
human memory is THE factor
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I appreciate Mark Goodacre's response to my recent posts. But I must insist that experimentation makes a difference - a huge difference - in what we can and can't know, and what we can and can't argue. On this see the good post by N.T. Wrong (who seems to be consistently right - when will we know your ID?).
Take for example Professor Bartlett's experiments which were created not as laboratory experiments, but as real life tests of human memory. He asked subjects to read a story three times. Then at varying intervals he asked his subjects to write the story down. He noted specific alterations (what we call today memory distortions) to the materials. These alterations are specific and consistent. I found the same ones, and I did not have access to his experiments until after I had run my own and was writing up my analyses. This was another shock to my system.
What is fascinating is that originally I wanted to track the differences in media environments. So I had divided my subjects into five groups: oral-to-oral (OO=heard saying and orated reproduction); oral-to-written (OW=heard saying and wrote down reproduction); written-to-oral (WO=read saying and orated reproduction); written-to-written (WW=read saying and wrote down reproduction); and sources-retained (SR=read saying and wrote down reproduction but retained written "original"). In other words, I had four media environments in which composition and recall relied entirely on human memory, while one media environment allowed my subjects to consult a written source. I was confident that I would discover all sorts of differences in the first four mixed media reproductions and was ready to track them.
Much to my surprise, the differences in these four media environments were not present at all in long-term memory reproductions. In other words, in the four the media modes that relied on human memory for transmission, there was no difference in how the material looked after it was transmitted. The material underwent the same type of changes at the same rates. The differences occurred only when the written source was retained and the subjects could consult it.
In other words, from the reproductions themselves made by my subjects it was impossible to deduce whether the subject heard the saying or read the saying, wrote it down or orated it, as long as this was done from memory and not from consultation of a written source. The factor for distortion in transmission was NOT the media environment - it was dependence on human memory.
So how can we tell if the author of Thomas' parable of the Wheat and Tares was dependent on Matthew? If we are dealing with literary dependence through consultation of Matthew's text, we would expect either near verbatim reproduction or paraphrase according to the results of my experimental exercises - and we have neither of these. This is too complicated for me to go into here, so please have a read of my article and the results which I charted.
If the author of Thomas' parable was remembering Matthew's version, then the only way to know that it is Matthew's version and not some other is to detect a significant amount of Matthean development of the parable in Thomas' version. It becomes difficult at this point to detect exactly what is Matthew's development, since the concept of ONE originating parable cannot exist in an oral-rhetorical culture.
I REALLY caution all of us on this point, because I discovered in another experimental exercise that I didn't publish (yet?) that when you have twenty-five versions of a parable in front of you that all look similar, if you ask how these twenty-five versions came about, you are tempted to try to build a family-tree based on similarities in some versions. But what I'm finding is that people make the same adjustments to versions INDEPENDENTLY of each other, and these adjustments are due to the way in which our memories work, and cultural and linguistic phenomena within a given generation of people. So the twenty-five versions may be all independent versions with no relationship to each other except that all persons were present to hear a version orated (and in fact were in the case of my experimental exercise). I admit being quite shocked about this, and seeing form criticism fail miserably before my very eyes.
But if we examine the Thomasine parable carefully we see that we do not have significant commonalities with Matthean secondary developments (="rationalization" or "idiosyncrisies" as Bartlett would have phrased it). The verses that appear to me to reflect Matthew's theological interests - the dialogue of the enemy in vvs. 27-28 and the accumulated proverb in v. 30 - are not found in Thomas' version. But Thomas' version represents a condensed form of the parable, although it is impossible to conclude that this originating form is a memory of Matthew's version or some other version available to the person who composed Thomas' version (which still, based on studies of oral composition, has the characteristics of an orally-composed text).
Take for example Professor Bartlett's experiments which were created not as laboratory experiments, but as real life tests of human memory. He asked subjects to read a story three times. Then at varying intervals he asked his subjects to write the story down. He noted specific alterations (what we call today memory distortions) to the materials. These alterations are specific and consistent. I found the same ones, and I did not have access to his experiments until after I had run my own and was writing up my analyses. This was another shock to my system.
What is fascinating is that originally I wanted to track the differences in media environments. So I had divided my subjects into five groups: oral-to-oral (OO=heard saying and orated reproduction); oral-to-written (OW=heard saying and wrote down reproduction); written-to-oral (WO=read saying and orated reproduction); written-to-written (WW=read saying and wrote down reproduction); and sources-retained (SR=read saying and wrote down reproduction but retained written "original"). In other words, I had four media environments in which composition and recall relied entirely on human memory, while one media environment allowed my subjects to consult a written source. I was confident that I would discover all sorts of differences in the first four mixed media reproductions and was ready to track them.
Much to my surprise, the differences in these four media environments were not present at all in long-term memory reproductions. In other words, in the four the media modes that relied on human memory for transmission, there was no difference in how the material looked after it was transmitted. The material underwent the same type of changes at the same rates. The differences occurred only when the written source was retained and the subjects could consult it.
In other words, from the reproductions themselves made by my subjects it was impossible to deduce whether the subject heard the saying or read the saying, wrote it down or orated it, as long as this was done from memory and not from consultation of a written source. The factor for distortion in transmission was NOT the media environment - it was dependence on human memory.
So how can we tell if the author of Thomas' parable of the Wheat and Tares was dependent on Matthew? If we are dealing with literary dependence through consultation of Matthew's text, we would expect either near verbatim reproduction or paraphrase according to the results of my experimental exercises - and we have neither of these. This is too complicated for me to go into here, so please have a read of my article and the results which I charted.
If the author of Thomas' parable was remembering Matthew's version, then the only way to know that it is Matthew's version and not some other is to detect a significant amount of Matthean development of the parable in Thomas' version. It becomes difficult at this point to detect exactly what is Matthew's development, since the concept of ONE originating parable cannot exist in an oral-rhetorical culture.
I REALLY caution all of us on this point, because I discovered in another experimental exercise that I didn't publish (yet?) that when you have twenty-five versions of a parable in front of you that all look similar, if you ask how these twenty-five versions came about, you are tempted to try to build a family-tree based on similarities in some versions. But what I'm finding is that people make the same adjustments to versions INDEPENDENTLY of each other, and these adjustments are due to the way in which our memories work, and cultural and linguistic phenomena within a given generation of people. So the twenty-five versions may be all independent versions with no relationship to each other except that all persons were present to hear a version orated (and in fact were in the case of my experimental exercise). I admit being quite shocked about this, and seeing form criticism fail miserably before my very eyes.
But if we examine the Thomasine parable carefully we see that we do not have significant commonalities with Matthean secondary developments (="rationalization" or "idiosyncrisies" as Bartlett would have phrased it). The verses that appear to me to reflect Matthew's theological interests - the dialogue of the enemy in vvs. 27-28 and the accumulated proverb in v. 30 - are not found in Thomas' version. But Thomas' version represents a condensed form of the parable, although it is impossible to conclude that this originating form is a memory of Matthew's version or some other version available to the person who composed Thomas' version (which still, based on studies of oral composition, has the characteristics of an orally-composed text).
SBL Memories 3: Become more scientific
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I promised to expand on points 3 and 4 of my last post, which I would like to do today. Mainly I want to respond to the persistent comment that because we can't experiment with ancient people, we can't learn anything valuable and shouldn't bother experimenting or relying on modern psych literature.
Although it is certainly true that we do not have ancient people to use in our experiments, the conclusion that we can't learn anything valuable and shouldn't bother experimenting or relying on psych literature is not a justifiable conclusion. What it amounts to is an excuse to keep us all in the dark about the impact human memory had on the Jesus traditions and how materials were actually composed in a world in which literacy was so low that an oral consciousness even dominated the written word and scribal practices.
Why do we want to be kept in the dark? Because it allows us to conclude whatever we want to from our ancient sources, with no justification beyond that it might sound good to us? This way we can keep the red letter edition of our bibles and we can write assuredly who the historical Jesus was?
But the facts are these. The only way that we have the actual verbatim words of Jesus is if someone followed him around and recorded in writing immediately everything he said with 100% accuracy, and then this document was copied with no errors into other documents. Or if someone with a very good short term memory spoke immediately what he had heard to the next person who also had a very good short term memory and so forth until it was written down with 100% accuracy. Since neither of these processes are likely, we can forget the red letter editions, and we can forget knowing what he said verbatim or who the historical Jesus was beyond the broader strokes.
What about trained discipleship, where Jesus was the teacher teaching his disciples to memorize his words? For those who like this model, it must be kept in mind that such training, if it existed (which I seriously doubt in the case of the Jesus movement since this is nowhere found in our Christian sources) was not about verbatim memory. It was about remembering the central teaching and a few words, and reconstructing from memory the best one could. The ancient people knew that their memories, even trained, were not that accurate. This is why the rabbis had all kinds of magical spells to try to improve their memory of the Torah! Our notion of memorizing is based on our knowledge of literacy, where we have texts that we can read over and over and over again, test our memory of it for accuracy, and keep working on it like this until we get it into our long-term memories. But this is not the way of the ancient world, where most memory work had to be done orally with little to no reference to written words. What one can remember in this type of learning environment is very different from the literate "memorizing" we all think about today.
In order to know how this process worked and how it might have affected the composition of our texts, it is essential in my experience to experiment and to read in cognitive psychology which tells us how human memory operates and affects the transmission process. When we compare the results of this knowledge with what we see in our texts, it is really quite amazing what we can learn about the ancient people processes.
Let me give an example that I mentioned too in the SBL session. Professor Goodacre points out that on several occasions Thomas fails to narrate the middle part of a given parable, making the ending almost unintelligible. He uses the Parable of the Wheat and Tares as a clear example of this. He concludes that this clumsiness comes from Thomas’ familiarity with the Synoptic stories, when he rushes to retell the familiar story, rather like someone who can’t tell a good joke, he rushes ahead to the punchline and leaves out the middle.
What is the evidence that writers who have a literary document in front of them from which they are copying ever leave out the middle because they are rushed? Just based on logic, I would think that literary copying would be otherwise. That the copyist would be more careful to preserve the material he is using, that he is working slowly, that he can stop and go back and double check, and that he can erase and correct. Such is not the case, however, when an author is relying on human memory, when he cannot double check a written source. Even more so for the author who is composing orally, when in fact he really is like a teller of jokes who forgets the middle to rush to the end, and who cannot stop and redo it, or erase what he has just said because he is speaking, not writing, as he composes. But this is just my logic, it is not based on any scientific data.
So what about scientific data? What experiments have been done that might help us? The subject of memory distortion is its own field of study within cognitive psychology, but most studies on errors of commission generally try to explain why memory distorts rather than how it distorts. Although there has been related work done in the field of cognitive psychology on the instability and stability of human memory, the only experiments conducted that might help with the questions we have about literary dependence is the work of McIver and Carroll (JBL 2002, Applied Cognitive Psychology 2004). So I went after a grant and set up my own pilot experimental exercises with the help of Professor Jean Pretz, a cognitive psychologist at Illinois Wesleyan University where I was a professor at that time. I have just published the results in Tom Thatcher’s volume, Jesus, the Voice, and the Text, "Human Memory and the Sayings of Jesus: Contemporary Experimental Exercises in the Transmission of Jesus Traditions," so I refer you to that article for all the supporting data. I want to emphasize that the results are based on only forty-four subjects and my goal was only to run a short pilot – to test the waters and see if my results warranted further experimentation on a larger-scale that would be able to generate more-significant statistical data. Even though these findings should be tested further, the results are in line with the results of other studies conducted by psychologists who study human memory.
One of these relates directly to Professor Goodacre’s example. In my experimental exercises, I asked different groups of students to transmit proverbs, parables, and miracles stories in different media environments. I found that the traditions that relied on human memory for transmission suffered drastic condensation and remodeling, even to the point of becoming nonsense. The psychological experiments of Professor Bartlett in the 1930s proved this as well (Remembering, Cambridge, 1932). Whenever a person was asked to recount from memory a story, and it was written down, the narrative was denuded to an undecorated tale. Bartlett noticed that only the main points were left, the central motifs.
This is not to say that details weren’t added. They were, and when this happened, they usually were features more contemporary or idiosyncratic, representing the view, and as Bartlett called it, the rationalization of the tradent. Even so, moderate expansion was not the norm in any of the memory environments that I studied. But it was the norm for the words to be condensed into something more easy to recall.
Data from my own experimental exercises not only support Bartlett here, but further suggest that the lost of details happens mostly in the middle of the reproductions just as we see in Thomas 57. I might add further that the entire saying displays the characteristics of an orally transmitted parable. It commonalities with Matthew’s version amount to a few memory trigger words like “good seed”, “enemy came,” “pull out the wheat,” “harvest” and “burned.” Although the general message of the parable is maintained across the versions, the details and presentations are strikingly different. Thomas’ version has been abridged over the years of its oral performance to the point that the antecedent “them” has been lost. Matthew’s version has been expanded during its transmission so that it contains secondary features that appear to reflect the theological interests of Matthew, such as the dialogue about the “enemy” in vvs. 27 and 28 and the accumulated proverb in v. 30. Both versions suggest that each author received something older, yet exactly what that older version was is impossible to determine. The reason for this is that in the oral sphere we can have no single originating version from which we can create a family-tree of dependent versions.
Let me know if you want to hear more about this subject. I will gladly post on it. But this particular post is getting too long for a blog.
Although it is certainly true that we do not have ancient people to use in our experiments, the conclusion that we can't learn anything valuable and shouldn't bother experimenting or relying on psych literature is not a justifiable conclusion. What it amounts to is an excuse to keep us all in the dark about the impact human memory had on the Jesus traditions and how materials were actually composed in a world in which literacy was so low that an oral consciousness even dominated the written word and scribal practices.
Why do we want to be kept in the dark? Because it allows us to conclude whatever we want to from our ancient sources, with no justification beyond that it might sound good to us? This way we can keep the red letter edition of our bibles and we can write assuredly who the historical Jesus was?
But the facts are these. The only way that we have the actual verbatim words of Jesus is if someone followed him around and recorded in writing immediately everything he said with 100% accuracy, and then this document was copied with no errors into other documents. Or if someone with a very good short term memory spoke immediately what he had heard to the next person who also had a very good short term memory and so forth until it was written down with 100% accuracy. Since neither of these processes are likely, we can forget the red letter editions, and we can forget knowing what he said verbatim or who the historical Jesus was beyond the broader strokes.
What about trained discipleship, where Jesus was the teacher teaching his disciples to memorize his words? For those who like this model, it must be kept in mind that such training, if it existed (which I seriously doubt in the case of the Jesus movement since this is nowhere found in our Christian sources) was not about verbatim memory. It was about remembering the central teaching and a few words, and reconstructing from memory the best one could. The ancient people knew that their memories, even trained, were not that accurate. This is why the rabbis had all kinds of magical spells to try to improve their memory of the Torah! Our notion of memorizing is based on our knowledge of literacy, where we have texts that we can read over and over and over again, test our memory of it for accuracy, and keep working on it like this until we get it into our long-term memories. But this is not the way of the ancient world, where most memory work had to be done orally with little to no reference to written words. What one can remember in this type of learning environment is very different from the literate "memorizing" we all think about today.
In order to know how this process worked and how it might have affected the composition of our texts, it is essential in my experience to experiment and to read in cognitive psychology which tells us how human memory operates and affects the transmission process. When we compare the results of this knowledge with what we see in our texts, it is really quite amazing what we can learn about the ancient people processes.
Let me give an example that I mentioned too in the SBL session. Professor Goodacre points out that on several occasions Thomas fails to narrate the middle part of a given parable, making the ending almost unintelligible. He uses the Parable of the Wheat and Tares as a clear example of this. He concludes that this clumsiness comes from Thomas’ familiarity with the Synoptic stories, when he rushes to retell the familiar story, rather like someone who can’t tell a good joke, he rushes ahead to the punchline and leaves out the middle.
What is the evidence that writers who have a literary document in front of them from which they are copying ever leave out the middle because they are rushed? Just based on logic, I would think that literary copying would be otherwise. That the copyist would be more careful to preserve the material he is using, that he is working slowly, that he can stop and go back and double check, and that he can erase and correct. Such is not the case, however, when an author is relying on human memory, when he cannot double check a written source. Even more so for the author who is composing orally, when in fact he really is like a teller of jokes who forgets the middle to rush to the end, and who cannot stop and redo it, or erase what he has just said because he is speaking, not writing, as he composes. But this is just my logic, it is not based on any scientific data.
So what about scientific data? What experiments have been done that might help us? The subject of memory distortion is its own field of study within cognitive psychology, but most studies on errors of commission generally try to explain why memory distorts rather than how it distorts. Although there has been related work done in the field of cognitive psychology on the instability and stability of human memory, the only experiments conducted that might help with the questions we have about literary dependence is the work of McIver and Carroll (JBL 2002, Applied Cognitive Psychology 2004). So I went after a grant and set up my own pilot experimental exercises with the help of Professor Jean Pretz, a cognitive psychologist at Illinois Wesleyan University where I was a professor at that time. I have just published the results in Tom Thatcher’s volume, Jesus, the Voice, and the Text, "Human Memory and the Sayings of Jesus: Contemporary Experimental Exercises in the Transmission of Jesus Traditions," so I refer you to that article for all the supporting data. I want to emphasize that the results are based on only forty-four subjects and my goal was only to run a short pilot – to test the waters and see if my results warranted further experimentation on a larger-scale that would be able to generate more-significant statistical data. Even though these findings should be tested further, the results are in line with the results of other studies conducted by psychologists who study human memory.
One of these relates directly to Professor Goodacre’s example. In my experimental exercises, I asked different groups of students to transmit proverbs, parables, and miracles stories in different media environments. I found that the traditions that relied on human memory for transmission suffered drastic condensation and remodeling, even to the point of becoming nonsense. The psychological experiments of Professor Bartlett in the 1930s proved this as well (Remembering, Cambridge, 1932). Whenever a person was asked to recount from memory a story, and it was written down, the narrative was denuded to an undecorated tale. Bartlett noticed that only the main points were left, the central motifs.
This is not to say that details weren’t added. They were, and when this happened, they usually were features more contemporary or idiosyncratic, representing the view, and as Bartlett called it, the rationalization of the tradent. Even so, moderate expansion was not the norm in any of the memory environments that I studied. But it was the norm for the words to be condensed into something more easy to recall.
Data from my own experimental exercises not only support Bartlett here, but further suggest that the lost of details happens mostly in the middle of the reproductions just as we see in Thomas 57. I might add further that the entire saying displays the characteristics of an orally transmitted parable. It commonalities with Matthew’s version amount to a few memory trigger words like “good seed”, “enemy came,” “pull out the wheat,” “harvest” and “burned.” Although the general message of the parable is maintained across the versions, the details and presentations are strikingly different. Thomas’ version has been abridged over the years of its oral performance to the point that the antecedent “them” has been lost. Matthew’s version has been expanded during its transmission so that it contains secondary features that appear to reflect the theological interests of Matthew, such as the dialogue about the “enemy” in vvs. 27 and 28 and the accumulated proverb in v. 30. Both versions suggest that each author received something older, yet exactly what that older version was is impossible to determine. The reason for this is that in the oral sphere we can have no single originating version from which we can create a family-tree of dependent versions.
Let me know if you want to hear more about this subject. I will gladly post on it. But this particular post is getting too long for a blog.
SBL Memories 2: Dating our sources
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On Saturday afternoon, the new consultation on the Cross and Diversity in early Christianity held a session on dating sources. Mark Goodacre and Simon Gathercole gave key note papers. I responded to Goodacre and Stephen Patterson to Gathercole. The room was packed. People were hanging out the doorways, and people were even sitting behind me when I was speaking at the podium. Conclusion: the room was too small for a discussion that many wanted to be a part of.
My sense was that this was a panel that really brought out how divided the academy is in terms of method and assumptions. It showed me just how much we are in a time of transition, when the older models are being seriously questioned and yet we don't have anything better in place yet. I tried to emphasize three major shifts in the field that I think must be taken very seriously:
1. What are we to do with the extra-canonical materials? My approach is to understand three phases of writing among early Christians. I would place these documents in these phases, which means that there is substantial material to work with in the pre-70 CE period, informing us mostly about Jerusalem and Antiochean Christianity and the conflicts that were taking place. I am still not convinced that the provenance of Q is Galilee. It appears Antiochean to me:
But honestly when we are dealing with issues of literary dependence and basing our conclusions on “same” words here and there, shouldn’t we be more than a little concerned that we don’t have much in terms of manuscripts prior to the third century? And those which we do have vary substantially, even versions of the same text.
This sort of variation is typical of rhetorical societies where scribal practices have developed out of oral consciousness. Add to this that we know the early Christians were quite comfortable altering texts to fit their needs, and complaining loudly about other Christians whom they thought were doing so too.
This suggests that we have two big hurdles: we don’t have the first-century texts, and we don’t have stable texts until relatively late, and some would argue, if ever. So for the future of literary dependence arguments to succeed, scholars are going to have to figure out how to take into account our vast manuscript tradition and what the existence of all these variants actually means in terms of ancient composition and transmission of documents.
3. We need to understand how ancient people actually composed their texts, how they operated within the rhetorical environment. What part does human memory play in this process? I will try to post separately an expansion on this issue.
4. We need to start testing our theories by setting up scientific experiments, or at the very least, reading cognitive psychology literature beyond a few college textbooks. Because human memory is a factor in the transmission of materials in rhetorical environments, it behooves us to know how the human memory works and how its effects might be reflected in the various versions of sayings of Jesus that we find in the literature. I'll try to post a separate post on this as well.
My sense was that this was a panel that really brought out how divided the academy is in terms of method and assumptions. It showed me just how much we are in a time of transition, when the older models are being seriously questioned and yet we don't have anything better in place yet. I tried to emphasize three major shifts in the field that I think must be taken very seriously:
1. What are we to do with the extra-canonical materials? My approach is to understand three phases of writing among early Christians. I would place these documents in these phases, which means that there is substantial material to work with in the pre-70 CE period, informing us mostly about Jerusalem and Antiochean Christianity and the conflicts that were taking place. I am still not convinced that the provenance of Q is Galilee. It appears Antiochean to me:
First-level bearers of tradition. Pre-70 CE. The early missions when letter writing was important, as well as instruction manuals and catechisms of Jesus’ words. Here I would place Paul’s letters, the letter of James, the Didache, at least two versions of Quelle, and the early written book of Thomas that I call the Kernel Thomas.2. New developments in textual criticism and scribal practices are demonstrating that the eceletic text we call the critical edition is NOT a first century text, and is NOT what the early Christians wrote or were reading or hearing read. We have created a manuscript of the “Bible” which we treat as if it were a first-century document. The Nestle-Aland edition is not an ancient manuscript. Its committee readings to do represent any manuscript that ever existed in the ancient world. Yet our forefathers worked with this as our received critical text and made all sorts of theories about literary relationships between texts based on comparing Nestle-Aland readings internally and externally to other texts. And this approach continues today without even the slightest pause.
Second-level creators of foundation stories. 70-100 CE. The death of the eyewitnesses and the destruction of the Temple prompted this generation of Christians to rewrite their memories and revise their received traditions. In this period, the synoptic gospels and John, Gospel of the Hebrews, Acts, deutro-Pauline letters, Revelation, P. Egerton 2 (?), Hebrews (?),
Third-level developers of formative theology and ecclesiology. 100-135 CE. This generation of writers was focused on formative theology, ecclesiology and interactions with other communities (whether peaceful or aggressive). 1 Clement, Johannine letters, 1 and 2 Peter, Jude, Pastoral Pauline letters, commentaries of Basilides (lost), writings of Valentinus (fragments), Shepherd of Hermas, writings of Marcion (lost), letters of Ignatius and Polycarp, Papias’ books (fragments), Hegesippus (fragments), Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of the Egyptians, Gospel of the Ebionites, Letter of Barnabas, Gospel of Peter.
But honestly when we are dealing with issues of literary dependence and basing our conclusions on “same” words here and there, shouldn’t we be more than a little concerned that we don’t have much in terms of manuscripts prior to the third century? And those which we do have vary substantially, even versions of the same text.
This sort of variation is typical of rhetorical societies where scribal practices have developed out of oral consciousness. Add to this that we know the early Christians were quite comfortable altering texts to fit their needs, and complaining loudly about other Christians whom they thought were doing so too.
This suggests that we have two big hurdles: we don’t have the first-century texts, and we don’t have stable texts until relatively late, and some would argue, if ever. So for the future of literary dependence arguments to succeed, scholars are going to have to figure out how to take into account our vast manuscript tradition and what the existence of all these variants actually means in terms of ancient composition and transmission of documents.
3. We need to understand how ancient people actually composed their texts, how they operated within the rhetorical environment. What part does human memory play in this process? I will try to post separately an expansion on this issue.
4. We need to start testing our theories by setting up scientific experiments, or at the very least, reading cognitive psychology literature beyond a few college textbooks. Because human memory is a factor in the transmission of materials in rhetorical environments, it behooves us to know how the human memory works and how its effects might be reflected in the various versions of sayings of Jesus that we find in the literature. I'll try to post a separate post on this as well.
SBL Memories 1: The Judas Section
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The start of the holidays have been a whirlwind following a whirlwind SBL conference. If the AAR-SBL split was felt in Chicago, it was not in Boston, although I missed running into my AAR friends. The SBL conference was huge - 5,100 attendees. There were more sections and events than ever before, and the book exhibit was as huge as ever. The only downside was the cold weather. The Boston wind was bitter, and I was very grateful for the hotels connected to the conference center and mall.
We kicked off the conference well at 9 am on Saturday morning, at least those of us who attended the Judas section hosted by Claremont. We were in a good-sized room and I estimate that about 200 people found their way there - it was hard to find the room. Bart Erhman started us off with an interesting thesis about who the historical Judas was. I was intrigued by his speculation that Jesus was crucified by the Romans for political sedition as the King of the Jews, although we have no public record of Jesus teaching any such thing. Jesus did teach publically about a Kingdom, and that the 12 disciples would be enthroned as rulers over the 12 tribes in Jesus' Kingdom. So Ehrman wonders if Jesus privately taught that he himself was the King, and that Judas reported him once the going started to get tough. Marvin Meyer took the podium after Ehrman and spoke about three portraits of Judas: the hero Judas as the Gospel of Judas was originally interpreted, the demon Judas that I have interpreted from the Gospel of Judas, and the more sensible (according to Meyer! not me) middle-of-the-road tragic Judas that Meyer now interprets from the Gospel of Judas. Dennis MacDonald lectured about his opinion that Judas is a complete fiction, created out of Homeric myths by the author of Mark. He thinks that Matthew is completely dependent on Mark for his Judas story, and Luke is dependent on Mark, and Matthew. He dates Luke to 135 CE, but also thinks that Quelle existed, and so posits that Luke also has a version of Quelle. In my opinion, this dating is too late for Luke because Luke is already being used by Marcion between 110 and 125 CE.
What did I do? Well I revealed the mysteries - where my research has gone since I published The Thirteenth Apostle. There were three things I discussed -all of which will be included in the revised edition of The Thirteenth Apostle coming out in March (two new full chapters - "Judas the Star", and "The Magical Judas") plus corrections of errors and a section on Thomasine Christianity in the chapter on the second century landscape of early Christianity.
First, I discovered that the portraits of the lion-headed serpent Ialdabaoth were largely influenced by a popular decan god in Greco-Egyptian magic and astrology. His name was Chnoubis and in the Hellenistic lists of 36 decans he appears as the 13th! I need to say no more.
Second, I discussed the scene where Jesus tells the strongest of the disciples to lead forward the Perfect Man, and Judas accepts. I asked the question, who is the Perfect Man in Sethianism? The answer: Autogenes or his Son, the Son of Man; who is the Christ in Sethian Christianity. If this is the case, then Judas is accepting the role of leading forward Jesus as the Son of Man. This is essentially a Gnostic exegesis of Mark's last supper scene when Jesus says that the Son of Man will go forward as it is written of him. Then he predicts that one of the twelve will betray him. There is much more to the exegesis, but it is all I have time to write tonight.
Third, I showed an antique gem (ca. first or second c. CE) that my student Grant Adamson had come across in a catalogue he was working through for his own research on Gnostic magic. The gem shows the lion-headed astral god on one side with the hidden angel names in coded anagrams: Michael and Elieli. This lion-headed astral god goes by various names on these gems: IAO, Abrasax, Michael, Chnoubis, and Ialdabaoth. The idea behind the gem is that the owner possesses the god's names and can command the god to do whatever he desires for the god to do for him. The most secret and important name of the god often shows up on the back of the gem, in the center of the gem's face. At the end of my presentation - I made the audience wait until the last minute of my 30-minute talk to discover the name that has been hidden for 2000 years - to flip over the gem. And on the back centered in the gem's face is the name JUDAS. So now we have material evidence that there were people in the ancient world who identified Judas with Ialdabaoth the demon astral ruler, just as the Gospel of Judas says. This appears to have been a well-kept Gnostic secret that was believed to be very powerful. Knowing the demon's real name meant that the amulet-wearer could control the highest of the archons in this life and the afterlife!
Because I don't have copyright, I cannot post a photo of the gem. But I am working on buying copyright to have it in the revised edition of the paperback edition of my book. It is something to see! When Grant showed it to me, I almost fell out of my chair. The audience audibly gasped when they saw it.
So that's my story. Will post more on SBL 2008 when I get a chance. These next few weeks are going to be very busy. But I will do my best.
We kicked off the conference well at 9 am on Saturday morning, at least those of us who attended the Judas section hosted by Claremont. We were in a good-sized room and I estimate that about 200 people found their way there - it was hard to find the room. Bart Erhman started us off with an interesting thesis about who the historical Judas was. I was intrigued by his speculation that Jesus was crucified by the Romans for political sedition as the King of the Jews, although we have no public record of Jesus teaching any such thing. Jesus did teach publically about a Kingdom, and that the 12 disciples would be enthroned as rulers over the 12 tribes in Jesus' Kingdom. So Ehrman wonders if Jesus privately taught that he himself was the King, and that Judas reported him once the going started to get tough. Marvin Meyer took the podium after Ehrman and spoke about three portraits of Judas: the hero Judas as the Gospel of Judas was originally interpreted, the demon Judas that I have interpreted from the Gospel of Judas, and the more sensible (according to Meyer! not me) middle-of-the-road tragic Judas that Meyer now interprets from the Gospel of Judas. Dennis MacDonald lectured about his opinion that Judas is a complete fiction, created out of Homeric myths by the author of Mark. He thinks that Matthew is completely dependent on Mark for his Judas story, and Luke is dependent on Mark, and Matthew. He dates Luke to 135 CE, but also thinks that Quelle existed, and so posits that Luke also has a version of Quelle. In my opinion, this dating is too late for Luke because Luke is already being used by Marcion between 110 and 125 CE.
What did I do? Well I revealed the mysteries - where my research has gone since I published The Thirteenth Apostle. There were three things I discussed -all of which will be included in the revised edition of The Thirteenth Apostle coming out in March (two new full chapters - "Judas the Star", and "The Magical Judas") plus corrections of errors and a section on Thomasine Christianity in the chapter on the second century landscape of early Christianity.
First, I discovered that the portraits of the lion-headed serpent Ialdabaoth were largely influenced by a popular decan god in Greco-Egyptian magic and astrology. His name was Chnoubis and in the Hellenistic lists of 36 decans he appears as the 13th! I need to say no more.
Second, I discussed the scene where Jesus tells the strongest of the disciples to lead forward the Perfect Man, and Judas accepts. I asked the question, who is the Perfect Man in Sethianism? The answer: Autogenes or his Son, the Son of Man; who is the Christ in Sethian Christianity. If this is the case, then Judas is accepting the role of leading forward Jesus as the Son of Man. This is essentially a Gnostic exegesis of Mark's last supper scene when Jesus says that the Son of Man will go forward as it is written of him. Then he predicts that one of the twelve will betray him. There is much more to the exegesis, but it is all I have time to write tonight.
Third, I showed an antique gem (ca. first or second c. CE) that my student Grant Adamson had come across in a catalogue he was working through for his own research on Gnostic magic. The gem shows the lion-headed astral god on one side with the hidden angel names in coded anagrams: Michael and Elieli. This lion-headed astral god goes by various names on these gems: IAO, Abrasax, Michael, Chnoubis, and Ialdabaoth. The idea behind the gem is that the owner possesses the god's names and can command the god to do whatever he desires for the god to do for him. The most secret and important name of the god often shows up on the back of the gem, in the center of the gem's face. At the end of my presentation - I made the audience wait until the last minute of my 30-minute talk to discover the name that has been hidden for 2000 years - to flip over the gem. And on the back centered in the gem's face is the name JUDAS. So now we have material evidence that there were people in the ancient world who identified Judas with Ialdabaoth the demon astral ruler, just as the Gospel of Judas says. This appears to have been a well-kept Gnostic secret that was believed to be very powerful. Knowing the demon's real name meant that the amulet-wearer could control the highest of the archons in this life and the afterlife!
Because I don't have copyright, I cannot post a photo of the gem. But I am working on buying copyright to have it in the revised edition of the paperback edition of my book. It is something to see! When Grant showed it to me, I almost fell out of my chair. The audience audibly gasped when they saw it.
So that's my story. Will post more on SBL 2008 when I get a chance. These next few weeks are going to be very busy. But I will do my best.