Yeah, I’m stretching a bit, but toward Plato

Obviously I didn’t bring any nuance to my last post. My apologies. When I wrote that Hebrews 11:15 was talking about reincarnation I wasn’t meaning it in the modern/new age/karmic/etc sense. I was talking about it in the way Plato’s Republic explains the afterlife. Plato envisions a Dante style ending in which the good and bad are judged, and then, after having been punished for a time, all but tyrants are sent back in a new body according to their nature. For example Agamemnon becomes an eagle and a jester a monkey. At any rate I assume the writers of the New Testament are familiar with the cultures which surround them (for example Paul quotes Epimenides and Aratus in Acts 17:28) and that they know Plato. So I think the author may be alluding to the Platonic view of the afterlife, maybe even condemning it.
Read through Hebrews 11. We are being told about how these various figures from the book of Genesis did the things they did by faith, waiting in hope. Yet all of them died without receiving the promise, they died as sojourners. Of course this is the literal truth, but in Hebrews 11 I think it is being talked about in a metaphorical way. They are alienated from the earthy life and yearn for a heavenly one. If this is so, and the author also writes “If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return,” he could also be talking about this heavenly/earthly question again. Thus he could be talking about Platonic reincarnation.
And if he is doing this what is he saying about that metaphysical system? He’s saying man was not meant to be sojourners in heaven, but instead are offered a permanent place with God our Father and Jesus our Lord.
As for the Bible being timeless and disregarding the opinions of man I’d have to say yes and no. Yes, God’s word is our guide, and will always be, but no, it isn’t a magic book devoid of the messes and messages of man. It is a book that interacts with humanity’s funny opinions from a particular time period and a particular place. If the Bible was written today I have little doubt it would use different language, it would have as its backdrop different philosophies and worldviews. Paul would say, “I see that you talk about projecting the I into the Thou,” or “I have been told you are a country of Rule of Law… well let me tell you about the rule of love!” In this instance I’ve been writing about, Hebrews 11:15 it might well be written “yet because they trusted God they didn’t worry about their Karma, or their Dogma!”
That’s my attempt at nuance for the day.
Peace,
Chris

The only way Republicans can win in 2008

So the Republicans want to slice up California. Now if this was done on a national level, that woudl be fine, but as it stands this is purely political, purely partisan. This isn't about Democracy, this is about the Republican party winning by any means.

Reincarnation in the New Testament?

11:13 All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth,

11:14 for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.

11:15 If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return.

11:16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them.

[Return to top]

Dying at Resurrection Cove

Okay, so I'm still alive, but I've now realized kayaking is not my sport. Three hours in the open sea is tiring, especially when you don’t exactly know what you’re doing.
I survived.
Peace,
Chris

Bad bridges where I'm headed

So I'm headed to Philly, note that Pennsylvania seems to have the worst bridges of anywhere!

How the Brits cover news

So, I've concluded we don't have News here in the US we have gossip and kittens caught in trees. You, my wise internet readers, already knew this of course.
None the less I thought it would be interesting to point out that the reporter cuts through diplo-talk: "even referring to their meetings as full and frank, which is normal diplomatic code for an argument."
And they aren't afraid to call a pig wearing lipstick a pig: "Correspondents say Mr Bush used familiar language, including soaring rhetoric on the subject of good and evil, while Gordon Brown was much more specific, detailing a long list of what the two men had talked about."
Peace,
Chris

Where I am moving

Germantown Avenue

I am now a Cantabrigian!

So I now know without a doubt that I've passed my M.Phil in Old Testament.
Permit me a minute to bellybutton gaze.
I can now say I am Chris Halverson, M.Phil. (Cantab)!
Peace,
Chris

Us vs. Them= win for "them"

I'm back!

Returned stateside yesterday afternoon.
I arrived at London Heathrow at 4am. It looked like a war zone... something about the Tour de France... the driver said... though that made no sense to me and I was rather sleepy when he said it... Anyway I had to wander past all these concrete barriers into a deserted terminal... scratch the war zone metephore... it felt like a zombie movie, the only people you saw were 2-3 people sleeping on their bags.
On the plus size I got a good start on reading Virgil!
Peace,
Chris

I leave on the 5th of July

Well my last day in England will be the 4th of July. Hopefully I'll know how my M.Phil was graded before I leave, but more likely I'll know after.
Peace,
Chris

Facebook

So I've finally joined Facebook. It is somewhere between a phonebook for email addresses and a stalker's dream.
Peace,
Chris

Thesis done!

I turned in my thesis yesterday afternoon!
Peace,
Chris

Thesis

Summary of An Uncomfortable Bit of Rope: Retellings of the Akedah
Chris Halverson

In this dissertation I begin by describing several recent retellings of Genesis chapter 22, the Binding of Isaac, which I refer to throughout as “the Akedah.” I suggest that this event is perplexing. Then I contend that when rewriters of the Bible retell the Akedah their particular focuses manifest themselves greatly, especially at the points where their accounts deviate from the biblical version. In other words, the Akedah is a literary Rorschach test.
In order to test this contention I look at four retellings from the early second century BCE to the closing of the first century CE. They are: The Book of Jubilees, also known as The Little Genesis, by an unknown author; Philo’s On Abraham; Biblical Antiquities by an unnamed author often called, for reasons explained in the dissertation, “Pseudo-Philo”; and Josephus’ Jewish Antiquities. I finish my introduction by going through the biblical account of the event and pointing out places in the text that may be ripe for retelling.
The next section involves me looking at each of these four authors, their works, and their versions of the Binding of Isaac. I describe how their accounts of the Akedah differ from the one found in the Bible and how this reveals the author’s biases.
Then, in order to explore the cultural and historical backgrounds of the texts, I look at them in synthesis with one another.
Finally, I discuss three modern retellings of the Akedah, which I had mentioned at the start of the dissertation.

65 citations

Did my Bibliography today. 65 books/articles read, 174 footnotes.
The current draft is 49 pages, 17,400 words,
Its due on Wednesday.
Peace,
Chris