There are many ways we might approach this. One might be to work with some of the things that turn up in the interview and which would interest BW16, Roland Boer or, were he not retired, NT Wrong. Another might be one for Hendel or Berlinerblau:

CK:…a colleague and I prayed for one of the presenters at SBL who wasn’t going to be able to present his session the next day, he was going to have to go home cos he was really sick. We prayed for him and I didn’t bother going to the session cos I knew he was really sick. My colleague went, sure enough he was there. ‘Yeah I got healed when you prayed for me…’

Instead, I want to look at a favourite theme in recent years involving claims of ethnocentrism. I’m still not entirely sure what to make of the following but it struck me as being a little peculiar:

CK: He (Hume) dismisses other cultures, calling them ignorant and barbarous nations. Ultimately, when he speaks of uniform human experience, it comes down to his own circle’s experience…

…

ML: I guess the thing I’m trying to say with the Allison thing [Dale Allison having some sort of visionary experiences] when Hume says these really only happen with barbarous people, here we think of third world people running around naked down in the Amazon or, in, y’know, it’s not just barbarians [very brief nervous laugh] or the uneducated who are claiming that there are miracles that are happening in the world, there are very highly educated people like yourself [CK: yes] who can testify to miracles…I can tell you of an experience I had…

ML: …these are modern day examples, they’re intelligent people. I mean, you’ve got your PhD from Duke. They’re from intelligent people who are aware of these things. So how [can] Hume assume that his experience was comprehensive enough to rule out other people’s claims of experience? …

ML: You had mentioned earlier that Hume dismissed other cultures as being ignorant and barbarous; why was he so strong against [inaudible]?

CK: [Sigh] Keep in mind…I’m about to quote something that Hume said. If this sounds offensive to you, it really sounds offensive to me. My wife is from Congo in Africa. I don’t take kindly to language like this. But anyway

ML: You’re definitely white?

CK: Yes

ML: She’s definitely black?

CK: Yes. Hume says, quote, “I am apt to suspect the negroes and in general all of the other species of men, for there are four or five different kinds to be naturally inferior to the whites. There never was a civilised nation of any other complexion than white.” He also said that none of the slaves, out of all the slaves, none of them ever achieved learning…Hume’s arguments in favour of slavery and his arguments in favour of racism made it harder for the abolitionists; they had to contend against him. And he cast a long shadow, there were a lot of people who appealed to Hume’s prestige in support of racism as well, so when he dismisses the views of other nations as those of ignorant and barbarous peoples, that comes out of a very ethnocentric perspective and that should simply be, not permitted today, that should simply be dismissed today from any credibility.

ML: …What happens if we take into account the testimonies from other countries? So, Hume, because he was a racist, was unwilling to do that. You had to be white. You had to be Caucasian, in order for your testimony even to count…What happens today if we take into account testimonies from other cultures?

CK: [talks about how many non-Western Christians and ‘hundreds of millions of claims’ about miracles etc]…Hume’s appeal to uniform human experience at this point is simply irrational, it’s simply not uniform.

There is part of me that would like to ditch the term ‘ethnocentric’ in scholarship because it is typically used in the sense ‘you are ethnocentric but I’m not and therefore I’m more right in my historical reconstruction’ and because I am yet to be convinced it is possible for anyone not to be ethnocentric. In this instance, and probably every other instance in scholarship, the very fact that such debates are framed in Western scholarly terms is immediately ethnocentric to some degree. That’s not necessarily good or bad but it is inevitable (and in certain cases it can be endorsed…but that’s for another day).

Licona’s questioning was particularly striking, aside from the questions about being white and black (which sounded odder to me than they look, to me, in print). In particular, there was this:

…Hume says these really only happen with barbarous people, here we think of third world people running around naked down in the Amazon or, in, y’know, it’s not just barbarians [very brief nervous laugh] or the uneducated who are claiming that there are miracles that are happening in the world, there are very highly educated people like yourself [CK: yes] who can testify to miracles…I can tell you of an experience I had…

In the audio it is not at all clear there was any irony implied but even so there is still the clear enough contrast of the ‘very highly educated’ (included the interviewer and interviewee) and the others who are accepted. What also comes out in Licona’s interview questions and in Keener’s answers is that we should take seriously the ‘testimonies’ of ‘hundreds of millions’ on miracles. This is an old claim (Bultmann is regularly cited as the fall guy, as he was in passing in this part of the interview) but one which strikes me as being a piece of classic liberal multiculturalism and acceptance of the Other without (too much) Otherness, accepting those bits that are useful and can conform to contemporary (liberal) positions, and repackaging older and harsher dichotomies with a more acceptable liberal ones (see, of course, Žižek on all this). How far does this concern for the views of ‘hundreds of millions’ go? There are, presumably, ‘hundreds of millions’ of people who testify to things, practice things and believe things Licona and Keener do not like…? Anyway, note, for instance, how Licona is explicit in condemning Hume for holding racist views. Hardly anyone is going to disagree with that. But, with racism being constructed as something that other people do, recall how, for Licona, the clinching argument works, perhaps unintentionally, with certain distinct categories: there are the clever people and the rest, even if they are, on another level, all together in their agreements. There is truly neither Amazonian nor Academic in Christ, at least as much as there was and is neither male nor female, slave nor free…

All this reminds me of the debates I did with Mike Bird in our joint work/debate. He argued that much of the ‘peoples of other cultures in Africa, Asia and South America’ do not share Bultmann’s ‘Eurocentric’ scientific objections to the miraculous. Here the argument was designed to support Bird’s case for the miraculous and, again, it is probably not going too far to suggest that many of the aforementioned ‘peoples of other cultures in Africa, Asia and South America’ do not believe half the things Bird believes and many of them will no doubt practice things Bird dislikes. The Other is brought in only when useful. This attempted use of Other People to contribute to an argument also comes up in Craig Blomberg’s incredibly positive review of Keener’s book where he claims:

All the more astounding is the extent to which scholars like Van Harvey, Marcus Borg, Dominic Crossan, Gerd Lüdemann, and many others rule out at least the most dramatic miracle accounts of the New Testament via a Humean naturalism in this age.  This is an age in which we have otherwise come increasingly to appreciate the contributions of all the major cultures of the world, especially in the Majority World.  Hume’s anti-Jewishness has been documented elsewhere, and his views that non-Western civilizations were “ignorant and barbarous” would be given no hearing in most of the same circles today who otherwise appeal to Hume…

So where do we draw the line in what is good and right about this big block called the Majority World? What are the implications of this argument concerning those who do not accept (certain) beliefs of the Majority World?

Anyway, whilst the critique of Hume is right, something else is going on in these arguments and I’m not convinced the ideological position is as wholesome as is being presented.

Available to work in any area relevant to the disciplines covered by our constituent departments

Contract Type:  Fixed term for two years.

Salary: Grade 8 £37,012 – £44,166 per annum pro-rata.  .

Closing Date: 17 February 2012

From the advert:

The two post-doctoral fellows will work to develop their research beyond their doctoral studies, generating new publications and establishing the next stage of their career as researchers. Outreach and public engagement work will be encouraged, and, in line with the ethos of the Faculty, the fellows will also be encouraged to engage and work with new audiences, particularly in the local region.  This is an opportunity both for the fellows to make significant career strides in a research-intensive environment and for the faculty to benefit from the vision, dynamism and enthusiasm the fellows will bring to the role.

Fellows will already have an impressive track record in research, evidenced by high-quality publications.  They will be people who are clearly able to communicate their ideas to a range of audiences, from funding agencies to non-specialists.  They will be researchers with the capacity to motivate and inspire others and who are clearly destined to be research leaders of the future.

Applicants should possess (or be close to completion of) a PhD in a relevant discipline (or have equivalent experience) and specify their area of expertise/interest in their online application.

The post is fixed-term for two years.

For full details see here.

Lecturer in Bible and Contemporary Culture and Society

University of Sheffield – Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Department of Biblical Studies

Salary: Lecturer Grade 8: £37,012 – £44,166 per annum.  Potential to progress to £49,689 per annum through sustained exceptional contribution.

Closing Date: 16 February 2012

The Department of Biblical Studies, wishes to appoint a Lecturer in Bible and Contemporary Culture and Society.  This is an ideal opportunity for a scholar with an outstanding publication record and excellent teaching ability to join one of the major centres for biblical scholarship in the United Kingdom.

The post-holder will lead undergraduate modules such as: Gender, Religion and the Bible; The Bible and Ethics; Education, Religion and the Bible (Biblical Literacies); The Bible and the Social Scientific Imagination and make major contributions to the Master’s degrees in Postcolonialism and the Bible,  Social Scientific Biblical Criticism and Religion, Conflict and the Media.

You will have a PhD in Biblical Studies or a related subject area (or have equivalent experience), proven teaching ability and the ability to carry out high quality research and disseminate research findings.  You will have expertise in the cultural and ethnographic approaches to the study of the Bible in the contemporary global world. You will be able to draw on the entire Biblical tradition in your teaching but an expertise in New Testament Studies is preferred.

The Bible, Zionism and Palestine’ is a conference, hosted by the Department of Biblical Studies at the University of Sheffield, to explore the role of the bible in theology and politics in Israel and Palestine today. The conference will last for 3 days, the 24-26th May 2012.

The Bible has played a fundamental role in the creation and existence of the modern state of Israel, and, some say, in the continued suffering of the Palestinian people. Today, the Hebrew Bible is used as an authoritative text to justify the placement of Israel’s borders, and to legitimise and even encourage the expulsion of Palestinians from the land. The New Testament has also been utilised by Christian Zionists who argue that the establishment of the state of Israel is God-ordained, and that its existence is necessary for enabling the second coming of Jesus.

Despite the fact that the bible has played a significant role in the plight of the Palestinians, some Christians insist that it ultimately promises not oppression but liberation for the Palestinian people. At the same time, an increasing number of Christians and Jews are questioning Zionist theology and its implications for the indigenous population in Palestine.

Others argue that the role of the bible in Israel and Palestine should ideally be minimised, taking the view that, as an ancient and deeply ethnocentric text, the bible will not do as a moral ‘textbook’ and is ultimately not sympathetic with humanist values such as human rights and equality.

The conference will deal with these issues and also with broader matters surrounding Israel and Palestine, such as the persistence of anti-Jewish assumptions which have permeated biblical scholarship and infiltrated the Christian church, and the rise of post-holocaust philosemitism, which, for some, has resulted in a paralysing fear of passing negative judgement on any of Israel’s actions.

We are welcoming contributions from all perspectives under four main headings: Antisemitism, Philosemitism and the Bible; The Bible and the Existence of Israel; Judaism, Christianity and Zionism; and the Bible and the Palestinians.

• Pieter F. Craffert, “‘I ‘witnessed’ the raising of the dead’ : resurrection accounts in a neuroanthropological perspective”, 1-28
• Markus Cromhout, “Resurrection in Paul as both affirmation and challenge to the Israelite cycle of meaning”, 29-48
• James G. Crossley, “Manufacturing resurrection: locating some contemporary scholarly arguments”, 49-75
• Paul B. Decock, “Origen : on making sense of the resurrection as a third century Christian”, 76-91
• Chris L. DeWet, “John Chrysostom’s exegesis on the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15″, 92-114
• Petra Dijkhuizen, “Buried shamefully : historical reconstruction of Jesus’ burial and tomb”, 115-129
• Jacobus Kok, “The chaos of the cross as the fractal of life : the birth of the post resurrection, missional dimension in John”, 130-145

The post-holder will lead 3 modules in Biblical Studies (Hebrew Bible Studies) and co-teach at least 4 further modules in Biblical Studies during the second semester (to be negotiated). The appointee will lead the modules, The Bible and Literary Imaginations (Level 2 and Master of Arts [MA]), Hebrew Texts (Level 3 and MA) and Biblical Hebrew (Level 1) and so it is essential for the person to have proven expertise in Biblical Hebrew and literary approaches to biblical texts and be a successful teacher at UG and MA levels.

My educated guess (and nothing more) is that it would still be worth applying even if you don’t quite meet every criterion.

Mark T. Finney, Honour and Conflict in the Ancient World: 1 Corinthians in its Greco-Roman Social Setting (T&T Clark, 2011)

Studies in contemporary social anthropology have noted the importance of male honour and how this is able to generate ideas of social identity within a community and to elucidate patterns of social behaviour. Finney examines the letter of 1 Corinthians, which presents a unique exposé of numerous aspects of social life in the first-century Greco-Roman world where honour was of central importance.

At the same time, filotimia (the love and lust for honour) also had the capacity to generate an environment of competition, antagonism, factionalism, and conflict, all of which are clearly evident within the pages of 1 Corinthians. Finney seeks to examine the extent to which the social constraints of filotimia, and its potential for conflict, lay behind the many problems evident within the nascent Christ-movement at Corinth. Finney presents a fresh reading of the letter, and the thesis it proposes is that the honour-conflict model, hitherto overlooked in studies on 1 Corinthians, provides an appropriate and compelling framework within which to view the many disparate aspects of the letter in their social context.

James G. Crossley, “Halakah and Mark 7.3: ‘with the hand in the shape of a fist’”, NTS 58 (2012), 57-68

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