I mean those folks from Beloit who love to give us trivial lists of factoids that are supposed to somehow reveal incoming college students’ “mindset.” I’m not terribly impressed with or enlightened by such lists. Sometimes, the Beloit list gives me a wry chuckle or two about how things have changed in my lifetime. But in the current list, item 51 shows just how out-of-touch the Beloit people are:

51. Windows 3.0 operating system made IBM PCs user-friendly the year they were born.

Anybody who classifies Windows 3.0 as a “user-friendly” operating system obviously wasn’t living in the real world to begin with.

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I’m referring, of course, to “new traditional,” which really means, “country music the way it was played twenty years ago.” I understand the need for shorter genre labels, but can something really be “new” and “traditional” at the same time?

Of course, there’s also the dilemma of Bruce Springsteen’s 2008 album being labeled “classic rock.” Good? Yes. Rock? Yes. But “classic”? Not yet.

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Yeah, it’s just a link post—two weeks of silence, and that’s the best I can do? Well, Michael Holcomb has done a fine job with Biblical Studies Carnival XXXII on his blog, pisteuomen (or, if you prefer, πιστευομεν). Michael either got a whole bunch of great nominations this month, or he’s an incredibly prolific blog-reader. Or maybe both. Unless you’re pretty much reading every single religiously-themed blog on the internet, you’ll probably find something in this month’s carnival that you haven’t already read. Kudos to Michael for a job well done.

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The call for papers for the 2009 meeting of the Western Commission for the Study of Religion, of which the Society of Biblical Literature/Pacific Coast Region is a part, went out a few weeks ago, but in the hustle and bustle of pre-semester preparations I failed to post a notice of it here. Submissions should be sent in by October 1. Please see the WECSOR web site for the full call for papers, but I’d like to highlight the following sections for Higgaion readers:

The 2009 Annual Meeting of the Pacific Coast Region of the Society of Biblical Literature will be held jointly with the Pacific SW Region of the American Schools of Oriental Research and with the Western Region of the American Academy of Religion March 22-23, 2009 at Santa Clara University, California. Members wishing to present papers should send or email a one-page abstract to the appropriate section chair listed below by October 1, 2008. First-time presenters and graduate students are encouraged to submit completed papers. Papers from established scholars are particularly encouraged. For more informaion, of if you have any questions, please contact Beth Alpert Nakhai.

Neo-Assyrian Insights on Ancient Israel and the Hebrew Bible (Joint Session ASOR and SBL)
The Neo-Assyrian Insights on Ancient Israel and the Hebrew Bible unit invites 10-15 minute papers that briefly suggest a question or area that should be given (more) attention within the intersection of Neo-Assyrian and biblical studies. The paper should contribute to the theme, “What questions should we be asking?,” and presenters may be asked to participate in a panel discussion. The session will include some invited papers. For more information contact Brad E. Kelle: bradkelle@pointloma.edu

Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament section invites proposals for papers focusing on any portion of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, interpretive methodology for its study, its historical and cultural contexts, and other relevant studies. We anticipate holding three open sessions at the 2009 meeting. Send papers or abstracts via e-mail to Christopher Heard at christopher.heard@pepperdine.edu or by regular post to Christopher Heard, Associate Professor of Religion, Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA 90263-4352.

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Well, some good news and some bad news as we ramp up for the semester. The good news is that I have rotated off the commitee for which I had Monday afternoon meetings, so Monday is completely free for research and writing, including travel to nearby libraries better than ours.

The bad news relates to my Religion 101 class. You may recall that I was all excited about introducing a new style of pedagogy into my “History and Religion of Israel” class. Seaver College’s Center for Teaching Excellence and the Religion Division had funded travel and training, and my chair had agreed to cap my course’s enrollment at 25. However, somewhere in the chain of communication (whether human or digital, I don’t know), mistakes were make and my class was capped at 45 (typical for this course) instead of 25 (necessary for the grand experiment). And so, it seems, I’ll be teaching Religion 101 in a more traditional format this fall.

Ah, there’s always the spring …

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My problem with displaying vowel-pointed Hebrew (like this: עִבְרִית) apparently isn’t Firefox at all, but the fonts in my style sheet. I don’t understand the details, but somewhere in the interaction between WordPress, the Charis SIL font (which I’ve been using for Higgaion because it supports a full range of Latin diacritical marks), and the browser, my pointed Hebrew text gets mangled on a Macintosh in Firefox or Safari, but for some reason, Camino can render it properly. I don’t know whether you see these lines differently, but here’s a test:

When I look at this post in Camino, I see both lines of Hebrew properly pointed. When I look at it in Firefox or Safari, the “Charis SIL” line has the vowels between the consonants and other marks, while the bottom line displays correctly.

What do you see?

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The new academic year has drawn nigh, and we at Pepperdine inaugurate it today with a day full of meetings: first a meeting of all Seaver College faculty, and then individual division meetings. I’m not big on meetings, but I look forward to seeing my friends.

My family and I are also in the throes of the beginning of the AYSO soccer season.

So here’s what a typical week will look like for me, starting next Monday and going through the end of November:

And somewhere in there, I need to find time for additional committee work, administrative duties, advising, office hours, and research and writing. Oh, and I’ve heard about this thing called “blogging” that I might want to try sometime.

Busy is as busy does.

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Tim tagged me with a meme that goes like this:

Q1. If you were to be in ministry 10 years from now (whether you’re in ministry now or not) what would you like to be doing and where?

Q2. If you could wake up tomorrow with a degree and all the learning that would have gone with it from any seminary which one would you pick and why?

Q3. What’s your poison: donuts, beer, wine, pizza, chocolate, twinkies, key-lime pie?

1. Although I’m not paid by a church, I do think (at least in my better moments) of my teaching as a ministry to my students and indirectly to the churches (through our graduates). I’m also occasionally involved, though not center-stage, with volunteer adult, youth, and child education at our church, and I’d still be doing that.

2. I dunno. I mean, I’m happy with the degree I have. But if I could add the knowledge from another degree, and it had to be a seminary degree, I’d want the knowledge from a seminary that offers a Ph.D. with strong offerings in Semitic languages and/or archaeology.

3. Pizza.

I don’t know who’s been tagged with this thing and who hasn’t, so I’ll risk the seven years bad luck and break the chain. If you want to be tagged but haven’t been, then consider yourself tagged by me.

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In preparation for my redesigned Religion 101 class this fall, I’ve recently re-read the “Characters” chapter of Tamara Cohn Eskenazi’s fine monograph on Ezra-Nehemiah, In an Age of Prose.. In this chapter Eskenazi argues that the narrator portrays Ezra positively, but portrays Nehemiah negatively, to state the matter in quite general terms. Here are some of the elements that Eskenazi brings forward regarding this matter:

• Ezra has impeccable priestly credentials, with a long pedigree; Nehemiah is just “son of Hacaliah”
• Ezra’s goals center on Torah; Nehemiah’s goals seem to center on his own image, especially on how God “remembers” him
• Ezra travels without military escort; Nehemiah takes a military escort
• The king’s letter gives Ezra many privileges that Ezra does not readily use; Nehemiah arrogates to himself powers the king did not explicity grant him
• Ezra prefers example and persuasion; Nehemiah prefers command and coercion
• Ezra’s prayers primarily feature thanksgiving and confession; Nehemiah’s prayers primarily feature requests and imprecations
• Ezra delegates authority; Nehemiah takes authority
• Ezra negotiates; Nehemiah rebuffs negotiation
• Ezra elicits community action; Nehemiah accomplishes little other than “imposing” decisions the community has already made

What do you think of these contrasts? Do you take Eskenazi’s point? Is Ezra the good cop, Nehemiah the bad cop—or as Eskenazi puts it, is Ezra the exemplar, and Nehemiah the foil? Which character do you like better? What do you think?

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The iTunes Store needs some full-time editors weeding out the reviews that aren’t reviews. I had occasion to look at some iTunes reviews earlier today, and half of them were complaints about the logistics of acquiring the video from iTunes (”I don’t want to rent it. I want to buy it! Waah, waah!” or “I don’t want to buy it, I just want to rent it! Waah, waah!”). Come on, people. Those aren’t reviews of the title, and the review feature shouldn’t be used as a suggestion box or complaints department. Please, if you’re going to fill up space in what’s supposed to be a review feature, review the film or video or album or whatever-it-is, already.

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