Book Recommendation for Aspiring Biblical Scholars: Inking the Deal

By the time I was into my second year of undergrad, I was firmly set upon going forward in my studies, working on a PhD in New Testament, and teaching the New Testament as my vocation. I am very grateful that I have been able to realize my goals, and I'm in a wonderful position as an Assistant Professor at Acadia Divinity College.

As I was finishing up my undergrad, I was deciding where to do my grad studies, and I focused my attention on Craig Evans, who is one of the top NT scholars on the planet. What impressed me most at that time, and even more so now that he is my mentor and colleague, is his work ethic and prolific writing. I remember asking Craig quite often how he does it, and was able to gain some insights. But I continue to stand in awe of evangelical scholars who both teach and publish at high standards.

So imagine my delight when an equally prolific New Testament scholar, who also resides in Canada, published in 2010 a book that specifically encourages and explains to up and coming scholars how to live a "publishing lifestyle." Stanley Porter's book Inking the Deal: A Guide for Successful Academic Publishing

Here is the TOC:

1. Types of Publication
2. Basic Principles of a Publishable Manuscript
3. Always Writing for Publication
4. Pick your Poison: Selection of a Publisher
5. Presentation is Almost Everything
6. Handling Rejection—it will come
7. Handling Acceptance—it too will come
8. Will I Run Out of Publishable Ideas?
9. Living a Publishing Lifestyle
10. Learning the Trade with Others
11. Final Words of Encouragement

I loved this book and would recommend it to every almost-PhD, current-PhD, and just-finished-PhD student in Biblical Studies. It gives you insight that previously you could only get if you were shooting the breeze with a prolific scholar. Stan opens up his life to help readers understand the mindset and practices which brings about regular publishing.

The practical insight regarding publishing and dealing with publishers is great. But what really stood out to me when I read this, and what has shaped my mindset, is the chapters about lifestyle (chapters 1, 3, 8-11). The advice in these chapters is much-needed lifestyle advice for young scholars.

Take the time and check it out, you won't be disappointed!

My Brain Dump of Advice for Current and Future PhD Students in Theology

I have just recently graduated with my PhD in New Testament (yay me!). I did the degree part-time. Everyone's situation is different, but I think there are a whole lot of principles that will apply to any PhD student in theology, whether you are doing a residential degree, distance degree, part-time, or full-time. So as you read this brain dump in no particular order, keep in mind that I'm writing it from the perspective of a Biblical Studies student.

• Get your tool belt ready. A carpenter is only as good as his/her tools. I know you are not working with your hands like a carpenter, but you still need good tools. Here is what you need:

  • Tool 1 - Word Processor. You need to pick a word processor and learn how to use it well. You will save yourself a whole lot of time if up front you make the effort to learn how to use your word processor. If you're on a Mac, Mellel, Nisus, Word, or Pages are your choices. (I'm a Scrivener fan but haven't yet done enough with it to say whether it can handle a large academic project like a PhD). If you're on a PC, it is probably Word or Open Office only. The following items are some of the things you want to know how to do; Pg numbers, footnotes, section breaks, character and paragraph styles, cross references, and customizing your TOC generation.

  • Tool 2 - Reference Manager. If you don't utilize a Reference Manager from the start...you're an idiot. It will be your main tool for keeping your sources organized, not to mention the fact that it will write your bibliography and footnotes for you. Check out my posts here and here on reference managers.

  • Tool 3 - Bible Software. I'd be terribly surprised if every theology student didn't already utilize Bible software. While Bible scholars tend to be the main users, theologians and church historians can benefit greatly as well. All the major apps (Accordance, Logos, Bibleworks) have primary literature and church history literature, as well as lots of secondary sources, with Logos having the largest secondary source library. If you don't yet know how to work with your Bible software, take the time to learn it well (my Logos tutorial course can really help Logos users).

  • Tool 4 - Note-taking app. Depending on your Reference Manager, you may have an app to take notes in already, but you may need something else. I used Devonthink Pro as my digital file cabinet, but there are others you can choose. Evernote, Onenote, CP Notebook, Yojimbo, are all good options.

• Eliminate distractions. You'll be in front of your computer a lot, don't let it distract you. Check out my posts here and here and here on this topic.

• Work on it daily. When I first started my PhD I read a book called How to Write a Dissertation in 15 minutes a day. That title was an overstatement, but it drove home a good point – try and work on your dissertation every day, even if only 15 minutes. Obviously you want to aim for more time, but if you have a day full with other things, give it at least 15 minutes to keep it fresh in your mind. It needs to keep percolating. If you don't do this, the problem is that when you finally get back into it, it takes you a long time, sometimes days, to finally get your head in the right space again. This shouldn't, theoretically, be as much of a problem for full-time students.

• Start writing from the beginning. While it may have made sense to read all of your sources before putting pen to paper for a 10-page essay, this is a different beast. You need to start writing almost from the start. Sometimes the writing will just stay in your note-taker, sometimes not. But after you've read a few books and have a basic outline, start a new word processor file called "dissertation" and start writing in it from the start. The other reason this is important is because writing always begets more writing. You need to write a lot of words, and they need to be good and coherent. The more you'll write, the more you'll write.

• Have a master outline. Another PhD book I read at the beginning gave me a great tip that I followed. Have a text file called Rolling Master Outline." This will be a constantly evolving and changing document. Have a heading for each chapter, and underneath it have a summary of the chapter (even if it hasn't been written it yet). Include in this document the expected word count for each chapter, and when you do a chapter, what the word count actually is, as well as a revised chapter summary. ALWAYS keep this up to date, it should change as you write because your chapters will change as you research and write. Finally, include this document whenever you send a chapter along to your advisor to read – they're busy people with a lot on their minds, and this will help remind them what you're doing and where you're heading

• Find abstracts, reviews, and create your own summaries. There is so much information for you to process that you need helps to jog your memory. Rely on ATLAS to find book reviews, and use NT Abstracts, OT Abstracts, and Religious and Theological Abstracts (all of these are online databases) to find abstracts for journal articles and essays. If you can't find an abstract for something, then make sure you write one for the item — actually you should do this anyway when reading a full article/essay. And for your own purposes, don't be afraid to utilize other author's work too. For example, early on I I read a few published dissertations on subjects that were relevant to my own topic, and all of them had a lit review. I copied and pasted these summaries into my reference manager to create abstracts for items.

• Learn to Read. Guess what: not every item you find is worthy of a front to back read - in fact few things are. (I talk about this more in my book Surviving and Thriving in Seminary if you’re interested). Learn how to take 5 minutes and evaluate an item to determine if it is worth more time or worth a full front-to back read. When doing a dissertation, your time is precious.

• Take good notes. In the same vein as finding or writing abstracts, taking notes and making highlights is another way to tame the mountain of info that you’ll be reading. There are plenty of items that I have cited, and read front to back during my dissertation writing, and looking at the title I can’t remember a whole lot about them now. But in 2-3 minutes, I read my abstract and skim my notes and highlights, and I’m back on top of things.

• Utilize good translation tools. I’m not super-strong in German or French, but with the right time and tools I slowly work my way through import sources in German and French. While some may turn to Google Translate, there is something better called Google Translator toolkit that allows you to correct the translation a phrase at a time. If you’re a PC user another software translation app is Promt - I’ve heard good things. Bottom line, no matter how strong or weak you are in these other languages, your study dictates what you should read. It is inexcusable to ignore critical secondary sources because you're too lazy to do some translation work.

• Harvest good resources. You’ll be on constant lookout for relevant resources. The standard place to go is ATLAS (see my screencast here), and you’ll also get into the habit of always checking everyone’s footnotes and bibliographies. For fellow Biblical Studies folks, you should also check out Index Theologicus, BILDI, and BiBIL.

• Google Books is going to be very helpful. Again, check out my Google Books post. The number one way Google Books helped me was to quickly check books that I see in a footnote or bibliography. It was a quick and easy way to quickly evaluate a book to see if it is worthy of more attention or not.

• Understand that your thesis will evolve. You’re advisor will help you to get crystal clear on your thesis – but don’t make the mistake of thinking that your thesis won’t or can’t change. It wasn’t until the very end, when writing my conclusion, that I was able to be crystal clear on my thesis and my contribution. A good way to keep working on this is to work on a 30 second elevator pitch, as well as a 3-5 minute summary of the whole thing. People will be asking all of the time what your dissertation is about - use this opportunity to refine your elevator pitch or summary.

• Give yourself time before submissions. I wasn’t great at this, but there were a few chapters that I was able to finish up a week or so before I agreed to send it in. This gave me a few days away from the chapter so that I could look at it one more time with fresh(ish) eyes before submitting.

• Present chapters to groups when you can. For full-time residential students, sharing a chapter in a seminar isn’t as hard to do, and is often mandatory. But those of us who are part-time or at a distance will have a little more difficulty. Still, take the time if you can to present a chapter at a seminar or conference. Get any feedback you can. We have a seminar classes for our MA, and I took that time to present chapters through the years.

• Work on transitions, summaries, and conclusions. One of my difficulties in writing is being crystal clear about what I am saying. Often times I would assume too much. Don’t assume your readers are experts. For each major section of a chapter, make a good transition from the previous section. Most major sections should end with some sort of summary statement or section. Finally, every chapter conclusion needs to tell them in micro-form exactly what you’ve already told them in the chapter. For those interested, here is the layout of how I broke down my chapters. The first number corresponds to the chapter number (p.s. this breakdown is something I myself copied from a published thesis):

  • 1.1 Introduction

  • 1.2 Main section 1

    • 1.2.1 sub-section 1

      • 1.2.1.1 sub-sub-section 1 (if necessary)

      • 1.2.1.2 sub-sub-section 2 (if necessary)

    • 1.2.2 sub-section 2

    • 1.2.3 sub-section 3 (and 4 and 5, as necessary)

    • 1.2.4 Summary and Relevance for Thesis (this section summarizes all of 1.2 and forces you to summarize the section and draw it back to the thesis and how it contributes)

  • 1.3 Main section 2

    • same as above

  • 1.4 Main section 3 (and 4 and 5, as necessary)

    • same as above

  • 1.5 Conclusion

• If at all possible, say no to as much as you can so you can say yes to your dissertation. I was awful at this, truth be told. My reality was saying yes to too many things, allowing myself to get side-tracked on other items of interest, and then having to burn the midnight oil as deadlines drew near. This was my biggest overall failure during my PhD - I got too side-tracked on too many other projects. I enjoyed the projects, and some couldn't be avoided, but if I would have said no, I probably could have finished 6 months to 1 year earlier than I did. And instead of going down rabbit trails, keep a list of things you want to read more about AFTER you're done.

• Work hard. A PhD is more about hard work and perseverance than it is about brains. Work hard and success will follow.

• It is good to have a reader (or advisor) that isn’t an "expert" in your area. What I mean is if you are doing a dissertation on Paul, have someone who works more in the Gospels as a reader/advisor if you can. While it may seem natural to think that having an advisor that is an expert in your specific area is what you need, the truth is that a reader or advisor that isn’t an expert in your subject can be really helpful, as they can often help you more on the issue of clarity in your argument. If your readers/advisors are both experts in your area, find someone else (another student or prior teacher) to read your chapters as well.

• Be ready to read the Bible in your Oral defense. If your doing a biblical studies dissertation, you have of course been working in the Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek. In working so much with your passages, it can sometimes happen that you don’t actually keep up the practice of sight-reading. Keep it up, because you’ll likely be doing it in your oral defense.

• Be ready for the big questions in your Oral defense. You of course need to be ready for any question that may come to you. So as your defense comes near, read through your dissertation a lot. Take notes or use sticky notes on a hard copy that you bring with you. But also be ready for the big questions: what lead you to the topic? what do you feel is your original contribution? What areas of study have opened up? Summarize your thesis?

• Back up your stuff! Sign up for Dropbox to save your files if you don’t have cloud-syncing in your apps. Don’t lose info!

• Get Primary Languages on your Transcript. We're always having students at ADC who want to go on to a PhD, and here is what I suggest they aim for. Aim for 4 full years of your primary language (Greek for NT, Hebrew for OT) and 2 full years for the other. If you can get Aramaic, German, and French on there, all the better. Bottom line, the more primary language credits you have on your transcript, the stronger an application you will have.

• School Chosen. Advisor. STRENGTH OF YOUR WORK. Yes, having a degree from a good school that has a solid name is great. And having a well-known advisor is great too. But that is only going to get you so far. In the end, it is the strength of your work and your determination as a scholar that will determine your success. Keep this in mind as you search for a school or search for a scholar to study with. A good-named school is great, as is a big-named advisor. But in the end, it really still is up to you and still comes down to the quality of your work. There are plenty of ABD (all but degree) doctoral students as well as students who didn't find any work in their field afterwards who went to top-notch schools and had top-notch advisors.

• Block out big chunks of time. Again, this shouldn't theoretically be as hard for full-time PhD students, but for us part-timers, you need to not only work on your dissertation a bit every day (as suggested above) but intentionally block out big chunks of time (think 2-weeks minimum) when you are eating, sleeping, and working on your dissertation.

• Don't Overplay your hand in your dissertation. There is a natural tendency when studying a subject to think that it is more significant than it actually is. Students do this a lot too. But It is safer to be modest than to over-reach. Frankly, I did exactly this thing in my dissertation. I chose a particular phrase to describe my findings that over-played my hand, and it is something that I was called out on in my oral defense and something which I need to correct.

Do you have any more suggestions or questions? Let me know in the comments?

photo credit: m00by via photopin cc

Utilizing Logos 6 for Academic Research, Pt. 2: Supercharged Word Studies

In my previous post, I talked about the Ancient Literature connections that Logos 6 introduced – which allows its users to see the important connections with non-biblical literature. In this post I want to explore some new features of Logos 6 that greatly advance word studies in the primary languages.

If you are a Logos user, you already know about the built-in word study assistant called "Bible Word Study" (and if you don't, you really need to get some Logos training). The first 3 features discussed below are part of the Bible Word Study guide (or any customized guide you create).

 

Clause Participants

The Clause Participants section of the Bible Word study has two modes, Grammatical roles or Semantic roles. Using the Greek verb εὐαγγελίζω, the following images show you the results:

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I find this type of information especially useful for verbs, but the information is certainly applicable to other word types. Doing a search like this for εὐαγγελίζω, we see that Paul is the main "declarer of good news" in the NT. This type of information helps to widen the scope of our word studies, by seeing more of the information from their contexts, as well as related words and characters.

Sense Usage

A cool feature of the Bible Word Study has always been the translation wheel/pie chart, which allows you to see at a glance the various ways a word is translated in your English translation of choice. The new Senses section adds a new wheel/pie chart and builds upon Logos' unique work of the Bible Sense lexicon. In this chart, rather than seeing the words used to translate the word in question, the Senses chart shows you the various uses in terms of meaning (or sense usage). This is, ultimately, the more important question to ask when you are discussing the meaning of a word in its context – a word may be translated using the same English word but have different meaning from verse to verse.

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 Case Frames (Semantic Roles)

Building off of the incredible amount of work in semantics that Logos has done, the new Case Frames section of the Bible Word Study guide provides you with a break-down of semantic usage and relationships pertaining to your word. The example below shows that ἄρχω as a verb is primarily used in relation to events. Logos' presentation and easy to understand definition opens up the world of semantics to all Logos users.

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Morph Charts

Morph charts offers a visual presentation of any hits you receive for a lemma. This information has also been present in table form in the past in a morph search, but these morphology charts are much more user friendly and easier to see the full picture. The Morphology charts are part of the new Interactive Media resources in the Tools menu, and is also accessible in the top of the Bible Word Study.

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Why is Jesus' Genealogy Different in Matthew and Luke?

Please enjoy this video I just uploaded to YouTube, explaining why Matthew's and Luke's genealogy of Jesus is different. If you enjoyed it and think other will, please share it via social media too! The transcript is below. For more information specifically on Matthew's creative counting, see my previous blog post.

Transcript:

If you’ve ever read the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, it is likely that you have recognized at some point that they both offer a different family tree for Jesus. On the surface, it seems very odd that Jesus' genealogy would be different. Obviously, they can't both be correct, right? 

The first step to understanding why the two genealogies are different, is to recognize that both have different starting points: Luke goes all the way back to Adam, while Matthew only goes back to Abraham. However, even when we just trace the development from Abraham, the names are different. Matthew and Luke don't even agree on Jesus' grandpa's name!
To understand why the genealogies differ, we need to understand the nature of Jewish genealogies. We think of family trees as a chronological listing of every single blood relative. But we shouldn’t impose our modern understandings on the Bible. Genealogies in the bible were also telling stories. They were reminding the reader of history by using names. Sometimes, a genealogy would be thorough as we would expect, other times it wouldn’t be as thorough and would instead be selective because they wanted readers to focus on particular aspects of the history which the genealogy was reminding them of.

Now, some have suggested that perhaps Luke was giving the genealogy through Mary, while Matthew gave the genealogy through Joseph - but this doesn’t make sense as Joseph is specifically mentioned in both genealogies, and even if it were Mary’s genealogy we would still expect around the same number of names. When people try to make this kind of argument, they are guilty of holding ancient genealogies to today’s standard. Luke I would suggest, was attempting to be more thorough and wanted to emphasize Christ as the son of God, by tracing Jesus right back to Adam and ultimately God. Matthew, however, had a more specific story in mind. So let’s take a look at Matthew.

Matthew wasn’t simply tracing a family line. He was, rather, tracing a dynastic, or royal, line. Matthew wanted to establish right from the beginning Jesus’ legitimate kingship over Israel. He does this by highlighting David the king, and by highlighting Abraham, the father of the Israelite nation. Notice how Matthew starts out his whole book - the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David and son of Abraham.

Because Matthew’s genealogy is a dynastic genealogy, it is intentionally selective. If we look at a quick timeline, Abraham is here, David is here, the babylonian captivity is here, and Jesus is here. This makes it fairly obvious that Matthew wasn’t worried about an exhaustive family tree - the same amount of names are covering totally different periods of time. Let’s add Luke’s names here. As you can see, Matthew is using far less names, particularly after we get to David! The names between these two lines bear almost no similarity!

Now, if the purpose is to establish Jesus in the dynasty of king David, we can also presume that there would be other elements within the genealogy to clue readers into this focus. And guess what, that is exactly what we find.

In Matthew’s genealogy there are things we call annotations. Small bits of commentary. Again, remember that genealogies tell a story. What kind of story do these annotations tell?

The first small annotation “Judah and his brothers” was a wonderful reminder that Judah rose to a position of leadership and prominence over his brothers, the fathers of the 12 tribes of Israel. Furthermore, a promise of a future messiah occurs in Jacob’s blessing of Judah in Gen 49. We have the same annotation about Jechoniah “and his brothers.” Jechoniah, called Jehoiachin in the Old Testament, represented the entirety of the IsraelIte nation in accepting the punishment of the coming army, going off to the exile and receiving his punishment, and then receiving repreave from the punishment. Josephus, the important Jewish historian, highlights Jechoniah as a model of one who suffered for others - sound familiar?.

One thing well known about Matthew’s genealogy is the mention of women in the annotation - mentioning these women do several things simultaneously. First, the presence of women highlights what we see later in Jesus’ ministry - his value of women. While genealogies (like Luke’s) always traced through men, Matthew’s short genealogy adds women to the story. Second, beginning the genealogy with Abraham reminds the readers of God’s promise to Abraham to bless the nations. These women and their stories remind us that even within the Old Testament, gentiles were part of God’s story and even part of continuing the Davidic line! Third, mentioning these women remind the readers of the scandalous nature by which the promised line continued. There is no more soap opera story in the OT than Tamar! Rahab was a prostitute! And just in case we forget, Matthew reminds us of “The wife of Uriah.!” - calling to mind the infamous story of David’s adultery with Bathsheba. All of this sets the reader up for the scandal of Mary - a virgin woman who will claim she has conceived the child through the power of the holy spirit! The genealogy prepares us to see that God has worked in strange ways to continue the promised line in the past already!

The final thing which further helps us understand Matthew’s selectivity is the way in which he structures it. In v. 17 Matthew says "So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations.” This verse introduces 2 issues - why the number 14? and how exactly is Matthew counting? When we put the names in columns of 14, we are one name short. There have been several options provided by scholars as to how this should be understood:

  1. Matthew simply rounded up to emphasize the number 14
  2. Maybe there was a scribal error and a name has been accidentally dropped
  3. Maybe the exile is being counted as a generation
  4. Perhaps the holy spirit is being counted as a generation or maybe Mary.
  5. Some have suggested that Jesus was an illegitimate child and so his real father was counted
  6. One of the most popular options is that Jehoakin, Jeconiah’s father, is present in the count, but not in the actual genealogy

None of these are perfect answers, and all of the options assume some sort of creative counting on Matthew’s part. 3 scholars as well as myself have argued in publications that we should actually count David twice. Here is why. First, notice that David is the only one besides Jesus to receive a title in the genealogy. Notice also that he is the 14th name in the list. We should also remember how “Son of David” has already been highlighted in the first verse. But more than that, counting David twice is exactly how Matthew tells us to count the genealogy. When reading v.17 and counting just like Matthew tells us to, the genealogy would be structured like this. This gives us 14 names in each section, with David being counted twice. Finally, the last piece of evidence that supports counting David twice is the number 14 itself. It seems clear from v.17 that Matthew is drawing attention to that number. why? Most commentators believe it is because of something called gematria, where letters of the alphabet represent numbers. In this case, the Hebrew letter dalet is the 4th in the Hebrew alphabet, and vav is the 6th. 4+6+4 is 14. And that is how David’s name is often spelled in the Old Testament. This is why 14 is highlighted and it is why Matthew chose to structure the genealogy the way he did. He was selective in his choice of names so that the structure itself could emphasize  Jesus’ Davidic lineage as the messianic Son of David.

Why Zionism is so Attractive—and Should be Rejected by Christians

With the summer of violence in the holy land, it dawned on me that these are the times when the rubber really hits the road in terms of theology and exegesis. We are no longer talking about things of the past or what I believe, but about war and people actually dying- and I think theology (specifically Christian theology) plays an important part in this. Do I believe that the Jewish people were promised and given that land by God? Do I believe that the people of God are only those who are in Christ? Do I think all this is part of the unfolding of prophecy in the Bible? Or is it just political circumstances?

These are not easy questions to answer, especially at a time like this. It is also hard, I think, in the branch of academia where Jewish and Christian scholars work together, learn from each other, and deeply respect one another. Yet, in matters such as these, there comes a clear dividing line – Christians believe the NT is scripture and Jewish people do not. Some Christians (Zionists) would understand the scriptures, particularly the OT, in the same manner as many conservative Jewish theologians: that God has promised the land of Israel to the descendants of Israel and the promise will be fulfilled at some point. Other Christians would not deny the Jewish people's right to exist or to be a nation that deserves to live in peace, but argue that Christ is the end/fulfillment (telos) of the law (Rom 10:4; 2 Cor 1:20; Heb 8:13), thus the OT cannot be used as any sort of support for the modern secular state of Israel (this does not mean we do not support that state of Israel on other grounds). And, even if we were to grant this sort of dispensational reading of the text, it is hard to ignore the OT teaching that fulfillment of God's covenant promises was conditional on the people's covenant obedience (read Deuteronomy).

Let me lay my cards on the table: I am really dismayed at the Christian Zionist movement that has supported Israel at any cost out of what I believe is improper interpretation of the text resulting in bad eschatology (please note again - this does not mean I don't think Israel should be supported). I can’t remember the exact figure, but millions of dollars have gone to Israel. Not to help their economy or aid the poor–but to help them build the temple again! (Heb 9:12, Heb 10:1-10) And why? Because it is a necessary precursor to the Tribulation – the Temple must be re-established for the End Times scenario to be played out (think Left Behind series). And all the while we have practically turned our backs on the Palestinian Christians. There are dozens of ministries, centered mostly in the States, whose sole aim is to aid Jewish people to get back to Israel, to pressure the government in the US to help Israel, and to send money for the re-establishment of the temple. Meanwhile, almost none of these Christian organizations discuss evangelism to the Jewish people. I’ve even read a piece in one of these newsletters that condemned evangelism to the Jewish people, because “God deals with them differently.” Do these Christians really follow the same Lord Jesus that I do? The one who said "no one comes to the father except through me." (John 14:6)

Now if you start to get the wrong impression, I’m not necessarily against political lobbying, nor am I averse to helping desperate and destitute people move to Israel. I think this stuff does need to be done for Israel as well as other people groups. We should be agents for peace. The problem is the goal of these Christian Zionist organizations. They do it because they believe that the OT prophets' words about returning to the land is for our future (though it is plain in the OT that the fulfillment happened already, Neh 9:23). They also misunderstand God's promise to the land and the fact that it was conditional (Lev 26:33, 42; Ezek 33:25-29). But above all, they do it because they think they are helping to fulfill prophecy to bring Jesus back quicker. It is this religious motivation that ends up blinding them- they forget about the other human beings, specifically Palestinians. Rather than actively seeking peace, some Christian Zionists are actually happy about wars and fighting! These tribulations in the Middle East, whichever decade you choose, simply excites them. Instead of seeing it as suffering and death and responding in love and with aid, many Christians just watch it happen passively, since it has been foretold.

Why is Christian Zionism Attractive?

What makes these people tick? I have wondered this for the past little while, and I have a bit of a unique view in that I used to belong to a Plymouth Brethren church and was nurtured in that context for some time (fyi, the Scofield Bible, from which so much of Dispensational pre-millenialism finds its origin, is one of the heroes of the Plymouth Brethren). I read Hal Lindsay, Grant Jeffrey, Dave Hunt, Rob Lindstead, Jack van Impe, and the Left Behind series. And I believed it all too. As I look back at my spiritual upbringing, I'm so grateful for many things, and I can't help at think at how much healthier today's church would be if evangelicals knew their bible as well as Brethren do. But classic dispensationalism is one of those things that I needed to unlearn. I would label myself as an amillenialist now. But, what made me want to buy into this back then? Reflecting on it, here are some things that made me tick:

1. The thought that the book that I held in my hand (the Bible, and specifically Daniel, Revelation, and Jesus' teaching in Mark 13, Luke 21, and Matt 24–25) predicted exactly what was happening around me was exhilarating. I could not understand Daniel and Revelation back then, and these Christian Zionist authors made (some) sense from the mysterious texts. The mark of the beast is a little microchip in Visa! The locusts in Revelation are actually blackhawk helicopters! etc., etc. This brought the Bible into the world around me.

2. It made my faith in Jesus real. He wasn’t just a guy who lived 2,000 years ago, he will be back any minute! I'm witnessing the stuff that will happen right before he arrives!

3. It made sense of the OT for me. As a new Christian, I did not know how to incorporate the OT (especially the prophets and the wars in the deuteronomic history) into my worldview. Dispensational premillenialism misreads the text, but at least they incorporated them into their worldview.

4. It legitimated violence - wars were normal, especially for that area of the world. Premillenialism normalized the wars of the OT as a regular cycle of history for that area of the world and in fact made it part of God's grand design for the future.

5. It gave you a foretaste of the fantastic in our seemingly mundane world. I don’t see miracles, and fantastic powers being displayed at my church. I just hear them preached about (and the occasional report from the mission field). The idea that I will finally be part of this miraculous disappearance of millions of people, and the coming of the two witnesses, and Jesus returning in the sky, connected me with the miraculous that I read and hear about during my devotions and from the pulpit.

6. I felt that I had stumbled into some specialized and secret knowledge that only a few knew or understood. I was absolutely tickled pink when someone would ask me to explain the end times to them. I would rattle it all off, complete with accompanying proof texts, timelines, and charts. (I still can!)

7. While we all want God's blessing, Christian Zionism locks onto God's promise in Gen 12:3 that he will bless those who bless Abraham, and by extension his descendants. (fyi, If we want to be blessed as Christians, look to the Beatitudes)

I have since grown in my faith and understanding of God's Word and recognize the errors of my old way of thinking. I recognize my previously bad exegesis. The reality is that it’s a lot easier to bring the Bible to my world in that manner. It is not as easy to bring Jesus’ message of radical love, to be a sacrificial giver, or to apply Sermon on the Mount ethics to my life. Christian Zionism provides a simple route to make the Bible applicable to life today — It's right in the news! This reality makes it that much easier to not let it affect my own way of living.

As scholars and pastors and teachers, I think we have a responsibility to continue to speak out against Christian Zionism. This theology should have fizzled out and died a while ago, but it seems to be as strong as ever. (this does NOT mean that I think Israel should not exist as a country. On the contrary, I believe Israel has a right to exist as a secular state and a right to defend itself). Hopefully, this post will do its part in the fight against erroneous eschatology. Talk to those people in your church or classroom that believe these things. Suggest books to read. Don’t support these types of ministries in your church. Unsubscribe from the Zionist magazines. Get the Left Behind series out of your church library. Pray for peace and be active peacemakers. And instead of looking at the headlines to see the Bible lived out, start actively working to live and love like Jesus in your own context.

If you are interested in reading more on this topic, here are a few great options:

• Burge, Gary M. Jesus and the land : the New Testament challenge to “Holy Land” theology. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2010.

• Sizer, Stephen. Christian Zionism: Roap-map to Armageddon? Downers Grove: IVP, 2006.

• Hanegraaff, Hank. The apocalypse code: find out what the Bible really says about the end times-- and why it matters today. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2007.

• Edwards, Sean. The End of Days: The Shocking Truth About The Times In Which We Live. Edwards Publishing House, 2012.

I also recommend any of the lectures from The Cross and the Checkpoint, as well as the documentary With God on Our Side.

photo credit: Jonas Hansel via photopin cc

Understanding Matthew's Genealogy and His "Creative Counting" in 1:17

Have you ever wondered why Matthew and Luke's genealogy of Jesus is different? It is clear to most scholars that Matthew is not intending to create and exhaustive genealogy of Jesus (or more specifically Joseph), but rather a dynastic genealogy. Matthew is using the genealogy to show how Jesus is in the line of dynastic succession. As such, the evangelist is not focused on an exhaustive list.

As some of you know, I am in the final stretch of my PhD dissertation. My study has focused on Davidic tradition and typology in the Gospel of Matthew.

Last week Craig Evans and a few of my friends (Greg Monette, Jesse Richards, Brian LePort) were at Bristol and told me about a presentation on Matthew's genealogy by the awesome NT scholar Francis Watson, as part of a forthcoming monograph on the Gospels. They were kind enough to pass along some of his handouts.

My first dissertation chapter is on the incipit and genealogy of Matthew and so I was interested to see what Watson thinks about Matt 1:17 and the 3 x 14 structure of Matthew. If you're quick at math, you'll see that Matthew counts 42 generations and herein lies the problem – there aren't enough names to get to 14 for the 3rd set. I argue in my chapter, along with other commentators, that Matthew was utilizing gematria (letters equalling numbers) on the Hebrew name David, which adds up to 14. But where there has been a wide range of opinion is how to understand Matthew's "creative counting." Here is a list of options:

• Matthew miscounted
• Textual corruption or scribal error. E.g. perhaps Jehoiakim or Abner was a name that got missed in early transmission. (Schonfield)
• Matthew "rounded up" the third grouping to stress the 3 x 14 pattern (Davies and Allison)
• Jesus counts as 2 (Jesus is one, Christ is the second) (Stendahl)
• Matthew counts Jechoniah twice. Augustine argued this. From the handouts I received I see that Watson also takes this position. And I noted a while back that Michael Licona stated this in a nice little YouTube video about the genealogy. (He explains gematria in the video quite nicely too!)
• The Holy Spirit is counted (Nolan)
• Mary is counted (Gundry)
• Jesus' "real" biological father is counted (Schaberg)
• Jehoiakim is present in the count but not Matthew's genealogy (Brown)
• The exile is counted as a generation (Chrysostom)
• David is counted twice (Schöllig)

All of the options assume two things: First, Matthew used a name to represent a "generation." Second, all of the options assume Matthew counted "creatively" by either double-counting one person, adding someone without naming them, or rounding up.

The last option was presented by Johann Bengel in 1858, by Hugo Schöllig in 1968, and was also presented by Stephen Carlson in 2009 at a SECSOR regional meeting (see his post). To this list you can now add Zacharias. And trust me, I'm right !  😏

In a nutshell, David and David alone should be counted twice because Matthew emphasizes David and Jesus as Son of David throughout the Gospel. In addition, David is the 14th name in the genealogy (remember Matt 1:17 and its 3 x 14 structure), and Matthew adds additional focus to David by utilizing gematria and calling him "the king" in the genealogy. But more important than any of that is this point: Matthew himself tells us exactly how to count the genealogy:

“Therefore all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ are fourteen generations.” (Matthew 1:17)

It can be visualized in this way:

View fullsize

This way of counting, Matthew's way, gives us 14 names in each division, with David being counted twice, just like Matthew tells us to.

So to sum up,  this is the best option available because:

1. It doesn't assume error by Matthew or later scribes
2. Doesn't assume a missing name
3. Doesn't arbitrarily choose to double-count a name (Jechoniah or Jesus) just to make the scheme work
4. Fits Matthew's continual emphasis on Jesus as the Son of David through the Gospel
5. Counts the "generations" exactly how Matthew tells us to

What do you think? Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment below!

And finally, my favorite book on the genealogy is with fellow Highland PhD student (and now graduate) Jason Hood's published dissertation The Messiah, His Brothers, and the Nations. If you're interested in Matthew's genealogy, check it out!