Thoughts on the SBL-GNT

A newly released eclectic Greek New Testament became available this month. Michael Holmes has provided expert opinion on production of the new SBL Greek New Testament. I have only spent a couple hours with the text, in addition to working through Wieland Willker's review.  I do have some initial reflections on the text that I could share.

The primary niche this text is filling is very clear. It is an eclectic Greek text from the SBL that provides a much more generous free-use policy than the Nestle text. There are situations where the usage rights from the NA27 have been limiting towards a project.

At the SBL general meeting, they were passing out hard copies to registrants. This hard copy is mostly worth what attendants paid for it. The Greek text uses the SBL Greek font, which is simply bad. It makes for awful reading, looking like perpetual italics. I was disappointed when the font was released and seeing it in this text is undesirable.

Also, the initial apparatus provided with the text is essentially useless. It serves as a descriptor for the process that Michael Holmes used to compile the text: take 4 eclectic texts (Tregelles, Westcott-Hort, Robinson-Pierpont) and compare them in order to catch all major variation units. This might be acceptable if it weren't for the fact that it doesn't make the NA text a major text to compare, only mentioning it when a variation differs from the less-scholarly-backward-transation "Greek text behind the NIV". But in the end, when I'm reading my NT, I don't care if a variant came from Westcott-Hort, but rather which manuscript it can be found in. Others have indicated the apparatus must simply be a stopgap solution. I would think so.

And finally, regarding its use. There are certainly places where the NA text needs a second thought. (See, for instance, Willker's exhaustive list.) I am eager to learn more about NA28 which is in the pipeline. But while Michael Holmes is very qualified (see, for instance, his work on the text of the Apostolic Fathers), the reader of scripture will benefit all the more from evaluation by committee. Holmes does in a way dialogue with the opinions of Tregelles and Hort, etc., but in the end they are still his evaluations.

Update:
Stephen Carlson has an excellent post on the apparatus, and keenly points out one benefit of the apparatus is that "a full two-thirds of the apparatus is listing differences with the Byzantine textform, enabl[ing] the user of the SBLGNT apparatus to get a very good sense of what the Byzantine text reads."


Further Update:
Michael Holmes graciously pointed me towards a very helpful faq blog post he has on some aspects of the SBL-GNT creation choices. You can find it here. 

Central States Regional SBL Report

The Central States Regional SBL meeting was enjoyable. It was my first time at this particular regional event which has been in St. Louis each year since I've been in Missouri.

I understand it has been in Kansas City in the past (and I'd be happy to see it repeat).

This event is smaller than the other regional meetings I have experience with in the Southwest, but there were still sufficient slots for the just-over 100 attendees to present and hear papers. The book exhibit is about as small as you could imagine. About 5 presses must have sent in a box of sample books, though Abingdon was present with an actual rep and larger display.

The other five presses each had a collection of the size similar to this one from Chalice Press.
It appears that Central States basically has three sections—HB, NT, and ASOR—though they were also trying to maintain a mini-section on Pedagogy. The presentations I attended were the expected wide range of rich diversity, including moments of understandable inexperience, occasions of insightful brilliance, along with the occasional "Huh?". These regional meetings are indeed a great place for folks to cut their teeth on an academic venue, and the "old guard" who seem to run the meetings do have a good priority for encouraging student participation, even undergraduate. Some of the actual presentations were refreshing and/or notable.

David May of Central Baptist Theological Seminary surveyed "Restoration Coins" from the Roman empire that offer a good reminder to move beyond textual evidence (such as numismatics) when seeking social context for a culturally bound book like Revelation. Mark Nanos, whom I met for the first time and who lives about 15 minutes away from me as it turns out, made a strong argument that the interpretation of πώρωσις in Romans 11:25 is inappropriately influenced by the πώρωσις τῆς καρδίας found in later texts in Mark and Ephesians. The plenary address from Dr. Jodi Magness, the Early Judaism professor at University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill surveyed the issues surrounding the James Ossuary and the Talpiyot tomb. She is very articulate and presented the state of the affair well. One business session facilitated discussions about an issue facing all SBL regional clusters. Due to IRS regulations, the regions are going to have to become separate legal entities. Without a doubt, if these new structures do not find a way to have some sort of "Sponsored by the Society of Biblical Literature" branding somewhere, they will decline in interest.
The most enjoyable aspect of the time was the occasion to get [better] acquainted with scholars in Missouri and nearby. In addition to David May and Mark Nanos, I further enjoyed getting to know Daryl Jefferies of Central Methodist University and Mark Givens of Missouri State University. In some instances, it was an exercise in learning about regional institutions that I had been ignorant of their existence previously.  I will look forward to next year.

Regional SBL Central States

I just arrived at the Central States regional meeting in St. Louis. I have attended regional SBL's, but this is my first time at this regional meeting. (My prior experience is in the Southwest.) I don't know many of my local colleagues, so welcome this opportunity to get to know folks, especially from Kansas City. (I have seen the bible folk from William Jewell with whom I've shared a flight from national SBL, and I think I see David May of CBTS having lunch.)

I've not any specific reason for being here other than making such connections in general. I am looking forward to Jodi Magness' plenary address on the Talpiyot tomb. I think I shall be attending all the NT sections.

SBL Presentation: Mark without Mark

This weekend at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in Boston, I am making the first public airing of my research work for the last several years. If you are at the conference, you are most invited to attend. The section begins at 1:00 p.m. on Sunday. The presenter before me is a friend, and should be a suitable booking for warming up the crowd for me.

SBL23-87 Q 11/23/2008, 1:00 PM to 3:30 PM Room: Meeting Room 307 - CC Joseph Verheyden, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Presiding (5 min) Ken Olson, Duke University Mistranslated Aramaic or Septuagintal Greek?: A Source-Critical Examination of Luke 11:41, 48 (25 min) Joseph A. Weaks, Brite Divinity School Mark without Mark: Problematizing Some Uses of Q as a Primary Source in Studies of Early Christianity (25 min) Discussion (20 min) Break (5 min) Jeffrey Peterson, Austin Graduate School of Theology Q 1:31 and 22:64: Jesus' Birth and Passion in the Synoptic Sayings Source (25 min) Jason BeDuhn, Northern Arizona University Marcion's Gospel and the Reconstruction of Q (25 min) Discussion (20 min)

In lieu of posting the abstract from the program booklet, I'll provide here the introductory segment of the paper. (I'm unfamiliar with protocol regarding posting the entirety of an SBL paper.)

MARK WITHOUT MARK: ASSESSING THE RELIABILITY OF A RECONSTRUCTED TEXT OF Q

by

Joseph A. Weaks

Over a century ago the Q-proposal began its journey into acceptance among NT scholarship. While the textual evidence regarding the full extent of this early Christian document has remained unchanged, our reliance upon and use of Q as a source of early Christian studies has grown to become hard and fast. Today, when used as source material in gospel studies, we assume that "the extent of the Q material is reasonably clear." And, with the arrival of the International Q Project's (IQP) "Critical Edition of Q," the working text of Q has lost its tenuous nature, becoming all but canonized. But how reliable is the text of Q that we can reconstruct? As we continue to make use of a reconstructed text of Q in fields such as historical Jesus studies or early Christian formations or redaction analysis, it becomes increasingly important that we find ways to assess just how reliable is a reconstructed text.

Typically, when utilizing a reconstructed text of Q for historical, literary or redactional inquiries, we handle the text in the same manner that we treat our critically constructed gospel texts. The designation of IQP’s tome as the “critical” edition asserts that Q has been constructed in the same manner, or at least with the same reliability, as a critical text of Mark. In Excavating Q, professor Kloppenborg compares the process that arrives at a text of Q and that of one that establishes a text of the NT. He rightfully characterizes both as a “matter of probabilities.” He goes on to claim that “this fact does not make the resultant text any less usable than the text of the NT.” The former is a process of backwards reconstructing the text of Q from two and only two sources that have made use of the text. The latter is a process of critically constructing an attested NT document from multiple actual copies of it. The source material and how it is obtained and how it relates to the goal text is very different between the two processes, to the extent that a logical argument equating the two is not easily sustained. While both processes do consist of negotiating probabilities, the nature of those probabilities may be so layered in one case that it renders the results substantially more tenuous.

Analysis of Q plays an increasing role in defining the landscape of early Christian studies. The theology of Q is constructed as a determinable feature of what is commonly recognized as one of the earliest Christian documents. The document Q is redacted between different strata, tracing the history and development of the earliest Christian communities from this hypothetical source. In conducting research on the historical Jesus, Q is said to provide source material earlier and far more reliable than the canonical gospels. The generic features of the "sayings gospel" are providing a paradigm for understanding how the earliest Christians embraced the kerygma of Jesus and the disciples. The importance of these evaluations, and the significant role that Q plays in them, suggests the importance of improving our evaluations for how Q is relied upon as a source.

The difficulty with the current state of Q as a source in gospel studies is that we have little in the way of an established method for evaluation. When a reconstructed text of Q is used as source material in gospel studies in the same way that the gospel of Matthew or even the gospel of Thomas is used, how do we know that the process of reconstruction does not render such use of the resulting text questionable? When scholars refer to the frequency or absence of identifying phrases, or when we point to a structural feature of Q, are these summary evaluations possible given the nature of a reconstructed text? To answer the question, this project reconstructs Mark and uses it as a parallel paradigm for understanding just what we have (and don't have) when we work from a reconstructed text.

The proposal is to reconstruct the gospel of Mark based upon the evidence in Matthew and Luke in triple tradition pericopes. This represents a hypothetical, historical construct, that it was Q that survived instead of Mark. So then, the task at hand is to identify all the places where Matthew and Luke share material that they did not get from Q. This resulting reconstruction of Mark can then be compared with the canonical form of Mark. Assessing what is lost in the reconstruction, what is introduced, and what is changed in relation to canonical Mark, we can see what limits may also apply to the study and use of a reconstructed Q.

What I like to do

I had considered not attending SBL this year... busy schedule, other travel, lots of projects in the air at church. What tipped the scale for me was that the folks at Accordance Bible software invited me to join their booth to help demo software. I thought it would be a great experience so that settled it for me.

The conference was good for me. I had good face to face's with folks I wanted to. I had opportunities to discuss my work with scholars that were interested. I rushed to make the e-lister's gathering and photo op, which I arrived at just before the shutter went off.

Christian Brady has been having biblioblogger gatherings at previous SBL's which I wasn't aware of, and enjoyed seeing & meeting more folks I knew from online presence.

I tend to go to a lot of papers, but that was slashed this year because of my working at the Accordance booth. This experience was fantastic. I'm pretty good at using Accordance (which is of course why they asked me) and so it was great fun to sit down with folks and show them what they can do in their work. (Here's a pic of me in action.) The Accordance booth is just nearly constantly crazy busy (hence the recruitment) with folks adding tools to do their work. And, Accordance leader Roy Brown is like a rock star with all the top scholars who pass through the booth during the show to check in with Roy and the work they're doing together. Again and again, I'd look over and say things like, "Is that so and so?" When I'd be doing a demo, it was such great fun to sit with a scholar and say, "Tell about your work." And then show them how they can do things to enhance/improve/quicken/expand their work. This experience really clarified for me what my online church/bible/mac hobby is. For years, I've been active online in capacities such as B-Greek, the Accordance e-list and forums and The Macintosh Biblioblog, and I now have some clarity why its such a hobby.

I have certain skills/experiences which include ordained pastoral ministry, Biblical languages, elite Mac skills, Applescript, Accordance, some dabbling in XCode, Perl, PHP, XML, and just tech interests in general, and I really enjoy using that background to help folks doing bible work or pastoral work to discover ways to improve their work. 

The number of digital tools available to us these days is staggering, and I just enjoy assisting colleagues discover how to make use of them. The regular emails I get from folks with a pretty wide array of solicitations for help are really opportunities for me to contribute to religious studies, pastoral efficiency, or biblical research in specific ways. And while I don't always have the time to give equal attention to them all, I do count it a joy. I love to see a colleague say, "I wonder if it would be possible to..." and to brainstorm "Here's one way you might be able to do it."

Last week, at the Accordance booth, a scholar came up to and said, "In my work, I read through the text and when I find a feature that matches this certain criteria, I do this, and look up this, and compare it with this. It's great that these tools can enable what I'm working on." But in my thinking through his workflow, I had a couple suggestions. We sat down at a computer and I said, "Notice you can get this same result with a simple change to the Text display, and furthermore you can make it the default format, and even better, you can set it as the default Details window, and then back in the Search window, notice how a simple click here and then here brings it up that much quicker..."  and the guy broke down in tears. He said, "You have no idea how much time you have just saved me in my work."

That's a satisfying role to play, and if you'll allow, I'm happy to do it in the name of Jesus Christ.