Online Theological Education: Perspectives from First-Generation Asian Americans

This essay explores the use of online asynchronous discussions from the perspective of first-generation Asian American seminarians. The pedagogical paradigm implicit in these online forums assumes values that compete and even contradict the values these students bring from their native educational experiences. Combined with the language difficulties, asynchronous discussions can present a serious challenge to the educational goals of both the institution and the student. Despite these barriers, first-generation Asian American students often see the incorporation of the asynchronous discussions as a welcome enhancement to their theological education

How to Rewrite Torah: The Case for Proto-Sectarian Ideology in the Reworked Pentateuch (4QRP)

This study challenges the initial categorization of the Reworked Pentateuch (4Q364-4Q367) as another non-sectarian textual witness to the Torah. A close analysis of the manuscripts suggests that certain unaligned readings likely ret1ect some of the sectarian ideas of the community. Other variants evoke both content and ideology of the authoritative Rewritten Bible documents, the Temple Scroll and Jubilees. These characteristics imply that 4QRP contains deliberate reworking of biblical material that is in line with sectarian ideology, in contrast to a mere mechanical copying of the text. Though the scroll may not be strictly sectarian, at the very least, it is protosectarian in that 4QRP served as source material for the community\u27s ideology

Book Review: Social and Economic Life in Second Temple Judea/The Wealth of Nations: A Tradition-Historical Study/The Sacred Economy of Ancient Israel.

Excerpt: The study of Israelite economies has seen a surge of interest in recent years. Each of the three volumes under review here covers a distinct aspect of the economic world of the Hebrew Bible. Adams provides a broad overview of social and economic life in Second Temple Judea through four chapters of descriptive themes and a cumulative ethical assessment of wealth and poverty. The book includes a bibliography and multiple indexes. A. states his hope: “By taking up topics like marriage gifts, borrowing and lending, and taxation, our discussion will provide an overview of economic life, with fresh insights from relevant biblical texts, including passages and entire books that do not receive enough attention in this regard” (p. 2)

Book Review: The Surprising Election and Confirmation of King David

Excerpt: In this revised Th.D. dissertation (Harvard Divinity School, 2006), Randall Short challenges the interpretation of the History of David\u27s Rise (1 Sam. 16-2 Sam. 5; hereafter = HDR) as political apology in the style of the Hittite Apology of Hattusili. Instead, Short argues that both the wider literary context and individual elements support HDR as a testimony to the surprising and wondrous character of YHWH in the unlikely selection of David as his chosen one

Book Review: Tight Fists or Open Hands: Wealth and Poverty in Old Testament Law

Excerpt: David Baker fills a lacuna in scholarship with this theological interpretation of wealth and poverty in OT law. Under thematic categories, such as property rights and just lawsuits, Baker outlines the pertinent passages from biblical texts within the context of ancient Near Eastern legal collections. After a whirlwind survey, Baker acknowledges some commonalities between biblical and ancient law regarding economic concerns. But he emphasizes that the biblical law codes ultimately derive from the covenantal relationship with YHWH. Thus, biblical law collectively attests to higher standards of economic ethics than its ancient Near Eastern counterparts

ON Scripture: Rise Up! (Micah 6:1-8)

Excerpt: The prophet Micah lived during a time of political turmoil and transition. Sound familiar? For a large portion of the eighth century BC, the Assyrian Empire conducted a massive military conquest of Israel and Judah. During the time of Micah, Samaria had already fallen, and King Hezekiah was in the midst of fervent preparations of protecting Jerusalem for an inevitable Assyrian invasion. At the time, the Assyrian Empire was the largest empire the world had ever known. They were creators of a formidable army with advanced weaponry and military tactics, including psychological warfare. This military supported the empire\u27s ambitions for political and economic expansion through exploitation. Much of this exploitation resulted in massive deportations and unprecedented scales of economic stratification

“Go Sell Your Oil and Pay Your Debt!” Economic Life in Ancient Israel

Ancient Israel did not know the economic concepts of banks, insurance, tuition, profit and retirement. Other economic terms such as taxes, labor, debt and even prices were all fundamentally different in meaning. When interpreting biblical texts, we must carefully consider the different settings of modern capitalism and ancient Israel’s economy

Book Review: The Yehud Stamp Impressions: A Corpus of Inscribed Impressions from the Persian and Hellenistic Periods in Judah

Excerpt: In the world of archaeology, excavators often parade their discoveries of grand architectural structures in hopes of attracting favorable publicity, volunteers, and, ultimately funding to support continued fieldwork. But what happens when, alongside these dramatic discoveries, excavation produces more mundane findings such as impressions on jars, often containing merely three letters: Hebrew yod, he, and dalet? In The Yehud Stamp Impressions: A Corpus of lnscribed Impressions from the Persian and Hellenistic Periods in Judah, Oded Lipschits and David s. Vanderhooft attempt to highlight the seemingly mundane as an opportune window to the social world of Yehud

Economics and the Bible

At its essence, economics is the study of how societies make decisions on the allocation of limited resources. Whether subsistence, capitalist, socialist, or totalitarian, each society faces complex choices regarding the distribution of goods and utilities. In making such choices, economics involves the study of the various allocation processes such as production, consumption, exchange, forecasting, scarcity, and risk. But in all of these activities, economics is observable only through human behavior. Consequently, efforts to isolate economic behavior from social spheres are heuristic at best, misleading at worst. Economic decisions reflect deeper ideological values, hierarchies, and positions of power, often revealed in the dominant social institutions such as the royal court or the temple. A proper understanding of ancient economics can enhance understanding of the social worlds and moral visions of the Bible

Half Speak Ashdodite and None Can Speak Judean: Code-Switching in Ezra-Nehemiah as an Identity Marker for Repatriate Judeans and Koreans (Chapter in Landscapes of Korean and Korean American Biblical Interpretation)

Excerpt: Ezra 4–7 narrates the reconstruction of the house of the Lord during the Judean repatriation under the Persian Empire. In the narration, there is a linguistic alteration between Hebrew and Aramaic for an extended portion of the narrative. The first Aramaic portion occurs in Ezra 4:8–6:18, beginning with the royal letter to King Artaxerxes, which would naturally be composed under the standard lingua franca of Aramaic. Similarly, the second Aramaic portion in Ezra 7:12–26 begins with the Artaxerxes Rescript, giving imperial support for the reconstruction. The contents of these passages befit the Aramaic language. Although the shift between the languages is rare in biblical text, it is not entirely unwarranted as Aramaic was the official language of Persian correspondence. Yet, what is puzzling is the deployment of Aramaic beyond the royal epistolary texts to include significantly substantial portions in the narrative