Jeremy Thompson Catholic PhD in Biblical Languages, Programmer, Runner

The responsorial psalm in today’s lectionary readings was Psalm 117. This is the shortest chapter in the entire Bible, whether for you that is the Hebrew Bible or the Old and New Testaments. However, though it is the shortest chapter, it contains a profound statement of universalism. The text reads:

1 Praise the Lord, all nations! <p>
Extol him, all peoples! <p>
2 For his loyal love is great unto us, <p>
and the faithfulness of the Lord is forever. <p>
Praise the Lord!

The universalism of the psalm is made clear when one views the parallelisms that span from verse 1 and into verse 2.  In verse 1, the psalmist says “all nations” and “all peoples.”  Then in verse 2 the psalmist says “us.”  The only antecedent in the text for “us” is “all nations/peoples.”  One might claim that the antecedent is “Israel”; however, why would the nations praise the Lord for his steadfast love toward “Israel.”  Thus, the entire population of the earth is seen as one “us” that should be praising the Lord together.

So, I still had not used my Audible credits for June (which is very strange for me) until today. This month I chose two less academic titles. First, I chose Eugene Peterson’s Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places. I have heard a lot of people that I respect very highly speak well of Peterson’s books, though a lot of them are not crazy about his Message Bible. So, I thought I would give this book a chance. From what I understand it is the first in a five part series, which makes me hope that it it worthwhile. That would make my Audible selections for next month considerably easier.

My second Audible selection for the month was The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs.  The premise of the book seemed funny enough.  It is an author detailing his attempt to live out laws of the Bible as completely as possible.  When one considers there are laws against wearing clothing made from two different types of fabric it is immediately apparent how difficult this would be.  This book was actually recommended to me by a teenager in my congregation who thought this would be cool to do for a school project.

I am not sure which text I will listen to first; however, you can be sure that I will write a short review on each when I finish.  So, continue to check back on the blog, or subscribe to the e-mail list to get weekly blog broadcasts.

After just finishing a couple of audiobooks, I decided this morning to begin a bit more language learning instead of another book. So, I started listening to the Earworms Rapid Language Course entitled Rapid Greek Vol. 1, which I had downloaded some time ago. And, I must say that Earworms is one of the best language learning audio resources that I have come across in a long time.

I have spent a good deal of time studying Modern Hebrew using Pimsleur materials.  These materials work very well, except there is one significant problem.  The exercises get very boring.  Earworms reminds me of the repetition that is found in the Pimsleur materials; however, this repetition is set to upbeat music.  In many places, the conversations are actually in time with the music adding rhythm to the learning.  And, the interaction between the speakers is quite a bit more lively than those in Pimsleur.  Thus, the repetition, which is one of the major keys to learning any language, is much easier to stomach.  I feel like I gained a great deal this morning from only about 45 minutes of listening.

The two issues that I would point out with Earworms for those interested in checking out the materials is that the selection of languages is somewhat limited and there are only two volumes lasting a little over one hour each.  As an example of the limited selection, one is able to learn Spanish; however, this is the form of the language spoken in Spain, whereas learners in the US would more likely be interested in the form spoken in Latin America.  In terms of the only having a small amount of material, this limits Earworms to being somewhat of a jump start to language learning.  The resources would not really work long-term for someone wanting to become advanced in a language (though there website does state that the materials will eventually progress to five volumes).

If you are interested in learning more about Earworms Rapid language courses, check them out HERE.  Or, download them with a free trial of Audible.

This past weekend I just finished listening to The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels and wanted to write a brief review. My overall impression of the book was that it was a bit disappointing. My area of expertise is Biblical Hebrew language and Old Testament; however, I have always wanted to delve a bit more into Gnosticism. I had read some about Gnosticism in my New Testament courses, but felt as though I had barely scratched the surface.

Now, after listening to The Gnostic Gospels I do not feel that I have gained much beyond what I already knew.  I think that this is primarily due to the fact that the book may have a misleading title.  It is called The Gnostic Gospels but deals more with the relationship between “orthodoxy” and “heresy.”  I was interested in learning more about the texts themselves, which is what I thought the title entailed.  So, I think the book was not exactly what I was looking for and on account of that did not live up to my expectations.

The one positive point I can make about the book is that it did pique my interest about the actual texts from Nag Hammadi.  So, I think that the next time I delve into Gnosticism it will be to read the translations of the Gnostic manuscripts found in that library.  In that way I think I will learn more about the Gnostic writings themselves.  Overall, I do not know that I would recommend The Gnostic Gospels unless it is for someone who simply knows very little to nothing about Gnosticism.

Well, I learned this week that I would not be adjuncting at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans for the coming semester.  They just hired two new full-time faculty members with one of them being in Sacred Scripture.  I think this will be very good for the seminary and add to the sense of academic community in a way that having a number of adjunct faculty coming in and out never could.  However, I must say I will miss seeing my students two days out of the week.  I wish them all the best with their continued studies.

With that said, I am thankful that I had my first opportunity to teach over the past academic year and look forward to further opportunities for the future.  I am currently still checking into some possibilities for adjuncting in the coming semester; however, if that does not work out, I am excited about other opportunities that will open up.  In my mind, I know that if I am not teaching in the fall, I will be able to put more time into this website, which will give my outlet for Old Testament instruction.  I am also attempting to get some hours tutoring in Biblical and Classical languages, which is really my first love.  I put out flyers on Wednesday and have already had at least five people get my contact information.  In addition, I will probably check into getting some speaking engagements, which I will hopefully be able to incorporate into the website.

So, this is a change, but it is an exciting time to see what might be next.  To be continued …

In a previous version of my report on Free Audio Bibles for my Email list subscribers, I had stated that I was unsure if Amazon.com shipped internationally. So, I went and checked out their site. And, in fact, they do offer international shipping and at very reasonable rates. For instance, a shipment to Asia or the Pacific Islands could be as low as $5 US. Some people will have gotten the full information on this in the report; however, some who received the report earlier will not have gotten all of the information. Thus, if as a last resort you feel like you want to purchase an audio Bible, be sure to check out Amazon. Their best deal in my opinion is the Mp3 CD of the NIV Dramatized Audio Bible, which is under $40 US.

If you are looking for a new and different way to read or listen to the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, I would suggest trying to listen to the books in the traditional Hebrew ordering if you have never done so. Christian versions of the Old Testament follow the order of the books found in the Greek version of these texts, whereas the Hebrew ordering is quite different.  The most major difference is that in the Hebrew ordering the prophets come in the middle and not at the end.  Christians probably preferred the Greek ordering with the prophets coming last because they saw the prophets as foretelling the coming of Christ.  However, when one reads or listens to the books in the Hebrew order it is possible to see parts of the section referred to as the Writings as a response to the prophets since the Writings come after the prophets.  This is one of many nuances that one may find when listening to the books in a different order.  You could do this with any audio Bible or Bible text and simply follow the Hebrew order as found HERE.  Or, you could get a copy of one of the Bibles published by the Jewish Publication Society.

I’ve just posted a link to a free King James Version audio Bible on the Audio Bibles page of this site. The King James Version text is out of copyright, so this opportunity is legitimate. I have been dismayed lately at a number of sites posting the NIV for free download without license. These types of sites are little bit scary to me. If they are willing to steal copyrighted material, what might the site do to my computer? At any rate, I do not believe that would be an issue with this King James Version download. I hope you enjoy and continue to check back on this site from time to time for more free audio Bible opportunities.

This past week at Vacation Bible School (=VBS) I helped with the rather difficult task of teaching the 10 plagues to children in Pre-K through 5th grades. Usually when this is done the teaching materials at least tone the stories down a bit due to the violence (i.e. the killing of the firstborn). However, I was shocked to find that the materials that we were using did not do so. Granted when the materials were chosen, the leaders of VBS probably assumed that the stories would be toned down.

So, I took on the task of rewriting the materials for several nights of the week, particularly the night dealing with the first nine plagues and the night dealing with the death of the firstborn.  And oddly enough, this is one of the places where modern methods of Biblical Studies helped out tremendously.  In two of the courses that can be found on this site, A History of Ancient Israel by Eric Cline and The Hebrew Bible by Lawrence Schiffman, the authors go into a significant amount of detail about the Exodus.  They explain that there is likely some historical kernel of truth to these stories, but that much of the stories was a result of later theological reflection.  For instance, there were likely Hebrew slaves in Egypt who escaped; however, this escape did not take place as the Book of Exodus records with ten plagues ending with the death of the firstborn.  These events would have merited mention at least somewhere outside of the Biblical record.  Rather this was simply the Israelite way of telling the story to make their theological point.

So, I tried to take a similar approach and bring it down to the level of little children.  I attempted to take this as an opportunity to teach the old adage “A lot of stories are true, and some of them actually happened.”  And, I think that most of the children came away with that lesson.  I think that they understood that a story can contain truths without being historically accurate in its details.

I added two new videos to the site this week, but was unable to post about them. One is a video of Lawrence Schiffman lecturing on Judaism, Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls. This video should be excellent. I have listened to Schiffman’s course on the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Modern Scholar series, and it was very enlightening.

The other video is David Noel Freedman lecturing on Biblical Scholarship. This video is a phenomenal opportunity since Freedman passed away in April of 2008. He was a preeminent scholar in the field of Biblical Studies. And, this video has preserved an opportunity to actually watch him speak about this subject.