Balancing Life Within Biblical Studies

Working on my dissertation is my default activity. The problem is that there’s a lot of other things in my life which ask for attention. On the one hand, I get frustrated by all of these things that take me away from thinking and writing and studying. On the other hand, I recognize that if I spend too much time in my head, I don’t like the person I become. [For example, I become less concerned about the people around me, I lose my ability to hold conversations about non-academic things, and I get stressed irritated with things that would otherwise cause me little concern.]

So I struggle with the question of how to be properly inwardly and outwardly focused. I have discovered that teaching helps provide a means to balance the focus on study and being concerned with others – but that’s not always an option. Nor is it necessarily the best way for me to balance life, for depending on who and what I’m teaching, I could get lost in a tiny little world of details and forget what life is like for the rest fo the world – those that don’t read Hebrew or are concerned about being Calvinistic or Reformed. And so I have chosen a different option, one that doesn’t exclude teaching or research but instead includes them alongside of a choice to be an active participant in a Christian [new monastic] community. And thus not only is my faith something I talk and think about, it also becomes something I do.

I wonder whether others feel the need for balance and reality checks as much as I do, and what they have chosen to do to create healthy balances.

Quote of the day – on subjectivity, Biblical Hebrew, poetry, and verbs

I came across the following quote today in my research into the verbal system in Biblical Hebrew Poetry.

“It was and still is fairly a [sic] common opinion among scholars, although not always openly declared, that the verbal forms in poetry, more than in prose, can be taken to mean everything the interpreter thinks appropriate according to his understanding and the context.”

[Alviero Niccacci, “The Biblical Hebrew Verbal System in Poetry” in Avi Hurvitz, Stephen E. Fassberg (ed.), Biblical Hebrew in Its Northwest Semitic Setting: Typological and Historical Perspectives (Hebrew University Magnes Press, Jerusalem & Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake, 2006): 247 (full article: 247-68)]

There’s nothing quite as comforting to a Ph.D. student as when one of the biggest names in verbal forms points out the general subjectivity found in the discussion the verbal forms in poetry. At the same time, it’s a bit frustrating to recognize that I’ll have to weed through a lot of claims made that are built on limited evidence.

“Thanks for talking about the Bible that way”

When I was thinking further about methodology and this blog (many thoughts of which have not (yet) made it to this blog), I realized that one area in which I had something to contribute was in relation to the confrontation (and ongoing reconciliation) of my conservative North American Christian upbringing and its understanding of the Bible with the European academic world and assumptions about the Bible. I’m still learning how best to hold on to my belief that the Bible is God’s Word and has a claim on our lives today while also seeing it as a text with a long history, whose creation, design, and reception are complicated. A lot of assumptions are made regarding the Bible and its study – and I’ve spent a lot of time in the last few years wondering about these, especially the ones I have made and what ones assume I make and what ones I’m allowed to make. Hopefully I will talk more about all this in the future, but for now I will simply share an anecdote.

I recently substitute taught a Hebrew reading class that is primarily for Bible translators. They were good students and eager to learn, and I enjoyed getting to share my knowledge of Hebrew with them. One comment from a student really struck me, though. [To provide some context, he was an African student who had asked me if I was a Christian after my introducing myself and saying that I wanted to help people read the Bible better. This seems to indicate to me that he comes from a fairly evangelical sort of background.] This student said that he really appreciated how I talked about the Bible. And I think I looked a bit puzzled when he said that because I hadn’t really said anything profound; I had just been talking about how certain aspects of grammar weren’t all that cut-and-dry (this is the only sane claim one can make after spending a month trying to analyze the grammar of the last eight chapters of Ezekiel), and I had mentioned how this might have something to do with how the Hebrew of the Bible encompasses at the least several hundreds of years. But to him, I had done something unusual in my acknowledging the ambiguities of certain things in Hebrew grammar and mentioning that trying to put together a grammar based on 500 years worth of English would produce a lot of inconsistencies. He related that he’d experienced exegesis where people made claims based on the obviousness of a certain grammatical element – and I could see that the student was frustrated by these claims, recognizing that something wasn’t quite right. And I was thankful that my ramblings about grammar and the Bible in terms of a receptive text could be helpful to him, especially since to some people this uncertainty in the Bible and this inconsistency might shake their notions of what God’s Word is and ought to be.

As for myself, I do believe that it is God’s Word – I’m just disappointed that we often try to shape the God of that Word to be rather uncomplicated and lacking in mystery (and we can’t quite see the beauty in His Word being full of puzzles and layers and wonder).

Evaluating Ph.D. Programs – My own experience at the VU University (Vrije Universiteit) in Amsterdam

This is in response to John Anderson’s re-opening the discussion on Ph.D. programmes.
When people ask me why I’m working on my Ph.D at the VU University (Vrije Universiteit in dutch) in Amsterdam [Netherlands], I sometimes tell them that it had to do with the simplicity of the application. I wrote an email to the supervisor I wanted to work with and a few weeks later he wrote back agreeing to be my supervisor. And hence I was accepted. I’m somewhat joking when I say this, but the story is true – minus, of course, the personal connections and the complicated elements.

Five years ago, I took advantage of a loophole related to my parents’ country-of-origin and the year of their immigration, and I applied for and receive dutch citizenship with very few difficulties. This citizenship (or a citizenship in any EU country) removes many of the complicated elements of residency and regulations and costs of living and studying and working in the Netherlands.

The email to my supervisor mentioned above had been intended as a sort of inquiry into whether my studying there would be feasible – an introduction into who I was, what I was interested in, and a mentioning that I studied under and worked for people that he admired and appreciated. I had considered it to be the beginning of a rather long complicated process, and in some ways it was, but in other ways it wasn’t, as I had the guarantee of acceptance (the support of a supervisor) right from the beginning.

The entire manner in which I describe my acceptance here gives some idea of how different the European system is compared to the American system. Things are changing so that the systems are somewhat more in line with each other (although the system in Germany still follows more of the older European system), but there are still many significant differences that should be noted, such as:
- the lack of classes and comprehensive exams prior to starting writing one’s dissertation. The assumption is that the student has learned all these things prior to starting their Ph.D work – or will learn them along the way. The Netherlands, or at least the VU University, is moving towards encouraging students to get (the second year of) a Research Master, where they would receive some course work and write a chapter of their dissertation or a mini-version of it, before beginning. Yet, it is still possible to enter immediately into the dissertation writing phase of the Ph.D. program if one has a solid proposal, a long writing sample related to this proposal, and the support of a Ph.D. supervisor. This leads us into…
- the necessity of the student to have a topic when they begin. One’s acceptance into the Ph.D. program is based on the acceptance of one’s research proposal and the support of a Ph.D. supervisor. This topic can be outlined/provided by the supervisor and the student then agrees to be employed for four years working on the topic with the results becoming their dissertation. This strange system is related to the fact that..
- one is not considered a student if one is working on a Ph.D. in the Netherlands. One is an employee who is employed by the supervisor or by a grant institution to do research on a proposal that has been developed with the supervisor and/or approved by the grant institution. This factor makes it complicated in terms of visas and/or funding for people who are either not dutch or are not intimately familiar with the dutch system. One can receive a visa as a research scholar and one can get one’s Ph.D using one’s own resources – but there is no large scholarship system that is present in many American schools. At the same time,
- there is no tuition cost for getting one’s Ph.D. The lack of cost and the lack of classes makes it easier for people to work on their Ph.D. part-time, either in a different country or while working somewhere in the Netherlands (or while a spouse is working in the Netherlands). In this way, a Ph.D. is much more attainable assuming that someone is independent and ambitious enough. The most difficult factor is
- the influence/sway of the supervisor – anyone nearing the end of their Ph.D. is well aware that their relationship to their supervisor (and their ability to work/learn under him/her) plays a significant role in whether their dissertation gets finished in a timely overall pleasant way, or even whether it gets finished. In the Netherlands, I learned that one’s acceptance to the Ph.D. program is dependent on having a supervisor’s approval and help. As well, since most of the Ph.D. program is independent and one takes few classes, one can be quite isolated from the University’s faculty and even more dependent on one’s Supervisor.

In many ways, I’ve really appreciated the system here in the Netherlands. It’s been a good fit, as I expected based on the recomendations of people whose advice I sought before coming here. I have a lot of freedom to discuss things that I care about – and I’m allowed to ask questions in my dissertation about why what we’re reading actually matters (Something that’s not present everywhere). But sometimes the freedom of the system is a bit much. One can flounder for quite awhile, as it feels like there’s a lack of structure and I have to pursue for myself opportunities to connect with other scholars and determine what I need to learn further and where to go. Yet, at the same time I’ve really enjoyed the independence. I am not pushed to be “a certain kind of academic” and instead can develop my academic (and non-academic) side at a pace and in a manner that fits me (for which I am very thankful). To give me more freedom with time and my topic, I’ve chosen not to pursue the option of being employed by the university through a supervisor – and this has meant some complications with funding, but through a grant from my church denomination, some teaching opportunities, and my supervisor’s help in my receiving some temporary work doing researching and editing at the university, the funding has worked out fairly well (although a non-EU citizen would have to have more secure means of funding than I have in order to live here legally).

As a final thought – in looking at John’s comments, I’d have to say that I agree with him about a lot of things and it sounds like good advice (although in my situation I managed to bypass some of the common sense things because I was applying to a European institution).
- A good fit is very, very important. It is also very important to be able to live in a certain place, especially if one has a family.
- When looking at whether something is a good fit, of high importance is the reason one is getting a Ph.D. and whether this school will help achieve that. For me, I’m getting a Ph.D. because I love studying the Bible and I want to teach students (most likely Christian students) about why the Bible matters. Where I study now gives me the freedom and opportunity to ask those questions, while also challenging me to see things a bit more broadly than I had in my more sheltered former academic institutions.
- European schools aren’t interested in the GRE and don’t have the same acceptance rates as schools in America, which makes a difference in how you approach applications. If you can find a supervisor who has time and energy and is excited about your project, you’re in. Finding the funding for the project is a lot more complicated, especially if you are outside the EU, but the opportunity to get the Ph.D. is much more attainable.

Sexism and biblioblogging: adding my two cents

Through Rob Kashow’s recent blog entry, I became aware of a discussion about sexism and the blogosphere. He responds to a post by April DeConick where she states that although she thinks there are as many female bibliobloggers as male ones, the female ones are much less visible – mostly because of their work on marginal/niched subjects and because they aren’t linked in the primarily male networks.

Kashow considers this to be nonsense, going so far as to say that there is no “oppression on the blogosphere.” He argues instead that the lack of female bibliobloggers, especially a lack in the top 50, has more to do with a lack of females in the academy. And Kashow does believe that sexism exists and that is unfortunate that more women’s voices are not being heard. I have been following the discussion somewhat, and I thought I would contribute – although at this point, due to the speed of blogging, my contribution is a bit of ‘old news.’

I’m joining in the conversation as a female who generally agrees with Kashow’s point. As a female, my voice is harder to dismiss as belonging to a male chauvanist [and even if I would argue that by saying things more graciously he'd be heard better, he does not strike me as a chauvanist]. And as a biblioblogger, albeit a fairly quiet one, who is part of the academy, I’d like to share my own experience (and thoughts).

Although I would say it is possible that biblioblogs by females are marginalized, I would not say that it is due (primarily) to sexism. Blogs that focus on topics which do not receive attention by many bloggers will receive little attention or links. Blogs about topics whose main discussors are female will generally receive little male attention. That’s simple mathematical logic and not in itself sexism – whether these topics are receiving the attention they deserve is more worthy of discussions about sexism.

Furthermore, the possible anonymity of blogging and the widespread availability of things on the internet make it difficult for sexism in the blogosphere to prosper. Due to the widespread nature of the internet, one does not need to be part of certain groups in order to be found through searches – and one can become a quite ‘popular’ blog irrelevant of whether one has been connected to by certain networks.

To share my own experience, I’ve been made to feel welcome in the sphere of biblioblogging, especially as this is an endeavour I am still somewhat tentative about. After starting a biblioblog, I made the list-keepers aware of my blog and I was welcomed with open arms, even receiving special positive mention on a number of (primarily male) blogs. And I’ve heard and seriously considered heeding the special call directed to female bibliobloggers to host a Biblical Studies Carnival – it’s just the amount of work involved that scares me off. And in this special call for females to host, alongside other small asides, I’ve sensed a bit of disappointment from many (male and female) that there are not more female bibliobloggers out there. In this way, I’ve felt welcomed and have the sense that my perspective is desired.

But I’m not sure if I can really contribute an answer to the question of why there are so female bibliobloggers. Perhaps I will use a different blog entry, at a later date, to explore that question further. The question of why there are limited evangelical females in the academy has been addressed well by Nicola Hoggard Creegan, and Christine D. Pohl in Living on the Boundaries: Evangelical women, feminism and the theological academy. The prevalence of sexism in the academy is described well by “Female Science Professor,” whose blog is devoted, not to science, but to her experience as a female science professor. See a recent entry on sexism.

And just to answer one of Krakow’s final questions, I have attended a church with a female pastor. But that has everything to do with my commitment to a denomination and very little to do with feminist or non-feminist leanings.

Discourse, Verbal Forms, and Clarification

Although the book of Ezekiel is not exacty narrative, there are significant limitations on the amount of materials focused on discourse analysis in poetry from a grammatical perspective instead of primarily a rhetorical analysis. Hence to look at discourse analysis from a grammatical perspective, I’ve picked up the following tome related to narrative: Roy L. Heller’s Narrative Structure and Discourse Constellations: An Analysis of Clause Function in Biblical Hebrew Prose (Eisenbrauns, 2004).

Although I am fascinated by Hebrew and grammar and so forth, most of what I read related to these things isn’t exactly exciting. Yet, after reading only a few pages of his book, I realized how much I was going to appreciate reading this. I’ve already seen that he’s giving me language for things that I’d intuitively understood but not quite clarified. [1]

I’ve studied enough languages to know that each language has different means to convey different nuances through verbs. Choosing not to name a verbal form as imperfect, a word that has significant connotations in other languages (most notably Greek) is one manner of not assuming beforehand what the verb is conveying. Yet, the question remains of what things ought to be named and what exactly is being conveyed with the verbal forms of Hebrew, a language whose changes over time are not entirely clear. And in poetry and prophecy, the mixture of wayyiqtols, weqtls, yqtls all seem to run through each other – and through past and future, complete and incomplete. Even though I’ve been following somewhat the theories of Nicacci (and so forth) in terms of verbal concepts, what was most clear in my head was that there was a lot of confusion.

Heller is helpful in giving languagex to the discussion, pointing out the different nuances that Hebrew verbs are expected to convey. Even the naming of certain things assumes a certain meaning, not only in the use of the term imperfect for the yqtl form but also in things like how the naming of the waw on a wayyiqtol matters. Naming it a waw conversive assumes a temporal perspective to verbs and naming it a waw consecutive assumes more of a aspectual perspective (4). Heller’s providing a clear explanation to many things that others simply assume is a helpful clearing up of the things that I had sensed previously, in paying attention to the verbal discussions, but had never quite sorted out.

I look forward to reading further in his text and thinking further about verbal forms. And close to the top of my list is : The blog בלשנות and his discussion of the semitic verbal system.

[1] I have to admit that Heller won me over already with his comments on Lambdin. I learned Hebrew with Lambdin’s Introduction to Hebrew, and in that class I did receive a solid foundation for understanding discourse. Yet, in the opinion of most of the class, Lambdin’s explanations are often convuluted and unclear, an opinion that my former Hebrew professor assumed had more to do with the students taking Hebrew than Lambdin. Heller, however, backs up my own suspicions: he points out on page 2 that Lambdin ’s explanations of different types of disjunctive clauses were not only unclear, but subjective – something I remember hearing (and sharing) a lot of complaints about as a student..

Cheating on my first love

I’ve known for years that I’d like to study and write more on the book of Jeremiah. I find the book of Jeremiah fascinating – a wonderful mixture of different poetry, and actions, and confessions, and oracles. The order puzzles everyone. Then the prophet himself is fascinating. And the theological message of repenting, but disaster is still coming, appears to be a paradox – and doesn’t fit with any kind of happy feel good theology. I could spend aeons studying it. Jeremiah was thus the obvious book to focus in for my doctoral research.

Last year I was offered a temporary position of working on a biblical computer database with the Werkgroep Informatica of the Vrije Universiteit. I’d do some labelling of parts of speech and valancy, and also create structural outlines. Someone had already done Jeremiah, but Ezekiel had to be done. So I’ve spent the last year with Ezekiel, feeling a bit like I was cheating on my first love.

But the story gets worse. Although I still find the book and person of Jeremiah more fascinating (and wouldn’t mind spending years and years working on it), the book of Ezekiel – in all its oddity – has grown on me. I still think that anyone who’d purposely study Ezekiel is slightly ’soft in the head’ but the puzzle of how the pieces in each chapter fit together grammatically and rhetorically – has captured my imagination. And I’ve thus chosen to change my dissertation project. That I was as far along with my own research in Jeremiah as I was in analyzing the data in Ezekiel makes it feasible – and since my head is more immersed in Ezekiel, this switch is also more practical. It is also becoming more obvious that I will still to get ask similar questions about how to understand the text in all its syntactical complexity – just now for the book of Ezekiel – and then later for Jeremiah.

As a side consequence of this shift, many of the thoughts from Ezekiel, which were somewhat an incentive to start this blog in order to share, are now currently bouncing around in my head and in the proposal (instead of written here) as part of the incubation period of my dissertation. Perhaps they will come out again later when they’ve grown up a bit more… and when I’m ready to let my ‘children’ be criticized.

Viewing the Bible with a Mathematical Background

In my undergraduate degree, I studied mathematics. I enjoyed it, especially the elements related to patterns and solving puzzles. Mathematics was also where I got my first taste of doing research full-time. I discovered that I did research better when I could bounce my ideas off of others and that I couldn’t see myself doing mathematics for the rest of my life. I felt perhaps my being given this research position had been a waste when I realized that I no longer wanted to study mathematics further but my supervisor gave me the sense that discovering what I’d like to do further in mathematics (or not) was also part of the goal of the research. The gift of that research time – and the lessons I’ve learned from having studied mathematics have stayed with me. And every so often, I see glimpses of how my mathematical background affects how I approach biblical studies.

The following are a few examples:

• Consistency is very important to me. As someone working with the data in the Werkgroep Informatica of the VU University (Vrije Universiteit), this has been a bit of a challenge. The Hebrew of the Massoretic Text doesn’t always follow exact rules, especially not poetry. And there’s a level of subjectivity in interpreting the semantics and syntax of words and phrases and clauses and sentences. This subjectivity only increases when you realize that a diverse number of people (with different perspectives) have worked on the dabase – and the database is too large for one person to be able to keep all of it in his/her head. It’s understandable that there’d be inconsistency, but it’s something that frustrates me a lot (and something I probably complain about the most).
• The computer program that’s been designed to work with the data in the database has a few glitches. Most computer programs do, so it’s understandable. When I first started, the program crashed at least once a day (I guess I wanted to push it to its limits). It happens much rarer now – but even so, it’s much less frustrating. Either I’ve now learned how to work around the crash or I know how to reproduce the problem (crashing consistently at the same place for the same reason) so that it can be reported to our IT specialist and hopefully fixed.
• I remain astonished by how frequently poor logic or bad statistics is present in biblical studies. The number of things I’ve read/seen that say that said “this” proves “that” based on faulty statistics or logic exasperates me. Although perhaps, from a logical or statistical perspective, I should be less astonished (although if that’s the case, that doesn’t say much positive for the area of biblical studies). See the footnote for examples of bad logic/statistics.
• I’m in the process of changing my dissertation project so that it in essence becomes trying to solve the puzzle of how discourse in Ezekiel fits together. This then becomes a large study of different patterns in Ezekiel. As a friend of mine (who works in computer science) put it – such a project is what might expect from somebody with a mathematical background studies the biblical text.

I think, all in all, I am glad that my former training in mathematics affects my life and studies even now.

Footnote: An example of a poor use of statistics would be to say that since God is named five times in a certain chapter, his actions are obviously key to understanding the chapter. It is possible that God’s actions are an important element in the chapter but God’s name being used five times is not enough to prove that. Since God is often named in many chapters, there is nothing that would make five times be statistically significant. It is the use of the name of God 30+ times in Genesis 1 that is an example of something statistically significant/relevant (especially when you consider that since God is the only character/actor in the chapter, a pronoun could have easily been used in many of the cases where He is named).

An example of poor logic is when you argue that “this” is true because of “that” when in reality “that” is true because of “this.” [This is the difference between the mathematical vs. ↔ or "if" vs. "iff" (if and only if)]. An example of this is: If a verb is a cohortative, it has an added ה at the end of it. However, the argument cannot be reversed – you cannot say that a verb having an extra ה at the end of it is then a cohortative. Certain verbs with this extra ה are actually just ‘long imperatives.’ The argument could only be reversed if you defined whether the verb is first, second, or third person.

This last example is actually taken from a glitch in Libronix where there are more than 250 examples of imperatives that have a very confusing cohortative mood label. I’m doing what I can to see if this can be changed.

A brief review of the film, The Reader (2008)

Knowing that the movie was significantly centred around a questionable relationship between a teenage boy and an older woman, I was unsure whether I’d really want to watch it. I’m still not sure about it – especially with relation to the limited moral commentary on a number of questionable events / actions. I don’t know if I’d recommend it.

Yet, at the same time I found it to be a very thought provoking movie. The movie illustrates the power of shame – and how it has the ability to shape so much of our life. It also shows how actions sometimes have more consequences than we might ever expect. It is these two aspects that have caused me weeks later still to be thinking about the movie. It would appear that this movie could lead to a lot of discussion.

Dial-up as inconducive to academic endeavours

In the last few weeks, I’ve travelled around quite a lot: taking some time to rest, visiting friends and family, networking with other theological folk, and helping out with the community I’m a part of. It was enjoyable but a bit overwhelming at times (of course, adding a move from a mostly furnitured apartment to a non-furnished apartment this week and next hasn’t helped with keeping things less overhwelming!). And much of this travelling and busy-ness has been done without a lot of internet connections – and when there was a connection, half the time it was dial-up.

On the one hand, such a break is conducive for academic endeavours. It gives time to take a break from regular life and get renewed energy to go back to thoughts with which I’d grown tired or frustrated. It also gives opportunity to find new insights to problems. On the other hand, such a break is not so conducive to academic endeavors, especially if it involves quite a bit of travel like my breaks often can. If you ask me, an ideal break includes lots of time to read and think – certainly a good degree of social fun should be included somewhere – but as an introvert, a break without lots of time to reflect and think is an incomplete one. and since the internet is a helpful tool for me to think – to hear other’s thoughts, to do some checking and researching of my own, and to reflect via commenting and blogging – having a mediocre internet connection meant that this kind of thinking was difficult. And thus I feel like it was only half a break – a break that wants another break so that I can have more time to reflect.

I’m thankful to return to my normal life, where I’ve worked hard to carve out time to reflect. And I hope soon to get more of the thoughts stewing in my head out somewhere on paper/screen.