Abided Knowing

And as G.I. Joe says, “Knowing is half the battle.” I suppose killing is the other half (which ironically never happened on G.I. Joe).

I heard back from the only program to which I applied. I have been ‘offered a place to study for a Ph.D. under the supervision of… .” Apparently, my proposal and the 100 quid I stuffed into the application worked well enough. I also had to pay quite a high price for those letters of reference (this is sarcasm lest anyone mistake it). Needless to say, we are extremely happy, after all, it just feels good not to be rejected again. Also, this program and supervisor is an infinitely better fit for me with a much more prestigious university. When I was reading rejection letters last year, I wouldn’t have ever summoned the notion that it was possible for things to work out like this.

Anyway, this is the is just the fun part: knowing that I’m accepted. The coming parts are where all the work is at.

I  am learning the hard reality of what it means to identify with God before I identify with whatever God has called me to do. It’s summed in a deceptively smart phrase from Psalm 37:

Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.

I won’t preach this, but the blatant value of such a disposition is painfully gained (at least for people of my disposition).

Michael Bird citing Markus Bockmuehl citing C.K. Barrett citing Edward Hoskyns.  If you don’t already read Euangelion, you probably should.  Michael Bird gives a daily mix of reading summaries, insider NT info, and journal TOC’s.  It’s a great glimpse at some happenings in NT studies. 

Hoskyns apparently says this of his endeavor in NT criticism: 

“You look down your critical miscroscope at the New testament text with a view to describing the religious life of the first-century Christians, and you find that God is looking back at you through the microscope and declaring you to be a sinner” (Bockmuehl, Seeing the Word, 147).

I have been reading through Doug Yoder’s dissertation entitled ‘Tanakh Epistemology’. It is a mammoth dissertation and covers much ground. He emailed a copy after discovering my ‘cry for help’ post. I cannot believe that I asked for help finding someone and they actually found me. Thank you internet!

However, he did tell me that he is currently working to get it published, so I will only tantalize you epistemology dorks with scant details. Essentially, Dr. Yoder spends a lot of time getting us to see that the importation of Hellenistic epistemology lenses is not necessarily fair to what he calls the ‘native epistemology’ of the Tanakh. I like that term ‘native epistemology’.

His method for pursuing this ‘native epistemology’ is to look at concentrations of the Hebrew root yada. Using Daniel 2 and Quohelet as his primary epistemological texts, he shows how these text must be read to demonstrate an internal epistemology that is, “…cohesive, nuanced, far-ranging, and bold. Its deepest conceptual commitments voice
noncontradictory positions regarding skepticism, perception, physical and nonphysical reality, epistemic limits, and the relation of knowledge to power, desire, and life.”  And that’s just from the abstract.

I looked forward to having more conversation with him as I digest more of the thesis, but for now, I am very excited to find someone else who takes the the Tanakh’s purview this seriously AND takes the anachronistic superiority complex of Western Philosophy to task. I am very interested in his view of Biblical Theology and I will report more hear as I talk with him and continue to read on.