Dismantling Anti-Jewish Thinking in Intro to the NT?

As someone who teaches New Testament in a mid-sized liberal arts college, one of the biggest challenges I face is the insidiousness of anti-Jewish perspectives among many of my Christian, even culturally Christian, students. Students are not overtly anti-Semitic--they don't use slanderous language or ethnic stereo-types. Yet, when they read the New Testament, the Gospels in particular, they have an incredibly difficult time understanding that the depiction of Jewish groups in these texts are 1) the result of intra-Jewish conversation and conflict and 2) part of the authors' literary strategies. Students (including some adults I've had the opportunity to teach in church settings) tend to embrace the gnostic/ Marcionite perspective regarding the character of the divine. I can't even count how often I've heard a student say something along the lines of, "The God of the NT is so loving in comparison to the God of the OT." In other words, "the God" of the OT is described as vengeful, unloving, bloodthirsty, etc. My first response, as someone who's research is on the Apocalypse, is, "Have you read the Book of Revelation?" Yet, no matter how often I remind my class that "the God" of the NT is the same as the divine of the Jewish Scriptures and writings, from an early Christian and Christian perspective, there are always students who can not or will not shake this dichotomy. A-J Levine, in a speech at UNC-Greensboro a few years ago, explained that she responds to this by referencing the 23rd Psalm, an oft-memorized passage in Christian Sunday Schools: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want/ He biddeth me to lie down in green pastures/ He restoreth my soul." (Of course, when I grew up we memorized this in the KJV. Old school, represent!) Even this sometimes falls on deaf ears, as students explain that in "most of the OT" God is a big meany.

So for many students (of course not all!) the multiple depictions of the divine in the Hebrew Bible are diminished into an image of an ogre and the depictions of a wrathful and justice-seeking God of the NT are dismissed as marginal. Revelation is at the end of the canon for a reason . . . it's not really meant to be read or taken seriously. (Of course, for some students, these perspectives are held deeply because they've heard them all their lives, from church pulpits, Sunday school teachers, etc. But that's a whole other can of worms.)

In light of this, I do try to find avenues for dismantling anti-Jewish thinking in my NT courses. In fact, this is one of the "unstated goals" of my Introduction to the New Testament and Early Christian Literature course. But as I write this, I am struck by the fact that, perhaps, I need to be more upfront with this goal. Maybe it is time to name this, along with uncovering how NT texts have been used to justify slave-holding and to oppress women, as one of my central student learning outcomes. In doing this, I think I also need to find new strategies for challenging these perspectives, new strategies for unsettling this simplistic and hurtful thinking. This is one thing I hope to think about this summer as I rework my Intro syllabus. Hopefully, I can begin to share some of these here.

Books to guide me as I explore these questions:

• bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress.
• Terrance Donaldson, Jews and Anti-Judaism in the New Testament: Decision Points and Divergent Traditions.
  
• Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus.

And, of course, I'm always happy for suggestions and insights.

Personal Apocalypse: On Sabbatical

The school year is starting, but I'm not. I'm on sabbatical. Sigh.

As I hear my friends talk about their first days back--the carefully selected teaching outfits (tie or no tie? sexy heels or "I mean business" boots?), the last minute syllabus preparation, the pre-year meetings that delay the actual beginning--I feel a sense of sadness. I miss the adrenaline rush of that first day. I miss the first day discussion about how my Intro to New Testament class is NOT a Sunday School class. I miss the students who I've taught before expressing their enthusiasm about being in my class again. I miss getting my students (and myself) excited about the material I teach--it's inherent interest and significance. Instead, I'm feeling detached and depressed.

Don't get me wrong, I am (or have been) excited about sabbatical. In fact, all spring and summer I reveled in the idea of having a chance to do writing. However, the reality of a wide swath of time to myself--to be with myself, to be with my "work," is now daunting. I'm realizing, on one hand, that I like my teacher self. I'm comfortable with her and her abilities. (Of course, at the beginning of next semester, as I re-enter the classroom, I'll have to be reminded of that.) Not going into the classroom this fall reminds me that I like being in there. On the other hand, as I face an ongoing writing project and a couple of papers, I'm realizing that I'm not as sure of the scholar/ writer self. I did not expect that the so-called imposter syndrome would hit me like a ton of bricks.

Armed with the luxury of time to look at my past work, the few publications I've done, all I can see are the mistakes, the inconsistencies, the short-comings. Sitting in my re-done home office, I'm compelled to reach out to people for reassurance: "Other people make mistakes, right?" I offer myself advice on how I should have done things: "When that esteemed individual asked you to contribute an essay the first semester of your first year teaching, you should have held off until you had time to really work out the details." Instead of telling the Lynn of 20/20 hindsight to shut the hell up, I allow her the last say. Ouch.

So why share all this? It's so revealing (hence, labeling it "apocalypse"). Well, I think that revelation can lead to gaining some kind of perspective on the issue. By looking at what I am doing, thinking, saying, I see that while there are parts of me in my academic work, my writing, my work is not me. I am more than the book, the essay, the review. My sense of sadness about the semester, for instance, reminds me that I am also a teacher and a colleague. Looking at my work, I see that I am also more than what any critic or academic conversation partner, negative OR positive, says or thinks about me. (Not that this reflection was occasioned by some external criticism--it wasn't.) Luke Johnson, who was an important mentor to me in grad school, once told me that I shouldn't dwell on what others think, regardless of whether their feedback was positive or negative, since it was putting my self worth in the hands of others. I think he was right. Of course I knew all of this before sabbatical, but now I need to learn to believe it and to find strategies for living it. I need to find ways of being comfortable with putting my ideas out into the world without the paralysis that comes with perfectionism, without worrying about what others think. I need to find ways of being comfortable with my role as scholar, as someone who lends her voice to intellectual investigations and inquiries. If you have any great strategies, feel free to share of course.

I'm also sharing this because of the hype around sabbatical. It is a great thing, mind you; however, as any other stage of the profession, it has its difficulties and times for growth. I hate growth, because, damn, it hurts some times.

Now, on to sabbatical . . .

thinking about next steps: material culture and the NT

I'm currently in the midst of what I'll call a research/ writing gap. I just finished a draft of chapter for my current project and I need to move on to the next chapter. I'd like to start this chapter now, however, I'm going to be traveling for a couple of weeks. I'll be on a research trip to Israel and Jordan where I'll be working on a project related to my teaching and not a project related to my writing. Unfortunately, I'm not quite sure how to navigate this gap. I took a couple days to write a book review, but now that's completed and I am at loose ends again . . .

Maybe this is a good time to sit back and think about what I want out of the research trip. The program requires that each participant have a project that relates to the trip, which focuses on the area ruled by the Herodian dynasty during the Roman and Late Antique periods. It would be nice to have something publishable out of this, in fact.

I have proposed a project related to teaching the NT through material culture. I have articulated two specific foci within this broad topic.

The first set of research questions is related to a course I am currently developing entitled “Messiahs and Martyrs.” This course is intended to replace and improve upon a catalog course on “Jesus and the Gospels,” by offering an examination of first-century Messianic movements, an understanding that situates written texts within their historical and material milieu. The course will naturally address issues related to the Qumran community, as well as the controversies surrounding the events at Massada; however, it will also attend to the presence of the Roman Empire within Galilee and Jerusalem as way of encouraging students to think about Messianic movements as responses to other political/ religious/ social discourses. In particular, I am curious about the ways in which people living within the Herodian period may have imitated and appropriated aspects of Roman and/ or Hellenistic culture.

The second set of questions involves the ways in which gender, masculine and feminine, is regulated and represented in ancient Judea/ Galilee. I am curious to see the ways that space may have reflected gender norms and how images may or may not have been used to communicate particular gender ideals. I would try to think about the ways that this is similar to or different from what we see in Roman Italy. Additionally, I would be looking for visual clues to how people might have embraced and resisted such ideals. These types of questions would be incorporated into both my future research on gender in the ancient world and in my teaching, specifically a course I teach on gender, sex and family in early Christianity.

In addition to using material culture to explore these questions, I plan on working on a digital archive of images for teaching. In order to receive funding from my institution, I needed to put together a proposal related to my work in the classroom. Since I use images to teach, this seemed like a natural project.

My question in a nutshell is how material culture can be used to engage students in critical thinking about apocalyptic movements and gender construction?

exploring the apocalypse one puppy at a time

I enjoy reading blogs. I think they are an interesting way for both author and audience to think about different ideas. I've never kept a personal blog myself, although I've used blogs for teaching. I was afraid a personal blog might make me appear self-absorbed. However, I never think others who have blogs are self-absorbed. It makes me think that my assumption that others would interpret a blog as self-absorbed is actually a self-important assumption. Oh my. So, here I am starting my own blog. And, yes, I am probably self-absorbed. So what?

I hope this will be a place for me to record and possibly share my thoughts on teaching, writing, researching and working within the field of biblical studies. I approach these activities from the perspective of a newly tenured, feminist professor at a mid-size university that values both teaching and scholarship. (Of course, I should include the caveat that nothing I say reflects the opinions of my university: My ideas, in theory, are my own.)

My academic interests are anchored by the Book of Revelation, a book with which I have a long and somewhat ambivalent relationship. (More on that later, I'm sure.) I am especially interested in the ways that Revelation's imagery captures the imaginations of audiences across time and my current research/ writing project examines how certain late-medieval and modern visionary women appropriate the text's bridal imagery. I also have done work on the ways that Revelation participates with Roman social discourse about family, sexuality and gender and I'd love to work this into a book length project. However, I have to remember, "One major project at a time."

My teaching is much more broad than my research. I teach introductory courses on religious studies and the New Testament, both of which I truly enjoy. I love introducing students to the critical study of religion and religious texts. I also have the opportunity to teach a number of more specialized courses, including courses on ancient apocalyptic literature and its interpretations, ancient messianic/ martyr traditions, gender and sexuality in the New Testament and early Christianity, contemporary biblical hermeneutics (e.g. feminist and queer criticism, postcolonial interpretation) and the like. I also regularly co-teach a course in Italy on the ways that Italy's ancient traditions (including religious and artistic traditions) continue to shape the present. I've had the opportunity to write quite a bit about teaching and enjoy thinking about pedagogy. I'm especially interested in using images to engage students in critical thinking about biblical texts and ancient traditions.

I know none of this relates directly to puppies, but I can't imagine not referencing dogs. I'm sure I'll find some way of tying them into the conversation--I'm good at that.