Less agency, less pressure, more grace, more hope.

Jonathan Haidt, made infamous for his article on trigger warnings and coddling of the American Mind, was recently in the news again concerning the well-being of teens and young adults (see article, and Haidt's own words in article1 and article2). The argument once again points to social media as playing a significant role in the well-being of youth (see also Twenge's now famous article on whether smartphones have destroyed a generation).

Another part of Haidt's argument about the decreased well-being of young adults is his articulation that certain ways of thinking, "say identifying with, or privileging victims and a victim status, tends to disempower people because it puts someone else in charge of your life." (Robinson) While we should acknowledge that many of us, and some more than others for various reasons, have been and continue to be victims of unjust behaviour and/or institutions, the problem comes not from recognizing that we are victims, but by allowing being a victim to become one's sense of identity. Victims have limited agency and there is limited focus on resiliency. Without conversations about resilience and agency, people are more likely to become depressed.

While this is an interesting conversation to be had in terms of how such thinking is affecting young adults, especially at university, it's also an interesting conversation in wondering, like Robinson, "if there is some cross-over to all this in churches." Have we lost our sense of agency in the church? Or, more accurately, have we forgotten God's agency?

Robinson notes that in the "more liberal and progressive church context, there’s a lot of emphasis on the problems of the world, and on what you should be doing about it. Which begins to sound a lot like law, not gospel. It’s all about what you should do or feel or think. If God is in the picture, it’s about what God needs us to do, demands that we do. There’s little emphasis on what God has done or is doing on our behalf or on God’s capacity to bring good out of or in the face of evil. So it’s kind of all on us."

That sounds exhausting and debilitating.

In a world where so many are exhausted and overwhelmed, when we feel like we have too little agency and too much responsibility, church can't be a place that tries to give us more of that. Church - and all Christian organizations - need to be places of grace and hope.

Please pray with that I, along with the Christian Reformed campus ministry at the University of Toronto (and broader) might indeed create spaces where we extend grace and help people hope.

Cross-posted at the blog for my work

Lab Girl (2016) - insight into the life of an academic in the sciences

I found Lab Girl (by Hope Jahren) helpful for understanding the experience of academics in the sciences, both graduate students and faculty, especially those involved in labs. I wasn't sure, though, what to make of the interspersed chapters on plant biology, as fascinating as they were. They did provide a metaphor for understanding the rest of the book: “People are like plants: they grow toward the light. I chose science because science gave me what I needed – a home as defined in the most literal sense: a safe place to be.” (18)

At times, though, these interspersed chapters on biology felt like they got in the way of the story I wanted to hear more about, even as much as Jahren's telling us of the biology of trees is as much a part of her story as all the (mis)adventures that she had. Her story was unique: “there’s still no journal where I can tell the story of how my science is done with both the heart and the hands.” (20) Nor can she speak fully of all the non-successes that obviously don’t make it into journals. Instead she notes that “I have become proficient at producing a rare species of prose capable of distilling ten years of work by five people into six published pages, written in a language that very few people can read and that no one ever speaks. This writing relates the details of my work with the precision of a laser scalpel, but its streamlined beauty is a type of artifice, a size-zero mannequin designed to showcase the glory of a dress that would be much less perfect on a real person.” (20)

The book was also helpful in providing insights into some of the unseen challenges of academic, especially that of science professors (and those who direct labs). She notes how, while we might expect knowledge and research to be the hardest questions that scientists face, funding is actually the biggest stress:

"Next time you meet a science professor, ask her if she ever worries that her findings might be wrong. If she worries that she chose an impossible problem to study, or that she overlooked some important evidence along the way. If she worries that one of the many roads not taken was perhaps the road to the right answer that she’s still looking for. Ask a science professor what she worries about. It won’t take long. She’ll look you in the eye and say one word: “Money.” " (124-5)

She also talks about the challenges and loneliness that she experienced, particularly as a female in her profession. Despite being someone who won some prominent awards (and was on the tenure track at 26 already!), funding was a significant problem for at least ten years. She also speaks about being taken advantage of by another lab in the building, of being yelled at a conference presentation, of being ignored socially at conferences by the senior scientists in her field. She also notes about how hard when her life went against a lot of societal norms, especially what is expected of females:

“I didn’t know if I was crying because I was nobody’s wife or mother – or because I felt like nobody’s daughter – or because of the beauty of that single perfect line on the readout. I had worked and waited for this day. In solving this mystery I had also proved something, at least to myself, and I finally knew what real research would feel like. But as satisfying as it was, it still stands out as one of the loneliest moments of my life. On some deep level, the realization that I could do good science was accompanied by the knowledge that I had formally and terminally missed my chance to become like any of the women that I had ever known. In the years to come, I would create a new sort of normal for myself within my own laboratory. I would have a brother close than any of my siblings, someone I could call any hour of the day or night. . . I would nurture a new generation of students, some of whom were just hungry for attention, and a very few who would live up to the potential that I saw in them.” (71-2).

Despite all the challenges, there is a lot of hope in the book: the community that she builds, the grace and acceptance that she presents, and the quiet presence of God:

“My lab is a place where my guilt over what I haven’t done is supplanted by all the things that I am getting done. . . My lab is a place where I can be the child that I still am. . . . My laboratory is like a church because it is where I figure out what I believe. The machines drone a gathering hymn as I enter. I know whom I’ll probably see, and I know how they’ll probably act. I know there’ll be silence; I know there’ll be music, a time to greet my friends, and a time to leave others to their contemplation. There are rituals that I follow, some I understand and some I don’t. . . And, just like church, because I grew up in it, it is not something from which I can ever really walk away.” (19)

My Calvin Seminary Th.M. thesis - more than 5 years late

During my visit to family and SBL in November, I also made a very important stop in Grand Rapids. I was finally able to defend my thesis for the Master of Theology degree.The defense went well, and I only have to make a few corrections before submitting it to the Calvin College librarian. I'm hoping/planning on having it done within a few weeks, so I can finally finish this project that is already five years late!

When I started this blog almost 7 years ago, I was taking classes for my Master of Theology Degree (and incidentally finishing up the last of my Master of Divinity classes). I did much of the research for my Th.M thesis in the summer of 2006, while I was also trying to get ready to move to Amsterdam. Not surprisingly, I didn't get it done, and I continued doing research while working for my M.A. degree here at the Vrije Universiteit. At the same time that I began writing my Th.M. thesis, I was also beginning to write my M.A. thesis. Lent of 2007, however, was dedicated solely to my Th.M. thesis. The entries on my blog for March of that year are coloured by that. A few days after Easter, I handed in the final version of the thesis only to find out a week or so later that my thesis had not been accepted. It was too short (at 75 pages double-spaced) and inadequately defended. However, I needed to work on finishing the M.A. thesis so it got postponed to another time. The MA thesis took longer than expected, and I signed up for an extra class in teaching, and so it would be the summer of 2008 before I looked at it again. And then there was my work on the database at the VU and not being sure of how to sort through the problems I couldn't defend well in 2006, and progress was haphazard when and if it occurred.

However, this past summer was the end of my final extension for handing it in - and I spent quite a bit of time this past winter and spring quietly working on it with the goal of finishing off what I'd started. Time and more research had also helped me sort out some of the things I was uncertain of earlier. At the end of July, I handed in the corrected thesis, a product I was much happier with than what I'd originally wrote, even as I'm not entirely sure what I should do with it (besides making the required corrections and handing it in). The thesis itself ended up being about 150 pages. Even though it's double-spaced, it's closer to dissertation length than master's thesis length. Having spent so much extra time on it, it is not surprising that it is much longer - I did, after all, want to show that the extra time was worth it (although fewer words and done earlier was more ideal)!

The best part of having finished the thesis is the sense of joy and satisfaction in finishing a project that felt like it would never have an end, a feeling I often have with my Ph.D. dissertation. Furthermore, since I could finish this mini-dissertation after all the work and delays, why should I doubt that I can finish the full dissertation, which I've done even more and better research on?

A crazy, wonderful week

Sitting on the couch behind the computer (and with Jerry) helps me to realize what a crazy, wonderful week it has been thus far. It's also the first real slow moment of this week.

I've been spending all this past week at a conference in Leiden: Biblical Scholarship and Humanities Computing. I'm surrrounded by people who not only understand what I am trying to do with my dissertation project (structural/discourse analysis in the book of Ezekiel) but are also asking similar questions and are as at least as excited about this kind of work as I am. It's been great to participate in the project: wonder with others, get new ideas and inspiration, and be able to network with others.

But it's also been crazy tiring - from 10.00-12.00 we have speakers, 12.15-13.15 is lunch together, and from 13.30-17.00 we have organized group discussions. Monday evening there was a wine and cheese party, Tuesday evening there was dinner on a boat (home at 22.30!), and Wednesday evening we had dinner at a sponsoring organisation (home at 22.00). Outside of the lectures and official discussions, we still continue to talk about Bible and computer stuff. It's a lot to process - and even if there's only fifty of us, it's still a lot of people for me to be around so much of the time!

As my ideas start getting more worked out, I'll hopefully write more about them - although possibly not here, but on my "academic" blog (www.brendasbiblioblog.wordpress.com). I've been doing a poor job of updating that blog so hopefully all the inspirtation and ideas of this past week will be a good incentive to work harder on being more proactive in interacting with other scholars.

An alternative type of networking

At the Society of Biblical Literature conference last week, I discovered an alternative form of networking. As this was the kind that gets you home-made chocolate chip cookies at break time, you can imagine that I was immediately interested.

Julie, who'd attended most of the sessions on prophets with me, was the one who introduced me to the networking. (She was also, incidentally, the one who'd baked the cookies). She, after all, lived in London - and thus had the resources available to do this. She also had the resources available to bring lunch for those she knew really couldn't afford to be buying it every day.

And so if I hadn't already been intrigued by Julie's brief mentioning of the fact that she frequently taught classes in the majority world - this hospitality for others certainly caught my attention. It illustrated to me an alternative to the 'publish or perish' way of thinking that seems to overwhelm academics. What I saw in Julie and her networking was instead a strong desire to use her gifts and resources to help others - whether it be local hospitality to visiting theologians in London - or whether it be her sharing her Ph.D. in Old Testament with those in other parts of the world. And that kind of desire is something that I'd like to develop more and more in myself.

I do want to do my best with my biblical research - and that means being very much a part of the academic world. Yet, at the same time, I don't want to get completely lost in academics - I don't want to forget that the gifts that God has given me are not only to be a blessing for me but also a blessing that I am to share with others. It was thus delightful, in the midst of an academic conference, to be reminded of both academic excellence and generous hospitality.

Surprises in London

One of the things that makes travelling more memorable is the unexpected: you start out with plans, but they don't quite work out as planned or somewhere you turn left instead of right. Sometimes that leads to frustration, but sometimes it leads to delightful surprises.

Our trip to London, especially the first day (last week Saturday), felt like that. We'd left on time (7 in the morning!) and started biking to the train station - except my suitcase didn't have a side handle so I couldn't carry it on my bike - so Matthijs eventually took it - and we were a bit later leaving.

We did make it to the train station on time - only to discover that our train to Brussels had been cancelled! So first to Rotterdam and then the next international train - which was crammed. After things emptied out in Belgium, a friendly blind guy sat across from us - and we had a delightful random conversation. And despite the train delays, we had lots of time to board in Brussels.

And finally London! Neither of us had thought to print out a map (the ink in the printer is almost out, so I'm not sure if it would have helped anyways), so we meandered around trying to figure out how to get to our address (it didn't help that our 'local' subway station was closed). We ended up walking past the Oval cricket stadium and through a tiny little community garden - and then we were by our bed and breakfast. We were met by our host, who turned out to be a bit more flamboyant than we expected (and quite effusive about his love for God, as we discovered in the days to follow); we happily settled in and got ready to explore London.

With a guide book and a transportation card (oyster card), London is fairly easy to navigate. And our first stop was the Victoria and Albert museum. After exploring the more usual museum things, we bumped into the glass display (on our way to architecture). Wow! A staircase with a glass banister and hundreds of strange shapes and colours of glass - not what we'd come to see but it captured our attention in a way we hadn't expected.

After the museum, we walked through Kensington Park to get to a lovely Indian restaurant - only to discover we'd needed reservations. And so, we chose instead a strange but delightful snackbar place with crazy spicy food and a mixture of customers (from young mediterranean guys to a black woman to a couple where the woman was clothed in a burka).

And after dinner, back to the bed and breakfast - delighted by our day but tired from all the new things. We also wanted to get some extra sleep so as to be ready for the next adventures: Sunday would be Oxford and Monday was the beginning of the conference!

A bit surreal: trip to London and moving to Amsterdam

In a couple of weeks we'll be moving back to Amsterdam. We've signed the contract, paid the deposit and first month's rent, made arrangements for moving, and there are empty moving boxes waiting to be filled. Our hope/plan of moving back to Amsterdam is finally coming true!

But first, London: Matthijs and I are off to London for the Society of Biblical Literature International Meeting - where I get to present a paper before a room full of people where hopefully a number of Ezekiel experts will be present. Not surprisingly, much of this last month has been spent digging further into the book of Ezekiel, sorting through my past research and trying to get a more solid grasp on the terminology used in linguistics. That's been good - and I'm looking forward to getting to participate in this academic world, as well as getting to take a bit of a vacation with Matthijs in London.

And then when we come back, we'll be painting and packing and moving - all in a whirlwind. What now feels a bit surreal will certainly become all too real! Perhaps moving the cat to Amsterdam tomorrow (he'll spend the time with his future neighbours) will help - or perhaps the trip to London and the moving to Amsterdam will simply remain surreal until I show up at the conference in London or we wake up in our bed in Amsterdam.

Intellectually flabby

If you don't exercise enough, you get out-of-shape (flabby, in slang). I feel a bit like that's been happening with me intellectually. It's not that I do nothing; it's just that I don't have all that many deadlines, and I've spent a lot of time in the last while away from my own research. I have been thinking, but it's been about other things.

I've noticed that I've gotten lazy; as well, I'm super easily distracted and content to do little for longer periods of time. The following description that I found on Alan Jacobs's blog, text patterns, resonates with me:

these days

Tom Bisell, from his book Extra Lives, an extended defense of the art of the video game and the value of spending large chunks of your life playing them:

Once upon a time, I wrote in the morning, jogged in the late afternoon, and spent most of my evenings reading. Once upon a time, I wrote off as unproductive those days in which I had managed to put down “only” a thousand words. Once upon a time, I played video games almost exclusively with friends. Once upon a time, I did occasionally binge on games, but these binges rarely had less than fortnight between them. Once upon a time, I was, more or less, content.

“Once upon a time” refers to relatively recent years (2001-2006) during which I wrote several books and published more than fifty pieces of magazine journalism and criticism — a total output of, give or take, 4,500 manuscript pages. I rarely felt very disciplined during this half decade, though I realize this admission invites accusations of disingenuousness or, failing that, a savage and justified beating. Obviously, I was disciplined. These days, however, I am lucky if I finish reading one book every fortnight. These days, I have read from start to finish exactly two works of fiction — excepting those I was not also reviewing — in the last year. These days, I play video games in the morning, play video games in the afternoon, and spend my evenings playing video games. These days, I still manage to write, but the times I am able to do so for more than three sustained hours have the temporal periodicity of comets with near-Earth trajectories.

I remember writing paper after paper in Seminary; it wasn't always easy nor were they always of the highest quality but I was 'in shape' to do that. And I worry about fossilizing, about not moving forward in my knowledge. I don't think that's happening (although sometimes I worry that this is happening with my dutch - arrgh), but it's enough of a concern that I'm looking for some extra exercise (intellectually) this summer. A bit of extra physical exercise wouldn't hurt either :)

external vs internal motivation

as i've mentioned more often, i like feeling productive. because of that, my internal motivation to do things is pretty high. the problem is that i get distracted - a lot (living in community helps provide lots of productive distractions, too). i'm almost always doing something - it's just not necessarily the best thing to do. (like blogging on a friday afternoon - but then i question what really is best: is my taking a break to blog and sort through my thoughts before working further on Ezekiel just an excuse not to work or is it a good way to re-group so that i can work better? i don't know.)

and much of the time, i'm not unhappy with how i get things done or not done. it usually works out okay - my house is cleaner when other things need doing - and my academic stuff gets more attention when i'm tired of people, and so on. but there is one area that i'm not so thrilled about - the dissertation/phd thing. it's starting to get to be time to be further on my dissertation. my desire to be moving closer to done is a relatively decent internal motivation. but with all the potential distractions i can find, some external motivation doesn't hurt.

so i figured i'd sign up to present my proposal next friday at the phd. seminar. there's nothing quite like a good solid deadline, a need for a paper presetnation, and a lot of questioning ph.d. students to provide external motivation to put something solid together. and hopefully this can tweak the work i've been doing on the first two chapters, which is pretty rough still.

and after the seminar, you can ask me how it's going with the dissertation. i might look annoyed with you (especially if i've been disappointed with how much i've done on it) but it will provide me further motivation. and if i look too annoyed, you can always remind me that i did ask for it.

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 of the book 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 is the obvious book to focus in for my doctoral research.

at the same time, last year i was offered that temporary temporary position working on the database with the Werkgroep. it involved labelling of parts of speech and valancy, and also creating structural outlines (something i think only a few people find fascinating). someone had already done the book of Jeremiah, but Ezekiel had to be done - and so that was my project.

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. i'm excited about the shift and the possibilities, although making the transition this summer has thus far had negative consequences for my intended summer project of finally making those revisions on my Calvin Sem ThM thesis :(

still a mathematician at heart

although i now work with languages and theology and how to read the Bible, there are certain things that have carried over from my love of (and time studying) mathematics:

- a love of patterns and figuring out the puzzle of how things work together - this love has allowed me to enjoy the somewhat more technical work of working on a database.

- i really, really like consistency. with the werkgroep this is at times 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 experimenting with the semantics and syntax of words and phrases and clauses and sentences. and this subjectivity 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).

- i get excited about when i re-create a computer technical error. our computer program designed to work with the data in the database has a few glitches (although i guess that's understandable since most of them do :)). i manage to crash it much less than i used to - and even when it does crash, it’s so much less frustrating. either i now know 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. 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 all the talking (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 i'm overall glad that my former mathematical training 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 \Rightarrow \!\, 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 version of this entry was originally published at "Joining in the Conversation".

next year - untangling work, studies and money

as much as living in community plays a huge role in my question of how to grow and move forward and what's next, there are a couple of other things that also play a role. the big ones are the following:

- my position doing research with the Werkgroep Informatica ends this summer. it's likely that we'll get a new grant to do another related project, but it'll be january at the earliest before that could come through.

- i need to have enough money to live on - and enough to travel regularly back to Canada [as you can see, there's not much question of whether i'm staying in Amsterdam - i'm still not sure how long but i've been preparing my mother for the possibility that i might never live in North America again]. and i guess i could go on unemployment benefits for awhile - but that doesn't exactly appeal to me, especially since applying for jobs is a requirement and i know that'll make me grouchy - and not so motivated to do the things i do love to do.

- i'd like to do more studying and thinking and being academic - and most of all work hard on that ph.d. of mine. i've been striving towards my ph.d. for three years now, and it normally takes four, so nobody's too worried about my not being done yet. and i've been interrupted by a couple of things - a research position somewhat unrelated to my dissertation research, teaching for 3 + 1 months in Michigan, a year of preparation in the research master, learning dutch, participating in a community, and so on. and since all these things opened up doors for letting me do what i love, i don't regret them - or that they might mean that i've added a couple of years to the date of finishing my ph.d. but since getting my ph.d opens up so many doors (for doing what i love), especially related to teaching and research positions, getting it done sooner opens up these doors sooner.

but how do these things fit? i'm not getting paid to do my ph.d. (i am still getting (thankfully!) some money from different places, most notably the Christian Reformed Church through Calvin Seminary but this grant/scholarship isn't really enough to live on, even after saving up from this year) - so i need at least some outside income. and the idea of working on my dissertation all the time doesn't really appeal to me, either. i mean, i really enjoy my research, but i also really appreciate the distraction of doing multiple things and spending time outside of my head. the community is good for this distraction and being forced back into a bit more down-to-earth world (at least compared to academics) - just as getting to be academic makes my introverted side happy and gives me a distraction from all the details and challenges and neverending work/activities that can be found in community.

and the fit i've figured out thus far is to find ways and inspiration to put more time into the academic side of things, which translates directly into writing. i'm allowed to keep my computer and office at the university so i have a place to go to work (that should help give me a work place outside of my own house, and some structure, and an excuse to go biking, which often makes me feel better :)). i'm most likely going forward with a translation project on a book on how to read the Bible (an area i want to explore more for and in my dissertation) - waiting for a/the grant to come through might take awhile there, too, though. and so i'll probably ask to "work" in the community (on top of the regular volunteering) for the first few months in exchange for paying less for rent or food. and since the first couple of months can often be hectic while many new people get adjusted to being here and things need to get organized, a bit of extra temporary help could take away a bit of the hectic-ness that a number of people in the community often experience in the first few months.

so those are the thoughts for next year - i don't think it's fully untangled (and God has a habit of surprising me so there's really no point anyways in planning things too strictly). but i like having ideas and plans and hopes for next year. it makes me excited and hopeful - hoping that next year will mean getting to do more of what i love alongside taking further steps in providing me with more freedom to do what i love.

receiving my master's diploma from the Vrije Universiteit

on monday, i received my Master of Arts from the Vrije Universiteit. it was a bit anti-climactic since this master's degree is merely a step towards my goal/hope of getting a Ph.D., a step that i had already unofficially completed/taken last december! [A blog entry from 13 dec gives both the step and a summary of my thesis].

the delay between my completing the work and getting my diploma was due to some incomplete paperwork, the lack of familiarity at the University with this new degree (it was formerly a doctorandus), my being in America for most of january-june, and how summer (holiday) in the Netherlands makes it difficult to make arrangements for anything. thus, in August i could have picked it up in person - or just wait another month to receive it as part of a ceremony. i figured it couldn't hurt to wait.

back in North America, graduation consists generally of: a large event with a speaker (of interest to everyone), some sort of liturgical event (singing, poetry and/or a biblical passage), some praise for the graduating students (plus a student speaking on behalf of all the graduates), the (dozens of) students being called forward one-by-one (quickly) to shake hands and receive their diploma. and when we're finished, we stand around and drink juice or tea and eat cookies and cakes and fruit and so on.

Master's degree ceremonies in the Netherlands are different. a few words of explanation for the event are given and some praise to the students or certain programs, but the majority of it is about the accomplishment of each student. each student is invited forward, has a few words said about them (that are provided by their supervisor), is asked to say a few words about their master's thesis, shows their (previous) diploma that qualified them for entrance into this program, is possibly asked other questions, and then has to sign their diploma before receiving it. although i remain puzzled about the need or desire to show your previous diploma (this might be biased slightly by the fact that my previous master's diploma is still sitting in a closet in my parents' house in Canada - i couldn't arrange to get it when i was only told 3 days before the ceremony that i needed it), there is something wonderfully personal about this. the audience gets a stronger sense of the work that each student did in completing their diploma.

but, when there are a lot of students, each student is limited in what he/she can say. irrelevant of how interesting the different theses are, in 2 sentences you cannot say much - and hearing 2 thesis sentences 24 times just gets long and dull. and with so many students over a wide range of programs (religious studies, cross-cultural readings, systematic theology, theological education, islamic studies, biblical studies), it's less likely that the students know each other - or are known by the faculty. and the person handing out the diplomas and conversing with the students up front had a lot easier time showing enthusiasm about and asking good questions of students that she knew than those she didn't. and for those students who were part of a larger group/program or a program that was unusual or new, more was said. i was part of a small program and unknown, and felt generally ignored (although i did get a couple of looks for whispering during the ceremony - it was partially to help with translation and partially to be more able to enjoy the event). but, nonetheless, i was thankful to be there. every experience is good to have once (but i've told friends that there's no way i'm going to their ceremony if there's more than 10 people i don't know receiving their diploma). otherwise, i'll just come to the celebration after the ceremony - for in Europe, they serve wine and beer after the ceremony :)

and tonight i celebrate my new master's degree with the community and friends. it's a "tussen feestje" - an in-between party - celebrating that i've come this far (and recognizing that i've been able to do something that most people would love to do but never will) - and looking forward to my hopefully getting a Ph.D. some day.

starting work

i've just begun working part-time at the Vrije Universiteit. i'm taking over a grant position that should last for a little more than a year. i'm hoping that if things go well (they seem to be now) that there will be the possibility of finding further funding for me to continue - a good possibility since my supervisor is quite good at finding grant money. what i do officially is work on a database that is looking closely at the Old Testament. my task is to work on the book of Ezekiel, identifying the grammatical function of different parts of the sentence, analyzing clauses and creating structural outlines. if you've been to Calvin Seminary and/or taken Hebrew classes, then what i've just said should sound at least vaguely familiar. and if you own the Bible software, Libronix (formerly Logos), then you might have noticed that there's a little footnote sometimes indicating that the morphology information comes from Vrije Universiteit's Werkgroep Informatica, and that's who i've just joined. and if you didn't study Hebrew or go to Seminary, my description of what i do makes limited sense. so i can describe it as my looking at the Hebrew grammar and how the words are put together to understand better how the words go into sentences and paragraphs. it's not that i'm translating the Bible, what i'm doing is understanding the grammar better (which is needed since the grammar in the whole Bible is not all from the same time period nor all for the same kind of literature - and we still don't know much about the grammar in the (latter) prophetic books) - and that should help people understand the text better, so that pastors and translators can (eventually) access the work that i'm doing and make the obscure-ness of the book of Ezekiel be a bit more understandable. hopefully i'll share insights and questions from the book of Ezekiel as i go along.

but what's it been like? odd. and that's not because i could describe the practical aspect of my work as sitting in front of a computer screen most of the time, looking at letters that make absolutely no sense (some strange transliteration of hebrew), pressing yes a lot and punching in a couple of letters and numbers and making pretty diagrams. i've managed to confuse the computer so often that "fatal error" messages are normal. and thus, i've learned to back up my work in several different ways (and to do so frequently). i think the computer has something against me - this was seen already on the first day, as it refused to accept my change of password - after quite a bit of work, i can now log in but am still using the random password that i received the first day. on the bright side, at least my computer keyboard is clean - my supervisor cleaned it for me the first day :) (the previous user used to smoke a lot).

as far as working at the University, that in itself has had its own glitches. i was asked if i was interested in the grant position already in February. ideally i would have started in March - but i was going to America for 3.5 months so we'd start when i got back. yet, the position, for which i was the only candidate put forward, was not even confirmed until sometime in May! and then when i came in June, it turns out that all of the communication for the transferral of the grant to me was not yet finished. and i had to fill out some paperwork. so i couldn't start until 1 July. and i still got a phone call on my first day of work saying that i didn't actually start work that day! (although i'd been there for a couple of hours already). i ignored the phone call since my supervisor leaves for vacation soon and i would prefer a few weeks having him around while i started instead of being left on my own for 4 weeks almost immediately! there's a bit of flexibility in my hours and how i get paid, so it will work out. at least i have now officially been appointed, as of thursday. maybe i should finally check to see about any kind of dress code - i've been wearing jeans this whole past week :)

and the last odd part is that most of the communication i have in the job is in Dutch. it works pretty well, as i catch most of what's going on most of the time. and my supervisor joked that the percent i do miss can't be all that important, anyways. but i did miss a lot of what was happening in the meeting last Friday - although i understood enough of the dutch to realize that the dutch wasn't so much a problem as that i had no idea what they were referring to - they had these lovely matrixes and codes and i was completely lost. i assume it will get better.

and i assume the adventure of the job will also keep getting better :) after two weeks, it's starting to feel a bit better - at least i'm getting better at fixing my own computer errors..

one of the most important things i learned last year: methodology

At some point in time, I'd like to talk/write a bit more about my own (developing) methodology in looking at the Bible - and about how i want to (and can) share more about the academic side of my life. but until then, here is something with which to begin.

Academically speaking, the most important thing i learned last year was about methodology [i'd define methodology as how one looks at something and then on what basis one makes conclusions]. It was partially through reading texts dealing with methodology (including several case studies related to prostitution). My learning occurred mainly through the general atmosphere of the University that methodology should be taken very seriously, including being able to respond to the questions that different methodological perspectives would bring to one's work.

since methodology is one of the things that Calvin Seminary did not spend a lot of time on (as one cannot really preach methodology), my understanding of methodology could use some work. without an awareness of the methodology involved, i lose one of my best tools in evaluating another's work and conclusions. your methodology belies the assumptions that you have made in coming to the conclusions that you have. if your methodology is faulty, so are your results (methodology is thus one of the biggest concerns in writing a dissertation). if your work is not capable of withstanding criticism and the questions addressed by certain methodologies, then your work will be dismissed. so if i want both to understand and be heard better, i need to understand, acknowledge my use of, and argue against the different methodologies involved in studying the Bible.

i've included below the report i made on biblical exegesis and the books i read to learn more about this. my supervisor thought it was done well (and it is slightly less academic and more personal than a published work on methodology) so it's read-able but it's still a discussion on biblical methodology (with a bit of a feeling of a book report - so if you haven't read the books, you're a bit lost, although maybe you'll want to read one of the books now) - and i don't expect it to be the kind of thing that most non-theology people find fascinating. but for the few people who will appreciate it, here it is:

Methods of Biblical Exegesis
Completed by Brenda Heyink - December 2006

A Discussion of Various Perspectives on Methodology

Several different authors and books were read to get a better understanding of methodology in biblical exegesis [see endnote 1]. Although each approached the text slightly differently, all were careful not to advocate for only one single method of 'standard' methodology. As space allowed, each showed positive and negative aspects to the different methodologies. This attempt to give each method a valid hearing allowed the authors better to be heard, but also pointed out the need in exegesis for something other than using only one of the existing methodologies.

This essay will begin with a summary of the books and articles, followed by a short evaluation of them. Barton's book provided the most helpful overview, and Cline's article was the most helpful in providing a short overview of the challenges involved in our own understanding of methodology. Jonker's book was probably the one that I found the most difficult to understand and appreciate, even though his attempt to find some common ground was appreciated. Talstra seems to be better able to navigate the different methodologies and give a viable alternative to either one methodology or the necessity of using all methodologies. Acknowledging that I have come to these readings with a certain bias towards some methodologies based on my past (academic) training and the influence of my church, I realize that the most helpful part of this exercise was to give me an appreciation for methodologies that I might have ignored previously as well as recognizing these biases.

Barton's book presupposes a knowledge of the different methodologies currently used in biblical exegesis. His goal is to explain the purpose of the methods [endnote 2] and show their interrelationship as "these methods are not just a random collection of techniques but hang together, make up a family, cover the range of possible questions people can ask about texts" (Barton, 3). Barton, in no ways, is trying to invalidate different methods on his way to showing which exegetical method is the most correct. He argues that "all interpretations of texts are 'readings', not the final word on the subject… Interpreters have deluded themselves into thinking that correct answers exist, if we could only find them (Barton, 216)." Barton thus does not advocate any one method but does indicate that some provide more validity than others.

Barton shows what the method is trying to correct as well as acknowledging its problems. For example, in his analysis of source criticism, he notes that the possibility of different sources arose as a logical explanation for 'discrepancies' in the text. Form criticism also arose as an explanation for the discrepancies. Barton, in his evaluation, does point out that what is understood by 'discrepancies' in the ancient text is problematic as there are no set guidelines for determining what is a discrepancy and what was placed there purposely by the redactor or written that way for rhetorical purposes, as redaction criticism and rhetorical criticism respectively might argue.[endnote 3] He uses the example of Ecclesiastes to show how all of these methods would actually work, illustrating how different methodologies bring different exegetical emphases but many of them still do come to a very similar answer to the purpose of Ecclesiastes.

Barton's work has the goal of being very objective, and for the most part he does this well. I grew in appreciation for the methodologies that I had sometimes dismissed in the past (e.g. source criticism, new criticism) as well as understanding some of the pitfalls of the methodologies I had a tendency to favour (e.g. canonical criticism, structuralism, form criticism). However, I had the impression that he thought less of the validity of canonical criticism than the other methodologies. I also got the impression that even though he was willing 'to play' with post-structuralist methodologies, he dismissed them overall as being illogical. My impression is that the 'newer' methodologies have not been around long enough to receive the tempered evaluation that Barton gave to the methodologies that have been used in exegesis for a longer time.

Barton's article continued along the same lines (as would be expected as it was written about the same time.) He argues that there is not common ground between historical criticism and literary interpretation but that this does not mean that each cannot help the other nor that they do not both struggle with certain issues. Both struggle with a similar problem - defining what is considered to be a discrepancy in the text. They also both focus on finding a single 'theme' in the text, which is the purpose of the text. Barton argues that this concept of theme is not necessarily how things were written (to be read). His evaluation once again helps point out how everyone, no matter which methodology they use, comes to the text with a bias - and thus so do I. His work has encouraged me to try not to allow any bias I have towards certain methods to prevent me from acknowledging the insights gained from these methods, which are not necessarily ones that I would have received with the questions I have been asking of the text.

Jonker's work also evaluated the different methodologies, although in a different way than Barton. Jonker spent less time on evaluating the methodologies and more illustrating them with the purpose of finding a multidimensional or integrated methodology. He exegetes Judges 13 through first a diachronic (historical-critical) methodology and then a synchronic (narrative) methodology. He explains the different methodologies in the first part, does the exegesis in the second part, and evaluates the results in the third part. I found his book not only to be less helpful than Barton's, but it also left me feeling slightly frustrated.

There was much in Jonker's book that I felt I did not understand properly. His explanations for the different methodologies consisted mainly of quotes in German, which caused some of the misunderstanding in terms of what he meant by the methodologies. However, his understanding of historical-critical methodology is significantly different than the understanding I have, even after reading Barton's book. Under this category of diachronic analysis, he includes a section called Theologische Kritik, which I would consider not to be inherently diachronic nor would I consider redactional criticism [endnote 4] to be diachronic. Under the category of synchronic methodology he looks at the text only from a literary view (narrative methodology as understood by Sternberg, Alter, and Berlin).

Besides having a problem with how he understood a diachronic and synchronic analysis, it did not seem that he gave the synchronic method a fair evaluation. The synchronic evaluation was based primarily on one kind of methodological criticism defined by Barton whereas the diachronic evaluation had several kinds. I also found it frustrating that he assumes that his diachronic methodology was religious whereas the synchronic method only dealt with literary methods. [endnote 5] Jonker clarifies this slightly by acknowledging that both methodologies argue that the text has meaning (Jonker, 297-98), but the language that he uses to differentiate the methodologies seems problematic to me. Perhaps I am misunderstanding Jonker, but I would argue against Jonker in saying that literary methods of approaching the text do not implicitly consider the text any more the word of God than historical-critical methods. [endnote 6]

Although Jonker does a good job of highlighting the exegetical insights he received from the different methodologies, he does not do a good job of comparing his results. The insights from the different methodologies were not all that different. He never gives an explanation of why such similar insights were obtained from two different methods. More importantly, he did not point out what one would miss by only using one method, which would have more adequately proving the need for an integrated methodology. His study, although fruitful in its exegesis, was slightly disappointing in terms of its methodology.

Although I agree that neither a synchronic or diachronic methodology alone is the best way of approaching the text, the articles that I read did a better job of convincing me of this than the work by Jonker or even that of Barton. The work, Synchronic or Diachronic? A Debate in Method in Old Testament Exegesis was especially helpful with this.

Cline's article is probably the one that I found the most helpful. His article is actually a summary of a workshop. It begins with a brief summary of his belief that the opposition of diachronical and synchronical methods is unhelpful. He thus goes on to define what he means by a workshop, provides the questions and handouts of the workshop, and then reports on what the results were. The questions brought forward helped participants better to understand the terminology of diachronic and synchronic, to acknowledge their emotional investment in the concepts, to see how different biblical methodologies contained both synchronic and diachronic elements, and to evaluate the process by which they could learn all this. His article not only gave a basic overview of the concepts but also showed the questions that those doing biblical exegesis could ask in a non-threatening environment. As a compliment to him, there are elements of his workshop that I would be interested in 'copying' in a classroom setting to help students better understand biblical methodologies.

Talstra's article on methodology was especially of interest to me, as it is prudent to understand the methodological preferences of one's supervisor. As his suggestion of how to approach the text is different than the other methodologies, it is slightly difficult to understand at first. However, after having now taken a class with him, things make slightly more sense. Unlike others, he does not assume that the more methodologies the better: “I do not agree with some modern statements that a maximum of methods should be used, that every single method has its own way of asking questions of the text, so that applying all of them would help us achieve a maximum of insight” (Talstra 1998, 3). Instead, he argues for a hierarchy of techniques/methods in approaching a text. One needs to first study the text carefully, understanding the text first in terms of syntax and literary elements before trying to understand the text based on such things as authorial intent or redactional elements. Asking how a modern day reader understands is a final element. He uses the examples of Dtn. 29, 1 Kgs. 9 and Jer 22 to illustrate this in one article (Talstra 1998) and looks at Dtn. 9-10 in the other article (Talstra 1995). It is clear that Talstra is actively trying to get past some of the problems of the other methodologies (for example, seeing chiasms in every thing, as well as using source criticism to get the Bible to say whatever you’d like it to, such as the theory that judges were good and kings were bad).

I am certain that there are things still to be worked out in the methodology of Talstra but he provides a way of appropriating the insights from the different methodologies without being stuck into a little box having to defend one methodology. It does not necessarily validate each method to the same extent at the same time nor does it require one to go through the lengthy process of using all the methods to show in multiple ways a lot of similar things with a few discrepancies (as illustrated by both Barton and Jonker).

As I felt like my understanding of the different methodologies of reading the Bible was lacking somewhat (it was something I had previously ignored as much as possible), this assignment was good for me to do. I think that I am more well-versed in the different methodologies. This allows me at least a few more insights into the biblical text and a significant amount of insight into those who are analyzing and writing about the text. Understanding someone's method helps one to see what they might be over-emphasizing and what they might be missing.

As I continue to learn more about methodologies, J. Barr's comment at the end of his essay is helpful. It is a wry comment on the state of biblical exegesis today and something which it is helpful to remember to keep things in perspective:

In conclusion, I feel I ought to apologize for reading a paper which has in it little or no detailed reference to the Old Testament. This however is not an accident. The methodological discussions in which biblical studies are now engaged see to me to have rather little to do with the Bible itself. They are not based on the Bible, nor can they be settled by the Bible….These discussions seem to me to be discussions of our own modern experience and it is our own modern experience in its many varied aspects that is the authority to which we are appealing. (Barr, 14).

[1] The books and articles are listed in a bibliography at the end of this paper.

[2] The methods that he discusses are: source analysis (literary criticism), form criticism, redaction criticism, canonical approach, structuralist criticism (both literary and biblical), 'new' criticism (which is an adaptation of literary criticism of about a hundred years ago), rhetorical criticism, postmodernist, and deconstructionist.

[3] This problem of discrepancies is illustrated well in the article by Carroll. He gives several discrepancies in the book of Jeremiah (Nebuchadnezzar being called servant of the LORD in one place and a beast in another), which he believes can only be explained through a diachronic reading. He argues that those who attempt to read the text synchronically have tended to pretend this is not really a discrepancy. Carroll thus shows how one's approach/ methodology can have a significant effect on what one considers as a discrepancy and then how one solves that 'problem'. His conclusion of the need for a diachronic method thus seems to me a bit false but I'm not sure if I dislike the conclusion because of my background or because I dislike the claim he makes for the (absolute) need of the diachronic method.

[4] He also includes Redaktionskritik under historical-critical methodology.

[5] Certainly the literary methods can ignore religious questions but synchronic readings are not only literarily based.

[6] Barr is careful in noting that good theology is not something that is inherent to either synchronic or diachronic methods (Barr, 11).


Bibliography

Barr, J., 'The Synchronic, the Diachronic and the Historical: A Triangular Relationship?', in J.C. de Moor (ed.) Synchronic or Diachronic? A Debate on Method in Old Testament Exegesis. Oudtestamentsche Studien 34 (1995): 1-14.

Barton, J., Reading the Old Testament. Method in Biblical Study (revised and enlarged edition), Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, Kent., 1996 (orig. ed. 1984).

Barton, J. 'Historical Criticism and Literary Interpretation: Is There Any Common Ground?', in S.E. Porter, P. Joyce, D. E. Orton, Crossing the Boundaries. Essay in Biblical Interpretation in Honour of Michael D. Goulder, Leiden: Brill, 1994: 3-16.

Carroll, R. P., "Synchronic Deconstructions of Jeremiah: Diachrony to the Rescue?', in J.C. de Moor (ed.) Synchronic or Diachronic? A Debate on Method in Old Testament Exegesis. Oudtestamentsche Studien 34 (1995): 39-51.

Clines, D. J. A., 'Beyond Synchronic/ Diachronic', in J.C. de Moor (ed.) Synchronic or Diachronic? A Debate on Method in Old Testament Exegesis. Oudtestamentsche Studien 34 (1995): 52-71.

Jonker, Louis C., Exclusivity and Variety. Perspectives on Multidimensional Exegesis, Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology 19, Kampen, 1996.

Talstra, E., 'Deuteronomy 9 and 10: Synchronic and Diachronic Observations', in J.C. de Moor (ed.) Synchronic or Diachronic? A Debate on Method in Old Testament Exegesis. Oudtestamentsche Studien 34 (1995): 187-210.

Talstra, E., 'From the Eclipse of the Art of Biblical Narrative. Reflections on Methods of Biblical Exegesis', in E. Noort (ed.), Perspectives on the Study of the Old Testament and Early Judaism: A Symposium in Honour of Adam S. van der Woude on the Occasion of his 70th Birthday, Groningen 1997, Leiden: Brill, 1998: 1-41.

returned from France

my friends and i have returned from France. i do not have words adequate to describe our experience but if you were here to ask me about it now, i wouldn't be able to stop myself from getting a silly huge smile on my face. and i would say that it had been good. good in the sense that southern France is lovely and i got to see what many people wish they could see (i saw mountains and churches and the Eiffel Tower on the way home). good in that i laughed a tremendous amount this past week. good in that my friends and i spontaneously sang in the Cathedral (Palace) of the Popes of Avignon. good in that i was with Dave, Crystle, and Judith pretty much constantly for 5 days straight - and i never had to worry whether they'd still love me after all that time together nor did i doubt that it would be a joy (even if i was unable to express or feel that before leaving). vacation wasn't perfect but by God's grace (most often shown through my friends and/or the delights in this world), i feel that my soul has been refreshed after a demanding winter.

and with this feeling of contentment and refreshment, i was able to receive the official response to the draft of my thesis (for my Th.M. at Calvin Seminary). it has not been accepted as it is now. i had had some warning of its inadequacy before i left for France, but as i do not have the time nor really the energy to make it better now, i was hoping that it nonetheless was still good enough to get some closure on my time as a student at Calvin Sem. but it's not good enough, and i won't be graduating from there this May. which is disappointing. it's a blow to my ego (but i'll get over it). more so, it feels a bit that what the sacrifices i made during lent to finish this weren't really worth it. which fills me with some sadness. thankfully, the sadness is off-set by the sense that i have learned quite a bit from this process of writing - and there is some closure in being done this stage of writing (and letting it go until i finish my VU Thesis). and there's some encouragement in that my profs back at Calvin believe that i am capable of more.

i do have to agree that i have not yet adequately expressed what i have learned - not only in my head but also in my heart - as i studied the prophetic task as shown through Jeremiah. the challenge, of course, is that i am still learning about how i myself can live out the task in its expression here in the community. and more so, i am still learning how to express the experiential part of my learning this year (how my heart has been shaped and my emotions are being drawn upon in serving God) to people primarily versed in the language of academics. as i feel that i still have so much to learn about just expressing who i am, it's hard to know how to express well the things that have so much shaped who i am. but i hope and pray that time and a lot of discussion with others will help with this.