Peer Reviewed – Not From Around Here

Cutting Through the Content Fray

Michael Heiser spoke in Dayton and Columbus Ohio yesterday. He shared a few tips on research and sources.

Use tools that help you do research more quickly. Cut down the time you need to get to an answer. Dissertations by definition cover all the ground to-date on a specific topic. You get a good summary in the first chapter and all the source information for further research on a topic. This speeds you along without having to lay all the ground yourself.
Read peer-reviewed journals that scholars use. You can trust the hard work has been done here and you won’t be dealing with internet and Google “truth.”
The best content is not online for free, i.e. Google. It will be behind a paywall that can be no-cost, but you have to do a little work. Get credentials at a research university library to access their journal database. Depending on their licensing agreement you may be able to access these remotely. Or you may need to use a terminal in the library itself.

Heiser specified the following resources

American Theological Library Association (ATLA): The ATLA Religion Database® (ATLA RDB®) is the premier index to journal articles, book reviews, and collections of essays in all fields of religion, with coverage from 1949 and retrospective indexing for several journal issues as far back as the nineteenth century. Journals are selected for inclusion according to their scholarly merit and scope. The fact that many publishers solicit the inclusion of their journals in ATLA RDB is indicative of the stature it has achieved in the community of religion scholars.
JSTOR: a highly selective digital library of academic content in many formats and disciplines. The collections include top peer-reviewed scholarly journals as well as respected literary journals, academic monographs, research reports from trusted institutes, and primary sources.
Dr. Heiser’s recommended reading.

That Head-Covering Thing? Um, Yeah.

Hippocratic authors hold that hair is hollow and grows primarily from either male or female reproductive fluid or semen flowing into it and congealing (Hippocrates, Nat. puer. 20). Since hollow body parts create a vacuum and attract fluid, hair attracts semen.
PAUL’S ARGUMENT FROM NATURE FOR THE VEIL IN 1 CORINTHIANS 11:13–15: A TESTICLE INSTEAD OF A HEAD COVERING, Troy W. Martin

Martin makes the case that, in my words, a woman without a head covering is the first century equivalent of a woman walking around without any pants on. Modern medicine believed that long hair drew semen into the woman and aided what we know as conception. Similarly, short hair on men allowed the semen to more effectively be transferred to the woman. Just read the paper.

The implications are a handful:

Paul isn’t a misogynist wanting to put women in their place. Instead he’s aware of the culture’s understanding of immodesty.
In addition to the rest of his education, Paul is up to speed on contemporary medical understandings.
A case can be made that what might be interpreted as commands in the New Testament should not be blindly accepted without some thought as to why the statement was originally made. There may be reasons to disregard, or probably better, adapt those statements so that personal behavior may be more effective at spreading the gospel vis-a-vis the culture.

Powers and Authorities that rule the Present Evil Age

Timothy Combs provides a lucent footnote on page 319 of A Radically New Humanity: The Function of Haustafel in Ephesians in which he describes the Psalm 82 understanding of the powers and authorities that rule this world.

The powers ruling the present evil age fulfill a God-given role in creation. They were created to be the mediators of God’s rule over this world. According to Jewish thought, the nation of Israel was deemed to be the special inheritance of the God of Israel, but he appointed gods to rule over the nations (Deut 32:8–9; Sir 17:17) (Bruce W. Longenecker, The Triumph of Abraham’s God: The Transformation of Identity in Galatians [Louisville: Abingdon, 1998] 51). They were given a stewardship to rule the nations and order their corporate life in such a way that the nations would fear the Most High God. However, these gods have rebelled against their God-given stewardship so that their rule is characterized by a perversion of their original commission. Instead of being faithful stewards of God’s rule, they have corrupted their cultures and have ordered their nations in such a way that those in positions of authority now exploit the weak and powerless, grasping after power and seeking to take any advantage they can in order to satisfy their own lusts for more power, prestige, possessions, and sensual gratification (Ps 82:1–8; Jub. 15:31). What is important in this tradition is that the cultures and nations under the rule of these powers have come to resemble the powers themselves, along with their selfish and self-destructive behavior. Ephesians reflects this tradition in that the character of the Old Humanity is oriented according to that of its rulers. Just as the powers have incurred the judgment of God because they have become graspers after the cosmos (Eph 6:12) instead of faithful stewards of the rule of God (Longenecker, Triumph 54), so the Old Humanity is characterized by the sins mentioned in the two triads in Eph 4:19 and 5:3. Those in the Old Humanity have been led astray into idolatry (Eph 5:5), having their lives ordered by the evil powers and reflecting their own selfish and self-destructive character.

And then with respect to the effect of the gods who have been given authority over nations, Combs goes on to say,

This vision of the New Humanity is elaborated against the chaotic, destructive, and divisive social patterns created and fostered by the evil powers, who have perverted the created order in such a way that has affected every aspect and level of society. Those in positions of power manipulate, dominate, and exploit those who are weaker in order to increase in social status and honor. Those who have less social leverage are tempted to rebel against such oppressive authority structures, or to develop (self-)destructive strategies for survival. The condition of the Old Humanity is a product and reflection of the character of the evil powers who left their appointed stewardship of creation and plunged the cosmos into disarray, disorder and chaos. (p322-323)

These ideas are what the first century Christians, Jews, and other near east nations had floating around in their heads when they read Psalm 82, although the other ANE understanding of the details could be different. 1 Enoch and other second temple writings fill in details of what a “reflection of the character of the evil powers who left their appointed stewardship of creation and plunged the cosmos into disarray” means.