Books and Articles
by Professor Duane L. Christensen

"Paul's 'Cloak' within the Canonical Process in Early Christianity": The traditional translation of the Greek word phailonên in 2 Tim 4:13 as "cloak" poses problems. The Greek word is translated "book-carrier" in the ancient Syriac version. The translation "cloak" comes from the word phainole, not the hapax legomenon phailonê. The rest of the verse in 2 Tim 4:13 appears to describe the contents of this object, namely "books" (biblia) and "parchments" (membranas). These parchments were not scrolls, but parchment leaves— in fact, T. C. Skeat has argued that this passage is the earliest known reference to a codex. These items were retained in a carrier [even today we speak of a book "jacket"], which Paul left with Carpus in Troas for safekeeping. This paper reasons that the passage refers more broadly to canonical activity on the part of Paul and Luke, and that Mark and others were joining these apostles in Rome (2 Tim 4:11) in an editorial project that plays a significant role in producing the Greek New Testament.

Paul’s “Cloak” and the Completion of the Tanakh (Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California). The study of the canon of sacred Scripture in both the Tanakh (Hebrew Old Testament) and the Greek New Testament has produced sharp dispute within the academic community. Our purpose here is not to resolve differences of opinion on this issue, but rather to explore implications of current research in the Word Count Project.

"Theological Reflections on an International Colloquium on Deuteronomy" Grad. Theol. Union Newsletter 8/3 (Sept. 30 – Oct. 13, 1983), pp. 2–3.) "My research of the past three years has convinced me that the received Hebrew text of Deuteronomy can be scanned metrically, in its entirety, without significant textual emendation. The resultant architectural design as revealed by such prosodic analysis of Deuteronomy is indeed elegant and quite different from the linear structural outlines presented in the commentaries. If I am correct, the implications may be rather profound and will add still further fuel to the fire in current methodological battles. To put the matter simply, if the received text can be scanned without significant emendation, then our very way of conceiving the redaction process is challenged.

Reading the Bible as an Icon (1985) In the Baptist tradition, icons do not play a significant role, unless of course, as some more liberally oriented critics would have it, the Bible itself becomes an icon. But Is this a proper way to read the Old Testament? Can we use a single episode as a window through which to view the whole of the Scriptures, as Rublev has done? [Webmaster's note: Iconography is a specialized art which must be produced and understood in terms of its explicitly theological content. Check out my article on Rublev's Icon of the Trinity for reasons why Duane's views on this topic are mistaken, and for a quick general introduction to iconography generally.— John Burnett, Webmaster]

Huldah and the Men of Anathoth: Women in Leadership in the Deuteronomic History (1984): For the most part, women in general were among the powerless whose rights were protected by Deuteronomic legislation. They also apparently provided an appropriate symbol around which to structure some of the central theological concerns of the Deuteronomic historian.

Chronology (1990): We are beginning to understand, at least in part, the elaborate chronological system worked out by those who compiled the biblical tradition. Theirs was a theological agenda, not an historical one in the modern sense.

Conquest of Canaan (1990): The biblical and extra-biblical evidence gives rise to different models of Israel's entry into Canaan. The truth probably lies somewhere in the synthesis of these three models. Also, memory of the conquest was transmitted within a worshipping community. The Exodus-Conquest (i.e., Yahweh’s “Holy War”) was a commemorated ritual event in the current life of the people, as well as a memory of actual experiences in the more distant past.

Nations [Heb `ammim, gôyim, le'ummîm]: The study of the nations within the canonical tradition of ancient Israel leads inevitably to the primary tension between the concepts of nationalism and universalism. On the one hand, particularly within the prophetic literature, there are passages that express the narrowest self-interest and even hatred for Israel’s enemies among the nations. But alongside these stand passages expressing an exalted vision of worldwide salvation for “the nations.”

Explosion of the Canon: The Greek New Testament in Early Church History (2003): Insights into the development of the New Testament as a “completion of the Tanakh”. Also, if a text was originally constructed with an eye on numbers of words, etc, then determining this fact will give us a powerful tool for textual criticism. Emendations that change the word count are probably to be rejected.

The Book of Nahum as a Liturgical Composition: A Prosodic Analysis (JournEvThSoc 32 [1989], pp. 159-169): In its poetic form Nahum has no superior within the prophetic literature of the OT, and should be a useful text for testing theories of Hebrew prosody—perhaps as useful as Lamentations or even the Psalms. It displays intricate detail, with repeated metrical refrains and almost perfect symmetry in mora-count and syntactic-accentual stress units.

Ruth and the “Worthy Woman” of Proverbs 31:10–31 (Paper presented to the National Association of Professors of Hebrew, Denver, CO, Nov 19. 2001)— The term “virtuous woman” ('eshet chayil) appears three times in the Tanakh— in Proverbs 12:4, 31:10 and Ruth 3:11. In the Leningrad Codex, the reader turns only a single page to get from the statement about the ‘virtuous woman’ in Prov 31:10 to the description of Ruth on the lips of Boaz in Ruth 3:11—“all my fellow townsmen know that you are a ‘virtuous woman’ ('eshet chayil).” Moreover, the Hebrew word chayil appears together with the verb ‘sh in both contexts (see Prov 31:29 and Ruth 4:11). The delightful story of Ruth is a poetic midrash on the acrostic poem in Prov 31:10–31, and both of these texts are in essence a midrashic expansion of Prov 12:4.

Reading Jonah in Hebrew (BIBAL Corporation, Rodeo, California, 2004). This brief course takes the student through the 48 verses of Jonah, which include a total of 688 Hebrew words—but only 272 different lexical items. We will go through this delightful narrative poem several times, each time with different goals in mind. And at the end of the journey, hopefully, we will all have a deeper knowledge of the language of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible). The book of Jonah is a useful text for this purpose because the content itself is interesting and the reading of the book plays a significant role in the Jewish calendar—as the afternoon reading for Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement).

Israel's War with Amalek— Since the Amalekites, who are presented as “first among the nations” (Nm 24:20), become the traditional enemy of the Jews, it seems strange that we know nothing about them so far as history is concerned. The key to interpreting the war with Amalek is probably to be found in placing Amalek within the context of the Midianites, with whom the Amalekites are frequently allied—especially within the context of the “holy war” against Midian in Nm 31:1-54— and reading the narrative as a musicological allegory. Hebrew reductionism in scribal numerology requires the defeat of "Amalek” and the deception of "Esau". The prophets of ancient Israel had a political function alongside the king, with responsibilities in shaping foreign policy within the context of “holy wars”, but it is important to distinguish these political “holy wars” from YHWH’s “Holy War,” which ultimately is Israel’s epic story as a whole.

Reading Jonah in Hebrew: This brief course takes the student through the 48 verses of Jonah, which include a total of 688 Hebrew words—but only 272 different lexical items. We go through this delightful narrative poem several times, each time with different goals in mind. And at the end of the journey we will have a deeper knowledge of the language of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible).

Reading Genesis in Hebrew: The method of study presented here begins with the context itself. This brief course takes the student through the 56 verses of the first two chapters of Genesis, which include a total of 762 Hebrew words—but only 216 different lexical items. We will go through these first two chapters of the Bible several times, each time with different goals in mind. And at the end of the journey, hopefully, we will all have a deeper knowledge of the language and the content of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible).