So, I have a pretty busy week going on here and don't have time to do a proper post... sorry.
Instead I will leave you in good hands. Here is an interview from the Euangelion Blog that I read recently talking about the authorship of Hebrews. Michael Bird provides us will a little preface and then conducts the interview:
The authorship of Hebrews is a funny question. The eastern church attributed it to Paul, Origen was ambivalent about it, suggestions have included Barnabas and Apollos, but a small cohort of scholars have suggested Luke's authorship of Hebrews or else Pauline authorship via Luke. There has been interesting proposals on this topic of late. One contribution is David Allen, Lukan Authorship of Hebrews(Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, forthcoming 2010) - which I have not read yet. The other contribution to the subject is an essay by Andrew W. Pitts and Joshua F. Walker entitled "The Authorship of Hebrews: A Further Development in the Luke-Paul Relationship" which is forthcoming in S.E. Porter (ed.), Paul's Social Relations (Pauline Studies 7; Leiden: Brill, 2010). I spoke to Andrew Pitts about their essay and he answers my questions below:
1. What started your thinking about the Pauline "source" of Hebrews?
We began working on this project during the 2008 annual meeting of the ETS-SBL meetings in Providence and Boston. At the meetings, we talked about the different features of Hebrews that point to authorship—style, vocabulary, its apparent oral qualities, theological viewpoints and manuscript tradition, among others. We had always thought that a Luke-Paul collaboration was possible and so we set out to examine various strands of evidence to see what direction they might point in. The somewhat recent trend toward understanding Hebrews in an oral context seemed to have some significant implications for authorship. If Hebrews is a speech, then it may have had stenographer (speech recorder). The content and manuscript (external) evidence pointed to Paul while the linguistic and literary (internal) evidence seemed to us to indicate Lukan involvement. This theory seemed to handle the bulk of the evidence presented on this matter, evidence which was often dichotomized into Luke only and Paul only data. But both sets of data, to our mind, seemed significant and neither could be easily side-stepped. We found, then, that a Pauline origin best explained the main content of Hebrews, accounting for elevated style of the document via Luke’s involvement.
2. What is the basic thesis of your chapter on the authorship of Hebrews?
The evidence we examine suggests that Hebrews likely represents a Pauline speech, probably originally delivered in a Diaspora synagogue, that Luke documented in some way during their travels together and which Luke later published as an independent speech to be circulated among house churches in the Jewish-Christian Diaspora. From Acts, there already exists a historical context for Luke’s recording or in some way attaining and publishing Paul’s speeches in a narrative context. Luke remains the only person in the early Church whom we know to have published Paul’s teaching (beyond supposed Paulinists) and particularly his speeches. And certainly by the first century we have a well established tradition within Greco-Roman rhetorical and historiographic stenography (speech recording through the use of a system of shorthand) of narrative (speeches incorporated into a running narrative), compilation (multiple speeches collected and edited in a single publication) and independent (the publication of a single speech) speech circulation by stenographers. Since it can be shown (1) that early Christians pursued parallel practices, particularly Luke and Mark, (2) that Hebrews and Luke-Acts share substantial linguistic affinities and (3) that significant theological-literary affinities exist between Hebrews and Paul, we argue that a solid case for Luke’s independent publication of Hebrews as a Pauline speech can be sustained. We don’t claim to have “solved” the problem of authorship in terms of absolutes or certainties, but we do think that this is the direction that the evidence points most clearly.
So, what do you think?
If you find this interesting and want to read more, please do so. The interview continues: here
Well, I can't go and showcase all of this music without hitting up some of my favourite jazz artists.
Of course, there's no shortage of astounding jazz musicians. There are everyone's favourite Canadians, Michael Buble, Diana Krall and Oscar Peterson... but everybody knows about them.
So let's start by going way back to 1961 and the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Many of you will know about them but they deserve to be heard again simply because this song (and the whole album "Take Five") literally reshaped and redefined music for the 20th Century. I honestly don't think that's overstating it.
Now, there are about a zillion amazing jazz pianists but I happen to enjoy Jacky Terrasson and it's my blog, so here's Jacky Terrasson (check out his left hand work):
But one of my favourite jazz emsembles of all time is Bill Bruford's Earthworks. They are a mindblowing progressive jazz band. I really wanted to find a video of them performing "footloose and fancy free" (I know I've seen it before) but all I could find was this:
I suppose some of you will appreciate this video more than others :)
Anyway, I've posted videos of Medeski, Martin, and Wood here before but I can't leave them out. They're a little weird but I love their groove. Here's one with them performing with the incomparable John Scofield:
And like we did yesterday, let's end things off with a little Latin American vibe. Here's the legendary Poncho Sanchez (the actual song starts at about 1:55):
Enjoy!
UPDATE:
Woah! I almost forgot about one good Canadian girl that you all need to know about: Jane Bunnett. She's the white girl.
I don't know if you know this, but Canada has produced some of the best guitar players, well... EVER.
You have probably heard of at least a few of these artists but whether you know about them or not, it's always worth while taking a few minutes and listening to some amazing acoustic guitar work:
Antoine Dufour:
Don Ross:
Bruce Cockburn:
And we'll end with a little flamenco with Jesse Cook:
