What started out with William Dever's entertaining characterization of several Sheffield scholars who practiced their craft in, or rather on the topic of, the ANE and Biblical Studies has now been broadened to encompass a NT scholar(s).
While the first mention of the Sheffield School of Biblical Studies was quite ridiculous for anyone who has taken the time to read any of the distinctive works of such notable scholars as David Clines, Diana Edelman, Philip Davies, Keith Whitelam, Hugh Pyper, and Cheryl Exum. Clearly one should be able to very quickly see the folly in putting all of these scholars into some kind of homogeneous school. Even for those who have questioned certain aspects of Israel's past, they are much too divergent in their views to be considered a school of thought, quite frankly the idea is ludicrous. But at least one could understand why Dever used the term for his rhetorical and polemical purposes, even if it was childish to do so.
But now the gloves are off and their is a new Sheffield School, or perhaps it is an extension of the first, that fact is really of no importance. The "Postcolonial Sheffield School" is now open for business, and seemingly all are welcome. With the addition of James Crossley, Loveday Alexander, Barry Matlock, and Jorunn Økland pretty much all viewpoints have been amalgamated into one homogeneous School.
On a side note: How did John Hobbins get Crossley's book, I have been waiting since SBL to get my hands on this?
9 comments:
whitelam's name is KEITH.
hobbins doesnt have crossley's book. he hasn't read it. he's waiting for a copy.
aslo? i think you meant 'also'.
;-p
thanks i'll make the changes.
It's amazing how Hobbins can offer such an illogical criticism of a book he hasn't read, but he does.
I don't understand the surprise. Hobbins also responded to Hector Avalos book without reading it.
I guess I am more forgiving, I see in Hobbins' more of a general attempt to get at leftist postcolonial politics (even though I am not sure what that looks like), and James is just a springboard into that. I have not read Hobbins' preferred authors and only a spattering of Chomsky, but his association of minimalism with postcolonialism strikes me as odd. Perhaps Hobbins' is looking at the critic of ideology in both, or interpreting minimalism as some sort of covert Palestinian rewriting of history, I am not sure?
I thought his response was arrogant and not just because he pretended to have read the book. He was full of childish rhetoric. The point is that he hasn't 'predicted' the book correctly and he's arguing against a straw man (which is why it is obvious he hadn't read the book). Have you read the responses by James and NT Wrong, and the post and comments on James' blog?
You can forgive him for being 'stupid', but he's still stupid ;-)
Steph: Don't get me wrong I don't think he was doing a fair job of dismantling James' argument, I do in fact think he was attacking some sort of academic leftist "straw man" and of course the rhetoric could be toned down, but I wouldn't go so far as stupid. But then I have to be careful, since I can't even spell "you are" right!!!!
Nobody has even brought up the Eurocentricism and complete hatred for America that is, as Genette would refer, the paratext of James' work. I mean how else can you explain the distribution problem :)
The real problem is that this is not a first for John. He did the same thing with Hector Avalos book. See his post on that here.
here.
On Mike Aubrey's blog John recently made this comment,
"Furthermore, it’s interesting that a family psychologist like John Gottman emphasizes that respect is typically the more important need of a husband and love the more important need of a wife. It’s all relative, of course, but maybe, just maybe, Paul was on to something, in his gender-differentiated advice."
When challenged John admitted that he could not substantiate his claim with a citation. In fact, a therapist who worked with Gottman made a less than happy comment to that effect.
It can't be a secret that John repeatedly made comments about me which could not be in any way supported by things that I had said.
Here is the link,
Why Hector Avalos is full of it.
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