I'll try to post a more interesting entry by Monday, but you may find me doing some sketches on the afterlife here for a little while. I have a proposal for a book in relation to my Fulbright research that I have floated with a couple publishers. Both felt I would find a publisher for it, but claimed their dockets were full. Perhaps they were being straight with me.
But I feel a weakness of the proposal as it stands is the fact that the sample chapter is merely the introduction rather than one of the more substantive chapters. I find myself unhappy with the material I wrote in Germany (I actually spent half my time there finishing the Philo book, frankly). So I need to carve out a little time to write a more substantive chapter that I'm happy with before I send the proposal to another publisher--at least that's how I feel. And this blog is the place where I find it easiest for me to write small pieces that quickly add up.
The sample chapter I have chosen is tentatively titled, "From the Psalms to the Sadducees," and its unifying feature is a tradition in Second Temple Judaism that does not envisage any personal, conscious afterlife. My goal for these snippets is to write or proto-write (since I am at home and can't footnote very well) portions of this chapter that in a month or two I can combine to become the sample chapter. Routledge is currently my next publisher target.
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2 comments:
Hey Ken,
I' looking forward to reading the snippets. We were discussing this very topic in my Kingdom of God class with Dr. Karen Winslow. It amazed me to think that Jeremiah suffered for the Lord's name without any hope of a reward for his deeds. Do you think this lack of a hope in an afterlife played into the wishy-washiness of the Israelites? It would seem that the only hope of a deuteronomistic mindset would be to be rewarded in this lifetime... but what happened it that was taken away? Where is the hope for a crappy life?
I used to wonder this too, Brian. For example, why would a Roman soldier die in an act of valor when that was it for him? The secret is to remember that these were honor-shame cultures. They believed that they would make a great name for themselves and their honor would go on. Of course, I don't think that applies to Jeremiah's case, who I don't think did what he did for honor. But in Jeremiah's case, there was the sense of absolute loyalty to a sovereign. This complete orientation of yourself around another is difficult I think for many today to get their head around, a body guard who would jump out the window to death at the command of an emperor just so the emperor could show how obedient his servants were. But this is the world of the Bible, I think. Great parallel!
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