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The Sanctified ‘Adultress’ And Her Circumstantial Clause: Bathsheba’S Bath And Self-Consecration In 2 Samuel 11, J. D'Ror Chankin-Gould, Derek Hutchinson, David H. Jackson, Tyler D. Mayfield, Leah Rediger Schulte, Tammi J. Schneider, E. Winkelman

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Bathsheba's actions in 2 Sam. 11.2-4 identify crucial aspects of her character. Past commentators interpret these words in connection with menstrual purification, stressing the certain paternity of David's adulterine child. This article demonstrates that the participles rōheset and mitqaddesšet and the noun mittum'ātāh do not denote menstrual cleansing. Bathsheba's washing is an innocent bath. She is the only individual human to self-sanctify, placing her in the company of the Israelite deity. The syntax of the verse necessitates that her action of self-sanctifying occurs simultaneously as David lies with her. The three focal terms highlight the important legitimacy of Bathsheba before …

Echoing Their Ancestors, Women Lead School Districts In The United States, Margaret Grogan

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Women have been involved in leadership activities throughout the history of the United States. Not always called leadership, their capacities to deal with difficult situations, and to manage enterprises have been earned them the reputation of being strong and resilient, capable of great initiative. This article draws briefly on this history to situate a discussion of how women are shaping the most powerful position in U.S. education - the superintendency. Using published findings from the AASA (2003) national survey of women superintendents and central office administrators, conducted by Margaret Grogan and Cryss Brunner, the article argues that women are still …

Through Assyria's Eyes: Israel's Relationship With Judah, Tammi J. Schneider

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

The goal of the Bible was not to record history, and the text does not shy away from theological explanations for events. Given this problematic relationship between sacred interpretation and historical accuracy, historians welcomed the discovery of ancient Assyrian cuneiform documents that refer to people and places mentioned in the Bible. Discovered in the 19th century, these historical records are now being used by scholars to corroborate and augment the biblical text, especially the Bible’s “historical books” of Kings. This field for comparison complements the recent trend among biblical scholars of using new interpretative methodologies and archaeology to question some …

The Place Of The Eighteenth Century In American Agricultural History, Richard Bushman

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

On the eve of the Revolution about 80 percent of the labor force of British North America worked in agriculture. Most colonists spent the majority of their waking hours doing farm work. People of all classes and ethnic origins (men, women, and many children) devoted their days to planting tobacco, husking corn, building fences, milking cows, slaughtering pings, clearing brush, weeding vegetables, churning butter, killing chickens, salting meat, and hoeing, hoeing, hoeing. Native Americans hunted more than Europeans and Africans, but Indians, too, worked the soil. The vast bulk of the population spent its energies from dawn to dusk, day …

Farmers In Court: Orange County, North Carolina, 1750-1776, Richard Bushman

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Anyone studying farmers in early American must go to court, as the farmers themselves did so often throughout their lives. As young farmers, they registered deeds to their first lands or received inheritances from their fathers at courts; as old men, they passed on farms to their children. At every stage, they went to court to sue for debt or be sued, to petition for mills or taverns, to have roads laid out and repaired, and to register cattle marks. In most places, county courts imposed the taxes assessed to the farmers' names on the tax lists. If a farmer …

A Poet, A Planter, And A Nation Of Farmers, Richard Bushman

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

For the past few days in Harpers Ferry we have been inventing and reinventing American nationalism in a marvelous variegation of scholarly papers. We have heard about nationalism and travel, nationalism and antislavery women, nationalism and male identity--and southern artisans, and black nationalists, and even luxury hotels. Although we try to put ironic distance between ourselves and the more egregious forms of nationalism, the papers seem to share the popular fascination with American identity. We cannot resist staring into history and asking who we are as a nation, how did we come to be so wonderful, and why have we …

The Rise And Fall Of Civility In America: The Genteel Republic, Richard Bushman

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Ours is not the first age to feel pangs of anxiety about the decline of civility, refinement, and manners. Two centuries ago, the currents of revolution stirred similar fears among many of America's Founding Fathers. To these creatures of the Enlightenment, living in their Virgina plantation houses and Philadelphia mansions, manners and refinement ranked with the rule of law, the development of science, and the practice of the arts as the greatest of civilization's achievements.

Foreword To Old Ship Of Zion, Vincent L. Wimbush

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Walter F. Pitts died July 20, 1991. I did not know him personally; I came to know only a part of him through the manuscript-obviously an important part of his life-that has been transformed into the book now before the reader. If that which is created is in the image of its creator, I suspect that had I met Walter Pitts I probably would have liked him very much; I know I would have been impressed by him, and would have learned a great deal from him.

At first, when I was asked by Oxford University Press to review Pitts's …

Ascetic Behavior And Color-Ful Language: Stories About Ethiopian Moses, Vincent L. Wimbush

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

The characterization of the fouth-century Black (Ethiopian) monk named Moses in late ancient Christian hagiographie narratives opens wide a window not only onto particular understandings of, and propaganda about, ascetic piety and religious orientations to the world, but also ancient (non-black) Christian sensitivies to racial/color differences. Four ancient sources— Palladius' Lausiac History, Sozomen's Ecclesiastical History, the anonymous Apophthegmata Patrum, and Acta Sanctorum—are analyzed on the basis of a recent translation.

Nippur Bibliography, Linda B. Bregstein, Tammi J. Schneider

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

The Nippur Bibliography which follows is divided into two parts. The first part, "Text Publications and Interpretations," includes all primary publications of Nippur tablets and all studies that make significant use of tablets from Nippur. The secondary studies are included in order to highlight the contribution of the Nippur tablets to the reconstruction and interpretation of ancient Near Eastern literature, history, mythology, economy, law, and lexicography. The second part of the bibliography, "Excavation Reports and Secondary Archaeological Publications," includes all publications relating to the Nippur excavations, as well as studies of major archaeological finds. At the end of the section …

Book Review: "Radical Christianity: A Reading Of Recovery" By Christopher Rowland, Vincent L. Wimbush

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Christopher Rowland, Lecturer in Divinity, Dean and Fellow of Jesus College, University of Cambridge, has written a fascinating and provocative book. Although drawing upon years of research on Christian origins, especially on apocalypticism in Judaism and early Christianity, this book goes far beyond antiquarian exegetical interests and questions. It is a most interesting attempt to determine the origins, then chart and account for major developments in the course of one type of Christian ethic and orientation-a type of "radical Christianity" rooted in apocalypticism.

Book Review: "Paul And The Torah" By Lloyd Gaston, Vincent L. Wimbush

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Paul and the Torah is the mature work of a well-known Canadian (Vancouver) biblical scholar in an important area of religious scholarship. The book is a collection of previously published essays having to do with Paul and his teachings regarding the relationship between the Jewish law and the Gentile Christianity of which he was pioneer. The essays, written over a period of at least a decade and arranged in chronological order, are remarkable for their coherence and consistency, and are a tribute to the author's powerful grasp and clear articulation of the materials and some very knotty issues and questions. …

The Inscriptions Of Assurnasirpal Ii And His Son, Tammi J. Schneider

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

The existence of written records at a site is viewed with great joy because texts impart information that cannot be gleaned from other material remains. When no such texts are found, the archaeologists and other associated scholars must work that much harder to understand what happened at the site. One way this is done is by analyzing the remains of the site in light of other contemporary information, as has been done for Hasanlu in this issue. Contemporary sites of Assyria have produced historical texts recounting the activities of the Assryian kings that not only shed light on the period …

American High-Style And Vernacular Cultures, Richard Bushman

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Brief excerpt from content used in lieu of an abstract:

Do we now have the materials for an integrated cultural history of the American colonies? Or to pose a more difficult question, can we realistically expect to compose an ordered history from the thousands of existing studies of chairs, folk songs, farm tools, poems, flags, election rituals, games, diet, costume, festivals, gravestones, pottery, and so on? Restricting the definition of culture to the older idea oft eh arts and manners of the cultivated classes does not case the task appreciably. The scholarly work on high style seems hopelessly diverse and …

Freedom And Prosperity In The American Revolution, Richard Bushman

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Reflection on the meaning of the American Revolution began even before independence was declared and has never ceased. John Adams was speculating on the implications with Mercy Warren in January of 1776, and at the end of his life was still raising the question, "What do we mean by the American Revolution." The Bicentennial more than simply celebrating the event has become an occasion for reopening the inquiry. We still ask John Adams' question. We want to know what really changed with independence, and what fundamental principles underlay the Revolutionary movement.

The Book Of Mormon And The American Revolution, Richard Bushman

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

The Book of Mormons, much like the Old Testament, was written to show Israel "what great things the Lord hath done for their fathers," and to testify of the coming Messiah. Although cast as a history, it is history with a high religious purpose, not the kind we ordinarily write today. The narrative touches only incidentally on the society, economics, and politics of the Nephites and Jaredites, leaving us to rely on oblique references and occasional asides to reconstruct total cultures. Government is dealt with more expressly than other aspects, however, perhaps because the prophets were often rulers themselves and …

Jonathan Edwards And Puritan Consciousness, Richard Bushman

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

The writings of Jonathan Edwards contain the most complete description we have of the piety of eighteenth-century American Puritans. Events made Edwards a specialist in Puritan consciousness. As he said, "It is a subject on which my mind has been peculiarly intent, ever since I first entered on the study of divinity. Besides inquiring into his own heart, he was chief defender and interpreter of the Great Awakening and closely studied revival conversions to distinguish God's work from mere emotions.

English Franchise Reform In The Seventeenth Century, Richard Bushman

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

The roots of franchise reform in the seventeenth century are of interest to historians both of Britain and of America. In the new world and in England important steps toward democratic suffrage were taken in the first half of the century. The Virginia charter of 1619 granted voting privileges to all adult male inhabitants regardless of property. Later governments qualified this liberality, but an important precedent was established. In England Leveller tracts and the classic Putney Debates aired arguments that bore no immediate practical fruits but that foreshadowed later reforms. 130th developments are startling enough to raise urgent questions about …