Three Research Projects Taking Shape for Denver
Research projects for this fall are beginning to take shape as I prepare for the annual academic meetings in Denver this November. I am currently developing three conference presentations for the Evangelical Theological Society, the Institute for Biblical Research, and the Society of Biblical Literature:
- ETS — “Matthew First Reconsidered: Patristic Evidence and the Origins of the Synoptic Gospels”
- IBR — “The Seen and Unseen God: Divine Presence and Visibility in the Sinai Narrative”
- SBL — “Artisan Signatures and Verbal Aspect: ἐποίει and ἐποίησεν in the Inscriptions of Ennion”
Rather than merely rehearsing established conclusions, I am trying to return to the primary evidence—patristic discourse, the language of the Sinai narratives, and ancient Greek inscriptions—and ask whether close linguistic and contextual analysis might help move the discussion forward.
My ETS presentation, “Matthew First Reconsidered: Patristic Evidence and the Origins of the Synoptic Gospels,” returns to one of the most enduring questions in New Testament scholarship: the literary relationship among Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Modern discussions of the Synoptic Problem frequently begin with the assumption of Markan priority. Matthew and Luke are then understood as having independently used Mark, often together with a hypothetical sayings source conventionally identified as Q. The Matthean-priority tradition offers a different account. According to the Two-Gospel, or Griesbach, Hypothesis, Matthew was written first, Luke subsequently made use of Matthew, and Mark composed his Gospel with knowledge of both.
My paper will focus particularly on the patristic evidence. Early Christian writers repeatedly addressed the origins, authorship, order, and reception of the Gospels. Their testimony is sometimes acknowledged but quickly subordinated to modern literary theories. At other times, individual statements are extracted from their broader contexts and treated as though their meaning were self-evident.
Statements about the origins of the Gospels belong to larger discourses. They appear within historical narratives, catalogues of apostolic writings, theological arguments, apologetic works, and discussions of ecclesial reception. Their significance cannot be determined adequately without attention to language, literary context, rhetorical purpose, and the relationship between individual claims and the writer’s larger pattern of argumentation. The question is not simply whether a particular Father can be cited in support of Matthean priority. The more important questions are what the writer actually says, how the statement functions within its context, what kind of knowledge is being claimed, and how the testimony relates to other early accounts of Gospel origins.
My presentation for the Institute for Biblical Research, “The Seen and Unseen God: Divine Presence and Visibility in the Sinai Narrative,” turns to the Hebrew Bible and the complex presentation of divine revelation at Sinai. The Sinai narratives describe God as both revealed and concealed, present and inaccessible, seen and unseen.
God descends upon the mountain. His presence is manifested through fire, smoke, cloud, thunder, sound, and the trembling of the mountain. Moses approaches God in a way that the people cannot. Israel encounters unmistakable signs of divine presence, yet the people must also maintain their distance. Boundaries are established, access is restricted, and divine visibility is carefully qualified.
This combination raises important interpretive questions. What does it mean for the biblical text to describe human beings as seeing God while simultaneously emphasizing that God cannot be seen fully or approached casually? How do cloud, fire, darkness, voice, and glory function within the narrative? Do these elements conceal God, reveal God, or accomplish both at the same time?
The paper will explore how the Sinai narrative presents divine presence through a carefully structured interaction between visibility and invisibility. One hint on where I think all of this goes: John reflects what is "seen" (pun intended) in his prologue (John 1:18), as does Paul in 1 Timothy 6. There is one that can been seen and one that cannot be seen.
My SBL paper, “Artisan Signatures and Verbal Aspect: ἐποίει and ἐποίησεν in the Inscriptions of Ennion,” moves from biblical narrative to the inscriptions associated with the ancient glassmaker Ennion.
Ennion was an artisan known for mold-blown glassware bearing Greek inscriptions. These inscriptions provide an intriguing body of evidence for studying the language artisans used to identify their work. The paper examines the alternation between the imperfect form ἐποίει and the aorist form ἐποίησεν, both of which may be translated in English with some form of “made.” The difference between them, however, cannot be assessed adequately through translation alone.
The forms present an opportunity to investigate verbal aspect and the way an artisan’s activity is linguistically represented. Does the imperfect portray Ennion as engaged in the activity of making, perhaps highlighting his characteristic or continuing work? Does the aorist present the act as a complete event associated with the particular object? Are the forms interchangeable conventions, or do they reflect meaningful differences in how the maker and the act of production are construed?
Ancient inscriptions are valuable precisely because they allow Greek linguists to test descriptions of the verbal system beyond the literary texts most commonly studied. They preserve language used in commercial, funerary, civic, religious, and artisanal settings. Such evidence can confirm, complicate, or refine claims developed primarily from the analysis of biblical and classical literature.
The Ennion inscriptions are especially interesting because the linguistic variation occurs within a relatively focused corpus connected to a named artisan and a recognizable form of production. This makes it possible to examine not merely the lexical meaning of ποιέω but also the aspectual choices through which the act of making is presented.
What unites these three papers is a commitment to return to the primary evidence.
In the Synoptic project, that means reading the Church Fathers as discourse rather than merely repeating later summaries of their conclusions.
In the Sinai project, it means attending closely to the language, narrative structure, and theological tension through which divine visibility and invisibility are presented.
In the Ennion project, it means allowing inscriptions and material artifacts to contribute to our understanding of the Greek verbal system.
This is one of the aspects of philological research that I find most rewarding. Philology brings together language, history, texts, artifacts, interpretation, and the patient reconstruction of ancient contexts. It asks not only what a text or inscription says but why it says it in that way, how its language functions, and what broader historical or interpretive questions it may help us answer.
The ideas are beginning to take shape. Now it is time to turn the notes, sources, and drafts into finished papers.
