Scenes from a Provincial Life

<p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>David J.A. Clines's memoir spanning eight decades lets readers journey with him from a childhood in Sydney Australia to a prominent place as an eminent Hebrew Bible professor in Sheffield England. It provides </span><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>telling vignettes</span><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> which </span><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>encapsulate Clines's</span><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> academic life transformed by the provincialness of his settings his scholarly endeavours and international encounters.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Clines's desire </span><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>to serve as </span><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>a steadfast companion to and high-level critic of the discipline of biblical studies is further revealed as</span><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> he offers portraits of the giants whose shoulders he could stand upon and the peers he stood shoulder to shoulder with. </span><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Such attention to his peer community bears witness to the truly remarkable outcomes of a polymath in humble mode.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>A self-deprecating pioneer of postmodern approaches to biblical scholarship Clines presents his memoir as a heap of disjointed scenes-and certainly no grand narrative and yet this belies the fact he provides expositions on how:</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>- he used negative experiences of education in childhood to refine what it was for him and his students to learn and to teach;</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>- being an early adopter of new ideas in research and publishing David and his colleagues became pivotal in championing innovation;</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>- his interest in philology and lexicography led to the Dictionary of Classical Hebrew project;</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>- his intrinsic wish for interpretative diversity was equal only to his wish for the substance of a text to remain in full view.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>By revealing his unquenchable capacities as publisher teacher traveller supervisor researcher commentary writer philologist and lexicographer readers will acquire a deepened insight into an exceptional scholar. His closing unfinished chapter 10 Things I Have Been Saying (but no one was listening) reminds readers wherever there was sophism speciousness and self-deception Clines was most accomplished at sniffing it out and providing an illuminating deconstruction.</span></p><p></p><p></p><p></p>