Joel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 12/10/2026Right after the annual Mark Leuchter workout session. 120
Joel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 02/09/2026Seriously: every bit of pushback I’ve ever received for banning AI in my classroom has come from administrators. But it’s not so surprising: AI is a reverse technological age gap, despised by the younger generations but supported by the still-neo-capitalist centrists who run institutions. 171
Joel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 27/08/2026Literally just got this pic from my kid down at NYU 140
Reposted by Joel BadenSam Brody @samuelhayimbrody.bsky.social · 19/08/2026day 1 of any academic studies bible class is “what is ‘the bible’” and guaranteed their train will never get to that station 1102
Joel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 18/08/2026Here’s mine - for which I have gotten repeated pushback from higher ups: 2141
Joel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 17/08/2026I tell my classes all the time: no one has ever opened the Bible and read something in there and said “oh shit, I guess I was wrong about that, I’ll change my mind/behavior now.” Which is why trying to convince someone that their reading of the text is faulty somehow is so ineffective. 0221
Joel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 16/08/2026(I also suggested that we get grad students to literally redo some of his papers so that we could continue to cite the ideas but not the person, which I know was basically plagiarism - as was strenuously pointed out to me by some - but seemed to me plagiarism beat pedophilia as an evil to support. 140
Joel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 16/08/2026I remember suggesting that someone go through his publications and try to find works by non-pedophile scholars that could be cited in their place. I also remember at least some responses like “but shouldn’t we focus on healing him so he can keep doing what he does so well.” 151
Joel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 29/07/2026Ever had a major figure in the field call your first book “borderline incompetent” in the flagship journal of the field? I have. (Made my career, to be honest, but I’d still rather it hadn’t happened. Probably.) 2192
Joel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 21/07/2026Best part of the Amalek thing is that they actually were forgotten - they totally disappear from the biblical record after the preexilic period, and only reappear once those early texts became authoritative (if not “canonical”), at which point they returned as symbols of other peoples. 050
Joel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 20/07/2026No such thing as editor’s block, as I tell my students. 010
Joel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 10/07/2026(And yes, I know, I know - it’s always been this way. But for it to still be, even today, even knowing what we know…) 050
Joel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 10/07/2026Recently finished a relatively new semi-accessible scholarly book, and man, Israeli archaeology really can’t get away from the Bible, huh? It’s like imagining historians of England who just had to tie everything back to Shakespeare somehow. It makes the whole project seem impossible. 2110
Reposted by Joel BadenJoel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 10/07/2026Dear god someone pay me to do a line by line review of this 2162
Joel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 10/07/2026Dear god someone pay me to do a line by line review of this 2162
Joel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 10/07/2026Does confirm that whatever influence the idea had, it was pretty recent. And also (given those Christian Hebraists), it was used as a counterpoint to the correct Christian faith. 000
Joel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 09/07/2026How? The bad way? The anachronistic way? (There is no good way.) 200
Joel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 09/07/2026But don’t miss his whole redemption arc! He learned a thing, and that’s good? 120
Joel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 09/07/2026Super fucking cool, genuine response. All the credit: thanks for listening. Really well done. 170
Joel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 09/07/2026I’d also really love to know if this is a real Christian thing - like has the 613 come to have some independent Christian meaning, or is it just used as shorthand for “what Jews believe” (as different from what we believe)? 550
Joel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 09/07/2026Like - hey, you learned a thing! And great that your tradition doesn’t do the Christian Seder thing! Here’s another thing that has the same ring to it. And even easier to stop doing, probably. Learning is cool! Helps us all get along better. 020
Joel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 09/07/2026Just doesn’t seem that hard to acknowledge that the invocation of the purely Jewish 613 commandments - the history of which I’ve just briefly laid out for you, and you could also look up pretty easily yourself - in a Christian context might rub some Jewish people the wrong way. 120
Joel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 09/07/2026Dude, I did start this mostly joking - just pointing out that it’s kind of a category mismatch to put the Jewish idea of 613 commandments into the Christian idea of the OT. Now you’re playing the “your feelings don’t matter” card, which seems like a wild place to have gone. 250
Joel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 09/07/2026Feels weird to tell me that the thing I obviously care about isn’t a thing that Jews care about. I promise that stuff like Christian Seders bothers “us.” 270
Joel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 09/07/2026Legitimately interested: can you tell me where the 613 commandments come into Christianity? Because even in Judaism that idea doesn’t exist until the middle of the first millennium CE, and there’s no attempt at enumeration for another five hundred years or so after that. 130
Joel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 09/07/2026Even 613 wasn’t really counted - it was a symbolic number that got backfilled with the enumeration later. 030
Joel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 09/07/2026Yeah - I know what the OT is, and I don’t have any problem with Christians using the term. It’s more that the 613 commandments is an entirely rabbinic concept, and belongs to the Jewish Bible, not the OT. Combining the two feels vaguely supersessionist, like a Christian Seder. 282
Joel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 08/07/2026There’s stuff about which the Bible is bad all on its own- slavery, women, homosexuality - and bad people take advantage of that stuff. Then there’s stuff that isn’t in the Bible at all, and bad people make the Bible into a source for - and racism is one of those things. 020
Joel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 08/07/2026There’s stuff about which the Bible is bad all on its own- slavery, women, homosexuality - and bad people take advantage of that stuff. Then there’s stuff that isn’t in the Bible at all, and bad people make the Bible into a source for - and racism is one of those things. 022
Joel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 08/07/2026There’s stuff about which the Bible is bad all on its own- slavery, women, homosexuality - and bad people take advantage of that stuff. Then there’s stuff that isn’t in the Bible at all, and bad people make the Bible into a source for - and racism is one of those things. 010
Joel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 08/07/2026Activating the first category is a choice, but one that is (often) conditioned by one’s beliefs about the authority of the biblical text. Activating the second category is also a choice, and it’s conditioned entirely by one’s prior beliefs: it tells us more about the person than the Bible. 2100
Joel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 08/07/2026There’s stuff about which the Bible is bad all on its own- slavery, women, homosexuality - and bad people take advantage of that stuff. Then there’s stuff that isn’t in the Bible at all, and bad people make the Bible into a source for - and racism is one of those things. 1192
Joel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 26/06/2026If you’re going to invite me to be on your editorial board, probably don’t a) fail to describe any of the responsibilities, b) forward me the message from the EIC saying they’re on a tight deadline to add members, or c) extend the offer also to any students I might have. Must be a terrific journal! 280
Joel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 18/06/2026You mean your workplace doesn’t have this sort of thing? Your loss I guess. 040
Joel Baden @joelbaden.bsky.social · 10/06/2026Really missed a chance to piggyback on your Leviticus 14 bit from yesterday and make this a Holiness Code joke 120
