The Science of the Stars: The Antikythera Mechanism

The first-century BCE Antikythera Mechanism, sometimes called the world's first analog computer, has received renewed study with X-Ray technology--so, from the world of art with van Gogh repaints (see post from yesterday) to the ancient world of science, this X-Ray technology is always revealing new things, giving us better understandings of the development of art and science. What can this device do? It predicted solar eclipses, kept track of the Olympiad, and, I gather, helped reconcile solar and lunar calendars. We often recognize ancient abilities to keep track of astronomical events--they could see the stars far better than we can (or any of us who live close to any large city or town) because of modern light pollution-- but we sometimes forget how technologically advanced ancient peoples were. See NYTimes article here (and reprinted below) and Nature.com article here.

July 31, 2008

Discovering How Greeks Computed in 100 B.C.

By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD

After a closer examination of a surviving marvel of ancient Greek technology known as the Antikythera Mechanism, scientists have found that the device not only predicted solar eclipses but also organized the calendar in the four-year cycles of the Olympiad, forerunner of the modern Olympic Games.

The new findings, reported Wednesday in the journal Nature, also suggested that the mechanism’s concept originated in the colonies of Corinth, possibly Syracuse, on Sicily. The scientists said this implied a likely connection with Archimedes.

Archimedes, who lived in Syracuse and died in 212 B.C., invented a planetarium calculating motions of the Moon and the known planets and wrote a lost manuscript on astronomical mechanisms. Some evidence had previously linked the complex device of gears and dials to the island of Rhodes and the astronomer Hipparchos, who had made a study of irregularities in the Moon’s orbital course.

The Antikythera Mechanism, sometimes called the first analog computer, was recovered more than a century ago in the wreckage of a ship that sank off the tiny island of Antikythera, north of Crete. Earlier research showed that the device was probably built between 140 and 100 B.C.

Only now, applying high-resolution imaging systems and three-dimensional X-ray tomography, have experts been able to decipher inscriptions and reconstruct functions of the bronze gears on the mechanism. The latest research has revealed details of dials on the instrument’s back side, including the names of all 12 months of an ancient calendar.

In the journal report, the team led by the mathematician and filmmaker Tony Freeth of the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project, in Cardiff, Wales, said the month names “are unexpectedly of Corinthian origin,” which suggested “a heritage going back to Archimedes.”

No month names on what is called the Metonic calendar were previously known, the researchers noted. Such a calendar, as well as other knowledge displayed on the mechanism, illustrated the influence of Babylonian astronomy on the Greeks. The calendar was used by Babylonians from at least the early fifth century B.C.

Dr. Freeth, who is also associated with Images First Ltd., in London, explained in an e-mail message that the Metonic calendar was designed to reconcile the lengths of the lunar month with the solar year. Twelve lunar months are about 11 days short of a year, but 235 lunar months fit well into 19 years.

“From this it is possible to construct an artificial mathematical calendar that keeps in synchronization with both the sun and the moon,” Dr. Freeth said.

The mechanism’s connection with the Corinthians was unexpected, the researchers said, because other cargo in the shipwreck appeared to be from the eastern Mediterranean, places like Kos, Rhodes and Pergamon. The months inscribed on the instrument, they wrote, are “practically a complete match” with those on calendars from Illyria and Epirus in northwestern Greece and with the island of Corfu. Seven months suggest a possible link with Syracuse.

Inscriptions also showed that one of the instrument’s dials was used to record the timing of the pan-Hellenic games, a four-year cycle that was “a common framework for chronology” by the Greeks, the researchers said.

“The mechanism still contains many mysteries,” Dr. Freeth said. Among the larger questions, scientists and historians said the place of the mechanism in the development of Greek technology remained poorly understood. Several references to similar instruments appear in classical literature, including Cicero’s description of one made by Archimedes. But this one, hauled out of the sea in 1901, is the sole surviving example.

Astronomy (or Astrology), the study of the stars, and the concomitant importance of the calendar were extraordinarily important aspects of ancient culture--the ancient science of the study of the heavens not only was important for calendrical purposes, but also had a strong imprint on religious belief and practice, with the ancient Babylonians, Jews, Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, etc. In order to understand their religious traditions, one must keep an eye on the stars. In fact, in a partial answer to one of my questions yesterday, the importance of astrological events for religious life would probably approach the prevalence of the evil eye, although the systematic study of astrological events can be tracked with much greater accuracy, beginning with the ancient Babylonians and spreading out from there. Nonetheless, somewhat less systematic observations of the heavens can be found throughout the ancient Mediterranean and the ancient near east.

Image Info:

Antikythera Mechanism Research Project

Fragments of the Antikythera Mechanism, an ancient astronomical computer built by the Greeks around 80 B.C. It was found on a shipwreck by sponge divers in 1900, and its exact function still eludes scholars.

Site Meter

Just today I added the functionality of a site meter to my site so I can keep track of the traffic on the site, and I would have never known that so many people visit my site if it weren't for this--since very few people actually comment.

But just since late Wednesday afternoon until now (about 1 a.m.), I have had visitors from all around the U.S. from New York to Chicago to L.A., and international visitors from Monaco, Greece, and New Zealand.

I am somewhat amazed that my review of Peter Schaefer's Jesus in the Talmud from about a year ago is still drawing readers. But most people have been interested in my posting on the Russia/Ukraine Church split (or potential split) and, interestingly enough, my series of quotations from Chuck Palahniuk's Rant.

Anyway, I'll keep posting on religion, antiquity, and whatever catches my fancy, and I hope you all enjoy it and keep reading!

What Lies Underneath Van Gogh

In case anyone didn't know, my absolute favorite painter is the earless Vincent van Gogh. My girlfriend just got me a mug with one of van Gogh's self-portraits on it, and when you fill it with hot liquid, the ear disappears! It is hilarious! Anyway, whenever I go to the Met, I have to make homage to the Impressionist / Expressionist wing where I can see some of his stuff. So I get excited anytime he's in the news--which is rare. And right now, due to advances in X-Ray technology, he is! I just read the following:

Hidden Van Gogh revealed in color by scientists

Wed Jul 30, 11:33 AM ET

Scientists have made a colored view of an early rejected painting underneath Vincent van Gogh's 'Patch of Grass' painting, using advanced X-ray techniques, a Dutch university said on Wednesday.

The very detailed image shows the face of a woman and may give art historians a better understanding of the way Van Gogh developed as a painter.

"It is estimated that one third of Vincent van Gogh's early paintings have been painted on top of existing ones. Van Gogh literally recycled his own canvasses," scientist Joris Dik of the Delft University of Technology said.

Conventional X-ray techniques give a colorless, partial view of the hidden painting and only show vague contours of a person behind 'Patch of Grass', the university said.

By recycling his work Van Gogh painted many layers over the original painting but the scientists managed to scan all the different elements in those layers of the relevant area with X-ray fluorescence.

"We can make a virtual 3-dimensional model of the painting and start to peel off all the layers one by one. Then we get a nice detailed view of the hidden face," Dik said.

Van Gogh painted 'Patch of grass' in 1887 in Paris and it hangs in the Kroller-Muller museum in the Dutch eastern city of Otterlo.

(Reporting by Tineke van der Struik, editing by Paul Casciato)

I've reused a few of my own canvases--oh, by the way, I paint (more for therapeutic purposes than anything--every academic needs a non-academic hobby). The underlying image resembles much of his early work in which he depicts Dutch peasant life with dark colors, before he met the Parisian impressionists (you can see this on the reverse side of his most famous self-portrait (both sides on display at the Met). I'm excited to find out what they'll discover under 1/3 of his paintings!

The Ever Evil Eye

A while back, I posted on an ancient incantation from Ugarit to reverse the Evil Eye. See here. This text was over three thousand years old. And the Evil Eye was something feared throughout the ancient near east and the ancient Mediterranean.

Yet I should not neglect to mention that this extremely ancient and widespread belief in the maleficence of the evil eye has survived and is alive and well today, continuing to permeate religious belief and ritual of all backgrounds. Large numbers of Jews, Christians, and Muslims (and others) all retain the traditions of the evil eye. In fact, I have found the people have been coming onto my blog from Google searches on the evil eye (and how to reverse its effects). I doubt my website will give much practical help, however. Moreover, I have a comment on my posting from an independent vendor of Evil Eye amulets, bracelets, and so forth. Check out her site here. I doubt that my blog has enough traffic to boost her business however. By the way, in case people don't know, the most common amulet or symbol to ward against the evil eye is a hand facing downward with an eye in the center of it. You may have seen it before.

Being one of the most persistent and widespread religious concerns from antiquity to today no matter which god one prays to or what religious group one belongs to, it certainly deserves study. And, in fact, if anyone knows of any full-length scholarly study out there on the evil eye, I would love to hear of it. The problem is, who would do it? One would have to master so many languages, regional histories, and broader historical developments in order to undertake such an ambitious project.

I have found a few books from a quick search:

Rivka Ulmer, Evil Eye in the Bible and in Rabbinic Literature (KTAV 1994)

Clarence, Maloney, ed. Evil Eye (Columbia University Press, 1976)

R. C. Maclagan, Evil Eye in the Western Highlands (1902)

Frederick Thomas Elworthy, Evil Eye: An Account of this Ancient and Widespread Superstition (1895)

The most comprehensive treatment appears to be just before the turn of the twentieth century--back when scholars investigated extraordinarily huge questions. There were some additional materials related to India and the evil eye used as evidence in witchcraft trials. For such a persistent and widespread phenomenon, it is amazing that so little investigation has gone into it. Unless Elworthy settled the case over 100 years ago... Any takers out there for a very huge research project? Can someone think of other religious phenomena that are as persistent and widespread as the fear and warding off of the Evil Eye? Or is it in a league of its own?

The Pope Versus the Pill: Humanae Vitae in the News

	Jillian Tamaki

Forty years ago, Pope Paul VI issued an encyclical entitled "Humanae Vitae," which stated the Roman Church's position on Birth Control--an absolute no. The encyclical had its anniversary recently, and now is all over the news...or the "news that's fit to print," the New York Times, which an article here, and letters to the editor in response to the article here. This encyclical has not fared very well. In fact, according to the article, no papal decree has fared so poorly in public opinion and in actual practice:

Never before July 25, 1968, however, had opposition been so immediate, so public and so widespread. World-famous theologians called press conferences to rebut the pope’s reasoning. Conferences of Catholic bishops issued statements that all but licensed churchgoers to ignore the encyclical. Pastors openly criticized “Humanae Vitae” from the pulpit.

And ignore they have, for the most part. In the West, disagreement with and disregard for the papal decree exceeds 80% of the faithful, according to the article. Nonetheless, from the official level, the decree remains strong. I have a feeling that if this were a political issue (and luckily it isn't), Catholic politicians who supported the pill would be banned from the Eucharist just as they often are when they are pro-life. But the rift between the official line and the rank and file Catholic could barely be larger. The following response to the article caught my eye:

The encyclical “Humanae Vitae” suffers from a profound lack of humanity. Forty years ago, Pope Paul VI could and did choose to disregard the recommendations he solicited from Catholic couples and physicians — recommendations based on the real, human experience of marital love — in issuing his mechanistic prohibition.

That a group of celibate men can continue to leverage the faith to enforce this ban, and continue to cause needless anguish among decent people throughout the world who want to do right by their religious belief, is no accomplishment. Terrence R. Connelly

Palo Alto, Calif., July 27, 2008

The writer is a co-author of a book about the Vatican’s efforts to purge priest professors who published disagreement with “Humanae Vitae.”

I also find it quite odd that unmarried, celibate men think they can effectively discuss and define what is proper in marriage and sex, especially regarding a pill taken by women. Based upon what experience?

Orthodox Rift between Ukraine and Russia

The NYTimes has an article on a potential ecclesiastical rift between the Ukraine and Russia.

The Ukraine and Russia have not been on the best of terms lately...to say the least. The Ukrainian President, Viktor Yushchenko, claims to have been poisoned by pro-Russian opponents. The Ukrainians also are seeking to eject Russia's navy from their seaport in the Black Sea, and join NATO, Russia's Cold War rivals. Russia, in turn, has threatened to cut off natural gas deliveries, which the Ukraine needs. But now there is a new thing under contention: the Church.

President Yushchenko now seeks to separate the Ukrainians from the Russian Orthodox Church. One should not be surprised at this, since many Church splits in history take place along political lines that take into consideration economic, social, and cultural factors--like the Protestant Reformation, for example. What is more, Orthodoxy since its inception (let's say with the Council of Nicea in the Fourth Century CE) has always been intertwined with state power (the Council was convened by the Roman emperor, Constantine I). Indeed, one might note the differences between Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, etc.

Note the following staging and politicking:

With Orthodox Church notables from around the world looking on, Mr. Yushchenko asked Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of the world’s 250 million Orthodox Christians, to bless the creation of an independent Ukrainian church — “a blessing,” he said on Saturday, “for a dream, for the truth, for a hope, for our state, for Ukraine.”

The Ukrainian president — who claims that pro-Russian opponents tried to kill him with poison that pockmarked his face — also snubbed the Russian Orthodox patriarch, Aleksy II, by giving him a businesslike handshake after warmly kissing Bartholomew on both cheeks.

During three days of solemn religious ceremonies, rock concerts and political brinkmanship in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, the power struggle was not resolved. Both sides declared victory, as Bartholomew stopped short of supporting or rejecting the independence movement, saying only that divisions in the church would have “problematic consequences for Ukraine’s future.”

Clearly, Yushchenko is publicly staging his position (details matter!), while Bartholomew is playing wait and see. But what are these "problematic consequences"? Nonetheless, from a different point of view:

For Svetlana Dyomena, a nurse who prayed Tuesday at Yelokhovsky Cathedral in Moscow, the idea of an independent Ukrainian church immediately reminded her of her sadness over an independent Ukraine.

“How can Ukraine not be part of Russia?” she lamented after lighting a candle at the turquoise, golden-domed church, which was Moscow’s main practicing Orthodox cathedral under Soviet rule. “We have a common faith, a common history.”

Ms. Dyomena said it was less painful to see countries like Georgia seek to escape Moscow’s sphere of influence.

“Georgians, well, they were always from the Caucasus,” she said, referring to the restive mountainous region whose people have fought wars against Russian rulers for centuries. But Ukraine and Russia, she said, have “one language, one religion, even one cuisine.”

Ukrainians disagree. Russian was the language of government and education in Ukraine under the Soviet Union and Russian empire, and Ukrainians struggled to maintain their own language. They view the absorption of the Ukrainian state and church into Russia’s institutions under Peter the Great as an annexation that was not reversed until 1991.

“How can you live like neighbors when your neighbor says the house you live in is not your own house, but our common house?” said Bishop Yevstratiy, the spokesman for one of two Ukrainian breakaway churches, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Kiev Patriarchate, which the Moscow Patriarchate has declared heretical.

Establishing an independent church is essential for Ukraine to consolidate its national identity and statehood, and it would probably happen eventually, said Alexey Malashenko, an expert on religion and society at the Carnegie Moscow Center.

I am not so good on my history of that portion of the world. Did Peter the Great annex both the state and the church? Put another way, was the Ukrainian Church originally separate from Moscow? Or is the historical development messier than this? The claims of "heresy" are hardly surprising--such claims usually come from one in power when they see a threat to their power or position. Given the tendency of Orthodox Christianity to fall along political or ethnic lines, indeed, this eventual split is not at all surprising.

Israeli Universities and Palestinian Students

Today in the Chronicle:

July 29, 2008

Israeli Universities Step Up Criticism of Military Policy on Palestinian Students

In a scathing letter to Israel’s defense minister, the leaders of six Israeli universities have denounced a military policy that prevents Palestinians from studying in Israel as a gross violation of academic freedom, the human-rights group Gisha reported. The policy, which Gisha has challenged in petitions to Israel’s Supreme Court over the past two years, bars Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza from entering Israel without permission from the army.

The letter was signed by rectors and deans of Ben Gurion University of the Negev, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv University, the University of Haifa, the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, and the Weizmann Institute of Science.

Meanwhile, five Israeli professors have requested that the Supreme Court allow them to join Gisha’s latest petition, the organization said. One of the professors, Moshe Ron of the Hebrew University, wrote to the court that the policy, if unchanged, “will help those who are trying to impose an academic boycott on Israel and will severely harm Israel’s academic standing in the world, especially in Europe.”

The military ended an outright ban on allowing Palestinian students into Israel in response to a 2006 request from the court, but the human-rights group maintains that the new restrictions are even harsher, leaving many students in limbo. Last month, the court again asked the military to reconsider its policy. —Charles Huckabee

For background on the academic boycott, click here.

In St. Louis as it is in Heaven

I think I've seen this before, but Paleojudaica just posted on it today. And, being from St. Louis myself, I could not pass letting people know about it--although Jim Davila has far more volume on his blog than I do, perhaps there is a handful of people who read me and not him, like friends and family in St. Louis who can actually take advantage of this offer:

HEAVEN ON EARTH
A Virtual Tour of Our Holy Temple
Wednesdays: July 30, August 6 and 13
7:30 - 9:00 pm

This summer, nearly 2,000 years since the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, Chabad of Greater St. Louis will unveil Heaven on Earth, a three-week interactive course developed by the renowned Rohr Jewish Learning Institute, which recreates the ancient Jerusalem Temples from the ground up. Heaven on Earth will be offered at the Lazaroff Chabad Center, at 8124 Delmar Blvd., in University City, on three consecutive Wednesday evenings, 7:30 to 9 pm, beginning on July 30.

Through an interactive and innovative virtual tour, Heaven on Earth will enable students to conceptualize the ancient Temple in Jerusalem, allowing them to “walk through” the Temple’s ancient corridors, throng with the crowds through Jerusalem’s gates, and discover the marvels of architecture and design that were integral to this sacred site. Heaven on Earth provides students with an explanation for the central role the Holy Temple plays in the life and history of the Jewish people, and why to this day Jews of all stripes pray for the Temple’s rebuilding and converge upon the Western Wall, its surviving remnant.

"While many have explored the politics and geography of the Holy Land, few have explored the spiritual significance of the structures that stood for a millennium on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem”, said Rabbi Yosef Landa, the course facilitator. “By helping students envision and recreate the ancient Jewish Temples, they will come away with a newfound appreciation to for its historical and religious significance.”

Just last weekend, I went with a group in NYC to model reconstructions of the Tabernacle, Solomon's Temple, and Herod's Temple. They were very small, of course (lego men would have been slightly too big for the reconstruction). So, this thing in St. Louis seems quite interesting. The cost for the St. Louis virtual tour is $36. I guess my question is, which temple are they reconstructing? If they are emphasizing the Western Wall, I guess it would have to be Herod's temple. But maybe since they say "Temples," they are going to do all of them.

Baylor in the News

Baylor is making headlines (well...at least in the Chronicle for Higher Education) due to its recent firing of its president. See the Chronicle article here. Much of the difficulty appears to be a shift in goals that have affected the tenure process. The Baptist university is trying to become a top research institution, while maintaining its Christian character. In the process, it seems that some priorities in the hiring and tenure process have shifted, and 12 out of 30 tenure bids were denied this year. 10 of these appealed the decision, with 7 reversals.

Forbidden Gospels has talked about this recently (since she is geographically closer to Baylor), and has suggested two things: to become a top tier research university, 1) Baylor must secularize and 2) it must reward research above teaching in the tenure process. She suggests that the resistance is due to the conflict of becoming a top-tier research institution and maintaining their faith identity. In response, Rebecca Lesses (also known as Mystical Politics) has made a good point that it is not merely a conflict of faith and research, but a conflict of the conditions under which faculty were initially hired and the possible change in tenure evaluation. Lesses writes:

Without knowing anything about this particular case, it seems to me that there is not only a conflict over the university's faith identity, but over the expectations for faculty trying to gain tenure. If they were hired and were explicitly told that teaching was more important than research, and poured their energy into improving their teaching, then I believe it is extremely unfair to those faculty members to deny them tenure on the basis of a requirement they were not informed of at an early stage of their employment at Baylor. It seems to me that this sort of change has to be introduced slowly, over a period of several years, so that incoming faculty know what the expectations are that they must fulfill. I can see why the tenure and promotion committee disagreed with the president, if this is something that he did in only three years. I teach at an institution that places a higher priority on teaching than research in gaining tenure. If over the period of three years a dozen junior faculty were denied tenure by the president because they didn't have sufficient publications, there would be howls of protest.

This particular potential conflict seems to me to be the more important. Or potentially the more likely culprit behind the unrest. Any institution, whether having a "faith identity" or being secular, attempting to reach the top tier will have to go through a slow transition time. I am not so sure that maintaining oneself as a faith institution is so directly in conflict with becoming a top research institution. Although one might note that the top ivy-league institutions all (except one) began as faith institutions and today, well, basically are not. The one exception is my own institution--Columbia University (formerly King's College) never was a faith institution. To receive adequate funding from potential donors and institutions to become a top-tier institution, one might need to secularize. On the other hand, Baylor's recently-fired president sent the university's endowment level over the one-billion dollar mark for the first time last year. Perhaps the issue is attracting the best scholars to do research there. While there are very good scholars who would be of the same faith-character of Baylor, limiting oneself to those scholars could be detrimental to the success of reaching the top tier. I do not know if Baylor does this, but most scholars, for example, would not want to sign a statement of faith as a condition of hiring. In sum, I can see how there could be potential pitfalls for maintaining the institution's faith character and becoming a top tier institution, but I am not sure that their conflict is inevitable or necessary.

No Gender Gap in Math

So, this differs from my usual fare, but since I've been dating a math teacher, it caught my eye. According to a new national study, there is absolutely no gender gap in math aptitude, disproving the old stereotype that placed girls in more humanities-oriented courses and boys in math and science.

Here is the NYTimes article:

Math Scores Show No Gap for Girls, Study Finds

By TAMAR LEWIN

Published: July 25, 2008

Three years after the president of Harvard, Lawrence H. Summers, got into trouble for questioning women’s “intrinsic aptitude” for science and engineering — and 16 years after the talking Barbie doll proclaimed that “math class is tough” — a study paid for by the National Science Foundation has found that girls perform as well as boys on standardized math tests.

Although boys in high school performed better than girls in math 20 years ago, the researchers found, that is no longer the case. The reason, they said, is simple: Girls used to take fewer advanced math courses than boys, but now they are taking just as many.

“Now that enrollment in advanced math courses is equalized, we don’t see gender differences in test performance,” said Marcia C. Linn of the University of California, Berkeley, a co-author of the study. “But people are surprised by these findings, which suggests to me that the stereotypes are still there.”

The findings, reported in the July 25 issue of Science magazine, are based on math scores from seven million students in 10 states, tested in accordance with the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

The researchers looked at the average of the test scores of all students, the performance of the most gifted children and the ability to solve complex math problems. They found, in every category, that girls did as well as boys. (To their dismay, the researchers found that the tests in the 10 states did not include a single question requiring complex problem-solving, forcing them to use a national assessment test for that portion of their research.)

Janet Hyde, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who led the study, said the persistent stereotypes about girls and math had taken a toll.

“The stereotype that boys do better at math is still held widely by teachers and parents,” Dr. Hyde said. “And teachers and parents guide girls, giving them advice about what courses to take, what careers to pursue. I still hear anecdotes about guidance counselors steering girls away from engineering, telling them they won’t be able to do the math.”

Girls are still underrepresented in high school physics classes and, as noted by Dr. Summers, who resigned in 2006, in the highest levels of physics, chemistry and engineering, which require advanced math skills.

The study also analyzed the gender gap on the math section of the SAT. Rather than proving boys’ superior talent for math, the study found, the difference is probably attributable to a skewed pool of test takers. The SAT is taken primarily by seniors bound for college, and since more girls than boys go to college, about 100,000 more girls than boys take the test, including lower-achieving girls who bring down the girls’ average score.

On the ACT, another college entrance test, the study said, the gender gap in math scores disappeared in Colorado and Illinois after the states began requiring all students to take the test.

According to the Chronicle, by the way, the gender-gap for university populations is approaching 60-40 in favor of women.

Being from Illinois and going to an Illinois undergraduate institution, I took the ACT, but I cannot remember how well I did on the math portion.

Prime Minister Maliki and Pope Benedict XVI

According to Reuters, Pope B16 has an open invitation to visit Iraq and help interreligious dialogue between the dominant Muslim population and the minority Christian population, much of which fled the country during the U.S. invasion. There has been some violence against the Iraqi Christians, particularly the targeting of clergy and churches by Sunni militants. One might recall that last February the Archbishop of Mosul of the largest of Iraq's Christian denominations--the Chaldean Catholics--was kidnapped and found dead two weeks later. Maliki thinks that the Pope's presence could help interreligious understanding, which is necessary for Iraq's future.

See the full article here.

Tenured Professor Leaves Westminster Because Bible has Human Component

I just read this in the Chronicle:

July 24, 2008

Bible Professor Will Leave Seminary Instead of Facing Hearing

A tenured professor at Westminster Theological Seminary who faced a hearing next month to determine if he would be dismissed is leaving on August 1 under what the Pennsylvania seminary called “mutually agreeable terms,” according to a statement on its Web site. The professor, Peter Enns, who taught the Old Testament at the seminary, wrote a book expressing the view that human beings shaped the Bible. The institution’s Board of Trustees suggested that the idea was contrary to the conservative seminary’s faculty oath. —Beckie Supiano

And here is the earlier story:

July 10, 2008

Tenured Professor Faces Dismissal at Theological Seminary

A tenured professor at Westminster Theological Seminary will face a hearing next month to determine if he will be dismissed for his teachings about the Bible, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported this morning.

The professor, Peter Enns, teaches the Old Testament at the conservative Presbyterian seminary in Glenside, Pa.

In 2005, Mr. Enns published a book, Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament, intended to help Christians and religion students make sense of apparent contradictions in biblical texts. Mr. Enns writes in the introduction that “Christ is both God and human. So is the Bible.”

The seminary’s Board of Trustees, which ordered the hearing, will focus on whether Mr. Enns violated his faculty oath. Professors at the seminary are required to pledge that they will not teach or even suggest anything contrary to Westminster’s confession of faith, which states that the Bible is perfect, infallible, and written by God.

Mr. Enns was suspended in March, after the faculty voted to support him. The four-day hearing is scheduled to begin on August 25. —Beckie Supiano

This is a tricky one. This is one reason why I do not want to teach at an institution where I have to sign a creed or a code of conduct, unless of course it requires me to have ice cream at least once a week if not more (gelato being an acceptable substitution). But, technically, he did not violate the statement of faith. The statement says the Bible is from God. The professor said this too. Just merely adding that it is from humans too. He says it is both. There are many good scholars who would say that the Bible was written fully of ancient people, by ancient people, and for ancient people, and, therefore, is generally irrelevant for people's issues today, something that would violate that statement. He didn't say that.

What is more interesting is that this is a case of the faculty versus the board of trustees. It sounds more political than anything. I would have to side with the faculty position on this one. It seems like the board of trustees is just behind the tide of scholarship on the Bible--and, yes, even conservative scholarship on the Bible.

Follow the threads here and here.

Tip for the Codex Sinaiticus Site

If you are having trouble seeing the Codex Sinaiticus on its new site because there are too many concurrent connections, go to the German version of the site (which evidently has less traffic than the English section).

It is a very nice tool. It has photos of each page which you can view with two different types of light and which you can magnify, a transcription of each verse, and translation (the translation was not up when I was playing around on the German site).

Have fun looking at the oldest most complete Bible online!

Codex Sinaiticus Goes Online Today

Codex Sinaiticus, one of the most important ancient texts, since it is the earliest most complete New Testaments that has survived (plus the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas), is now going to be digitized and parts of it, Mark I think, will go online today. The majority of the text has been housed in the British Museum, with pages or fragments of it being housed in Leipzig, St. Petersberg, and at St. Catherine's in the Sinai. It also contains Greek translations of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) along with "Apocrypha"--often referred to as the Septuagint (LXX), although this designation only technically refers to the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible). The first half of the Old Testament texts are missing (from Genesis up to 1 Chronicles). Those going online today or soon include 1 Chronicles, 2 Esdras, Esther, Tobit, Jeremiah, Lamentations, and Psalms.

Most New Testaments rely upon a reconstructed synthetic text that takes into account all variants. But the availability of a single codex shows us the state of how one text looked in antiquity (even if we don't think that is how each individual book "originally" looked). The Codex was originally taken, uh stolen, from a monastery (St. Catherine's at Sinai--thus, "Sinaiticus"), after which several nations vied and argued over ownership.

This particular digital project took the cooperation of Russia, the U.K., Germany, and the original St. Catherine's monastery. The website can be viewed in English, Russian, German, or Greek. I will be adding it to my resources links.

Check it out here! (If you can! When I tried, the site said there were too many concurrent connections--over 100,000 people at one time trying to look at the document!)

Quote of the Day: Psalm 122

Winding up his Middle-East tour, Barack Obama made a surprise pre-dawn visit to the Western Wall, the Wailing Wall, in Jerusalem yesterday, placed a prayer on a slip of paper in one of the cracks, while he and his wife read a Psalm, Psalm 122. This is part of a larger unit of Psalms called the "Songs of Ascents" (Psalms 120-134). Songs of Ascents tend to be shorter than other Psalms, and may have been sung by the Levitical choir on the steps of the temple. This particular Psalm calls for peace, and, I thought, if the Psalm is going to be in the news, why not make it the quote of the day?

I was glad when they said to me,
"Let us go to the house of the LORD!"
Our feet have been standing
within your gates, O Jerusalem!

Jerusalem, built as a city
which is bound firmly together,
to which the tribes go up,
the tribes of the LORD
as was decreed for Israel,
to give thanks to the name of the LORD.
There thrones for judgment were set,
the thrones of the house of David.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!
"May they prosper who love you!
Peace be within your walls,
and security within your towers!"
For my brethren and companions' sake
I will say, "Peace be within you!"
For the sake of the house of the LORD our God,
I will seek your good.

How Liberal is the University?

In the previous post, I noted procedures now in place at Penn State and Temple for students to report liberal bias in the classroom. If, in fact, there is discrimination based upon someone's point of view--one that they can present in the class, be challenged on, but be evaluated on how they present it rather than the view itself--then there is, indeed, a problem.

For a long time, the university in America has been regarded as one of the last bastions of liberalism or progressive thought (from one point of view) or as a hold-out of liberalism left over from the 60s but really having no connection with the rest of society (from another point of view). Although, I should note that the structure or organization of the university is amazingly conservative--a hold-out from the middle ages! Divisions in to the current form of departments is a hold-over from the nineteenth-century, and, in fact, may need to be revised.

Yet, the NYTimes and the Chronicle this past month have issued articles (the latter clearly relies upon the former) discussing a potential shift currently occurring in the university in America, as professors who spent their formative years in the 60s and 70s are now retiring. In this generational shift, what will be the result? Both articles suggest the university as a whole will move to the middle. If so, will there be grievance procedures put in place to protect students from indoctrination in being middle of the road?

Policy against Liberal Bias in the Classroom in PA

Two Pennsylvania universities (Penn State and Temple) have instituted policies that give students pathways to file grievances against professors who have presented biased classroom lessons. It turns out to be a procedure to protect "conservative" students from the "liberal" bias of their professors, which conservative activists have labeled "liberal indoctrination." So, when they grow up and learn things from their parents, churches, or local politicians, that is not "indoctrination" as well? There is a degree to which much learning is indoctrination (whether "liberal" or "conservative" or whatever), and we should avoid creating cookie cutter students who arrive at the exact same conclusions that their professors give them. But more than anything higher education is about getting students to think for themselves, and often that means breaking down previously (and dearly) held conceptions, disabusing them of what they thought they knew. While indoctrination is not allowing students to think for themselves, neither is allowing them to cling to previously held notions that can and should be challenged. With a policy such as this, will professors have less freedom in disabusing students of previously held notions? Although religion courses have not turned up among the complaints, I can just see them rolling in if someone like myself began breaking down the historical development of the Bible alongside the equally divinely inspired literatures of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Assyria, Greece, and Rome.

See the discussion in the Chronicle here.

Feast of Mary Magdalene

Today is the feast day of Mary Magdalene. Her story, or the story of her stories, is rather fascinating. Called "apostle to the apostles," she was a prominent single woman within Jesus' inner circle and a leading figure after his death. Over time her prominent position became troubling as the Church merged with mainstream ancient society, placing her at the margins, and eventually figuring her as a prostitute or the "woman caught in adultery" in later times.

For a discussion of these traditions, see April DeConick at Forbidden Gospels and Deidre Good at Not Being a Sausage.

The Naughty Bible (Again)

A while back I made some brief comments on the "naughty bible."

At the moment, though, Exploring Our Matrix, has a more extensive list of blogs that are now discussing sex and/in the Bible. For those interested, check it out here.

Obama and McCain to Meet with Rick Warren

Rick Warren, the pastor of the gigantic Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, CA., has individually invited both John McCain and Barack Obama to meet at a forum at his megachurch before the Democratic and Republican conventions. Since the campaigns began, McCain and Obama have never been on the same stage together, but now they have a chance to court evangelical voters. Rick Warren is best known for his book, The Purpose Driven Life, which was a NYTimes best seller and a book of wide appeal well beyond the evangelical sub-culture. In this forum they will be discussing Rick Warren's primary foci: AIDS, poverty, and the environment. I've noted a heightened interest in these social areas among Evangelicals before, areas which in the past have been primarily associated on the Democratic platform. So, Rick Warren has done what no one else has: brought the two candidates together to discuss side-by-side their views on these crucial global issues.

This, by the way, comes on the heels of James Dobson, from "Focus on the Family," of doing a 180 and suggesting that he will probably do something he thought he would never do: support McCain, the latter of whom has had a huge struggle with Evangelical voters. I do applaud Rick Warren for keeping things balanced (unlike Dobson), giving Evangelical voters (and everyone else--I hope this is televised in some way) an equal view of each candidate on issues that seem to be falling through the cracks at the moment.

See the New York Times article here.

Another Quote: Ritual Incantation against the Evil Eye

After my last post, I just could not help but quote the incantation against the Evil Eye, something feared throughout the ancient Mediterranean and ancient near east--Tolkien's Eye of Sauron seems to rely upon some of these characteristics, particularly the first line:

The Eye goes, yea it runs;

It has seen its brother, that he is good.
Its brother, that he is lovely;

It has begun to devour his flesh without a knife.
To drink his blood without a cup;

It is the eye of a BTY-man that has seen him [the brother],
The eye of a BTY-woman that has seen him,

The eye of a price-setter,
The eye of an assembler,
The eye of a gate-keeper.

The eye of a gate-keeper, to the gate-keeper let it return!
The eye of the assembler, to the assembler let it return!
The eye of the price-setter, to the price-setter let it return!

They eye of the BTY-man, to the BTY-man let it return!
The eye of the BTY-woman, to the BTY-woman let it return!

RS 22.225, Trans. Dennis Pardee

This text is rather well put together and well preserved. The first part portrays the Evil Eye as an independent entity, something that seems to rove to and fro throughout the land, something suggested in this translation by the capital "E." This piercing Eye, through its gaze, devours the flesh and drinks the blood of the one it sees. This independent, somewhat abstract Eye (that reminds me of the Eye of Sauron from the Lord of the Rings), then is expressed in individual people. This section is organized in a chiastic pattern, with the eye of individual figures given, and then their gaze returned to them in reverse order. These individuals are the concrete expressions of giving the Evil Eye: it is through their particular gazes that the Evil Eye can manifest to devour flesh and drink blood. It is the returning of the gaze that is really the point of the text. The incantation reverses the gaze to the gazer: the various figures who give the Evil Eye, now will suffer its consequences rather than the good "brother."

Quote of the Day: Ugaritic Ritual Incantation against Male Sexual Dysfunction

This recitation casts out the tormentors of a young man:

The pain of your rod it has banished,
The producers of the pain of your rod.

It goes forth at the voice of the ta'iyu priest,
Like smoke from a window,
Like a serpent from a pillar,
Like mountain-goats to a summit,
Like lions to a lair.

The rod has recovered,
Yea the road has come near.

Should you sin against your body,
Should you commit evil against yoru body,
You should eat moldy bread,
Drink fig-juice in oppression,
On the heights, in the well-watered valleys,
In the shadows, even at the sanctuary.

Then, as for the sorcerers, the tormentors,
Horanu will drive them out,
Even the companions of the 'lads of knowledge' he will drive out for you.

With respect to heat, do not sag,
May your tongue not stutter,
May your canal not be decanalized.

The god can clothe you,
The god can make you naked.

For the man, descend from the rod
To the earth, O flow;
For the son of man, from illness he is delivered.

[The rest of the text is corrupt.]

RIH 78/20, Trans. Dennis Pardee

So, I obviously have been reading in ancient near eastern texts lately, since I have been posting about Babylonian texts, like Gilgamesh, and Ugaritic texts, such as the one here. These incantation texts are fascinating. They take poetic form ("incantations" are "magical" texts that are chanted). These usually protect you from something. For example, there is a well-preserved incantation against snakes and scorpions and another against the ever-malevolent "evil eye." Then, of course, this one against male sexual dysfunction. Such incantations are rather common throughout the ancient near east and the ancient Mediterranean, but it is always helpful to work through a few of them to get a sense of the anxiety reflected behind them: the dangerous poisonous snakes, the malevolent evil eye, and sexual problems. And then, in fact, how beautifully they are put together in poetic form! Then imagine actually chanting these incantations aloud!

The New Nadir: Bush and Congress

Although when I usually speak of politics, it is with a connection to religious issues, but here are some non-religiously-related data that reflects American disgruntlement with our leaders.

Lately Congress, or at the very least Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, and the President seem to have been more openly criticizing each other. Pelosi has called Bush "a total failure" while Bush has noted that the current legislative session is the longest in 20 years that Congress has gone without passing a single bill.

Last Month, Reid criticized Republicans who sided with Bush on Medicare, saying, "Who would be afraid of him? He's got a 29 percent approval rating!" Now, Bush has a 28% approval rating.

At this point in our nation's history, the U.S. and, in fact, the world, is ready for a new President of the U.S. But Congress is not doing much better. If you thought a 28% approval rating is bad enough, the Congressional approval rating is a mere 18% (its all time low)!

Approval of and confidence in our nation's leaders from all parties appears to be at its nadir.

For more, see here.

Overheard in New York

When you walk down the street in New York, you hear some of the strangest (and funniest) snippets of conversations. Sometimes, I'll be walking near someone, overhear something s/he says, and it takes all of my strength to keep from laughing out loud. This is a very common phenomenon, and there is a generally well-known website (among New Yorkers) that people send their eavesdroppings to--now, so that everyone who reads my blog can have a taste, I am adding the website, Overheard in New York, to my "oft-visited places." Enjoy!

Quote of the Day: The Death of Death in the "Baal Cycle"

First things first, this is my 100th posting ever! It only took me about 13 months of blogging to get here, but today is that great milestone!

For that milestone, I would like to give a quote of the day from the Baal Cycle:

She [Anat] seizes Divine Mot (Death),
With a sword she splits him
With a sieve she winnows him.

With a fire shes burns him.
With millstones she grinds him,
In a field she sows him.

The birds eat his flesh,
Fowl devour his parts,
Flesh to flesh cries out.

Baal Cycle, 6.2.30-37.

The Baal Cycle, sometimes called the Baal Epic, is basically about the Kingship of the Canaanite God Baal. It consists of six tablets that were inscribed around 1400-1350 BCE in the ancient city of Ugarit. The six tablets depict Baal's struggles to establish his kingship over the universe. The first two tablets depict his defeat of the Sea (Yamm), providing the counterpart to the Enuma Elish, in which Marduk establishes his authority by defeating the Sea (Tiamat). The differences are that Baal has help from the warrior-goddess Anat, whereas Marduk acted alone. Moreover, in the Ugaritic version, the sea is male and in the Enuma Elish Tiamat is female. Although, one should note that at the beginning of the Enuma Elish, Ea (Marduk's father) defeats the male waters (Apsu). The next two tablets depict Baal's acquisition of a "house" (his palace/temple) and a throne as his resting-place (again, this is similar to Enuma Elish). Again, Anat is instrumental in getting Baal his palace/temple and throne, the marks of his kingship. The final two tablets depict Baal's confrontation with Mot (Death). Mot actually defeats Baal--in fact, eats him. Anat, again, comes to the rescue--in the lines quoted above, she saves Baal by defeating death--the death of death, using the language of winnowing, sowing, and grinding grain. The return of rain, the yearly agricultural phenomenon of the rising grain, is the death of death.

Interestingly enough, Revelation 21 has this same pattern: Death of the Sea, the descent of the heavenly city (like Baal's palace), and the death of Death.

Moreover, the use of agricultural metaphors for the defeat of death, or resurrection, shows up in 1 Cor. 15. Paul writes:

So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body." (1 Cor. 15:42-44).

The passage culminates in exclamation:

Death is swallowed up in victory.
O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?

Much of Paul's argument about the redeeming aspect of Jesus' resurrection is that through resurrection, he has conquered death. Death has died. Christians then participate in Jesus' victory over death, which coincides with his victory over sin (since sin is death).

Such patterns of mythical thinking found as early as the Baal Cycle, which coincides with annual agricultural patterns, reemerges in ever-new contexts among Jews and Christians. I always find it fun to see where such patterns of thought from the furthest reaches of antiquity find new articulations through the ages. In fact, my dissertation works with some of these extremely ancient patterns that manage to survive in new formulations....

Is it a Sacrilege for a Non-Catholic to Take the Host?

Strange question, isn't it? You would naturally think the answer would be a resounding YES!!! Of course it is a sacrilege for someone outside the Catholic faith (someone who does not believe) to partake of the host. And such is the position of the rather conservative group, the Catholic League.

But, according to Catholic scholar, Anthony Stevens-Arroyo, a friend of mine by the way, it is not. He comments on Sally Quinn's partaking of the host at Tim Russert's funeral. Tim was Catholic, and so it was a Catholic funeral. Sally is not. In fact, she is agnostic, if not atheist. The Catholic League was upset by this. According to Stevens-Arroyo, their logic is as follows:

Now, every believing Catholic must be vigilant against intentional desecration of the host. Presumably, the ire directed against Sally Quinn is sparked by the requirement that reception of the sacrament be motivated by faith in Christ. Quinn says she has none; ergo, such logic runs, her reception disrespects both Catholics and Catholicism. The Catholic League certainly uses its considerable resources to attack people and events like this, but most Catholics do not belong to the League or do not agree with all its statements. And then there is the teaching of Aquinas.

So, this is one position, but what is this position of Aquinas? I will let Stevens-Arroyo explain:

Writing in the Middle Ages, St. Thomas responded to a question about a mouse that found its way into the tabernacle and had eaten the Host. Since the bread had become the Body of Christ, it was supposed, the mouse had committed a sacrilege. Aquinas responded that one receives Holy Communion in faith and since the mouse in the tabernacle had no faith, there was no sacrilege. Were we to apply this teaching of the Angelic Doctor to the Tim Russert funeral, we might conclude that Sally Quinn is like the mouse in the tabernacle.

Thus according to the great (if not the greatest) Doctor of the Church in the Middle Ages, you have to have faith in order to desecrate. If you do not believe in it, you cannot desecrate it (or, one might say, you do not have the ability to desecrate it). You can only desecrate it if you believe in it--and that will mean, you can probably only desecrate it if you're Catholic! For the whole discussion see here.

I must say that I had no idea about this doctrine. I do know that the doctrine of transubstantion did not become official until fairly late, and that the issue had been debated among academics for a while whether the bread and wine were symbols of body and blood or the actual body and blood. The early figures of the debate were Ratramnus and Radbertus; both were Theologians and both came from the same monastery at Corbie in the ninth century. In short, Radbertus argued that the bread and wine literally became the body and blood of Christ. Ratramnus, his colleague, claimed this was too crude and simplistic. Part of the debate centers around the terms figura (symbol) and veritas (truth). Radbertus argued that the figura is what the senses perceive (bread and wine) and veritas is what the church teaches (body and blood). Ratramnus took the opposite line: they are in truth (veritas) bread and wine and in symbol (figura) body and blood. In the ninth century, there was no consensus and no clear winner in the debate, but the majority seemed to favor Ratramnus's position--bread and wine in truth and body and blood symbolically. Also note that this means both sides were considered within the fold and both positions could be held in the Church by different figures. Both positions were held by people who held the Eucharist in high regard. But the coin had flipped by the eleventh century, when Radbertus's position had slowly gained ascendancy. This position increased the mystery of the Eucharist, and, because it is a greater miracle, increased the position of the priest. Eventually, this position would move from its "crude" beginnings, become justified with Aristotelian distinction between essential and accidental qualities: the bread and wine would be accidental qualities and body and blood would be the essence after, and this is the new term, transubstantion. This position then became official at the Fourth Lateran under Pope Innocent III.

It is, at the very least, good to know that according to medieval theology, I cannot desecrate the host even if I wanted to do so.

Vertical Farms: The New Skyscraper

Ok...this looks really cool. It is a skyscraper that is also a farm! And the idea came out of Columbia University. See the NY Times article here.

See some cool concept pictures here:

	Gordon Graff COWS AND PLOWS? Prototype designs for vertical farms, a concept created in 1999 by Dickson Despommier of Columbia and his graduate students.

Genesis as Myth Lawsuit in Iowa

I found the following in the Chronicle for Higher Education News Blogs--something I found scary. An intro to Western Civ instructor from an Iowa community college was fired for teaching that the story of Adam and Eve was a myth rather than something that was literally true. It seems this has been something followed for a while now, but this is the first I have heard about this incident.

When you get down to it, how else can you really teach many of the predeluvian stories in Genesis? This is something we run up against all the time in religious studies and biblical studies. At my orientation meeting for Literature of the Humanities, in which we will be reading Genesis, some preceptors from other departments were a bit worried about how to approach biblical materials. It is always important to define your terms: myth, from the Greek, Mythos, means "story." In terms of religious studies, it does not mean what it has come to mean in modern society--something that is false. So, with Genesis, we are going to tell a story that has some "truth" to some people, but may not actually be "factual." In a sense, all "myths" try to articulate some sort of "truth" (something highly ironic in the modern sense of "myth"). We have this strange tendency in modern times, or at least since the 19th century, to equate truth with facts, when factual truth is one of many types of truth. This is a mistake made by people who seek the literal truth of the Bible and the people who reject the Bible for the same reason--both are reading things too literally, in ways that probably would not make sense in antiquity. As such, when teaching texts like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, one should be careful to define one's terms. Moreover, in a class like mine or perhaps an intro to Western Civ, one should emphasize that the text is a piece of great literature that can be appreciated as such by people who are believers and by people who are not. Draw out its literary qualities, compare and contrast it with Genesis 1:1-2:3 (which, interestingly enough, is a later composition), and compare and contrast it with other related texts in antiquity (Enuma Elish, Gilgamesh, and Atrahasis). Appreciation of the Bible need not stand upon literal truth, but upon literary truth.

July 14, 2008

College Settles With Instructor Fired for Teaching Adam and Eve as Myth

Southwestern Community College in Iowa has agreed to pay an undisclosed amount of money to settle a wrongful-termination lawsuit filed by an instructor who said he was fired last fall for teaching the biblical story of Adam and Eve as a myth, rather than as a story to be taken literally.

The instructor, Steve Bitterman, taught Western civilization but said the college had sided with students who complained about the content of his course.

A lawyer for the college, in Creston, Iowa, told The Des Moines Register that Mr. Bitterman was no longer on the college’s faculty and that the settlement would be made final this week.

Mr. Bitterman has taught this summer aboard the U.S.S. Dwight D. Eisenhower, an aircraft carrier berthed in Norfolk, Va., through a program for sailors run by Central Texas College, the Register reported. He said he had used the same textbook from his Iowa class. —Andrew Mytelka

Quote of the Day: Epic of Gilgamesh

While I am reading on some Ancient Near Eastern relationships with some of the texts for my dissertation, I have reread the Epic of Gilgamesh, which, as it turns out, I will probably be teaching this fall as well--it is nice when teaching and research can overlap! Anyway, here is the quote of the day:

"How, O how could I stay silent, how, O how could I keep quiet?
My friend whom I love has turned to clay:
Enkidu my friend whom I love has turned to clay.
Am I not like him? Must I lie down too, never to rise again?"

Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablet X, column V.

This passage indicates the intense friendship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Enkidu has now died, gone down to the underworld ruled by goddess Ereshkigal. The souls, shades, or whatever, of the deceased are usually depicted as birds in Mesopotamian literature, so, Enkidu's shade has flown below, and his body has returned to clay (much like the biblical phrasing of "dust to dust"). It is a place from where no one could return--there is no resurrection here as indicated by the last line. In a way, one could see the whole story of Gilgamesh as a failed search for immortality. Only one human ever achieved it--Utnapishtim, the Babylonian counterpart to Noah--who was granted immortality after surviving the Flood, and even he seems to be the exception that proves the rule. After Enkidu's death, Gilgamesh laments greatly, forcing his city (Uruk) to mourn Enkidu's death with him for six days and seven nights. Gilgamesh also erects a statue in honor of his friend.

This is a famous example of intensive friendship in the ancient world. In fact, the story says that Gilgamesh loved Enkidu as he would his wife, that he would dote on him as he would a wife! Hint of homoeroticism? Similar legendary friendships include Achilles and Patroclus from the Iliad, and David and Jonathan from Kings in the Bible. Each of these stories have had speculation of homoerotic possibilities, but speculation it must remain.

Obama, Islam, the New Yorker, and the Politics of Fear

On the cover of the latest New Yorker magazine, there is a sketch of Barack Obama dressed in a turban and Muslim garb, giving a fist pump to his wife, who is holding an AK-47. They are in the Oval Office, with an American Flag burning in the fireplace, and a portrait of Osama bin Laden on the wall.

The New Yorker claims that this is just satire, and it is part of its article on the politics of fear, meant to mock the portrait that Obama's right-wing critics have painted of him. But Obama isn't laughing. For others, it seems, the satire just falls into the right-wing critics hands, playing into their imagery (or the New Yorker is not implicated in what they critique).

The problem is a matter of consistency. If one wants to do this type of satire, one should consistently do it; otherwise, it can be misinterpreted, as this particular cover was. For example, I think that Stephen Colbert, who engages in this type of satire very consistently, could more easily get away with it. Not that the New Yorker is not satirical, but it is usually satirical in small bits, with small cartoons inside that mock a point of view to a more limited degree. The fact that the satire here had to be explained by the New Yorker shows that it was not done well or that it was done to a further degree than usual.

The following is from the New York Times and includes the cover itself:

Political Satire, but Obama Isn’t Laughing

By Jeff Zeleny

Updated SAN DIEGO –- As he flies around the country, Senator Barack Obama has a fondness for magazines. The New Yorker is often among the titles at the front of his campaign plane.

The July 21 cover of The New Yorker.

The issue this week, though, is not likely to make its way on board.

The cover of the magazine depicts Mr. Obama wearing a turban, while he offers a fist bump to his gun-toting wife. An American flag singes behind them in the fireplace.

Asked about the drawing at a news conference here Sunday, Mr. Obama held his tongue, saying: “I have no response to that.” A campaign spokesman, though, was not so measured at a sketch that the magazine calls satirical.

“The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Senator Obama’s right-wing critics have tried to create,” the spokesman, Bill Burton, said in a statement. “But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive –- and we agree.”

The cover of the July 21 issue is entitled, “The Politics of Fear.” A news release to promote the magazine said artist Barry Blitt “satirizes the use of scare tactics and misinformation in the presidential election to derail Barack Obama’s campaign.”

Asked about the cover, Tucker Bounds, spokesman for Senator John McCain’s campaign, said: “We completely agree with the Obama campaign.”

David Remnick, the editor of the magazine, defended his choice of covers in an interview with the Huffington Post. He said, “Obviously I wouldn’t have run a cover just to get attention — I ran the cover because I thought it had something to say. What I think it does is hold up a mirror to the prejudice and dark imaginings about Barack Obama’s — both Obamas’ — past, and their politics.

“I can’t speak for anyone else’s interpretations, all I can say is that it combines a number of images that have been propagated, not by everyone on the right but by some, about Obama’s supposed “lack of patriotism” or his being “soft on terrorism” or the idiotic notion that somehow Michelle Obama is the second coming of the Weathermen or most violent Black Panthers. That somehow all this is going to come to the Oval Office.”

Happy Bastille Day!

Today is July 14th, and, for those who are French, happy Bastille Day! See some celebratory pictures of the Champs-Elysees here.

Many Concerts: Melissa Etheridge and Bon Jovi

Having not been to a concert for a long time (I actually just don't remember the last time I had been to a concert), I went to no less than TWO in just a few days time.

On Wednesday night, I went to see Melissa Etheridge in concert at the WaMu theater at Madison Square Garden. It was a blast. She has a lot of bluesy elements in her music, a dash of folksy, in an overarching framework of rock 'n roll. In the end, she puts on a really good show, and seems to connect well with her audience. One of the fringe benefits of being a male at her concert is that the line for the men's bathroom was nonexistent. Tons of middle-aged women there... And I had never been to the Garden before, so it was a new experience.

Then last night we happened into some tickets for the free Bon Jovi concert on the Great Lawn of Central Park--this concert was in conjunction with All Star week, since the All Star game is going to be played in Yankee Stadium this year. There were something like 50,000 people there! It was packed, but not really crazy. I knew more of his songs than at the other concert. And it was a perfect night for a concert. It wasn't too hot, low humidity, and a nice breeze. We got a good spot on the lawn (on the grass rather than the dirt, which was nice). Bon Jovi was just a little dot in our line of vision, but the multiple megatrons around the stage made this less of an issue.

It is weird to be a person who rarely ever goes to concerts and just happen to get tickets twice in the same week, but I'm not complaining! I had a good time at both! And I'm looking forward to the other opportunities that NYC offers in the summertime.

Mourning the Loss of Catherine Bell

I just learned from Jim Davila at Paleojudaica that Catherine Bell, one of the world's leading scholars in ritual studies and Chinese religions, died at the young age of 55 on May 23, 2008 after a long illness. I remember bumping into her at a party at the annual meeting of AAR/SBL in San Antonio a few years ago. She taught at Santa Clara and retired last year due to her illness. She is best known in religious studies for her 1992 book, "Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice," which in 1994 won the American Academy of Religion book award in History of Religions.

See a full obituary on the Santa Clara Religious Studies website here.

Quotes of the Day: Italo Calvino's "Why Read the Classics?"

I have been reading through more literary criticism as of late for teaching my class next year, Literature of the Humanities, and, while in an independent bookstore in St. Louis, I found a book of posthumously published essays by Italo Calvino, who wrote one of my favorite books, Invisible Cities. This book of essays is called, Why Read the Classics?, after its opening essay. I thought such a book would be very relevant for a class that is loaded with classic authors from Homer to Virginia Woolf. In this opening essay, he speaks of both "classics" and "your own classics," noting that classics are works that will shift over time, both in which works will be included as classics and in terms that our understanding of them will shift, not just as centuries pass, but even from our youth to our old-age. Classics are those works that we may read when young, forming us in some ways, and then revisit when older, never exhausting what it has to say to us. Each rereading renews the work as a classic and transforms to work in our own eyes--each rereading is a new, perhaps startling, discovery.

I liked the following statement:

"Reading a classic must also surprise us, when we compare it to the image we previously had of it. That is why we can never recommend enough a first-hand reading of the text itself, avoiding as far as possible secondary bibliography, commentaries, and other interpretations. Schools and universities should hammer home the idea that no book which discusses another book can ever say more than the original book under discussion; yet they actually do everything to make students believe the opposite. there is a reversal of values here which is very widespread, which means that the introduction, critical apparatus, and bibliography are used like a smokescreen to conceal what the text has tot say and what it can only say if it is left to speak without intermediaries who claim to know more than the text itself."

I think in light of the content of this particular quotation, I should refrain from commentary! Nonetheless, as a startling, surprising work that will never exhaust its meaning with each rereading, we must contextualize ourselves. It is because we are in an ever-new situation in our lives and in our contemporary reading tastes and habits, that the classics can maintain their freshness, as we will continually see them differently:

"In order to read the classics, you have to establish where exactly you are reading them 'from', otherwise both the reader and the text tend to drift in a timeless haze. So what we can say is that the person who derives maximum benefit from a reading of the classics is the one who skilfully alternates classic readings with calibrated doses of contemporary material."

Italo Calvino, "Why Read the Classics," 1981.

Quotes of the Day: Chuck Palahniuk's "Rant"

I have been reading Chuck Palahniuk's Rant lately. And it is a wild ride of a read, playing with and twisting concepts of genetics, pathogens, societal constructs (from the Easter Bunny to traffic rules to religion), and time--pushing everything to the edge through creative interrelationships between them. In the middle of it, he employs Victor Turner's concept of Liminality, even folding Turner into the prose in a way few others than Palahniuk could. So, here are a few morsels that might be of interest to a religionist:

On Liminality: "Common to almost all spiritual beliefs is the idea of Lim[i]nal Time. To ascetics, it can be the moment of greatest suffering. To ascetics, it can be the moment of greatest suffering. To Catholics, it's the moment the Communion wafer is presented to the congregation. The moment is different for each religion or spiritual practice, but Liminal Time itself represents a moment in which time stops passing. The actual definition is a moment 'outside of time.'

"That moment becomes the eternity of Heaven or Hell, and achieving even an instant of Liminal Time is the goal of most religious rituals. In that moment, one is completely present and awake and aware--of all creation. In Liminal Time, time stops. A person is beyond time.

"Being involved in an automobile accident has brought me closer to that enlightenment than any religious ritual or ceremony in which I've ever participated." (pp. 213-4)

And a bit later: "...What if reality is nothing but some disease?" (p. 215)

On God as pedophile: "Nobody wants to go there, but...wasn't the Virgin Mary, wasn't she God's child? And back in biblical times, wasn't she, like, thirteen years old?" (p. 260)

On Time Travel and Imagination: "The chief argument against the possibility of time travel is what theorists refer to as the 'Grandfather Paradox'; this is the idea that if one could travel backward in time one could kill one's ancestor, eliminating the possibility said time traveler would ever be born--and thus could never have lived to travel back and commit the murder.

"In a world where billions believe their deity conceived a mortal child with a virgin human, it's stunning how little imagination most people display."

"One theory of time travel resolves the Grandfather Paradox by speculating that, at the moment one changes history, that change splinters the single flow of reality into parallel branches. For example, after you've killed your ancestor, reality would fork into two parallel paths: one reality in which you continued to be born and your ancestor did not die, and one branch in which your ancestor died and you would never be conceived. Each revision one made in the past, the subsequent new reality it created, theorists refer to as a 'bifurcation.'"

"Within Eastern or Asian spirituality exists the concept that only an individual's ego ties him tot he temporal world, wherein we experience physical reality and time. Within this concept, enlightened beings recognize this self-imposed limitation and attachment to the immediate world, and can choose to free their consciousness and travel to any place or period of history. With apologies to Mr. H. G. Wells, one requires no time machine. Anyone can relocate throughout history or space simply by relaxing his grip on his current reality through meditation and spiritual growth."

"A third possibility does exist, although it's never been widely discussed. Aside from bifurcation and time travel via a freed consciousness, this third option also resolves the Grandfather Paradox and places the traveler in Liminal Time, suspended outside of the linear movement of time which human beings experience. Simply stated, Liminal Time has no beginning and no end. Nothing is subject to the natural processes of decay and replacement. In Liminal Time, nothing is born and nothing dies.

"Quite understandably, only deities have ever existed in this immortality.

"Until now." (pp. 263, 264, 265)

The Revelation of Gabriel in the Times

The New York Times is running an article on the "Revelation of Gabriel," a Dead Sea find that is a rare example of ink on stone. The controversy is that it supposedly speaks of a Messiah who will die and rise after three days (and not Jesus). Jim Davila at Paleojudaica also has a series of posts on this document--see here.

By ETHAN BRONNER

Published: July 6, 2008

JERUSALEM — A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days.

If such a messianic description really is there, it will contribute to a developing re-evaluation of both popular and scholarly views of Jesus, since it suggests that the story of his death and resurrection was not unique but part of a recognized Jewish tradition at the time.

The tablet, probably found near the Dead Sea in Jordan according to some scholars who have studied it, is a rare example of a stone with ink writings from that era — in essence, a Dead Sea Scroll on stone.

It is written, not engraved, across two neat columns, similar to columns in a Torah. But the stone is broken, and some of the text is faded, meaning that much of what it says is open to debate.

Still, its authenticity has so far faced no challenge, so its role in helping to understand the roots of Christianity in the devastating political crisis faced by the Jews of the time seems likely to increase.

The stone itself predates Jesus by about a century, but, as is often the case, the all important lines are reconstructions; thus, it needs more scholarly attention to determine whether or not it says what people have reconstructed it as saying. Famous Hebrew University scholar, Israel Knohl has a Journal of Religion article on it:

In Mr. Knohl’s interpretation, the specific messianic figure embodied on the stone could be a man named Simon who was slain by a commander in the Herodian army, according to the first-century historian Josephus. The writers of the stone’s passages were probably Simon’s followers, Mr. Knohl contends.

The slaying of Simon, or any case of the suffering messiah, is seen as a necessary step toward national salvation, he says, pointing to lines 19 through 21 of the tablet — “In three days you will know that evil will be defeated by justice” — and other lines that speak of blood and slaughter as pathways to justice.

To make his case about the importance of the stone, Mr. Knohl focuses especially on line 80, which begins clearly with the words “L’shloshet yamin,” meaning “in three days.” The next word of the line was deemed partially illegible by Ms. Yardeni and Mr. Elitzur, but Mr. Knohl, who is an expert on the language of the Bible and Talmud, says the word is “hayeh,” or “live” in the imperative. It has an unusual spelling, but it is one in keeping with the era.

Two more hard-to-read words come later, and Mr. Knohl said he believed that he had deciphered them as well, so that the line reads, “In three days you shall live, I, Gabriel, command you.”

To whom is the archangel speaking? The next line says “Sar hasarin,” or prince of princes. Since the Book of Daniel, one of the primary sources for the Gabriel text, speaks of Gabriel and of “a prince of princes,” Mr. Knohl contends that the stone’s writings are about the death of a leader of the Jews who will be resurrected in three days.

He says further that such a suffering messiah is very different from the traditional Jewish image of the messiah as a triumphal, powerful descendant of King David.

“This should shake our basic view of Christianity,” he said as he sat in his office of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem where he is a senior fellow in addition to being the Yehezkel Kaufman Professor of Biblical Studies at Hebrew University. “Resurrection after three days becomes a motif developed before Jesus, which runs contrary to nearly all scholarship. What happens in the New Testament was adopted by Jesus and his followers based on an earlier messiah story.”

Ms. Yardeni said she was impressed with the reading and considered it indeed likely that the key illegible word was “hayeh,” or “live.” Whether that means Simon is the messiah under discussion, she is less sure.

Moshe Bar-Asher, president of the Israeli Academy of Hebrew Language and emeritus professor of Hebrew and Aramaic at the Hebrew University, said he spent a long time studying the text and considered it authentic, dating from no later than the first century B.C. His 25-page paper on the stone will be published in the coming months.

Regarding Mr. Knohl’s thesis, Mr. Bar-Asher is also respectful but cautious. “There is one problem,” he said. “In crucial places of the text there is lack of text. I understand Knohl’s tendency to find there keys to the pre-Christian period, but in two to three crucial lines of text there are a lot of missing words.”

Moshe Idel, a professor of Jewish thought at Hebrew University, said that given the way every tiny fragment from that era yielded scores of articles and books, “Gabriel’s Revelation” and Mr. Knohl’s analysis deserved serious attention. “Here we have a real stone with a real text,” he said. “This is truly significant.”

Mr. Knohl said that it was less important whether Simon was the messiah of the stone than the fact that it strongly suggested that a savior who died and rose after three days was an established concept at the time of Jesus. He notes that in the Gospels, Jesus makes numerous predictions of his suffering and New Testament scholars say such predictions must have been written in by later followers because there was no such idea present in his day.

But there was, he said, and “Gabriel’s Revelation” shows it.

“His mission is that he has to be put to death by the Romans to suffer so his blood will be the sign for redemption to come,” Mr. Knohl said. “This is the sign of the son of Joseph. This is the conscious view of Jesus himself. This gives the Last Supper an absolutely different meaning. To shed blood is not for the sins of people but to bring redemption to Israel.”

So, the actual reading is contested or contestable, and in the most interesting spot--as is oddly so typical (although, I have a feeling that our imaginations fill in the spaces with more interesting things than were originally there). Knohl's early work primarily is about the Pentateuch. I just finished his book, The Sanctuary of Silence, in which he argued against scholarly consensus that "H" or the Holiness School (HS) was lated than "P" or the Priestly Source of the Pentateuch and actually is P's editor. He managed to convince the giant on Leviticus studies, Jacob Milgrom. His second book is also about the Pentateuch. This earlier work is definitely creative and original (although he has not convinced everyone), but I cannot comment on his later work. And I have yet to read the article in Journal of Religion--Knohl has posted it for free here. But, others will have to confirm if this stone says what he says it says. Or, at least, if this is the most plausible reading.

Freudian Slippers

So, one of my new favorite websites is the Unemployed Philosopher's Guild, newly added to my "oft-visited" sites, where you can buy, among many other fascinating items, these "Freudian Slippers." If you go to the cups and mug section, I have the "Jesus Saves" / "Jesus Shaves" mug. It is a great mug. Firstly, it says "Jesus saves," while Jesus holds a pair of scissors and coupons. But when you pour hot liquid into the mug, the scissors and coupons disappear along with Jesus' beard! Where the coupons previously were, you see a razor. And the "Jesus Saves" turns into "Jesus Shaves." For a demonstration, see here.

I think I could go broke by buying the mugs on this site. I like the Descartes one as well. Descartes is sitting at his desk, and says his famous line, "I think therefore I am" (cogito ergo sum). You pour in hot liquid, and the saying switched to "I think not," and Descartes disappears! The Shakespearean insults mug looks tempting as well. And, well, I usually do not wear slippers, but for the Freudian Slip/pers, I would make an exception!