Antiquitopia

I just found the following Dickinson poem striking, although it is not directly related to the general issues of this blog: We never know how high we are Till we are called to rise; And then, if we are true to plan, Our statures touch the skies. The heroism we recite Would be a daily thing, Did not ourselves the cubits warp For fear to be a king.

Two poems, again by Dickinson, which I think go well when read together: Forbidden fruit a flavor has That lawful orchards mocks; How luscious lies the pea within The pod that duty locks! I love the lolling, alluring alliteration in these lines. The seductive sounds themselves become forbidden fruit. But I wonder how to interpret with the next poem (which also comes next in the volume of collected poems): Heaven is what I cannot reach! The apple on the tree, Provided it do hopeless hang, That "heaven" is, to me. The color on the cruising cloud, The interdicted ground Behind the hill, the house behind,- There paradise is found! Reading this poem directly after the other, the forbidden fruit itself becomes the emblem of paradise rather than paradise lost. The apple is "heaven." But it remains just out of reach, as the first line announces, and hidden just out of sight--in the clouds, on interdicted ground, and doubly "behind."

A few days ago, I posted on definitions of faith from the NYTimes from Hebrews to the most skeptical to everything in the middle. Here is a reflection on faith by Emily Dickinson: Faith is a fine invention For gentlemen who see; But microscopes are prudent In an emergency. This is the entirety of a very short (four-lined!) poem. Like all of her poems, it is atitular. It is a nice rhythm and rhyme, making, like a great many of her poems, only the second and fourth lines rhyme. I thought the term "invention" striking here. Invented suggests constructed, created, perhaps even contrived, but nonetheless "fine." But it is only fine within certain bounds, fenced in by "gentlemen who see" and "emergency." The first is inclusive and the second exclusive: it is fine for those who see, but not in an emergency. Who are "those who see"? Are they the "pure in heart" (for they shall see God)? Perhaps an allusion to the (false) et...

Much madness is divinest sense To a discerning eye; Much sense the starkest madness. 'T is the majority In this, as all, prevails. Assent, and you are sane; Demur,-you're straightaway dangerous, And handled with a chain. ~Emily Dickinson

A precious, mouldering pleasure 't is To meet an antique book, In just the dress his century wore; A privilege, I think, His venerable hand to take, And warming in our own, A passage back, or two, to make To times when he was young. His quaint opinions to inspect, His knowledge to unfold On what concerns our mutual mind, The literature of old; What interested scholars most, What competitions ran When Plato was a certainty, And Sophocles a man; When Sappho was a living girl, And Beatrice wore The gown that Dante deified. Facts, centuries before, He traverses familiar, As one should come to town And tell you all your dreams were true: He lived where dreams were born. His presence is enchantment, You beg him not to go; Old volumes shake their vellum heads And tantalize, just so. ~Emily Dickinson

The NYTimes has asked readers to submit a short, pithy definition of "faith." It begins with the famous definition from Hebrews 11, moves to a skeptical view, and then ends with sort of a middle-of-the-road definition. Read, and, if you are interested enough, respond: June 26, 2009, 11:00 AM Weekend Competition: Define Faith Hundreds of co-vocabularists offered their definitions of “Money” in April, and “America” in May. This weekend, Schott’s Vocab is soliciting definitions of faith. Faith is described in the Bible as “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” H. L. Mencken called faith “an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.” And, Samuel Butler said of faith, “You can do very little with it, but you can do nothing without it.” Co-vocabularists are invited to submit their own definitions of faith, the pithier the better, by appending a comment to this post. Respond here . Of if you would like to respond on this blog, that might ...

Voices Imagined voices, and beloved, too, of those who died, or of those who are lost unto us like the dead. Sometimes in our dreams they speak to us; sometimes in its thought the mind will hear them. And with their sound for a moment there return sounds from the first poetry of our life-- like music, in the night, far off, that fades away. (C.P. Cavafy; trans. Mendelsohn) I kind of see what I do as a historian/historicist/literary critic of antiquity as speaking with the lost voices of the past. Their literary traces are like ghosts that haunt the present.

I just saw in the Times (London Times, that is) that a two-film version of the Hobbit is in production in New Zealand! I am a HUGE LOTR fan! So, I am very excited to see these new films. Alas, they will not be released until 2010 and 2011 respectively. It is being directed by Guillermo del Toro, who co-wrote the script with LOTR's Peter Jackson, who is also the executive producer. See a video interview with del Toro here .

Do you believe in miracles? People in Colwich Kansas do . A boy survives a potentially fatal pole vaulting accident. In the process, the community prayed to the soul of a potentially martyred army chaplain in the Korean War, and the boy recovered. The Vatican has taken notice and is going to investigate whether or not this is, indeed, a miracle to be attributed to this chaplain, who is being investigated for sainthood. I know this is way outside of the land of antiquity, but it does raise interest (not just as a human interest story) since martyrdom, miracles, sainthood, and the intermediation of those saints is an important characteristic of early Christianity that persists today in nearly every Christian tradition (except Protestant ones).

A book I co-wrote on the Coptic poem, Thunder: Perfect Mind, is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com or you favorite book distributor. I co-wrote it with Hal Taussig, who works on ancient meals and just wrote a new book on sociology of ancient meals, and my friends Maia Katrosits, Justin Lasser, and Celene Lillie. Here is the blurb: What do Toni Morrison, Umberto Eco and Ridley Scott have in common? All of them have been fascinated by an ancient poem from the Nag Hammadi codices, The Thunder: Perfect Mind, and have evoked its words in their work. This poem of provocative self-declarations by a mostly female, sometimes divine figure has already had a full life in the contemporary public imagination. Yet scholarship on Thunder has been limited, and has paid too little attention to the powerful and puzzling I at its center. What might this poem have meant to its ancient audience? How does it complicate and change contemporary images of early Christianity? What are the poem's po...

I know, 2000+ years ago a dude was born in Bethlehem, but what has been going on there lately...you know, since the building of the Church of the Nativity. Evidently, some interesting archaeology! Reported by AP at the Discovery Channel : Untouched Tomb Uncovered in Bethlehem Nasser Shiyoukhi, Associated Press June 24, 2009 -- Workers renovating a house in the traditional town of Jesus' birth accidentally discovered an untouched ancient tomb containing clay pots, plates, beads and the bones of two humans, a Palestinian antiquities official said Tuesday. The 4,000-year-old tomb provides a glimpse of the burial customs of the area's inhabitants during the Canaanite period, said Mohammed Ghayyada, director of the Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. Workers in a house near the Church of the Nativity uncovered a hole leading to the intact grave, which was about one meter (roughly three feet) below the ground, he said. They contacted antiquities officia...

I would like to draw attention to a post by Mike Koke on many of April DeConick's recent discussions of early Christology as well as referring to my own reviews of Bauckham. In the comment section, there is an extended discussion between myself and Nick Norelli , who has also reviewed Bauckham, on some of the more emotional (annoyed) aspects of my review as well as a nice summation statement by Mike Koke on the whole issue in the comments.

Most people studying antiquity know (and all should know) about how the Brit Lord Elgin, as an agent of the Ottoman Empire, brought back (or stole) the marbles from the Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis to England. This has led to an ongoing controversy about whether to return the marbles to Greece or to keep them in England. Are they the property of Greece, of England, or all of us? I personally favor Greece mixed with all of us. The primary argument used to keep them in England--that Greece did not have the facilities to keep the marbles preserved and intact and that if left there they would have suffered from the elements--has been significantly weakened with the building of a very expensive new Acropolis Museum in Greece. From the NYTimes : June 24, 2009 ABROAD Elgin Marble Argument in a New Light By MICHAEL KIMMELMAN ATHENS — Not long before the new Acropolis Museum opened last weekend, the writer Christopher Hitchens hailed in this newspaper what he called the death of an a...

One recurring figure who appears in C.P. Cavafy's poetry, whether from his own perspective or mostly from his detractors, is Julian "the Apostate," who attempted to stem the tide of the growth of Christianity by reviving "paganism" and, in fact, in this case, the "ism" is appropriate, since he attempted a systematization of it in many ways that mirrored the instituational structures of early Christianity in the fourth century. The following poem comments on this attempt: Julian, Seeing Indifference "Seeing, then, that there is a great indifference among us toward the gods"--he says with that solemn affect. Indifference. But what then did he expect? Let him organize religion as much as he pleased, let him write the high priest of Galatia as much as he pleased, or to others like him, exhorting, giving directions. His friends weren't Christians: that much is certain. But even so they weren't able to play the way that he did (brought u...

Finally, in what seems to me an appendix in the chapter, albeit not without foreshadowing in terms of “pan biblical theology,” Bauckham exegetes three NT passages’ allusions to the Shema: Rom. 3:28-30; 1 Cor. 8:1-6; and John 10:30. He begins by noting, contra Margaret Barker, that there is no evidence for non-monotheistic forms of pre-exilic Israelite religion to survive into the Second Temple period to be available for early Christians. Early Judaism is “uniformly” monotheistic and NT writers presuppose Jewish monotheism and do not intend to depart from it. The widespread allusions to the Shema in the NT militates against Barker’s point. Outside of the three passages he analyzes, he cites Matt 22:37; Mark 12:21-30, 32, Luke 10:22, Gal. 3:20; 1 Tim 2:5; and James 2:19. So, it appears in all of the corpora of the NT, excepting Revelation. I am fascinated that for the bulk of the chapter on the OT, we barely glimpsed a text, and now in what feels like an appendix, it is all exegesi...

This is the third installment on chapter 2; there is one more to come. To see what I have written before, just follow the "Richard Bauckham" or "Jesus and the God of Israel" tags back. In this part, Bauckham turns to canonical criticism. Note that we have not engaged any passage of any length in this chapter since Deuteronomy! B claims that, contra MacDonald, not everyone who perceives monotheism in ancient documents is influenced by the Enlightenment. He suggests that Second Temple and NT scholars are more immune. I disagree: they too have a tendency toward Enlightenment universalizing categories and, too, often employ evolutionary or progressivist models. Nonetheless, he still, I think wisely, keeps to his language of “exclusive Yahwism.” Shifting from pre-exilic Israelite historical models and their usage for current theology, he shifts lenses to canonical criticism. This criticism does not engage with what a text might have originally meant, but how it...

Continuing in Chapter 2 (to see earlier posts, just hit the "Richard Bauckham" or the "Jesus and the God of Israel" tags), Bauckham turns to historical models and their applicability to modern theology for the biblical theologian. In the next section, Bauckham discusses the problem of how a biblical theologian to construct a theology of the old testament while allowing historical “facts” could have been different than the bible’s own narrative? I appreciate his recognition of a possible divergence here, and the archaeological evidence indicates such a divergence in ancient Israelite practice. I find this section difficult to evaluate, since I am not a theologian, but as a historian, I’ll give it my best try. For example, I could never ask, “Could YHWH really be as the Old Testament portrays him if, historically, even the claim of exclusive Yahwism has merely been projected back through fictionalized history after the exile all the way to Moses?” (71). I am more...

I just turned in a chapter of my dissertation for critique, am about to take a break in a few days, so am using the next few days to catch up on my review of Bauckham (I have also picked up McGrath's book, so expect a post or two on that soon as well). To see my reading of his introduction and first chapter, just click on the tags that say "Richard Bauckham" or "Jesus and the God of Israel" to take you back. Now we turn to chapter two, which, again, will take a few postings. Chapter 1 was about 60 pages and this one is about 40. Chapter 3, thank god, is only about 20. And he is starting to become repetitive, so I do not need to rehearse everything he does. So, in short, I am hoping my readings will become shorter (or the posts per chapter fewer). Chapter 2 is called "Biblical Theology and the Problems of Monotheism" As the title indicates, this is the most explicitly theologically patent chapter. Current theological applications of historical an...

Song of Ionia Because we smashed their statues all to pieces, because we chased them from their temples-- this hardly means the gods have died. O land of Ionia, they love you still, it's you whom their souls remember still. And as an August morning's light breaks over you your atmosphere grows vivid with their living. And occasionally an ethereal ephebe's form, indeterminate, stepping swiftly, makes its way along your crested hills. (C.P. Cavafy; trans. Mendelsohn)

I love this following poem by C.P. Cavafy on prolonging the journey. Although the destination is inevitable, "destined" in fact, it is the road that gives the riches and wisdom of experiences; so, let's hope it is LONG road. Ithaca As you set out on the way to Ithaca hope that the road is a long one, filled with adventures, filled with discoveries. The Laestrygonians and the Cyclopes, Poseidon in his anger: do not fear them, you won't find such things on your way so long as your thoughts remain lofty, and a choice emotion touches your spirit and your body. The Laestrygonians and the Cyclopes, savage Poseidon; you won't encounter them unless you stow them away inside your soul, unless your soul sets them up before you. Hope that the road is a long one. Many may the summer mornings be when--with what pleasure, with what joy-- you first put in to harbors new to your eyes; may you stop at Phoenician trading posts and there acquire the finest wares: mother-of-pearl a...

I just started reading the collected poems by C.P. Cavafy, and they are fantastic! I like his tendency to refer to events, people, texts outside of the normative historical narrative. So this Greek poet tends to prefer the Hellenistic and Byzantine periods to the classical. He tends to refer to the Greek world in Syria, Asia Minor, and Alexandria (his own birthplace) more so than Athens. The following is a poem he wrote inspired by Philostratus's Life of Apollonius of Tyana (particularly 8.7). But Wise Men Apprehend What is Imminent Mortal men perceive things as they happen. What lies in the future the gods perceive, full and sole possessors of all enlightenment. Of all the future holds, wise men apprehend what is imminent. Their hearing, sometimes, in moments of complete absorption in their studies, is disturbed. The secret call of events that are about to happen reaches them. And they listen to it reverently. While in the street outside, the people hear nothing at all. (t...

There seems to be a great deal of activity regarding Gilgamesh lately. In the past couple of days, my old postings on Gilgamesh, mostly this one , have received more than typical hits. None of them are referred from a single source, but are all google searches. Is there something recent in the news that might explain a spike in interest in Gilgamesh? On a similar subject, I have been thinking about writing a post laying out the similarities I have seen between the Epic of Gilgamesh and Ecclesiastes, but that must await another day.

Science (and cultural consciousness) of the nineteenth century singled out only a miniature world (and we have narrowed it even more) from the boundless world of literature. This miniature world included almost nothing from the East. The world of culture and literature is essentially as boundless as the universe. We are speaking not about its geographical breadth (this is limited), but about its semantic depths, which are as bottomless as the depths of matter. The infinite diversity of interpretations, images, figurative semantic combinations, materials and their interpretations, and so forth. We have narrowed it terribly by selecting and by modernizing what we have selected. We impoverish the past and do not enrich ourselves. We are suffocating in the captivity of narrow and homogeneous interpretations. The main lines of the development of literature that have prepared one writer or another, one work or another, throughout the centuries (and in various nations). But we know on...

One of Bakhtin's most distinctive features as a thinker is the notion of "dialogism," and yet, he would point out, this is not quite right, for speech is more like "trialogism" between the speaker, the listener, and those who have used these speech patterns before, that have formed the ways of speaking: The word (or in general any sign) is interindividual. Everything that is said, expressed, is located outside the "soul" of the speaker and does not belong only to him. The word cannot be assigned to a single speaker. The author (speaker) has his own inalienable right to the word, but the listener also has his rights, and those whose voices are heard in the word before the author comes upon it also have their rights (after all there are no words that belong to no one). The word is a drama in which three characters participate (it is not a duet, but a trio). It is performed outside the author, and it cannot be introjected into the author. (M.M. Bakht...

The following is the opening to the twelfth Sabbath Song in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice. It is rarely noted, although occasionally is, how poetic these Songs can be at times. In fact, in my dissertation where I discuss this, I do not have time to discuss its poetics either. Perhaps these can be some preliminary observations for a later project. The passage is most notable for the difficulty in finding the beginnings and ends to phrases, but I think following the parallelism provides some clues. For now, I am going to forego discussing the obvious connections with Ezekiel 1. For the Sa[ge. The song of the sacrifice (עולת)] of the twelfth sabbath on the twenty-first of the third month. Praise the God of wond[rous years (?)] and exalt him according to the glory in the tabernacle [of the God/s of] knowledge ([הכבוד במשכ[ן אלוהי] דעת]). The [cheru]bim fall before him and they b[le]ss. When they raise themselves, a quiet voice of God (קול דממת אלוהים) [is heard] and tumul...

I have been tagged by Daniel and Tonya at Hebrew and Greek Reader . In this meme, I will give the five books or authors who have shaped my thought the most, whether I like them or not, whether through agreement or opposition, etc. And they can be enduringly or immediately influential. This meme started not too long ago with Ken Brown at COrthodoxy . So, here are my five. For those who read my blog regularly, there probably will not be too many surprises. 1. M.M. Bakhtin . Most immediately, this Russian has profoundly influenced not only the way I approach my work--although he does that--but how I view day-to-day interactions. I was introduced to his thought through his essay on the "Chronotope" in the collected volume, The Dialogic Imagination . I use the Chronotope extensively in my dissertation. Since then, I have branched out to his other works and others' use of him. But even his concepts of the "utterance" from simple day-to-day speech-units to co...

I just realized I had been tagged for a book meme by Daniel and Tonya at Hebrew and Greek Reader . I am supposed to think up the five most enduring or immediately influential books or authors (not necessarily the ones I like the best, but the ones who have shaped my thought through engagement, even through opposition--perhaps often the most important ingredient). I have a few who come to mind immediately, but this is going to be difficult. For a full list or review, I believe I will have to ruminate at least another day or so. If I fail to remember, please, Dan or Tonya, feel free to remind me.

Full fathom five thy father lies, Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes; Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell. (Shakespeare, The Tempest 1.2)

I just received in the mail a copy of James McGrath's new book, The Only True God: Early Christian Monotheism in Its Jewish Context , sent to me from the University of Illinois Press. Given that I have been reading and reviewing Bauckham's book on a very similar subject, I probably should give some time to this work as well. I would like to thank James for keeping this book short! Something I am not very good about in my own writing. Text, notes, bibliography, and index are all only 155 pp. Only 104 pages of text! So, it looks like a much quicker read that Bauckham. I'm sure most of you read McGrath's blog already and are quite up-to-date about this book. But I will just point out its general layout and leave reading and reviewing to a future time when I have more time. His first chapter focuses on the issue of method and scholarly study of ancient Jewish and Christian perspectives on the divine. It seems at first glancing that he lays out a typology of monothe...

The serpent sets the tone--seductive but also rousing. In none of its appearances is its image simple. It bears poison within itself, but on the Aesculapian staff, healing. It is the dragon of the abyss, but, at another moment, the lightning high-above. And long after it is meant to have brought sorrow on our first parents, the sight of the serpent-idol held aloft heals the children of Israel from leprosy. Nor did it tell lies, as befitted the most cunning of all the beasts of the field, at least not in the most important point of its promise. For it promised Adam he would be like God; and when Yahweh saw him afterwards he said, "Behold, the man is become like one of us, knowing good and evil" (Gen. 3.22). What sort of sin is that, wanting to be like God and to know good and evil? So far is it from being unambiguous, indeed from being sin at all, that countless pious people from that time on would most likely have taken unwillingness to be like God as the original sin...

From NYTimes . I guess there are some transferable skills from religion to the private sector. The salesmen are mostly former Mormon missionaries from Utah who cut their teeth — and learned their people-skill chops — cold-calling for their faith. In Chicago and in its suburbs where their employer, Pinnacle Security of Orem, Utah, has shipped them for the summer sales season, they are doing much the same thing, but as a job. “It’s missionary work turned into a business,” said Cameron Treu, 30, who served his mission in Chile and was recruited into D2D (that is door-to-door in sales lingo) by another former missionary. Managers at Pinnacle Security, founded in 2001 by a student at Brigham Young University, the Mormon Church-owned school, say missionaries simply have the right stuff. Many speak foreign languages learned in the mission field. All have thick skins from dealing with the negative responses that a missionary armed with a Book of Mormon and a smile can receive. Mormon men are...

Does the scandal lie in the deed, or in the revelation of the deed? Who is asking the question? My story is no scandal, nor is my book. The scandal was in the secret. But the secret is no longer. (Salwa al Neimi, Proof of the Honey )

I've been reading Salwa Al Neimi's Proof of the Honey . Al Neimi is an author living in France, but born in Damascus. Her book is edgy and controversial because it is an example of erotica written in Arabic, a nice break from my usual fare of scholarly tomes about ancient Judaism and Christianity. The very first lines jump off the page, inviting you to read further: Some people conjure spirits. I conjure bodies. I have no knowledge of my soul or of the souls of others. I know only my body and theirs. And I content myself with that. I conjure them and I see myself with them once again--ephemeral travelers in an ephemeral body; they were never more than that. It is not just about sex, although it is very much about sex, but freedom of sexual expression, language, and Arabic culture; especially how the configuration of these intersections shift from place to place and over time in very complicated ways reflected in the main character's life, her interaction with men and...

Weird , but I kind of think it is cool. It is fitting for the tackiness of Times Square in general.

I have finally reached the final segment in my review of Bauckham's first chapter of Jesus and the God of Israel . Only seven chapters to go....this is going to take forever to finish. You can catch my riveting earlier segments here: Introduction Chapter 1A (Monotheism) Chapter 1B (Monotheistic Christology) Chapter 1C (God Crucified) Bauckham ends this chapter charting some consistencies and novelties from second temple Judaism to NT Christology as well as “evaluating” later theological traditions in light of his discoveries. Bauckham finds considerable consistency in the characterization of God in terms of God being creator and sovereign, characteristics that distinguish God from all other reality (in my opinion, the true key to Bauckham’s “monotheism”). Bauckham recognizes that this is a minimal portrayal; other characteristics flesh out the character of God in God’s relationship to all creation and his relationship to Israel—such as God’s more particular interactions with ...