Antiquitopia

I am increasingly amused, as I read scholarship, how often people portray opposing scholars as "confused." I'm sure the so-called "confused" scholar would say the same thing right back. Calling someone else "confused" does not seem very professional to me. Why can't we just disagree in our interpretations without calling someone else confused?

While reading an article on the archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams's statement on "two ways of being Anglican" I became less and less interested in the internal discussion of gay clergy and more and more fascinated by his eyebrows. He must have the most spectacular looking eyebrows among Christian clergy. I think he would be a great addition to a Harry Potter film. If Michael Gambdon is willing to give it up, I think he has the look of an Albus Dumbledore.

As I continue to work through my chapter on Hebrews, I am always struck by a certain productive ambiguity the homilist often exploits. One ambiguity is in a passage that I often just pass over in chapter 11. Indeed, the style of hall of faith of Hebrews 11 often makes my eyes glaze over, although I recognize the rhetorical effectiveness of its genre. Nonetheless, this time I was struck by the following line (11:27): πίστει κατέλιπεν Αἴγυπτον μὴ φοβηθεὶς τὸν θυμὸν τοῦ βασιλέως, τὸν γὰρ ἀόρατον ὡς ὁρῶν ἐκαρτέρησεν. By faith he left Egypt not fearing the anger of the king, for as seeing the invisible he endured. Immediately, I read this in two ways. Because of Moses' paradoxical vision of the invisible (i.e., God), he endured Pharaoh's anger. The vision gave him the strength or ability to endure. The other reading is that he endured the rare and frightening vision of God, the very sight of whom kills (since one cannot see God and live). Indeed, in Hebrews, as far as I have...

August 3's edition of the New Yorker has an article by Joan Acocella discussing Judas traditions with special focus on the Gospel of Judas. Did Judas deserve this fate? If Jesus informs you that you will betray him, and tells you to hurry up and do it, are you really responsible for your act? Furthermore, if your act sets in motion the process—Christ’s Passion—whereby humankind is saved, shouldn’t somebody thank you? No, the Church says. If you betray your friend, you are a sinner, no matter how foreordained or collaterally beneficial your sin. And, if the friend should happen to be the Son of God, so much the worse for you. For two thousand years, Judas has therefore been Christianity’s primary image of human evil. Now, however, there is an effort to rehabilitate him, the result, partly, of an archeological find. In 1978 or thereabouts, some peasants digging for treasure in a burial cave in Middle Egypt came upon an old codex—that is, not a scroll but what we would call a book, wi...

I'm reading some Bertrand Russell--his History of Western Philosophy . In his introduction he places Philosophy, interestingly, somewhere between theology and science: The conceptions of life and the world which we call "philosophical" are a product of two factors: one, inherited religious and ethical conceptions; the other, the sort of investigation which may be called "scientific," using this word in its broadest sense. Individual philosophers have differed widely in regard to the proportions in which these two factors entered into their systems, but it is the presence of both, in some degree, that characterizes philosophy. .... Like theology, it consists of speculations on matters as to which definite knowledge has, so far, been unascertainable; but like science, it appeals to human reason rather than to authority, whether that of tradition or that of revelation. All definite knowledge--so I should contend--belongs to science; all dogma as to what surpass...

From the first Batman movie with Jack Nicholson as the Joker: You ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight? Shall we dance? (The song in the clip is by Breaking Benjamin from their album Phobia )

Roland Boer has posted on Beer as the origins of civilization--on why hunters and gatherers left the forests for the backbreaking work of agriculture. I think he might be right. Beer is as old as any agricultural product we know of (including bread), and so that it might have been one aspect of community formation, greasing the wheels of social cohesion, is likely. Perhaps the next step of civilization was the one who controlled beer production became king.

Euripides, the playwright who was critical of traditional conceptions of the gods and much traditional religious practice--if you read many of his plays in a row, this aspect becomes very clear--says this in his play Helen . In a passage accusing prophets of merely spouting lies in order to make money, he writes in line 757: γνώμη δ᾽ ἀρίστη μάντις ἥ τ᾽ εὐβουλία. The best prophet is common sense, our native wit. (Trans. Lattimore)

John Collins discusses and explains the Vision of Gabriel and its controversy with his typical clarity in the Yale Alumni Magazine . Click on the link for the full article, discussing the handwriting analysis, Israel Knohl's (unaccepted) conclusions. Here, however, is Collins's conclusion: At a conference in Jerusalem in early July, Knohl was met by skepticism from both Jewish and Christian scholars. The skepticism had nothing to do with theology. The text simply does not say what Knohl claims. It is too fragmentary. It is not clear that the Ephraim mentioned is a messiah. Even if the word after "three days" is "live," it does not follow that it means "rise from the dead." A chariot does not necessarily imply ascent to heaven. This is not to say that Knohl's interpretation is impossible. But there is not much reason to think it is right. But even if Knohl's interpretation were right, it would hardly warrant the ensuing fuss. Everyone who...

From the London Times : A publicly funded exhibition is encouraging people to deface the Bible in the name of art — and visitors have responded with abuse and obscenity. The show includes a video of a woman ripping pages from the Bible and stuffing them into her bra, knickers and mouth. The open Bible is a central part of Made in God’s Image, an exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art (Goma) in Glasgow. By the book is a container of pens and a notice saying: “If you feel you have been excluded from the Bible, please write your way back into it.” The exhibit, Untitled 2009, was proposed by the Metropolitan Community Church, which said that the idea was to reclaim the Bible as a sacred text. But to the horror of many Christians, including the community church, visitors have daubed its pages with comments such as “This is all sexist pish, so disregard it all.” A contributor wrote on the first page of Genesis: “I am Bi, Female & Proud. I want no god who is disappointed in this." ....

I'm reading some Genesis Rabbah , a Palestinian midrashic collection, this evening, and the following line stuck out for me: דא"ר יוסי בר חנינא כל המתכבד בקלון חבירו אין לו חלק לעולם הבא Rabbi Yose son of Hanina said, "Whoever elevates himself by his fellow's degradation has no part in the world to come." ( Genesis Rabbah 1.5)

This post completes my discussion of chapter 4 of Bauckham's Jesus and the God of Israel on worship. In it, B relates the discussion of worship of Jesus in terms of obeisance, doxologies, and hymns to ongoing fidelity to monotheism among Christians and christological developments through Chalcedon, as compared to the Alexandrian Christianity of Origen. B argues that the worship of Jesus is not a departure from, but an adherence to, monotheism. He contrasts the exclusive worship of YHWH of Jews to the interreligious tolerance of the Roman world. Even monotheistic-leaning philosophers never denied the legitimacy of existing forms of “popular religion.” “The difference between Jewish and pagan monotheism did not turn on the existence of supernatural beings inferior to the supreme God, but on whether they might be worshipped” (140). Jewish and Christian refusal of other cults made them oddities, especially when Christians worshipped a crucified criminal! Nonetheless, Christians b...

In my previous post, I began discussing chapter 4 of Richard Bauckham's Jesus and the God of Israel on the worship of Jesus in early Christianity. That section focused on calling on the name of the Lord, the eschatological impulse of early Christian worship, and proskunesis and what that means. In this section, we turn to doxologies and hymns as evidence of early Christian worship. B turns to doxologies and hymns because they are the most pervasive types of evidence. He claims that doxologies constitute unambiguously divine worship appropriate only for God in an unbroken tradition from NT to Nicaea. Is it broken thereafter? He does a form analysis of doxologies, differentiating “strict” and “acclamatory” doxologies. Strict has four parts: (1) person praised in dative; (2) word of praise (doxa); (3) time (“forever”); (4) Amen. They usually form the conclusion to a prayer, sermon, letter, but are occasionally within. While benedictions are more common in Judaism, doxologies a...

It has been a while since I have posted on Bauckham's Jesus and the God of Israel . I have been busy with my own research lately, but thought I should get something up before too long. To see earlier posts, follow the tags back. Chapter 4 is on the worship of Jesus in Early Christianity. In this chapter, Bauckham discusses the significance of Jesus worship, which he sees as continuous from the New Testament to the great ecumenical councils, particularly Nicaea and Chalcedon. He does not, however, as clearly delineate what constitutes worship as McGrath does. In short, he does not compare and contrast worship of God in second temple Judaism with worship of Jesus in the New Testament in terms of the range from simple honor and reverence to full sacrificial cult. B note that the origins of Jesus worship are shrouded in mystery, but evidence points toward the earliest Palestinian Jewish Christianity. Jesus is already considered risen, exalted, and continuously active in the commu...

I just thought of something. What if one of my readers on my blog (perhaps you!) made an excellent point on a post that is pertinent to my research (I actually rarely discuss my research on my blog, but it is still a possibility)--how would I cite that in an article, book, etc.? Is it different if it appears in the comments to my blog or to someone else's? If it specifically addressed to me or not? If you know, please respond, because I am curious. This might be a new realm for style guides to consider! Pay attention, Kate Turabian!

A new book on the tabernacle is coming out and looks interesting: Israel's Tabernacle as Social Space by Mark George. I am interested, at least, because I have a lot of work on the Tabernacle in Exodus 25-31, 35-40 and its later understandings in later texts in my dissertation. I am also interested in constructions/conceptions of space (and time) vis-a-vis the sanctuary, so this looks very relevant for me. Here's the blurb: The narratives about Israel’s tabernacle are neither a building blueprint nor simply a Priestly conceit securing priestly prominence in Israel. Using a spatial poetics to reexamine these narratives, George argues that the Priestly writers encode a particular understanding of Israel’s identity and self-understanding in tabernacle space. His examination of Israel’s tabernacle narratives makes space itself the focus of analysis and in so doing reveals the social values, concerns, and ideas that inform these narratives. Through a process of negotiation and e...

I'm reading Sappho's lyrics, attempting the Greek, but being held up by translation. I am simply not used to her 7th century BCE Aeolic dialect. Even so, I can still work it out, and poetry is always best in its original language. I am reading it and the translation given by Willis Barnstone's Sweetbitter Love: Poems of Sappho , who tries to create poetic English cadences. Although her complete poems (there are only two surviving!) are well-known, her fragmentary poems are quite haunting. I was caught by two different fragments about the moon--what is more haunting than the moon? πλήρης μὲν ἐφαίνετ' ἀ σελάννα αἰ δ'ὠς περὶ βῶμον ἐστάθησαν Full the moon appeared when the women stood about the altar. (frag. 154; translation mine) ἄστερες μὲν ἀμφὶ κάλαν σελάνναν ἂψ άπθκρύπτοισι φάεννον εἶδος, ὄπποτα πλήθοισα μάλιστα λάμπηι γᾶν ἀργυρία Stars around the beautiful moon conceal their luminous form when in her fullness she greatly shines on the earth in silver (f...

I was previously unaware of the collection of online images of surviving fragments and manuscripts of the "other gospels" online collected by Andrew Bernhard. He also has available English translations and background material. His collection contains: Gospel of Judas (and all of Codex Tchacos) Gospel of Mary Gospel of Peter (which is the newest addition) Egerton Papyrus 2 Oxyrhynchus P840 Infancy Gospel of Thomas Infancy Gospel of James Without MSS: Gospel of the Ebionites, Nazareans, Hebrews Secret Mark Not all of these sources have links to their papyri, but many do--a most useful webpage.

As of this minute, I just finished reading James McGrath's book, The Only True God: Early Christian Monotheism in its Jewish Context . I need a bit of time to gather my thoughts, but expect a review (probably in a series) soon intermixed with ongoing discussions of Bauckham's Jesus and the God of Israel , which discusses much of the same issues with different results. I will give a few general impressions. James's book is very succinct and perspicacious--a wise man once said, "Brevity is the soul of wit." He directs his book towards non-specialists, so he takes time to explain a great deal that scholars' assume, but I think this is an important exercise for all scholars, since we often forget why we assume what we assume and what we assume as a scholarly community needs continual reassessing. It is quite amazing that even explaining these issues, he gets in detailed exegeses of passages and reviews of entire corpi of literature and even material evidence...

There is an article in the NYTimes discussing whether spontaneous roadside shrines should be banned. The reasons against the shrines: 1. It is public space, and the shrines tend to use religious symbols (primarily crosses); thus, they violate separation of church and state. 2. In a related vein, they use public property for private purposes. 3. They are actually a danger; they can distract and, if someone stops to keep up the site, the can create additional hazard, especially on a busy street (this point, of course, varies from location to location, but, if the problem is that someone died in a car accident on a hazardous road, this creates greater hazard). The reasons to let them be: 1. Legislate all you want, but these shrines are weighted with a great deal of tradition, they are spontaneous, and represent a form of folk religion--the point is, legislate all you want, take them down, and people are going to do it anyway (I tend to agree with this point). 2. They help the griev...

I thought it would be fun to use the amazingly accessible digitized Codex Sinaiticus as I work on my Hebrews chapter. Whether anything from this exercise will impact my dissertation or not, I do not know, but I thought it would be good experience to read it from an ancient witness in addition to and in contrast with (wherever relevant) the conflated Nestle-Aland text. So, for the opening lines of Hebrews (coming on the heels of a portion of 2 Thessalonians), go here . Hebrews begins at the top of the fourth column. You might notice an interesting aspect of the codex here--often the last letter in the line of a column is dropped or minimized. For example ΤΟΥΣ ΑΙΩΝΑΣ looks more like ΤΟΥ ΑΙΩΝΑΣ where the masculine accusative plural ends the column line. You will also notice that, typical of its time, the capital sigma looks more like our C and their capital Ω looks like a bigger lowercase ω. You can even see some ancient editing at work where ΗΜΩΝ is indicated in the left hand margi...

A little over Jordan, As Genesis record, An Angel and a Wrestler Did wrestle long and hard. Till morning touching mountain, And Jacob waxing strong, The Angel begged permission To breakfast and return. "Not so," quoth wily Jacob, And girt his loins anew, "Until thou bless me, stranger!" The which acceded to: Light swung the silver fleeces Peniel hills among, And the astonished Wrestler Found he had worsted God! Dickinson sensitively interprets the ambiguity between the "man" Jacob wrestles and the culminating verse where Jacob names the place of the wrestling match Peniel, "For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved" (Gen. 32:30), turning the ambiguity of the ancient text into a moment of delayed realization by Jacob--it is here, I think, that the astonishing impact of the poem lies. She leaves out, however, the impact, import, and perhaps transformative aspect of naming in the passage as Jacob, the swindler who grabs at the ...

The Bible is an antique volume Written by faded men, At the suggestion of Holy Spectres-- Subjects--Bethlehem-- Eden--the ancient Homestead-- Satan--the Brigadier, Judas--the great Defaulter, David--the Troubadour. Sin--a distinguished Precipice Others must resist, Boys that "believe" Are very lonesome-- Other boys are "lost." Had but the tale a warbling Teller All the boys would come-- Orpheus' sermon captivated, It did not condemn. ~Emily Dickinson

The NYTimes reports that American Bishops and the Vatican take diverging approaches to President Obama. While American Bishops have been vocally adversarial (particularly on abortion rights), the Vatican has sought common ground on issues of the poor, redistribution of wealth, and so forth. These are the issues emphasized in the newest encyclical Caritas in Veritate, something which might highlight the differences between the Vatican and American Catholic leaders. July 10, 2009 U.S. Bishops and Vatican View Obama Differently By LAURIE GOODSTEIN Ever since he took office, President Obama has been given a cold reception by some Roman Catholic bishops in the United States who have repeatedly emphasized their church’s differences with him on abortion, birth control and stem cell research. But Mr. Obama is likely to receive a much warmer reception in the Vatican on Friday when he meets Pope Benedict XVI for the first time, experts on the church say. Both the pope and the president recogni...

When poets were scientists, when scientists were poets, oh what an age! A new book, reviewed in the NYTimes called the Age of Wonder discusses the age from the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries when divisions between science, poetry, etc., were not so demarcated, but united in common wonder and awe. July 9, 2009 BOOKS OF THE TIMES When Poets Were Scientists and Nature Their Mysterious Muse By JANET MASLIN THE AGE OF WONDER How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science By Richard Holmes Illustrated. 552 pages. Pantheon Books. $40. William Herschel, the German-born, star-gazing musician who effectively doubled the size of the solar system with a single discovery in 1781, was not regarded as a scientist. That word had not been coined during most of the era that will now be known, thanks to Richard Holmes’s amazingly ambitious, buoyant new fusion of history, art, science, philosophy and biography, as “The Age of Wonder.” And Mr. Holmes’s excitement at fusing lo...

In a study questioning hotel owners from around the world rated tourists by nationality and, to my surprise, the worst tourists are not Americans but the French ! While the French got props for dressing well to travel, evidently they are even worse than Americans when it comes to speaking local languages where they travel and adapting to local customs. They are often viewed as arrogant because of that, and somewhat tightfisted (since they have different tipping customs in France where the gratuity is included in the bill). Most French vacation in France, preferring that to traveling abroad. Brits and Germans are considered the best international travelers from Europe. The very best tourists in the world, not surprisingly, are the Japanese.

James Crossley has posted an interview by the infamous NT Wrong with Frances Flannery on her journal about religion and monsters, "Golem," named after that most famous Jewish monster. The interview is available here and the journal itself is available online here . All of the articles are available to download as .pdf. I am happy to see two articles in the current issue on my very favorite breed of monsters: vampires! (Yes, I am absolutely fascinated by vampires.)

I am usually somewhat repelled when Pope Benedict XVI makes an official statement, but I am intrigued by the new encyclical Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth) recently released. In it, he basically softens anti-abortion language and calls for more socialized programs (medical, etc.) and redistribution of wealth. Someone has been reading the Gospel of Luke ! There are some responses to it here and here . Here are some snippets of comments from Thomas Reese, S.J. (the first link above): Pope Benedict's long awaited encyclical calls for a radical rethinking of economics so that it is guided not simply by profits but by "an ethics which is people-centered." "Profit is useful if it serves as a means towards an end," he writes in Caritas in veritate (Charity in Truth), but "once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty." .... ...

The rerevealing of the Lod Mosaic has made the NYTimes : The late-Roman-era mosaic floor, one of the largest and finest in Israel, was unveiled by the authorities last week for just the second time since it was discovered 13 years ago in the dilapidated eastern section of this poor town near the international airport, south of Tel Aviv. Some 1,700 years old, the magnificent tiled floor spreads over almost 2,000 square feet, shaded from the harsh summer sun by a thin awning and surrounded by a canvas fence. A panoply of colorful depictions of birds, fish, exotic animals and merchant ships, the mosaic conjures up an intriguing reminder of Lod’s more glorious past. The archaeologists of the Israel Antiquities Authority believe the mosaic, which lacks any inscriptions, was commissioned by a wealthy individual who owned a grand villa here. Lod, which is mentioned in the Bible, was an important center in ancient times, and this part of it is known to have been a neighborhood of the rich. ......

One of the historian's first questions (other than when and where?) is cui bono or who benefits? In historiagraphy (the history of history), the one who benefits is the historian. A review article at Salon.com discusses this in terms of weddings, Scottish history, and even the origins of WWII: July 9, 2009 | Let's start with something small. Many people believe that each of the tartan (plaid) patterns worn by Scottish Highlanders corresponds to a particular clan and that kilts made of this fabric have served as the uniforms and emblems of that clan since time immemorial. But, as the historian Hugh Trevor-Roper pointed out in a famous essay titled "The Invention of History: The Highland Tradition of Scotland," that simply isn't true. "Indeed," Trevor-Roper wrote, "the whole concept of a distinct Highland culture and tradition is a retrospective invention," cooked up in the 19th century. Much the same can be said of the customs of the "tra...

I was reading Le Monde, as I do to keep up my French, and ran across an article on the Jewish Olympics, the Maccabiah Games or the Maccabiades. I had never heard of these games before, but evidently they have been going on since 1932. It is an event recognized by the international Olympic committee, and in 2009, they expect more than seven thousand participants from sixty countries. Les Maccabiah Games, ou Maccabiades, réunissent tous les quatre ans des sportifs issus de la communauté juive, même si les Arabes israéliens peuvent également y participer. Lors de la première édition, en 1932, "il y avait trois cent quatre-vingt-dix athlètes, représentant dix-huit pays, venus essentiellement d'Europe mais aussi d'Egypte et de Syrie", explique Georges Haddad, président de la fédération française culturelle et sportive Maccabi, qui organise le déplacement de la délégation tricolore. "Aujourd'hui, cette compétition omnisports en est à sa 18e édition, elle est rec...

For my regular visitors, seeing my blog today would be a shock! I have changed the template and color scheme. I do this about once a year, because I get bored with seeing the same template all the time. If you have any suggestions on color scheme, etc., let me know!

I am revising my dissertation chapter on Hebrews, and since I am relating it to cosmogonic patterns that interlink creation, rest, sanctuary, and enthronement (beginning with the Enuma Elish, through the Pentateuch, and finally placed in the heavenly realm in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice and Hebrews), today I am collating all of my references to creation (under which I, in fact, include restorative Day of Atonement rituals since they restore the temple--itself representative of the cosmos--to its original state of creation). In case you are interesting, in the broader trajectory, the Sabbath (rest) and the Sanctuary (particularly the Tabernacle) become interlinked in an interesting manner, often becoming equivalent symbols, or equivalent expressions of holiness (Pentateuch and Ezekiel) and, I would argue in Hebrews, they are equivalent symbols expressing God's heavenliness; all throughout the tradition, they equivalently express proximity to God in what I call sacred spaceti...

Amazingly, I am going to be able to fit all of my comments on chapter 3 of Bauckham's Jesus and the God of Israel in one post! Follow the labels back to see the earlier posts. Chapter 3 is about “The ‘Most High’ God and the Nature of Early Jewish Monotheism” Of all the chapters I have read, I have found this one to be the most informative. In it B calls for listings and tables of divine names and titles in early Jewish literature to see which are popular and which are not in particular genres and in particular provenances. I think such an extensive study would be most useful indeed! This chapter takes a small step towards this with a study of the term “Most High.” He tries to account for its high frequency, its significance, and how it sheds light on early Jewish monotheism. Of course, to do this he must rehearse defining “monotheism” and “inclusive” versus “exclusive” monotheism. Again, inclusive monotheism, in B’s definition, is when the highest God is...