Quote of the Day: Song of Solomon

I thought it would be appropriate to quote some excerpts from the Song of Songs (Song of Solomon) for Valentine's Day. Later interpreters would reread the male and female lovers here as God and Israel (among Jews) or Christ and the Church (Christians), and so forth. But, originally, it is just a raw love song between two lovers in which the female voice predominates:

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!
For your love is better than wine,
your anointing oils are fragrant,
your name is perfume poured out;
therefore the maidens love you.
Draw me after you, let us make haste.
....

How beautiful you are, my love,
how very beautiful!
Your eyes are doves
behind your veil.
Your hair is like a flock of goats,
moving down the slopes of Gilead.
Your teach are like a flock of shorn ewes
that have come up from washing,
all of which bear twins,
and not one among them is bereaved.
Your lips are like a crimson thread,
and your mouth is lovely.
Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate
behind your veil.
Your neck is like the tower of David,
built in courses;
on it hang a thousand bucklers,
all of them shields of warriors.
Your two breasts are like two fawns,
twins of a gazelle,
that feed among the lilies.
Until the day breathes
and the shadows flee,
I will hasten to the mountain of myrrh
and the hill of frankincense.
....

I slept, but my heart was awake.
Listen! my beloved is knocking
"Open to me, my sister, my love,
my dove, my perfect one;
for my head is wet with dew,
my locks with the drops of the night."
I had put off my garment;
how could I put it on again?
I had bathed my feet;
how could I soil them?
My beloved thrust his hand into the opening,
and my inmost being yearned for him.
I arose to open to my beloved,
and my hands dripped with myrrh,
my fingers with liquid myrrh,
upon the handles of the bolt.
....

My beloved is all radiant and ruddy,
distinguished among ten thousand.
His head is the finest gold;
his locks are wavy,
black as a raven.
His eyes are like doves
beside the springs of water,
bathed in milk,
fitly set.
His cheeks are like beds of spices,
yielding fragrance.
His lips are lilies,
distilling liquid myrrh.
His arms are rounded gold,
set with jewels.
His body is ivory work,
encrusted with sapphires.
His legs are alabaster columns,
set upon bases of gold.
His appearance is like Lebanon,
choice as the cedars.
His speech is most sweet,
and he is altogether desirable.
....

I am my beloved's,
and his desire is for me.
Come, my beloved,
let us go forth into the fields,
and lodge in the villages;
let us go out early to the villages,
and see whether the vines have budded,
whether the grape blossoms have opened
and the pomegranates are in bloom.
There I will give you my love.
The mandrakes give forth fragrance,
and over our doors are all choice fruits,
new as well as old,
which I have laid up for your, O my beloved.

(1:1-4; 4:1-6; 5:2-6; 5:10-16; 7:10-13; all NRSV)

Quote of the Day 2: Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address

Since today is both Darwin's and Lincoln's 200th birthday, both born Feb. 12, 1809, I think I should balance out my quotes of the day. The earlier was a beautiful passage from Darwin's Origin of Species, and here Lincoln's justly famous and comparatively brief Second Inaugural Address:

Fellow-Countrymen:
AT this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first. Then a statement somewhat in detail of a course to be pursued seemed fitting and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is new could be presented. The progress of our arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, urgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Emphases are mine.

Strangest Letterman Interview!

If you didn't see Letterman last night, here is the most awkward and strangest interview ever with, it seems, a highly drugged Joaquin Phoenix.

"Joaquin, sorry you couldn't be here tonight."

I apologize that the earlier YouTube video was pulled due to copyright issues (thanks, Angie, for pointing this out). Here is a shorter clip directly from CBS:

Quote of the Day: Darwin's "Origin of Species"

This excerpt is the very last paragraph to the Origin of Species. It is a well-wrought piece of prose from a literary perspective, and, James McGrath will notice, sees a seemlessness in creation and evolution, at least in its prosody:

It is interesting to comtemplate a tangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth and Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of higher animals, directly follows. There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.

The balance of fixity (Creator, gravity, and the various "laws") and dynamism (cycling, endless forms, evolved), the matching of one and many, coincide in the ever-self-transforming complex interdependence of the world's beauty and wonder found in the smallest intricacies of nature; in birds, insects, plants, and worms. Indeed, there is a "grandeur in this view of life."

Happy 200 Abe Lincoln and Chuck Darwin

Today, February 12, is the 200th birthday of two giants of the 19th century: Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. That's right--they were born on the exact same day. There are two recent books that have discussed these two figures together, their similarities within their differences, so to speak.

The most recent is just out:

Adam Gopnik, Angels and Ages: A Short Book about Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life.

Here is its description:

On a memorable day in human history, February 12, 1809, two babies were born an ocean apart: Abraham Lincoln in a one-room Kentucky log cabin; Charles Darwin on an English country estate. It was a time of backward-seeming notions, when almost everyone still accepted the biblical account of creation as the literal truth and authoritarianism as the most natural and viable social order. But by the time both men died, the world had changed: ordinary people understood that life on earth was a story of continuous evolution, and the Civil War had proved that a democracy could fight for principles and endure. And with these signal insights much else had changed besides. Together, Darwin and Lincoln had become midwives to the spirit of a new world, a new kind of hope and faith.

Searching for the men behind the icons of emancipation and evolution, Adam Gopnik shows us, in this captivating double life, Lincoln and Darwin as they really were: family men and social climbers; ambitious manipulators and courageous adventurers; the living husband, father, son, and student behind each myth. How do we reconcile Lincoln, the supremely good man we know, with the hardened commander who wittingly sent tens of thousands of young soldiers to certain death? Why did the relentlessly rational Darwin delay publishing his “Great Idea” for almost twenty years? How did inconsolable grief at the loss of a beloved child change each man? And what comfort could either find—for himself or for a society now possessed of a sadder, if wiser, understanding of our existence? Such human questions and their answers are the stuff of this book.

Above all, we see Lincoln and Darwin as thinkers and writers—as makers and witnesses of the great change in thought that marks truly modern times: a hundred years after the Enlightenment, the old rule of faith and fear finally yielding to one of reason, argument, and observation not merely as intellectual ideals but as a way of life; the judgment of divinity at last submitting to the verdicts of history and time. Lincoln considering human history, Darwin reflecting on deep time—both reshaped our understanding of what life is and how it attains meaning. And they invented a new language to express that understanding. Angels and Ages is an original and personal account of the creation of the liberal voice—of the way we live now and the way we talk at home and in public. Showing that literary eloquence is essential to liberal civilization, Adam Gopnik reveals why our heroes should be possessed by the urgency of utterance, obsessed by the need to see for themselves, and endowed with the gift to speak for us all.

Then there is this more substantial volume:

David R. Contosta, Rebel Giants: The Revolutionary Lives of Abraham Lincoln & Charles Darwin

Here is its description:

February 12, 2009, will mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of two of the most extraordinary and influential men in recent history--Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. While the coincidence of these two men being born on exactly the same day might fill astrologers with glee, further reflection points to many parallels and intersections in their lives. In this unique approach to history and biography, historian David R. Contosta examines the lives and careers of Lincoln (the political rebel) and Darwin (the scientific rebel), and notes many surprising and illuminating points of comparison.

Contosta points out that despite obvious differences--one born to a poorly educated, impoverished family on the American frontier, the other to a wealthy and prominent English family; one largely self-taught, the other with a degree from Cambridge; one a politician seeking the crowd's approval, the other a reclusive scientist--there are striking similarities between these seemingly disparate individuals. Both Lincoln and Darwin:

·Lost their mothers in childhood and later lost beloved children at young ages.
·Had strained relations with their fathers.
·Went through years of searching for a direction to their lives.
·Struggled with religious doubt.
·Were latter-day sons of the Enlightenment who elevated reason over religious revelation.
·Suffered from severe bouts of depression.
·Were ambitious as well as patient, with sure and steady mental powers rather than quick minds.
·Possessed an excellent sense of pacing that allowed them to wait until the time was ripe for their ideas and leadership.

Contosta makes a compelling case that by studying the similarities (along with the differences) between these two giants of history we are able to understand each man better than by examining their lives in isolation. This approach also affords many insights into the factors that impel special individuals to lead great paradigm shifts. Today, as American society still struggles to come to grips with the impact of racial integration and controversies over the teaching of evolution, it is more important than ever to understand how two 19th-century rebels with revolutionary ideas helped to shape the present.

Here's to the two men born on this date 200 years ago who changed the political and scientific vocabulary by which we think. Happy Birthday!

Quote of the Day: Confucius

The Master said, "If one learns from others but does not think, one will be bewildered. If, on the other hand, one thinks but does not learn from others, one will be in peril." (Confucius, Analects 2.15; trans. D.C. Lau)

The point is you must learn, but must apply your learning from others, thereby multiplying knowledge through thinking. It seems, moreover, to be a conjunctive process that oscillates between learning and thinking and back again.

By the way, my more regular readership might want to know that the Analects resemble, at least formally, the Gospel of Thomas, in the sense of being a series of sayings that begin with "The Master said..." as Thomas begins each new saying with "Jesus said..." albeit with some variations (some sayings begin with a disciple's statement or question).

Muslim Sex Shop

Since I am interested in all things related to religion, I thought I would send along this site, which features halal hip-huggers.

As the site says:

Peace and Blessings Be Upon You. And welcome to Muslim Sex Shop!

And among His wonders is this: He creates for you mates out of your own kind, so that you might incline towards them, and He engenders love and tenderness between you: in this, behold, there are messages indeed for people who think! -Qur’an, 30:21 (Muhammad Asad Translation)

And:

Are you tired of your aunties not talking to you about sex? Are you afraid that your little sister learns about sexuality from Barbie dolls? Married sex-life becoming a bore? Enter Muslim Sex Shop.

There is plenty of material on the internet for intimacy, sexuality, and related products. We’ve never come across one for Muslims, and so we decided to create a space for our own. The reality is, Muslims need to access useful, factual information on sexuality and intimacy. Sexual ignorance hurts both ourselves and our future and/or present spouses.

So, here is some fodder for those interested in religion and sex....and, come on, when it comes down to it, who is not interested in religion and sex?

Quote of the Day: Dante's Inferno 3.1-9

Per me si va ne la citta dolente,
per me si va ne l'etterno dolore,
per me si va tra la perduta gente.
Giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore;
fecemi la divina podestate,
la somma sapienza e 'l primo amore.
Dinanzi a me non fuor cose create
se non etterne, e io etterno duro.
Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate.

Through me the way into the suffering city,
through me the way to the eternal pain,
through me the way that runs among the lost.
Justice urged on my high artificer;
my maker was divine authority,
the highest wisdom, and the primal love.
Before me nothing but eternal things
were made, and I endure eternally.
Abandon every hope, who enter here.
(Dante, Inferno 3.1-9; trans. Allen Mandelbaum)

Maybe I should post this above my classroom door.... ;)

Serpentine

If you study antiquity for any length of time, you'll realize that the ancients had a fascination with serpents. Not just with the cunning serpent in Gen. 3, but throughout all ancient cultures with multiple responses: they were ambivalent creatures, capable of death and rejuvenation at the same time. One might remember in the Epic of Gilgamesh how a serpent stole the plant that gives the power of rejuvenation from Gilgamesh. They were the symbol of Asklepios (Lat. Aesculapius), the god of healing, and, in fact, remain a symbol of medicine to this very day (the serpent around the staff). In fact, if you go to my academic bio page on the right, you'll see me standing next to Asklepios at his great sanctuary in Epidauros.

They were symbols of the chthonic gods--the Furies, for example, have serpentine qualities and inhabit the area beneath the Acropolis in Athens. One might notice that Athene often has serpentine imagery. The fringes of her robes in her statues in Athens are snakes! She also has the Medusa, whose hair was snakes, on her shield.

This semester, while teaching the Aeneid, my students were interested in the story of Laocoon, who along with his sons, were attacked by snakes for, it seems, impiety towards Minerva (a.k.a., Athene). See photo of Laocoon and his sons from the Vatican:



And the primal serpent, in fact, in Greek mythology has the power of prophecy as the inhabitant of Delphi. Apollo took this power when he conquered the serpent. But, afterwards, the prophetess at Delphi would always be called the "Pythia" (depicted below), retaining the serpentine associations of prophecy. Indeed, here and in the Bible, the serpent is associated with a type of wisdom: cunning in the Bible and foreknowledge at Delphi.



These early figures may derive from Bronze Age Greece. When you visit the sites of the Mycenaean period, you find statuettes of goddesses and serpents! They all have little holes, probably to hang things (perhaps offerings) on them.

I thought it would be an interesting project to start collecting all of these serpent representations and just see where it takes me. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) Jim Charlesworth beat me to the punch with an enormous book on it, called The Good and Evil Serpent: How a Universal Symbol Became Christianized. I haven't read it yet nor do I have time for a while, but I am fascinated by all of this.

This is all to say, in the news today was a discovery of an ancient serpent's bones found in Colombia. It probably weighted 1 ton!!! It was more than twice as large as any known Anaconda and probably ate alligators for a snack. Here is the article from NPR (but you can find it in most newspapers today). Apollo's massive Python, interestingly enough, that took his full quiver of arrows to bring down (at least according to Ovid), in fact, might not be far off (except without the ability to predict the future).

Quote of the Day: Augustine's Confessions

Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new: late have I loved you. And see, you were within and I was in the external world and sought you there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things which you made. You were with me, and I was not with you. The lovely things kept me far from you, though if they did not have their existence in you, they had no existence at all. You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours. (Augustine, Confessions 10.27 (38); trans. Chadwick)

Pope Demands Holocaust-Denying Bishop to Recant

The recently reinstated Holocaust-denying bishop has been asked to recant by the Pope. The Vatican, it seems, is responding to international pressure, especially in the Pope's native Germany, where Chancellor Angela Merkel stated that the Pope's recently stated positions on the Holocaust were not sufficiently clear or just weren't sufficient.

The NYTimes reports:

February 5, 2009
Vatican Demands Holocaust Denier Publicly Recant
By RACHEL DONADIO

ROME — Responding to global outrage, especially in Pope Benedict XVI’s native Germany, the Vatican for the first time on Wednesday called on a recently rehabilitated bishop to take back his statements denying the Holocaust.

Late last month, the pope revoked the excommunication of four schismatic bishops, including British-born Richard Williamson, who in an interview broadcast last month denied the existence of the Nazi gas chambers.

A statement issued on Wednesday by the Vatican Secretariat of State said that Bishop Williamson “must absolutely, unequivocally and publicly distance himself from his positions on the Shoah,” or Holocaust, which it said were “unknown to the Holy Father at the time he revoked the excommunication.”

The unsigned statement seemed a clear indication that the Vatican was facing an internal and external political crisis.

The day before, in a rare case of a head of state criticizing the pope, German Chancellor Angela Merkel called on the pope to clarify his position on the Holocaust, saying his previous remarks had not been “sufficient.”

On the reinstatement of the bishop see here. For the Vatican's subsequent statement, the one I'm guessing Merkel found insufficient, see here.

It's the End!!!

The End is....HERE.

Scary...

Slavonic Pseudepigrapha Project

Andrei Orlov, a friend of mine from Marquette and scholar of Slavonic Pseudepigrapha, asked me to post the following:

The Slavonic Pseudepigrapha Project would like to announce the launch of two new resource pages devoted to 2 (Slavonic) Enoch (http://www.marquette.edu/maqom/2enoch.html) and the Apocalypse of Abraham (http://www.marquette.edu/maqom/apocalypseabraham.html).

The resource pages include original manuscripts, translations, extensive bibliographies, and research articles pertaining to these important apocalyptic works which survived in Slavonic language.

The Slavonic Pseudepigrapha Project (http://www.marquette.edu/maqom/pseudepigrapha.html) is an electronic resource developed by scholars from the Theology Department at Marquette University (Milwaukee, USA).

Routledge Religion

I just received my Routledge catalogue for religion. There were numerous interesting books listed, but two caught my eye:

Ritual Texts for the Afterlife: Orpheus and the Bacchic Gold Tablets by Fritz Graf and Sarah Iles Johnston.

Here is its product description:

Fascinating texts written on small gold tablets that were deposited in graves provide a unique source of information about what some Greeks and Romans believed regarding the fate that awaited them after death, and how they could influence it. These texts, dating from the late fifth century BCE to the second century CE, have been part of the scholarly debate on ancient afterlife beliefs since the end of the nineteenth century. Recent finds and analysis of the texts have reshaped our understanding of their purpose and of the perceived afterlife.

The tablets belonged to those who had been initiated into the mysteries of Dionysus Bacchius and relied heavily upon myths narrated in poems ascribed to the mythical singer Orpheus. After providing the Greek text and a translation of all the available tablets, the authors analyze their role in the mysteries of Dionysus, and present an outline of the myths concerning the origins of humanity and of the sacred texts that the Greeks ascribed to Orpheus. Related ancient texts are also appended in English translations. Providing the first book-length edition and discussion of these enigmatic texts in English, and their first English translation, this book is essential to the study of ancient Greek religion.

And

The Mysticism of St. Augustine: Re-Reading the Confessions by John Peter Kenney.

Description:

This book explores Augustine's account of his experience as set down in the Confessions, and considers his mysticism in relation to his classical Platonist philosophy. John Peter Kenney argues that while the Christian contemplative mysticism created by Augustine is in many ways founded on Platonic thought, Platonism ultimately fails Augustine in that it cannot retain the truths that it anticipates. The Confessions offer a response to this impasse by generating two critical ideas in medieval and modern religious thought: first, the conception of contemplation as a purely epistemic event, in contrast to classical Platonism; second, the tenet that salvation is absolutely distinct from enlightenment.

This last one particularly caught my interest because I am teaching Confessions this week and next week.

Futurama's Theology: God Speaks in Binary

From the profound theologians at Futurama:



I thought God's point of having a light touch was actually interesting: "if you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all." No one likes a heavy-handed micro-managing God.

I Lego NY

I just saw this in the Times: NYC in legos...or parts of daily NY experience in legos.

Polyphemus in Love

It is one of the ironies of Ovid that he gives one of the most moving love songs to the Cyclops, Polyphemus, who in previous literature is presented as rather unskilled in speech. But, being smitten by Galatea, love transforms the Cyclops from a ravening killer to an eloquent love poet. Galatea, however, does not return his love, for she loves another, Acis. Recognizing his own seemingly frightening appearance, Polyphemus says:

Don't think me ugly because my body's a bristling thicket
of prickly hair. A tree is ugly without any foliage;
so is a horse, if a mane doesn't cover his tawny neck;
birds are bedecked in plumage, and sheep are clothed in their own wool.
Men look well with a beard and a carpet of hair on their chests.
I've only one eye on my brow, in the middle, but that is as big
as a fair-sized shield. Does it matter? The Sn looks down from the sky
on the whole wide world, and he watches it all with a single eye.
(Ovid, Metamorphoses 13.845-53)

In the larger section and the book as a whole, Ovid does something interesting; he transforms, metamorphosizes if you will, the monsters from Homeric and Virgilian epic into multidimensional characters, filled out by love and loss. Polyphemus, the man-eating Cyclops, becomes a hopeless, and somewhat eloquent, lover and love poet. Scylla, the monstrous woman with dogs for her lower body, who eats Odysseus' men in the Odyssey, becomes a tragic woman. She is sought by someone she doesn't love. He will not let go of his love for her and seeks help from Circe, but Circe falls for him, and out of spite, transforms Scylla into her monstrous shape. It was, then, in revenge that she ate Odysseus' (now Ulysses') men, since Circe had helped Ulysses and became his lover. Ovid does something very Homeric and un-Homeric at the same time. Like Homer, he evokes strong pathos in his stories, but, unlike Homer, that pathos is directed toward the monstrous characters. We see things from their point of view, and we sympathize with them.

NT Wrong Interview at Biblioblogs

If you haven't seen it, Jim West interviewed NT Wrong at Biblioblogs.com.

I nearly fell out of my chair laughing when Wrong was asked: "Do you have any secret hobbies or interests that our readers might find surprising?" I'll leave it to you to discover the hobby.

I also liked some of Wrong's discussion of pseudonymity. I had discussed pseudonymity at length in my undergraduate senior thesis on Ben Franklin's female pseudonyms. I hope to publish it in a journal somewhere soon.