Antiquitopia

Columbia University Press just emailed me to inform me, to my great pleasure, that Alan Segal's book, Sinning in the Hebrew Bible:  How Its Worst Stories Speak for Its Truth , has been posthumously published. I was Alan's TA for his Hebrew Bible class (a few times) where he developed many of the ideas found in this book.  He had been mulling these stories long before I started graduate school, however.  It has had ripples beyond his own classes:  his focus on the seedier elements of the Bible has influenced how I teach the Bible in my introductory classes.  I remember our discussions, either over lunch or visiting his home in New Jersey, on how he was going to frame this book--though I never read the manuscript itself.  He passed away while it was in the final stages of publication, but now it finally sees the light of day. Here is the blurb from CUP's webpage: Stories of rape, murder, adultery, and conquest raise crucial issues in the Hebrew Bible, ...

Kevin Edgecomb at Biblicalia has just posted on typographical errors in his modern copy of Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History , particularly how the turning of Satan into Satin, turns a potentially powerful moment into silliness. In the Bible I use for my Lit Hum class, I also have found an interesting typographical error. It is the Meridian printing, which belongs to the Penguin Publishing group, of the RSV of Gen. 4:7. The story is of Cain and Abel. Abel's sacrifice to the LORD was accepted and Cain's was not. Cain becomes angry in response, but the LORD speaks to Cain, saying (with the typo included): Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is couching at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it. With the typo, it seems that sin is spending the night, perhaps even bedding down at the door. The language of "couching" adjacent to "desire" is sug...

St. Augustine has an interesting reflection on his "wicked" acts in his youth: I had no motive for my wickedness except for wickedness itself. It was foul, and I loved it. I loved the self-destruction, I loved my fall, not the objecto for which I had fallen but my fall itself. My depraved soul leaped down from your firmament to ruin. I was seeking not to gain anything by shameful means, but shame for its own sake. (Augustine, Confessions 2.4(9); trans. Henry Chadwick). What was Augustine's great depravity in his soul? What great sin had he committed for the sake of wickedness and shame itself? A fall that he enjoyed not for the end, but for the fall itself? He stole a pear. Can you think of a more wicked and evil act? (An extra note: sadly, the translator of these lines, Henry Chadwick, died last year. He will be sorely missed.)

For those furiously revising and revisiting Judas traditions in the wake of the discovery and continued study of the Gospel of Judas, it might do some good to read Borges' short story, "Three Versions of Judas." It is, as usual, labyrinthine in presentation, provocative, and amazing! The story, using basically just the canonical Gospels and some heresiological reports, revises the relationship between Jesus, God, and Judas. It suggests that Judas seems unnecessary. For a teacher who performs public miracles in the day and has a large following, it should not be difficult to find him. Therefore, Judas' betrayal seems superfluous. It seems to exist only for the purpose of damning Judas. Yet it is a superfluity that signals that something else is going on in the story, something subterranean. The Word, when it was made flesh, passed from ubiquity to space, from eternity to history, from limitless satisfaction to change and death; in order to correspond to such a s...

This is actually old news--the story is from August 5--but it just came to my attention and the news is in effect into the next year: ANNOUNCES INDULGENCES DURING PAULINE YEAR Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio has announced that parishioners in the Diocese of Brooklyn can receive plenary indulgences for participation in events connected with the 2008-2009 jubilee year of St. Paul the Apostle proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI in May. The Pauline year began June 28 and will close June 29 next year to mark the approximately 2,000 anniversary of the saint’s birth. In a decree, dated July 23, Bishop DiMarzio designated the places where the faithful may benefit from the plenary indulgence if they take part with devotion in a liturgy or other public exercise in honor of the saint during the Pauline year. On any day during the jubilee, indulgences can be gained at St. James Cathedral Basilica; St. Paul’s Church, Court St.; SS. Peter and Paul Church, South Third St.; St. Paul’s Church, Corona; SS. Peter a...