Depictions of the Dead
Mesopotamian depictions of the Netherworld describe its dead with bird imagery. This conceptualization has confused some of my students. Indeed, it seems to confuse some of the scholars as well. As an example of thinking out loud, here are a few thoughts on this bird-like imagery for the dead. Read more…
Translational Tug-of-War
Last night I was reading Robert Fagles’ preface to The Iliad
Working from a loose five- or six-beat line but inclining more to six, I expand at times to seven beats—to imply the big reach of a simile or some vehement outburst in discourse or the pitched fury of combat on the field—or contract at times to three, to give a point in speech or action sharper stress. Such interplay between variety and norm results, I suppose, from a kind of tug-of-war peculiar to translation, between trying to encapsulate the meaning of the Greek on the one hand and trying to find a cadence for one’s English on th other, yet joining hands, if possible, to make a line of verse. (p. ix)
What struck me about Fagles’ statement was how hard it apparently is to engage in this sort of tug-of-war with Mesopotamian texts. After having worked through Andrew George’s translation of The Epic of Gilgamesh
Many of my more literary inclined colleagues bemoan the fact that we do not use Stephen Mitchell’s Gilgamesh: A New English Version
While I know that it”s hard to engage in the tug-of-war of which Fagles speaks when we are always afraid that the text will crumble in our hands, I nonetheless envy my colleagues in classics.
Belated Links: BSC L and Steam Punk Jazz
I’ve had a busy week and haven’t had a chance to post a few links to larger issues in the blogosphere.
First off, Duane Smith post a most abnormal Biblical Studies Carnival XLX (aka L). If for some reason you have yet to check it out, please do.
Second, the Steam Punk big band jazz ensemble Darcey James Argue’s Secret Society played a gig in Philadelphia back in the summer that aired on the local PBS affiliate last week. See a post on the gig at the Secret Society blog and watch the full episode here. I’ve been quite taken with their debut album Infernal Machines
Does Ishtar Advocate Premarital Sex?
Ishtar’s request and Gilgamesh’s denial is one of the interpretive cruxes of the Gilgamesh Epic. In “Gilgamesh: Sex, Love and the Ascent of Knowledge” from the festschrift for Marin Pope, Benjamin Foster proposes that the poet who wrote the Standard Edition of the Gilgamesh Epic intended to portray an arc from the simplest of human knowledge (sex) to the most lasting forms of wisdom, which are then handed down to the next generation (e.g. Gilgamesh’s discussion of the walls of Uruk at the end of the epic). In the midst of his argument he makes some interesting assertions concerning Ishtar’s intentions in her advances toward Gilgamesh. Read more…
Plagiarism Prevention through Education?
Scott Jaschik has an interesting article on Plagiarism Prevention at Inside Higher Ed:
Could student plagiarism actually be reduced? And could it be reduced not through fear of being caught, but through … education?
The evidence in a study released Monday suggests that the answer to both questions is Yes — which could be welcome news to faculty members who constantly complain about students who either don’t know what plagiarism is or don’t bother to follow the rules about the integrity of assignments they prepare. Read more…
Fun Play Next Weekend
If you live in the Philadelphia area and have kids (or are a kid at heart) I recommend the following upcoming production:
It’s About Time!
An original Theater Production by Yes!And.. Collaborative Arts
Thursday Jan 28 @7pm
Friday Jan29 @11:30 am and 7pm
Saturday Jan 30 @ 11:30 am and 7pm
Sunday Jan 31 @ 3pm
AT Eastern University, McInnis Hall
1300 Eagle Road, St. Davids, PA 19087
www.wintersortofthing.com
(Both my boys are in the show.)
My Life as a Darklord of Pronunciation
My boys have really gotten into Square Enix’s My Life as a Darklord, a down-loadable game for the Wii. Unfortunately, it has brought up an awkward issue of pronunciation.
In the game you play Mira — an adolescent with megalomaniac aspirations. You help her build towers, populate them with monsters and then destroy the hordes of do-gooder adventurers who come to scale your tower in hopes of the treasure it holds. Basically the game is a dungeon crawler in reverse.
Where this game touches on my interests is in that one of the monsters you have available is a “behemoth.” My sons were unfamiliar with this term and asked me how to pronounce it. Coming from the Hebrew בהמות, I said that it should be pronounced behē’mōθ, as in the Hebrew (with, sadly the obligatory spirantization of the dental). My wife said that she thought it was pronounced either be’hemoθ or behē’moθ. This, of course, sounds like crazy talk to me. I’ll capitulate on the spirantized dental, but let’s not even begin talking about moving the stress to a pre-penultimate position!
Star Wars and Biblical Oral History
The other day, my friend Zack Jackson reacquainted me with a Star Wars fan film of biblical importance. In the clip, Joe Nicloski’s friend Amanda recounts the original Star Wars trilogy without having seen them straight through. The results are both humorous and useful for teaching the Bible.
The clip works well at showing the variations that can exist in oral history. Star Wars is the closest thing we have to a mytho-poetic epic in contemporary culture. It is obvious that Amanda has the wide outline of the story, but the details are distorted. The results are analogous to what we would expect of the average ancient Israelite and the traditions in the cultural ether (e.g. the Enuma Elish).
I’m not sure if I’ll be using the clip this semester, but it might be useful for some.
Adam, Eve and the USA
Darrel Pursiful (aka Dr. Platypus) posted this video from BioLogos.org on Myth Making in Genesis with N. T. Wright. In any given semester, I’m unsure to what extent I will be faced with the problem of the historicity of Genesis 1-3. Often I am forced to be an advocate for a text that students have rejected as nonsense rather than a proponent of the mythological in the text. Hopefully, this brief talk by N. T. Wright on Meaning and Myth will be helpful to either demographic.
Pat Robertson and Job’s Friends
Sometimes you receive a teaching gift right when you need it. This semester I’m planning on teaching Job for the first time in a long while. Trying to get students to dig deeply into the book’s issues of theodicy can be difficult, and I’ve been wondering what I would use as an entry point into the text. Then, lo and behold, Pat Robertson yesterday made comments about the earthquake in Haiti that would have made Job’s friends blush:
And you know, Kristi, something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French, uh, you know Napoleon the 3rd and whatever, and they got together and swore a pact to the Devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French.’ True story. And so the Devil said, ‘Okay, it’s a deal.’ And, uh, they kicked the French out, you know, with Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by, by one thing after another, desperately poor. That island of Hispaniola is one island. It’s cut down the middle. On the one side is Haiti on the other side is the Dominican Republican. Dominican Republic is, is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etcetera. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island. They need to have and we need to pray for them a great turning to God and out of this tragedy I’m optimistic something good may come. But right now we’re helping the suffering people and the suffering is unimaginable.
See also the posts Theodicy Versus Idiocy by Steve Wiggins and God, Satan and the Birth of Haiti by Polycarp.
Ketuvim: the Writings of James R. Getz Jr. 