Enkidu: Rival or Substitute?
A colleague at Temple asked me the other day about a curious little reference in George’s popular translation 
For the goddess of weddings was ready the bed,
for Gilgamesh, like a god, was set up a substitute.
(Tablet II, 109-110)
What does this mean? What is the concept of substitution to which the text is making reference? Read more…
Frustration at the Outset
The Gilgamesh Epic is among the greats of literature. Yet after all the fine work by Andrew George (here
Perhaps the most frustrating lacuna of the whole epic occurs in the second line:
He who saw the Deep, the country’s foundation,
[who] knew…, was wise in all matters! (Tablet I, 1-2)
As a little exercise of Mesopotamian madlibs, does anyone have a good idea what to stick in this break?
NIV 3.0?
Biblica has announced the first update to the NIV in 25 years (apparently the TNIV doesn’t count, but I digress…). I think it is a fine thing to update translations periodically. Language is never static, and 25 years seems a nice round number for offering an update. What I’m wondering is: Think there’s a chance in Sheol that the new NIV will be gender neutral?
(HT: Iconic Books)
Biblical Studies Carnival 45 is up
It’s time for those monthly updates! First off, Biblical Studies Carnival 45 is up over at The Golden Rule. If you are like Chris Heard and myself, this is a great way of seeing what happened in biblioblogging last month while you were to busy to keep up with your RSS Reader. While we are at it, Biblioblog Top 50 posted stats for August. Apparently, I’m up ten spots from last month to 21st, while not having contributed anything of substance to blogosphere. Hmmm. Maybe this is how Drudge gets by…. Regardless, I hope to resume normal blogging as my semester calms down and my dissertation cleans up.
2010 Mid Atlantic Regional SBL Call for Papers
Hey all, it’s that time of year again. The call for paper is out for the Mid Atlantic Regional SBL. Deadline for submission is Dec 7th, 2009. Highlights for our 2010 meeting include our plenary address by Dr. Benjamin D. Sommer, Professor in the Department of Bible and Ancient Semitic Languages at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and our presidential address by Dr. Kenton Sparks, Professor of Biblical Studies at Eastern University. Full letter after the jump. Read more…
Vacation
I’m heading off on vacation for a week with my family.
Of course, vacation has a different meaning for those of us in the academy. I’ll be taking along the manuscript of my dissertation to edit by the campsite, by the lake, by just about everywhere I’ll be.
Makes me think of this strip from PhD Comics:
Some Updates
I’ve been quite inconsistent in blogging this last month or so. I’m frantically trying to finish writing my dissertation so I can defend in the fall. While bits and pieces of the dissertation have found their way into this blog over the past two years, what I’m working on right now is mostly editorial in nature and hence not really fit for blog consumption. However, I can assure you, o gentle reader, that I will be blogging in earnest again come the end of this month, as I have many pedagogical ideas afoot in regards to technology, ancient texts and experimental models for contextual reading. Yummy.
However, I would be remiss to not mention that Biblical Studies Carnival 44 was posted at Jim West’s blog; and that the Biblioblog Top 50 for July has me at 31, despite having not posted anything of substance for the month.
And perhaps most importantly, if you have not yet heard, Steve Wiggins is now blogging. His blog, Sects and Violence in the Ancient World is wonderful, and I encourage you all to update your blogrolls and RSS feeds with it. With the addition of Steve to the blogosphere, I believe that the sum total of Ugaritic scholars now blogging has increased by 50%.
Linguistic Lunacy
I’m beginning to wonder if knowing a lot of languages is slowing down my dissertation. I spent the better part of Friday reading Leviticus 16 in the Pešiṭta, tracking down a hunch in regards to Raymond Westbrook and Theodore Lewis’ article “Who Led the Scapegoat in Leviticus 16:21?” JBL 127 (2008): 417-22. This little article has also led me to a Hittite ritual by Ašḫella (CTH 394) and a passage in Strabo (10.2.9). My big wonder here is whether I need to take the time to translate both of these texts (and throw in the original texts!) in my dissertation.
Neither text is outside of my linguistic range. I know that I have worked through the Ašḫella ritual at some point. But that was three addresses ago, and I’m not sure where the files are. I can probably work through the text again in a day or two (once I find the cuneiform). Likewise, Strabo’s Greek isn’t that difficult (it has an alphabet for G-d’s sake!). However, I’m wondering how necessary it is for me to mock up my own transcriptions and translations for a project that is supposed to focus on Northwest Semitics.
Thoughts from the older brothers in the e.dub.ba?
…but it is so I’m bothering telling you so.
Last night I was working through purification procedures for those with skin diseases in Leviticus 14. Milgrom’s Leviticus 1-16 (p.855) notes a possibly similar practice to that of the oil rite in v.18 in a Ugaritic letter accorded the number RS 32.124. There is no such text. In fact, as far as I can tell there were no alphabetic texts found in the thrity-second season. Rather, Milgrom meant RS 34.124 (CAT 2.72).
Hope this saves someone else the hassle of reading through the bulk of the letters in CAT…
Best Mashup Ever
“Smells like Rick Astley” or “Smells like My Childhood,” you decide.
(HT: praxistheologia)
Ketuvim: the Writings of James R. Getz Jr. 