Williamson on the Oxford Hebrew Bible Project

I've been sort of planning to write a critique of the plans for the Oxford Hebrew Bible, and why I think the whole plan is misconceived; but H. G. M. Williamson beat me to it. Good, it saves me some time.

Saludos Lakers, Campeones Mundiales

This is a rare post about sports. Those who know me know I'm a Lakers fan. I come by it honestly, living for 13 years in LA during the height of the Magic-Kareem era. Despite my travels since then, I've retained an allegiance to the purple & gold.

So I'm jazzed the Lakers won the NBA championship this year. I have to say, though, that any feelings for or against Kobe, so prominent in media coverage, had little to do with it. I love what Kobe does for the Lakers, I admire his abilities, and I root for him. But I don't find Kobe all that appealing as a person, and the style of his game doesn't galvanize me. When I was a kid we called players like Kobe "hot dogs," and it was not a compliment. Nowadays every above-average player is a hot dog, and the league is the worse for it.

So these days I'm actually more interested in two other kinds of players. One is the non-hot-dog, the guy who plays (seemingly) without arrogance but with excellence. My two favorite non-hot-dogs -- let's call them hamburgers -- my two favorite hamburgers are Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol. It's always good to see hamburgers get rings.

The second kind I like is the big man. My heart has always been with the big men of the Association. The first team I ever loved and rooted for in the NBA was the Philadelphia 76ers of 1967, with Billy Cunningham, Hal Greer, Matt Guokas, coach Alex Hannum, etc. -- but mainly, if you were a kid like me, you noticed Wilt Chamberlain, freakishly large, a man among boys. Kids like the big men for the same reason they like dinosaurs, and if you need any further explanation, then you don't get it. I've never grown out of this, and my favorite players have been the giants, like Wilt, Kareem, Shaq, Yao, even Rik Smits, Ralph Sampson, Manute Bol, Shawn Bradley. I want to see them succeed and amaze me while they're doing it. (No, Dwight Howard isn't in this category. He's just not tall enough. Good player, though.)

On the Lakers, there's only one big who fits in this superhuman category, and that's Andrew Bynum. He's shown flashes of greatness, but he's been hampered by injuries. But he's the guy that really interests me. I hope that the Lakers make it back to the Finals next year, with Bynum performing superhuman feats of dunking and blocking, helped by a couple of hamburgers and, OK, maybe the one hot dog.

Bob Dylan, Young Thief

Looks like Bob Dylan got an early start "borrowing" lyrics, according to this. His career winds down as it began, passing off the words of others as his own.

"Lost": The Godgame Returns

A while back, I wrote about "Lost as Godgame." After watching last night's season finale, I think I was right, although possibly there are two godgames going on.

We met Jacob last night, the white figure (and therefore good guy), and his nemesis, dressed in black. Let us call him Esau, although Seth (nemesis of Osiris) would be quite as suitable. I think everything that has happened thus far is due to the manipulations of one of these two figures.

Some significant reveals of the finale:

Dead means dead. No one returns from the dead on the island. Therefore "Neo-Locke," as we discover, is a tool or meat puppet of Esau. When Neo-Locke told Richard Alpert to tell the real Locke that he had to die, this was a con of some kind. Esau needed Locke's corpse in order to con Ben and the Others.

This presumably means also that "Christian Shephard" is also a meat puppet or manifestation of Esau. (Note that Neo-Christian and Neo-Locke never appear on screen together.) Therefore everything "Christian" has said to anyone is a con of some kind. He doesn't speak for Jacob. Locke was not supposed to move the island or die. Jack wasn't supposed to come back.

If so, then Esau at the moment can only work through one kind of being: dead people: Christian Shephard, John Locke, Yemi, Alex Rousseau.

Since the Smoke Monster (through Alex) told Ben that he had to obey Neo-Locke, we have to assume that Smokey is also a manifestation (or perhaps is) Esau. Ben Linus's "judgment" was also a con. (Is there more than one Smokey? Is there a white Smokey, too?)

We saw Greek and Egyptian last night, and we heard some Latin. Would it have killed them to put some Aramaic in the show?

New Ancient Document

This (HT: Paleojudaica) looks like it might be interesting. Kudos to the IAA for providing a hi-res photograph link.

The cursive script is hard to read. The beginning of the text, at least, is in Aramaic: בתרין עשר (on the 12th day) and then dated to לחרבן בית ישראל -- an unusual dating formula, to be sure ("after the destruction of the house of Israel"). However, I am told that the rest of the text is in Hebrew, and that it will be published in due course by Esti Eshel and Ada Yardeni.

IT'S "FREE REIN"

Once again, I encountered the spelling "free reign" in a magazine. This is starting to happen a lot. NO. This is not correct. The correct spelling is free rein. Get it right or pay the price.

Easter

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
It was as His body;
If the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
The Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers
each soft Spring recurrent;
It was not as his Spirit, in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of His eleven Apostles;
it was as His Flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that-pierced-died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendance;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time which will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.
-JOHN UPDIKE