No other year in recent memory has so much brought to mind Hemingway's 1923 couplet (originating as a parody of Ezra Pound):
And in the end the age was handed
The sort of shit that it demanded.
This is especially true of American culture in the broader sense, which continues its decline. Americans this year have cheered, among other things, grotesque social innovations, public skankiness, and dumb books about Jesus. I survey the cultural landscape with a cold eye, and pray for a charitable heart.
On TV I found little to watch this year. I failed to get on various bandwagons in time. Breaking Bad and Downton Abbey have had to get along without me. I did fall hard, though, for Call the Midwife, a lovely, lovely show on PBS, and very much enjoyed about half of The Bridge on FX, before the killer was identified and all the air went out of the storytelling.
Cinema was a correspondingly vast wasteland, although I have not yet seen Inside Llewyn Davis, which I expect to enjoy. I watched Iron Man 3 at home, and likewise Looper, Prometheus, Oblivion, and Kick-Ass 2 (I like sci-fi). Some of these entertained for longer stretches at a time than others, but none of them stuck with me for long. That privilege belonged to an older film, The Wrestler (2008) which touched me. I've never much liked Mickey Rourke, but that performance is a keeper.
My favorite literary discovery of the year was the Aubrey-Maturin sea novels of Patrick O'Brian: terrific storytelling, characters, historical background, and style. For my summer reading project, I read 10 of the 20, and will read the other 10 next summer, God willing. I also re-read with great appreciation Charles Williams's All Hallows Eve. Non-fiction? I read of ton of it -- my job requires it -- but, of many worthy books and articles, nothing that demands a mention.
The musical idols of today also leave me cold. I discovered Ryan Bingham through his haunting music for The Bridge, and he's a better Bob Dylan right now than the original. Pop-wise, the most infectious contributions (and I mean serious earworms here) came from Au Revoir Simone, although I have to give an honorable mention to Parquet Courts.
Probably the most profound cultural experience I had this year was visual, in the form of the Albrecht Dürer exhibit at the National Gallery. The depth and solidity of Dürer's vision is something the country could use -- a new reformation, perhaps?
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Thursday, September 05, 2013
Levita Meets the Maronites
One of the most interesting encounters in the history of Aramaic studies occurred in the course of the Fifth Lateran Council (1513-1515). Three delegates from the Middle East, religious from the Maronite community, requested permission to hold a mass using the Syriac liturgy. This was the occasion of the introduction of Syriac studies into the west.
This is well known. What is less well-known is that the three Maronites in the course of their stay had some philological discussions with the eminent Jewish scholar Elias Levita, author of the first Aramaic dictionary (Ha-Meturgeman) and thus the father of Aramaic philology as a discipline. He was able to examine the Syriac books they brought with them, and concluded that, although their common language (לשונם ההמוני) was Arabic, the language of their books was
The designation Tursai has proved difficult for scholars to untangle. Robert Wilkinson writes "I do not know what is 'Tursaea' [sic] unless it refers to 'Tarse' the home of 'Les Trois Rois tarsensiens' or the Magi discussed by Postel in Les Merveilles du Monde (Paris, 1552) ..."
However, it is perfectly clear that the word should be read סורסאי, the samekh and tet being easily confused. Sursai means just "Syrian" or "Syriac" (Jastrow 970), a proper addition to the other names for the various Aramaic dialects.
The discussion must have been interesting; the only part of it that Levita reports is on the issue of vowel points. He asked if they used vowel-signs, and they replied that, being familiar with the language from their youth, they had no need of them. He fails to note the language in which the discussion took place, although I would guess it was in Latin or possibly Arabic.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: C. D. Ginsburg, The Massoreth ha-Massoreth of Elias Levita, Being an Exposition of the Massoretic Notes on the Hebrew Bible (London, 1867); Wilkinson, Robert J. Orientalism, Aramaic, and Kabbalah in the Catholic Reformation: The First Printing of the Syriac New Testament. Leiden: Brill, 2007.
This is well known. What is less well-known is that the three Maronites in the course of their stay had some philological discussions with the eminent Jewish scholar Elias Levita, author of the first Aramaic dictionary (Ha-Meturgeman) and thus the father of Aramaic philology as a discipline. He was able to examine the Syriac books they brought with them, and concluded that, although their common language (לשונם ההמוני) was Arabic, the language of their books was
the language of the Chaldeans, which is called also Aramaic, or Babylonian, or Assyrian, or Chaldee, or Tursai (טורסאי), or Targum, having in all seven names.This passage is found in his Massoreth ha-Massoreth (1548), from the edition of C. D. Ginsburg, published in 1867.
The designation Tursai has proved difficult for scholars to untangle. Robert Wilkinson writes "I do not know what is 'Tursaea' [sic] unless it refers to 'Tarse' the home of 'Les Trois Rois tarsensiens' or the Magi discussed by Postel in Les Merveilles du Monde (Paris, 1552) ..."
However, it is perfectly clear that the word should be read סורסאי, the samekh and tet being easily confused. Sursai means just "Syrian" or "Syriac" (Jastrow 970), a proper addition to the other names for the various Aramaic dialects.
The discussion must have been interesting; the only part of it that Levita reports is on the issue of vowel points. He asked if they used vowel-signs, and they replied that, being familiar with the language from their youth, they had no need of them. He fails to note the language in which the discussion took place, although I would guess it was in Latin or possibly Arabic.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: C. D. Ginsburg, The Massoreth ha-Massoreth of Elias Levita, Being an Exposition of the Massoretic Notes on the Hebrew Bible (London, 1867); Wilkinson, Robert J. Orientalism, Aramaic, and Kabbalah in the Catholic Reformation: The First Printing of the Syriac New Testament. Leiden: Brill, 2007.
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Reza Aslan's "Zealot": Poor
I am usually glad to see a book about Jesus in the news. Even if the book is controversial or erroneous, it still might lead the curious to read more, and better, books about the life of Christ; and in time, they might even have an encounter with the real thing. All to the good.
So I don't have any problem in principle with the attention being paid to Reza Aslan's Zealot. I am a little puzzled, though, why this undistinguished book should be the next big thing. The author is a professor of creative writing, and not a known authority about the subject he deals with. His overall thesis is a nothing-new retread of S. G. F. Brandon's Jesus and the Zealots (1967), long since dismissed by specialists in the field.
The author also, it must be said, has not really done his homework. Anyone is free to frame a revisionist theory about anything, but to be convincing, the historical data must be clear and accurate. But Aslan often gets the facts wrong.
It would be tedious to go through and enumerate such misstatements in Zealot. There are a lot. However, I will give a couple of examples that might easily be missed by lay readers, but which stand out like a sore thumb to specialists. The first example has to do with the Temple tax. Introducing his account of the story of the cleansing of the Temple (Mark 11:15-19 and parallels), he says:
This might not seem to be a major mistake, but anyone who is at all familiar with the political scene in first-century Judaea would know about the privileged position within Judaism of the Tyrian coinage. That Reza Aslan does not is simply a small token of his overall ignorance of the period.
My second example is drawn from the area of literature. In the course of discussing the writings that came from Hellenistic Judaism, Aslan says:
The example of Jesus son of Sirach (or Ben Sira) is an even worse example. It was not written in the Diaspora, but in the Holy Land, in Hebrew (the Hebrew text is still preserved in part), and only translated a generation later by the author's grandson into Greek. It most emphatically does not read like a Greek philosophical tract. I suspect that Aslan has not even opened either one of these books, and that his information comes from secondary sources which he has misunderstood.
Clearly someone who is capable of making such elementary errors about the basic facts is not to be trusted as an authority on ancient religions. By all means, read about Jesus. Start with the Gospels. But Zealot can be crossed off your list as a reliable source of information.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reza Aslan, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth (Random House, 2013). For reliable background on the period, the lay reader might enjoy F. F. Bruce's New Testament History. Those who want to read an objective, non-religious book about the historical Jesus could start with E. P. Sanders' The Historical Figure of Jesus. I also recommend Raymond Brown, Questions and Answers on the Bible.
So I don't have any problem in principle with the attention being paid to Reza Aslan's Zealot. I am a little puzzled, though, why this undistinguished book should be the next big thing. The author is a professor of creative writing, and not a known authority about the subject he deals with. His overall thesis is a nothing-new retread of S. G. F. Brandon's Jesus and the Zealots (1967), long since dismissed by specialists in the field.
The author also, it must be said, has not really done his homework. Anyone is free to frame a revisionist theory about anything, but to be convincing, the historical data must be clear and accurate. But Aslan often gets the facts wrong.
It would be tedious to go through and enumerate such misstatements in Zealot. There are a lot. However, I will give a couple of examples that might easily be missed by lay readers, but which stand out like a sore thumb to specialists. The first example has to do with the Temple tax. Introducing his account of the story of the cleansing of the Temple (Mark 11:15-19 and parallels), he says:
The money changers play a vital role in the Temple. For a fee, they will exchange your foul foreign coins for the Hebrew shekel, the only currency permitted by the Temple authorities. The money changers will also collect the half-shekel Temple tax that all adult males must pay to preserve the pomp and spectacle of all you see around you: the mountains of burning incense and the ceaseless sacrifices, the wine libations and the first-fruits offering, the Levite choir belting out psalms of praise and the accompanying orchestra thrumming lyres and banging cymbals. Someone must pay for these necessities. Someone must bear the cost of the burnt offerings that so please the Lord.The tone of contempt is obvious. Reza Aslan does not have a high opinion of Jewish worship. However, what I want to point out here is that his sneer about "foul foreign coins" and the "Hebrew shekel" is mistaken. The Jewish authorities were not allowed to issue "Hebrew" coinage in the era of the Roman occupation of the time of Christ; there was no such thing as a "Hebrew shekel." In fact, the approved currency for paying the Temple dues was the Tyrian tetradrachma -- itself a "foul foreign coin" bearing the image of the god Melqart. The Tyrian coin had a higher silver content than equivalent coins from other mints.
This might not seem to be a major mistake, but anyone who is at all familiar with the political scene in first-century Judaea would know about the privileged position within Judaism of the Tyrian coinage. That Reza Aslan does not is simply a small token of his overall ignorance of the period.
My second example is drawn from the area of literature. In the course of discussing the writings that came from Hellenistic Judaism, Aslan says:
Unlike their brethren in the Holy Land, Diaspora Jews spoke Greek, not Aramaic: Greek was the language of their thought processes, the language of their worship. They experienced the scriptures not in the original Hebrew but in a Greek translation (the Septuagint), which offered new and originative [sic] ways of expressing their faith, allowing them to more easily harmonize traditional biblical cosmology with Greek philosophy. Consider the Jewish scriptures that came out of the Diaspora. Books such as The Wisdom of Solomon, which anthropomorphizes Wisdom as a woman to be sought above all else, and Jesus Son of Sirach (commonly referred to as The Book of Ecclesiasticus) read more like Greek philosophical tracts than like Semitic scriptures.It is uncontroversially true that Hellenistic Judaism was influenced by Greek thought, and that in some instances this led to "new ways of expressing their faith." However, the two examples given are misconceived. The Wisdom of Solomon is indeed influenced by Platonism and Stoicism, but the image of "Wisdom as a woman to be sought above all else" comes straight from the Hebrew Bible, particularly from the Book of Proverbs (ch. 8), not from any Greek tradition.
The example of Jesus son of Sirach (or Ben Sira) is an even worse example. It was not written in the Diaspora, but in the Holy Land, in Hebrew (the Hebrew text is still preserved in part), and only translated a generation later by the author's grandson into Greek. It most emphatically does not read like a Greek philosophical tract. I suspect that Aslan has not even opened either one of these books, and that his information comes from secondary sources which he has misunderstood.
Clearly someone who is capable of making such elementary errors about the basic facts is not to be trusted as an authority on ancient religions. By all means, read about Jesus. Start with the Gospels. But Zealot can be crossed off your list as a reliable source of information.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Reza Aslan, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth (Random House, 2013). For reliable background on the period, the lay reader might enjoy F. F. Bruce's New Testament History. Those who want to read an objective, non-religious book about the historical Jesus could start with E. P. Sanders' The Historical Figure of Jesus. I also recommend Raymond Brown, Questions and Answers on the Bible.
Saturday, August 03, 2013
Wierzbicka on Jesus
I've recently enjoyed reading Anna Wierzbicka's What Did Jesus Mean? (Oxford, 2001). I hadn't realized that Wierzbicka, who is a well-known linguist, was interested in religion and the Bible, but in fact she is a practicing Catholic. In this book she applies some of the insights of her Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) to discussing the Sermon on the Mount and some of the parables of Jesus.
Although I enjoyed the book and indeed found it edifying, I think that ultimately it has not satisfied either of the two groups whom it should have interested most, that is, semanticists and New Testament scholars. From the standpoint of semantics, the problem is that in this book her NSM approach is not deployed to do what is does best, that is, break down the meaning of individual words and expressions and restate them in terms of the "semantic primitives" that W. and her colleagues have postulated to lie at the core of every language. Instead, she uses the same primitives, which she calls here "universal human concepts," to exegete various New Testament texts. Whatever the merits of NSM (I think it has many as a heuristic method), I doubt that it is best used to paraphrase English translations of the Bible.
New Testament scholars probably did not take the book very seriously, because its method is so different from standard commentaries on the NT. Wierzbicka's "reductive paraphrase" approach is alien to the guild and in my view the NSM is insufficiently explained in this book -- W.'s primitives are only given in an endnote on pp. 465-466. Also, although she writes in respectful dialogue with mainstream NT scholars, especially the Jesus Seminar (of which she is not a great admirer), she also without discrimination cites lay or devotional writers like William Barclay or R. C. Sproul.
But my main beef with the book is that W.'s main strength as a linguist -- her ability to analyze nuances of meaning in different languages -- is absent in this book. She does not, it seems, know Greek, Aramaic, or Hebrew, although she sometimes cites other scholar's comments on these languages. This is a great lack, and she overall confines herself to discussing the English translations. (When she doesn't the results are sometimes disastrous. In ch. 2, footnote 2 (p. 466) she says that, of two Hebrew words meaning "poor," aniim is "older" and from "the verb root ny" while anawim is from "the verb root nwm." I presume that it is Wierzbicka's unnamed informant who has produced these dire misstatements. In fact, /ʕaniy/ is from the root /ʕny/, while /ʕanaw/ is from /ʕnw/, two roots connected etymologically.)
This concentration on English, combined with the deployment of NSM as a tool of conceptual simplification (instead of semantic explication) results in some paraphrases that are problematic. For instance, her paraphrase of "kingdom of God" is "living with God." The English verb LIVE is an "exponent" of a semantic primitive in NSM, presented as the opposite of DIE. However, English "live" is polysemous, with at least 3 meanings: (1) to be alive (not dead), (2) to dwell, (3) to conduct one's affairs, follow a certain routine (e.g., "he lived a life of ease"). The expression "living with" normally activates the meaning "dwell," not the meaning "be alive" -- which, I presume, is what W. means in her paraphrase, although at times she seems to be thinking of meaning 3 (and meaning 3 is not an NSM prime, as far as I can tell).
In fact, W.'s understanding of "kingdom of God," as in much of her understanding of Christianity, seems to be more a restatement of an old Harnackian view of Christianity: brotherhood of man, fatherhood of God (without the gender-exclusive language), the presence of God in the soul of the individual. This results from her use here of the NSM primes as lowest common denominator concepts instead of compositional units of individual word senses.
On the other hand, no translation of "kingdom of God" can be worse than the Jesus Seminar's "God's imperial rule."
But I still recommend this book. Although it is not the best introduction to NSM, it may lead readers to explore some of Wierzbicka's other, more rigorous, writings, which are well worth exploration. Plus, although I've criticized her overall approach, she has many insights into the texts she deals with, and an edifying belief in their power to improve the world.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Anna Wierzbicka, What Did Jesus Mean? Explaining the Sermon on the Mount and the Parables in Simple and Universal Human Concepts (Oxford, 2001). A better introduction to the NSM approach is Wierzbicka's Semantics, Culture, and Cognition: Universal Human Concepts in Culture-Specific Configurations (Oxford, 1992).
Although I enjoyed the book and indeed found it edifying, I think that ultimately it has not satisfied either of the two groups whom it should have interested most, that is, semanticists and New Testament scholars. From the standpoint of semantics, the problem is that in this book her NSM approach is not deployed to do what is does best, that is, break down the meaning of individual words and expressions and restate them in terms of the "semantic primitives" that W. and her colleagues have postulated to lie at the core of every language. Instead, she uses the same primitives, which she calls here "universal human concepts," to exegete various New Testament texts. Whatever the merits of NSM (I think it has many as a heuristic method), I doubt that it is best used to paraphrase English translations of the Bible.
New Testament scholars probably did not take the book very seriously, because its method is so different from standard commentaries on the NT. Wierzbicka's "reductive paraphrase" approach is alien to the guild and in my view the NSM is insufficiently explained in this book -- W.'s primitives are only given in an endnote on pp. 465-466. Also, although she writes in respectful dialogue with mainstream NT scholars, especially the Jesus Seminar (of which she is not a great admirer), she also without discrimination cites lay or devotional writers like William Barclay or R. C. Sproul.
But my main beef with the book is that W.'s main strength as a linguist -- her ability to analyze nuances of meaning in different languages -- is absent in this book. She does not, it seems, know Greek, Aramaic, or Hebrew, although she sometimes cites other scholar's comments on these languages. This is a great lack, and she overall confines herself to discussing the English translations. (When she doesn't the results are sometimes disastrous. In ch. 2, footnote 2 (p. 466) she says that, of two Hebrew words meaning "poor," aniim is "older" and from "the verb root ny" while anawim is from "the verb root nwm." I presume that it is Wierzbicka's unnamed informant who has produced these dire misstatements. In fact, /ʕaniy/ is from the root /ʕny/, while /ʕanaw/ is from /ʕnw/, two roots connected etymologically.)
This concentration on English, combined with the deployment of NSM as a tool of conceptual simplification (instead of semantic explication) results in some paraphrases that are problematic. For instance, her paraphrase of "kingdom of God" is "living with God." The English verb LIVE is an "exponent" of a semantic primitive in NSM, presented as the opposite of DIE. However, English "live" is polysemous, with at least 3 meanings: (1) to be alive (not dead), (2) to dwell, (3) to conduct one's affairs, follow a certain routine (e.g., "he lived a life of ease"). The expression "living with" normally activates the meaning "dwell," not the meaning "be alive" -- which, I presume, is what W. means in her paraphrase, although at times she seems to be thinking of meaning 3 (and meaning 3 is not an NSM prime, as far as I can tell).
In fact, W.'s understanding of "kingdom of God," as in much of her understanding of Christianity, seems to be more a restatement of an old Harnackian view of Christianity: brotherhood of man, fatherhood of God (without the gender-exclusive language), the presence of God in the soul of the individual. This results from her use here of the NSM primes as lowest common denominator concepts instead of compositional units of individual word senses.
On the other hand, no translation of "kingdom of God" can be worse than the Jesus Seminar's "God's imperial rule."
But I still recommend this book. Although it is not the best introduction to NSM, it may lead readers to explore some of Wierzbicka's other, more rigorous, writings, which are well worth exploration. Plus, although I've criticized her overall approach, she has many insights into the texts she deals with, and an edifying belief in their power to improve the world.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Anna Wierzbicka, What Did Jesus Mean? Explaining the Sermon on the Mount and the Parables in Simple and Universal Human Concepts (Oxford, 2001). A better introduction to the NSM approach is Wierzbicka's Semantics, Culture, and Cognition: Universal Human Concepts in Culture-Specific Configurations (Oxford, 1992).
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Totally Modally
The English adverb totally is an interesting study. My guess is that most dictionaries would define it along the lines of "not partially," and it is certainly not uncommon in this meaning, as in the following instances (all citations are from the COCA corpus):
1. He wanted to have it totally reconstructed. (= He wanted all of it, not part of it, reconstructed.)
2. Totally paralyzed patients require artificial ventilation. (=Partially paralyzed patients may not need artificial ventilation.)
However, many of the uses of totally these days use it as a near-synonym of very, with gradable adjectives:
3. It was totally gross. (=It was very gross, not "All of it was gross.")
4. He is totally creative. (=He is very creative, not "He is creative in every way.")
5. I think to focus on that is to totally do a disservice. (= To focus on that is a big disservice, not "To focus on that is not just a partial disservice.")
There is a third use of totally that is gaining ground, at least in informal speech, which utiizes totally as a modal expression expressing certainty or obligation:
6. I totally have to go on a diet. (= I must go on a diet.)
7. I can totally, totally, totally explain this. (= I am definitely able to explain this.)
8. I totally didn't ever hear it. (= I assure you, I didn't ever hear it.)
9. I totally felt violated. (=I definitely felt violated.)
10. Q: It makes you more relaxed, right? A: Totally. (=I definitely agree.)
A trademark of the third use is that totally usually precedes the verb phrase instead of an adjective or adjective phrase. (Note that no. 5 above could be interpreted as an example of the third type: I think to focus on that is definitely to do a disservice.) You can feel the difference if we move the position of totally in no. 9: I felt totally violated (= either I felt very violated or I felt violated in every way, but not I definitely felt violated).
My interest in this is that the so-called tautological infinitive absolute (TIA) in Biblical Hebrew has some interesting features in common with the forms in #6-10, in that the infinitive preposed to a verbal phrase often has modal meaning:
kol asher yedabber bo yavo (I Sam 9:6) "All that he says will certainly happen"
mot tamut (Gen 2:17) "You must die"
mahor yimharennah (Ex. 22:15) "He has to pay the marriage price for her"
In fact, I would go so far as to say (with a recent study by Scott Callaham) that the vast majority of the uses of the TIA fall into this category. The standard grammars don't convey this, and in fact several of them, while noting the modal use of the TIA, also suggest its use as a adverb with a gradable notion (as in #3-5). For instance, van der Merwe et al. (see Bibliography) state that the use of the TIA is sometimes "to define more clearly the nature and scope of the verbal idea" (p. 158). Examples they give are:
ki barekh abarkhekha "I will bless you richly" (Gen 22:17)
mikkol es haggan akhol tokhel "you may freely eat of every tree of the garden" (Gen 2:16)
However, it seems clear to me that both the cited forms should be interpreted modally: "I will certainly bless you" and "you may indeed eat from any tree of the garden." But perhaps it is possible that there is a development here from a "gradable" adverbial use, as in #3-5 of totally to a modal use, as in #6-10. Cross-linguistically, it might make sense.
In the meantime, maybe we should experiment with translating by totally: "If you eat that fruit, you will totally die!" "I will totally bless you." Call it Today's Bible, and it will totally be a best-seller.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Van der Merwe, C. H. J., Naudé, J. A., & Kroeze, J. H. (1999), A Biblical Hebrew reference grammar (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press); Callaham, S. N. (2010), Modality and the Biblical Hebrew infinitive absolute (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz).
1. He wanted to have it totally reconstructed. (= He wanted all of it, not part of it, reconstructed.)
2. Totally paralyzed patients require artificial ventilation. (=Partially paralyzed patients may not need artificial ventilation.)
However, many of the uses of totally these days use it as a near-synonym of very, with gradable adjectives:
3. It was totally gross. (=It was very gross, not "All of it was gross.")
4. He is totally creative. (=He is very creative, not "He is creative in every way.")
5. I think to focus on that is to totally do a disservice. (= To focus on that is a big disservice, not "To focus on that is not just a partial disservice.")
There is a third use of totally that is gaining ground, at least in informal speech, which utiizes totally as a modal expression expressing certainty or obligation:
6. I totally have to go on a diet. (= I must go on a diet.)
7. I can totally, totally, totally explain this. (= I am definitely able to explain this.)
8. I totally didn't ever hear it. (= I assure you, I didn't ever hear it.)
9. I totally felt violated. (=I definitely felt violated.)
10. Q: It makes you more relaxed, right? A: Totally. (=I definitely agree.)
A trademark of the third use is that totally usually precedes the verb phrase instead of an adjective or adjective phrase. (Note that no. 5 above could be interpreted as an example of the third type: I think to focus on that is definitely to do a disservice.) You can feel the difference if we move the position of totally in no. 9: I felt totally violated (= either I felt very violated or I felt violated in every way, but not I definitely felt violated).
My interest in this is that the so-called tautological infinitive absolute (TIA) in Biblical Hebrew has some interesting features in common with the forms in #6-10, in that the infinitive preposed to a verbal phrase often has modal meaning:
kol asher yedabber bo yavo (I Sam 9:6) "All that he says will certainly happen"
mot tamut (Gen 2:17) "You must die"
mahor yimharennah (Ex. 22:15) "He has to pay the marriage price for her"
In fact, I would go so far as to say (with a recent study by Scott Callaham) that the vast majority of the uses of the TIA fall into this category. The standard grammars don't convey this, and in fact several of them, while noting the modal use of the TIA, also suggest its use as a adverb with a gradable notion (as in #3-5). For instance, van der Merwe et al. (see Bibliography) state that the use of the TIA is sometimes "to define more clearly the nature and scope of the verbal idea" (p. 158). Examples they give are:
ki barekh abarkhekha "I will bless you richly" (Gen 22:17)
mikkol es haggan akhol tokhel "you may freely eat of every tree of the garden" (Gen 2:16)
However, it seems clear to me that both the cited forms should be interpreted modally: "I will certainly bless you" and "you may indeed eat from any tree of the garden." But perhaps it is possible that there is a development here from a "gradable" adverbial use, as in #3-5 of totally to a modal use, as in #6-10. Cross-linguistically, it might make sense.
In the meantime, maybe we should experiment with translating by totally: "If you eat that fruit, you will totally die!" "I will totally bless you." Call it Today's Bible, and it will totally be a best-seller.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Van der Merwe, C. H. J., Naudé, J. A., & Kroeze, J. H. (1999), A Biblical Hebrew reference grammar (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press); Callaham, S. N. (2010), Modality and the Biblical Hebrew infinitive absolute (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz).
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
C. S. Lewis's Conversion Revisited
I notice that Alister McGrath has recently moved up the date of C. S. Lewis's conversion. I wholeheartedly concur with his reasoning and I would only note that I proposed the same thing a few years ago.
Thursday, March 07, 2013
Did Josephus Call Jesus the Messiah?
There is a famous passage in the Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus, which speaks of Jesus of Nazareth — the so-called Testimonium Flavianum (Antiq. 18:63 [18.3.3]). In general, scholars now think that at least some of this passage (available here with background) is authentic, although it contains Christian interpolations.
One of the agreed-upon interpolations is the sentence ho Christos houtos en, translated as "he was the Christ" or "he was the Messiah." It is felt, and rightly, that this sentence, so understood, would have been impossible coming from the pen of a Jewish writer, and therefore it must be a later interpolation. However, I want to suggest that Josephus did not construe the adjective christos as the title "Christ/Messiah," but as the proper name "Christos."
In general, outside Christian circles, the title "Christ" was understood as a proper name. The reference in Tacitus's Annals refers to Christians as having their name from "Christus." Suetonius likewise may have referred to the founder of Christianity as "Chrestus." In the Book of Acts, the Gentile residents of Antioch call the followers of Jesus "Christianoi," i.e., followers of Christos (Acts 11:26). The Bauer-Arndt-Gingrich-Danker lexicon of New Testament Greek suggests that the construal of the title as a name began among Gentiles because they would not have understood its Jewish background, and took it for the proper name Chrestos (which would have sounded like Christos in spoken Greek).
Josephus only uses the adjective christos in three places: in the Testimonium, at Antiquities 20:200, which deals with James the brother of Jesus "who is called Christos" (Iesou to legomenou Christou); and in Antiquities 8:137, where he refers to a building being "plastered" (christon). He never uses it to refer to the office of the Messiah, or any religious office or rite connected with it. (Philo does not use the adjective at all.) However, if the citation at 20.200 is accepted as legitimate, with most scholars, it seems likely that the word was previously mentioned.
Hence it seems possible to me that we should construe the sentence in Antiq. 18:63 as "this was Christos" — identifying for Josephus's Gentile audience the figure under discussion as the Jewish teacher who might have been known to them as Christos or Chrestos. If so, then this sentence is part of the original text and not a later interpolation.
One of the agreed-upon interpolations is the sentence ho Christos houtos en, translated as "he was the Christ" or "he was the Messiah." It is felt, and rightly, that this sentence, so understood, would have been impossible coming from the pen of a Jewish writer, and therefore it must be a later interpolation. However, I want to suggest that Josephus did not construe the adjective christos as the title "Christ/Messiah," but as the proper name "Christos."
In general, outside Christian circles, the title "Christ" was understood as a proper name. The reference in Tacitus's Annals refers to Christians as having their name from "Christus." Suetonius likewise may have referred to the founder of Christianity as "Chrestus." In the Book of Acts, the Gentile residents of Antioch call the followers of Jesus "Christianoi," i.e., followers of Christos (Acts 11:26). The Bauer-Arndt-Gingrich-Danker lexicon of New Testament Greek suggests that the construal of the title as a name began among Gentiles because they would not have understood its Jewish background, and took it for the proper name Chrestos (which would have sounded like Christos in spoken Greek).
Josephus only uses the adjective christos in three places: in the Testimonium, at Antiquities 20:200, which deals with James the brother of Jesus "who is called Christos" (Iesou to legomenou Christou); and in Antiquities 8:137, where he refers to a building being "plastered" (christon). He never uses it to refer to the office of the Messiah, or any religious office or rite connected with it. (Philo does not use the adjective at all.) However, if the citation at 20.200 is accepted as legitimate, with most scholars, it seems likely that the word was previously mentioned.
Hence it seems possible to me that we should construe the sentence in Antiq. 18:63 as "this was Christos" — identifying for Josephus's Gentile audience the figure under discussion as the Jewish teacher who might have been known to them as Christos or Chrestos. If so, then this sentence is part of the original text and not a later interpolation.
Monday, March 04, 2013
Call to Action
(This is the beginning of a short story based on life in a Cincinnati branding agency. Loosely, but not currently, autobiographical.)
He sits in a rectangular room, not a cubicle. It has a door, and usually it is closed. He likes it closed, so that people can't see what he is doing, which usually is reading a book or surfing the net or writing on a pad of paper. He is afraid that others might think he is not working, and in fact most of the time he is not — that is, not doing the work they pay him for.
No, he isn't neglecting his job — it's just that there isn't enough to keep him busy all the time. When he first discovered this, he was nervous, and kept asking people if there was anything he could do. Usually there wasn't, so he began to fill up the time with other activities, especially reading. Now he counts on having lots of time to read and resents it if he doesn't.
His "desk" is a kind of table built into the wall, whose surface is covered with a plastic that reminds him of the lunch counters in cheap diners. At one end of it rests the computer monitor; the keyboard sits on a movable tray bolted to the undersurface of the "desk." To the right of the monitor sits a stereo in the shape of a cube: it contains a CD player, radio, and cassette player. The cube's face is liberally outfitted with buttons, toggles, knobs, plugs, and controls, most of which he doesn't use. Then comes a phone, then a rubber sleeve made for holding cold drink cans, but now holding pens and pencils; then a row of books, including novels, dictionaries, the Chicago Manual, three or four old magazines, some plastic file boxes with a collection of old memos, a binder of Ingredient information. The row slants lazily to the right and is kept from falling by a cardboard box of slides and transparencies that he is expected to catalog, a task he has been meaning to do for several months.
The foreground of the desk is occupied by pads of paper, a scattering of CDs, a stapler, a coffee cup, tape dispenser, various binders, a time sheet, and a little plastic box with a hole in the top to shake paper clips out of. Now the hole holds a small chocolate egg wrapped in bright foil.
On the wall is a poster advertising a book he wrote years ago, now out of print, and a calendar of castle pictures, hung by a push tack. A thin black wire stretches up from the back of the music cube across the calendar and winds around the push tack: the antenna. This improves reception.
On a pad in front of him, a list of words: Attention. Customer. Benefits. Differentiate. Prove. Credibility. Value. Call to action.
He sits in a rectangular room, not a cubicle. It has a door, and usually it is closed. He likes it closed, so that people can't see what he is doing, which usually is reading a book or surfing the net or writing on a pad of paper. He is afraid that others might think he is not working, and in fact most of the time he is not — that is, not doing the work they pay him for.
No, he isn't neglecting his job — it's just that there isn't enough to keep him busy all the time. When he first discovered this, he was nervous, and kept asking people if there was anything he could do. Usually there wasn't, so he began to fill up the time with other activities, especially reading. Now he counts on having lots of time to read and resents it if he doesn't.
His "desk" is a kind of table built into the wall, whose surface is covered with a plastic that reminds him of the lunch counters in cheap diners. At one end of it rests the computer monitor; the keyboard sits on a movable tray bolted to the undersurface of the "desk." To the right of the monitor sits a stereo in the shape of a cube: it contains a CD player, radio, and cassette player. The cube's face is liberally outfitted with buttons, toggles, knobs, plugs, and controls, most of which he doesn't use. Then comes a phone, then a rubber sleeve made for holding cold drink cans, but now holding pens and pencils; then a row of books, including novels, dictionaries, the Chicago Manual, three or four old magazines, some plastic file boxes with a collection of old memos, a binder of Ingredient information. The row slants lazily to the right and is kept from falling by a cardboard box of slides and transparencies that he is expected to catalog, a task he has been meaning to do for several months.
The foreground of the desk is occupied by pads of paper, a scattering of CDs, a stapler, a coffee cup, tape dispenser, various binders, a time sheet, and a little plastic box with a hole in the top to shake paper clips out of. Now the hole holds a small chocolate egg wrapped in bright foil.
On the wall is a poster advertising a book he wrote years ago, now out of print, and a calendar of castle pictures, hung by a push tack. A thin black wire stretches up from the back of the music cube across the calendar and winds around the push tack: the antenna. This improves reception.
On a pad in front of him, a list of words: Attention. Customer. Benefits. Differentiate. Prove. Credibility. Value. Call to action.
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Ninth Annual Ralphies, Better Late Than Never
This year's Ralphies will be a bit different, as I'm introducing some new categories:
Worst Computer Company: Apple. Every time I upgrade the operating system, some of the software stops working. Plus, Unicode still does not work that great on many Mac applications. Plus, Steve Jobs, may he rest in peace, was kind of a jerk. (Wait, aren't all the 1% jerks? Well, Bill Gates at least is a philanthropist.)
Best Summer (or Winter) Blockbuster: I saw several major motion pictures, including Lincoln, The Hunger Games, and The Avengers. The Avengers was the most enjoyable, although I deeply regretted that they did not include Kang the Conqueror. (Also, let me get this off my chest: Lincoln was clearly conceived as a play, not a movie [the screenplay was by Tony Kushner! Hello!], and the acting was hammy and theatrical. I'm looking at you, Tommy Lee Jones and Sally Field.) But my summer blockbuster was not a movie, but a book: Planesrunner, by Ian MacDonald. Exciting, original, and the special effects were awesome. Can't wait to read the sequel, Be My Enemy, which just came out.
Goodbye, Television: Pretty lousy. Fringe, the only show I watched faithfully, has ended. It was always worth watching. Olivia and Walter, I will miss you. Peter, not so much. Joshua Jackson did an adequate job, but only just. Plus, chemistry between him and Anna Torv? Zero. What will replace this show? So far, nothing.
Favorite Sports Team: The last time I rooted for a baseball team, it was 1988, and the Dodgers were winning an improbable World Series with Orel Hershiser and Kurt Gibson. Then we moved and baseball entered a dark age of strikes and steroids. Then came the miraculous summer of 2012, and the Washington Nationals reignited my interest in baseball and made me care again. Thanks, Nats.
Live Music: For me, I rediscovered concerts in 2012. DC has some nice small venues for the kinds of music I like. I saw Tennis and Real Estate at the Black Cat, and WIld Flag and Sufjan Stevens at the 9:30 Club. Wild Flag in particular showed themselves to be a superb live act. For at least a month after the concert (here's a clip), all I wanted to listen to was WIld Flag or music that reminded me of Wild Flag (and that means lots of punk and indie rock). I hope that Carrie Brownstein, one of the leading members, doesn't let her TV stardom put a damper on her musical creativity.
Books : I already mentioned Planesrunner (which would also make a great TV series; hello, BBC?). Also recommended on the fiction list is Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, dealing with the English Reformation from Thomas Cromwell's point of view. Although her perspective is quietly secularist (and clearly anti-Catholic), she paints a vivid picture of that time, and her dry and austere style fits the subject matter. I read a lot of non-fiction last year, although at the moment nothing stands out. But here's one I'm dying to read.
Pie: Lemon meringue, and it's not even close.
Worst Computer Company: Apple. Every time I upgrade the operating system, some of the software stops working. Plus, Unicode still does not work that great on many Mac applications. Plus, Steve Jobs, may he rest in peace, was kind of a jerk. (Wait, aren't all the 1% jerks? Well, Bill Gates at least is a philanthropist.)
Best Summer (or Winter) Blockbuster: I saw several major motion pictures, including Lincoln, The Hunger Games, and The Avengers. The Avengers was the most enjoyable, although I deeply regretted that they did not include Kang the Conqueror. (Also, let me get this off my chest: Lincoln was clearly conceived as a play, not a movie [the screenplay was by Tony Kushner! Hello!], and the acting was hammy and theatrical. I'm looking at you, Tommy Lee Jones and Sally Field.) But my summer blockbuster was not a movie, but a book: Planesrunner, by Ian MacDonald. Exciting, original, and the special effects were awesome. Can't wait to read the sequel, Be My Enemy, which just came out.
Goodbye, Television: Pretty lousy. Fringe, the only show I watched faithfully, has ended. It was always worth watching. Olivia and Walter, I will miss you. Peter, not so much. Joshua Jackson did an adequate job, but only just. Plus, chemistry between him and Anna Torv? Zero. What will replace this show? So far, nothing.
Favorite Sports Team: The last time I rooted for a baseball team, it was 1988, and the Dodgers were winning an improbable World Series with Orel Hershiser and Kurt Gibson. Then we moved and baseball entered a dark age of strikes and steroids. Then came the miraculous summer of 2012, and the Washington Nationals reignited my interest in baseball and made me care again. Thanks, Nats.
Live Music: For me, I rediscovered concerts in 2012. DC has some nice small venues for the kinds of music I like. I saw Tennis and Real Estate at the Black Cat, and WIld Flag and Sufjan Stevens at the 9:30 Club. Wild Flag in particular showed themselves to be a superb live act. For at least a month after the concert (here's a clip), all I wanted to listen to was WIld Flag or music that reminded me of Wild Flag (and that means lots of punk and indie rock). I hope that Carrie Brownstein, one of the leading members, doesn't let her TV stardom put a damper on her musical creativity.
Books : I already mentioned Planesrunner (which would also make a great TV series; hello, BBC?). Also recommended on the fiction list is Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, dealing with the English Reformation from Thomas Cromwell's point of view. Although her perspective is quietly secularist (and clearly anti-Catholic), she paints a vivid picture of that time, and her dry and austere style fits the subject matter. I read a lot of non-fiction last year, although at the moment nothing stands out. But here's one I'm dying to read.
Pie: Lemon meringue, and it's not even close.
Thursday, February 07, 2013
A Suggestion About I Enoch 90:15
"And I saw until the owner of the sheep came against them in wrath and all who saw him fled and they fell away from him into his shadow."
This verse from the "Animal Apocalypse" of I Enoch has been taken to be corrupt, especially the words "into his shadow." Patrick Tiller says "the phrase is peculiar." In his translation, R. H. Charles places it between brackets.
Nevertheless, I think the phrase may have originated in an overly literal translation of Aramaic בטלל, bitlal. This phrase, literally "in the shadow," comes to mean "because of, on account of," in the Aramaic of Qumran, as in these phrases from the Genesis Apocryphon:
שביק ארזא בטלל תמרתא, "the cedar was spared because of the date-palm" (19:16)
ואחי בטליכי, "I will live because of you" (19:20)
Therefore the original of Ethiopic wa-wadqu kwellomu westa selalotu would be something like ונפלו כלהון בטללה, "they all fell because of him."
—Enoch 90:15
This verse from the "Animal Apocalypse" of I Enoch has been taken to be corrupt, especially the words "into his shadow." Patrick Tiller says "the phrase is peculiar." In his translation, R. H. Charles places it between brackets.
Nevertheless, I think the phrase may have originated in an overly literal translation of Aramaic בטלל, bitlal. This phrase, literally "in the shadow," comes to mean "because of, on account of," in the Aramaic of Qumran, as in these phrases from the Genesis Apocryphon:
שביק ארזא בטלל תמרתא, "the cedar was spared because of the date-palm" (19:16)
ואחי בטליכי, "I will live because of you" (19:20)
Therefore the original of Ethiopic wa-wadqu kwellomu westa selalotu would be something like ונפלו כלהון בטללה, "they all fell because of him."
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