Something Something Ralphies

 The first Ralphies were awarded in 2004.  I'll let you guys figure out how many years that's been.

Speaking of years ... 2020, amirite? A global pandemic that just won't quit, and internal strife in the US the likes of which I've never seen before -- and I survived the '60s. I and my loved ones are lucky to have so far escaped being affected by either one of these viruses, although I had a brush with cancel culture in the spring, which did not shake my commitment to the more liberal side of things.  So you know where I stand, but I can't help thinking that it doesn't conduce to the common good to keep harping on all the ways we differ from others. Our illness is not just that the two sides are hostile, but that we want the other side to know just how much we despise them and disagree with them. Nothing good can come of this.

But hey! We're here to give out awards, not to kvetch! So herewith we get down to business. 

TV: The pandemic produced a Golden Age of TV, aided by the streaming revolution. After some years of idly watching not much TV, I watched a ton of streaming shows this year, on platforms which are no doubt cleaning up. I love The Mandalorian, and went back and watched all the other Star Wars-related content, with a particular liking for Rebels. Also enjoyed Daredevil. The Boys.  Lots of fun stuff.  My favorite, though, would have to be Queen's Gambit. I swore that it would not make me take up chess (again), but ... 

MOVIES: What movies?

MUSIC:  Since after March I was not commuting to work every day, I wasn't listening to Sirius XMU, my main source for encountering new music. I did find some good things by Soccer Mommy ("Circle the Drain"), Phoebe Bridger ("Kyoto"), Arlo Parks ("Black Dog"). Of cover songs, "How Will I know" by the Lemonheads. But my #1 jam was the album "St. Cloud" by Waxahatchee (Katie Crutchfield), which was my pandemic theme record.  Superb mix of Americana sounds and indie sensibility. Listen to "Fire."

Also I have to mention the column by Tom Breihan at Stereogum, The Number Ones, wherein he discusses every #1 Billboard Hot 100 hit, from 1958 onward.  (He's up to 1986 currently.) Some of the best music writing around, even when he's talking about songs I don't care for. 

Also a fruit of the pandemic is my own rejuvenated interest in playing.  I picked up the guitar again back in March, shook off the rust, and ... we'll see. 

BOOKS: Drawing kind of a blank here with fiction. Mostly I read old favorites (comfort books).  Of non-fiction, aside from things I read for work, I enjoyed Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow by David L. Chappell (2004); very enlightening and a great piece of historical writing, especially pertinent now. Not at all along the same lines was Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess, a helpful pseudepigraphon. 

SPORTS: What sports? There were (and are) games, but games without live fans are depotentiated. We'll see what happens in 2021.

POLITICS: Who says 2020 was all bad? The election results are something to cheer, and the current bag of bile occupying the Oval Office will be turned out next month. 

OK, folks, that's it for another year. Let's drink to unforgettable 2020 and greet the new year with hope and a hangover.  

Mike Pence and the Spider

 After the vice-presidential debate with Mike Pence and Kamala Harris, all anyone could talk about was the fly that landed on Pence's head.  Arguably of more consequence is Mike Pence's spider.  The following occurs in Bob Woodward's Rage:

"Pence recounted [to Dan Coats] the Old Testament story of David, who was hiding from King Saul in a cave when God sent a spider to weave a web across the cave opening.  On seeing the web, Saul did not enter the cave.  The spider had concealed David's presence and saved his life. The story showed that even a spider might be an instrument of great salvation in the hand of God. 

   "Marsha Coats [Dan's wife], whose grandparents were ministers, had never heard a sermon as serious and deep. The story raised obvious questions. Could a spider, normally a cause for fear, bring salvation?"

I don't know if this story influenced Pence or Dan Coats to support Trump; Woodward does not say so. But the important thing to note is that this story is not in the Bible at all.  It is found in the late Jewish midrash the Alphabet of Ben Sira:

וכשנחבא במערה מפני שאול המלך שלח הקב״ה עכביש וארגה על פי המערה וסגרה אותו, בא שאול וראה ארוג אמר בודאי לא נכנס אדם הנה שאם נכנס היה קורע הארוג לקרעים והלך ולא נכנס לשם, וכשיצא דוד וראה העכביש נשקה ואמר לה ברוך בוראיך וברוכה את

When David hid in a cave from King Saul, the Holy One, blessed be he, sent a spider, and she wove a web at the mouth of the cave and closed it. Saul came and saw a web, and said, "Certainly no man has entered here, for if he had, he would have torn the web to pieces." So he left and did not enter. And when David came out, he saw the spider and kissed her and said, "Blessed is thy creator and blessed art thou!"

My experience has been that, in general, Catholics, growing up, do not acquire the same degree of biblical literacy as Protestant evangelicals.  Not a criticism, just an observable fact.  So it is completely possible that Pence believed this story was found in the Bible.  I am surprised that Wheaton grad Dan Coats bought this as a biblical citation, though (if he did).  And beyond all this, I am wondering where Pence heard this story.  Does it have some currency among conservative Christians?  Inquiring minds want to know.

By the way, the same story is told in Islamic legend of the prophet Mohammed.  Good stories have a way of getting around.

This post is dedicated to the memory of the late Fr. Bill Gartig, Ph.D., on what would have been his 68th birthday. 

How is the Fourth Beast in Dan 7:7 "different"?

In Daniel 7, the seer has a vision of four beasts who arise from the sea to trouble the earth (we later find out that these beasts stand for four kingdoms or empires that will arise). He describes each beast, with the remark that they were "each different from the other" (שָׁנְיָן דָּא מִן־דָּא).  The first three beasts resembled, in order, a lion, a bear, and a leopard. The fourth beast is not given an animal name, but is said to be "different from all the beasts that preceded it" (7:7, NRSV; מְשַׁנְּיָה מִן־כָּל־חֵיוָתָא דִּי קָדָמַיהּ). The other translations are similar to the NRSV, as are the ancient versions (LXX, Peshitta, Vulgate). However, what is the point of saying that the fourth beast was different from all the other beasts, when in v. 3 it had already been stated (and shown) that all the beasts were different from each other?

The answer lies, perhaps, in the different verb stems used. In v. 3, the Pe'al (G stem) is used statively, in the meaning "be different" (in other contexts it can denote a change of state, "change, become different").  In v. 7, the Pa'el (D stem) passive participle is used.  The D stem's function with this verb is factitive, that is, it brings about the state denoted by the G stem — in a word, it makes it transitive, "change something, make something different." The passive participle would mean, at face value, "changed, made different."  So does it mean "the fourth beast was changed/made different"? Not exactly, but we're getting there.

Many times, when the root שׁני is used, there is a nuance present beyond just "change," in that the change is often for the worse.  In Dan 5:9, when the king is troubled, his "countenance changed upon him" — that is, he turned pale, or his features were twisted by fear, or the like. In other dialects, some of the translation values it has are fade, be dislocated, depart, go insane, deteriorate. (See the entry in the ComprehensiveAramaic Lexicon.) In the Qumran Enoch text, the sinful angels are told "you perverted/corrupted your activity" (שניתן עבדכן).

Now the meaning of Dan 7:7 comes into focus. The fourth beast is not just "different" or even "changed"; it is distorted, or perverted, an even more monstrous creature than they are.  The comparative grade should be used with the translation, in keeping with the use of the particle min with adjectives or participles of this kind: "it was more monstrous than [or perhaps: stranger than] the beasts that preceded it": a fitting description of a creature with iron teeth and ten horns!

 BIBLIOGRAPHY: Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon, s. v. šny. 

A. E. Cowley, Anti-Semite

A. E. Cowley was a major Semitics scholar of the early twentieth century, and the head of the Bodleian library from 1919-1931.  His Wikipedia page is here. 

Despite his still-important activity in the realm of Hebraica, you can encounter some nasty anti-Semitism in the introduction to his Aramaic Papyri of the 5th century BC (1923). Speaking of the Jewish colony on Elephantine, he says

 "they aroused anti-Jewish feeling, and suffered violence which they ascribed, as always and probably with as little reason then as now, to hatred of their religion. ... [M]uch is also to be ascribed to natural suspicion of a community with customs differing from those of its neighbours, holding aloof from the common pursuits of its fellow-citizens, and showing contempt or hostility to everything outside itself."

 Oof. Thus he explains the destruction of the YHW temple by the adherents of the god Khnub in 417 BCE.  This description traffics in a number of well-known anti-Semitic tropes that would bear evil fruit less than two decades later in Nazi Germany. 

This is the same Cowley who translated the Gesenius-Kautzsch Hebrew grammar, still in use today (GKC = Gesenius Kautzsch Cowley).  He is still cited, without comment, and his despicable views forgotten. 

Father's Day 2020

Posted on Facebook June 20

My father died in 1985, at a younger age than I am now. He was a real "greatest generation" guy, an Air Force vet, a pilot, a weatherman, a smoker and a drinker. My life choices were a constant source of puzzlement to him, although he dutifully financed them (usually). He was an enthusiastic golfer, an activity inherited and enhanced by my brother Chuck Cook, and although I've never taken up the sport, by sheer osmosis I've acquired more knowledge about it than I can use.

For some reason, when I was around 10 or 11, my father would take me periodically to the golf course and pay me a nickel a hole (rounded up to $1.00 for 18 holes) to "caddy" for him — that is, to drag the wheeled tripod holding his bag while he played, by himself. I have no idea why he did this; maybe my mother made him, to spend time with his younger son; or maybe he was hoping (against hope) that I would acquire an interest he could relate to. I didn't, and I was pretty bored by this activity, but a dollar was major coin for a 5th grader in the early sixties. Whenever he asked, I went.

Those caddying days make an oddly vivid memory, and I can still close my eyes and see him under the summer sun, striding ahead of me, holding a club for the next shot, while I toiled behind with the bag. Happy Father's Day, major, wherever you are.

Statement regarding Prof. Jan Joosten

FIrst posted on Facebook, June 23, 2020.

I am appalled and saddened by the recent news about Prof. Jan Joosten and his arrest as a collector of child pornography. Our compassion should be extended, first, to the innocent children exploited to make this filth. I also feel that Jan should be pitied as someone who fell into an addiction which, I do not doubt, he earnestly wants to be liberated from. In his own way, he too has been exploited by the pornographers. Our rage should be expended mainly on the producers and criminals who produce this garbage, and those who profit from it.

The wrong response to Jan's misdeeds – which he will and should pay a steep price for – is to ban, censor, and eliminate Jan's scholarly work. His work as one of the finest Hebraists of our time stands on its own, and is indispensable. I don't see how his crimes are relevant to an assessment of his work, nor do I see, going forward, how we are to manage as a guild if we have to inspect everyone's rap sheet and download history before we engage with their work.

Indeed, I am surprised (sort of) that the academy, so constantly on guard against any hint of encroachment on First Amendment rights, is eager to erase the outstanding work of one of their own for his deplorable consumption of heinous pornography – and yet would never countenance any movement or legislation to remove the scourge of pornography from the Internet. In fact, such a suggestion would no doubt be met with howls of rage from those now calling for Jan's head.

I for one will pray for the children (I am a father and a grandfather), and for Jan and his family. For the pornographers, I wish nothing but ill. As for Jan's scholarly work, I will continue to use it, cite it, and honor it for its excellence.

Comments welcome. Trolls will be deleted.