Tobit Fragment Published

I've just seen the following article:

Hallermayer, Michaela and Torleif Elgvin, "Schøyen ms. 5234: Ein neues Tobit-fragment Vom Toten Meer," Revue de Qumran 22/3 (2006) 451-461.

This is the first official publication of the fragment that I blogged about here. (That post is referenced, by the way, on p. 452 n.3.)

Congratulations to Hallermayer & Elgvin for a fine treatment of the fragment.

The "Jesus Tomb" Ossuary

I'm not happy with my initial response, so I've removed it. If I come up with something else, I'll post it in this space.

UPDATE (3/3): Here it is.

A Spurious Addition to Targum Pseudo-Jonathan?

I notice that it is common to quote the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan to Genesis 4:1 as Mahlon Smith does at his website, where we find this translation:

And Adam knew that his wife Eve had conceived
from Sammael the angel (of death)
and she became pregnant and bore Cain.
And he was like those on high and not like those below.
And she said: "I have got a man from the angel of the LORD."

My problem with this translation is that the words in italics above are not found in any text of Pseudo-Jonathan. The only surviving manuscript of Pseudo-Jonathan (PsJ), in the British Museum, reads, according to the publication of it by Clarke, "And Adam knew that Eve his wife was pregnant from Sammael, angel of the Lord." The standard printed text (editio princeps) as published in the rabbinic bible reads: "And Adam knew Eve his wife, that she had desired the angel; and she conceived and bore Cain, and she said, I have acquired a man, the angel of the Lord."

Obviously the version with the addition is closer to the editio princeps than to the London MS, but neither text (and they are the only witnesses to the text of PsJ) has the addition. Nevertheless, the belief that the words really are in PsJ is widespread. James Kugel quotes the latter part of PsJ's version as "He resembled the upper ones [angels] and not the lower ones, and she [therefore] said, I have acquired a man, indeed, an angel of the Lord" (The Bible as it Was, p. 86). Birger Pearson, in an essay in The Rediscovery of Gnosticism (1981) quotes the same version (p. 479). And Phillip Davies, in the Blackwell Reader in Judaism (2001), does the same (p. 40). These are all reputable scholars.

As far as I can tell, there is no evidence that any version of PsJ (or any other targum) contains these words. However, another text that has some affinities to PsJ, the Hebrew Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer, in relating the story of Cain's conception, says "she saw his likeness that it was not of the earthly beings, but of the heavenly beings." Is that where these words come from? Or is there a version of the text of PsJ that I'm not aware of?

I'm frankly stumped as to the source of this spurious text of the targum. Do any of my readers have any insight?

UPDATE (3/2): Many thanks to those who have left comments below. Andy, can you point me towards a source for that quote?

Incredulous Laugh of the Day

Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts-Schori is quoted in USA Today today, with reference to breakaway congregations trying to hold on to their property:

The church’s laws are broad but they are there, and beyond these lines you cannot go. Crossing boundaries has consequences.

My measured response to this is: You have got to be kidding me. You're willing to jettison the creeds, Scripture, and a 2,000-year-old tradition of Christian ethics, but you start getting strict with regard to property ownership? Lady, do you have any sense of irony at all?

God help The Episcopal Church. I mean that quite literally.

(For casual readers; I'm a member of said church, so I'm allowed to say stuff like that.)

"She obliterated me as an apologist": Lewis and the Anscombe Legend

Last week when I was laid up with a stomach virus, I had the opportunity to read a large part of C. S. Lewis's Collected Letters, Vol. 3, which has just been published. Letters do not contain all that is relevant for understanding a man's life, but they are datable, first-person documents and therefore are primary in a way that biographies (or even autobiographies) are not.

This particular volume sheds a bit of light on what has come to be called "the Anscombe legend." On Feb. 2, 1948, Lewis and the philosopher G. E. M. (Elizabeth) Anscombe engaged in a disputation at the Oxford Socratic Club, of which Lewis was president. The subject was Lewis's argument that naturalism (the view that the natural world is all that exists) is self-refuting, since "no thought is valid if it can be fully explained as the result of irrational causes" (Lewis, Miracles, ch. 3). Anscombe argued that he failed to distinguish two senses of the word "because," which can be used to denote not only a cause-effect relation, but also a ground-consequent relation. An argument could be valid, because (Ground-Consequent) its propositions entail each other, even if the propositions are generated (Cause-Effect) by irrational factors. Lewis eventually agreed that his argument was inadequate at this point and needed revision.

Those facts are not in dispute, but the consequences of them in Lewis's life have been debated. It was reported by some of Lewis's friends that he was greatly shaken by his defeat, as he saw it, and eventually turned away from formal apologetics altogether, devoting himself instead to other kinds of writing, such as the Chronicles of Narnia. This view was first put forth, I believe, by Humphrey Carpenter in his book The Inklings.

Certainly after it was all over Lewis himself was in very low spirits.... [Derek] Brewer write in his diary: "None of us was at first very cheerful. Lewis was obviously deeply disturbed by his encounter last Monday with Miss Anscombe ..." ... Brewer added that Lewis's imagery when talking about the debate "was all of the fog of war, the retreat of infantry thrown back under heavy attack."
Lewis had learnt his lesson... (Carpenter, Pt. 4, ch. 1)

However, a reaction has set in against this view of Lewis's response. The "Anscombe legend," as Victor Reppert calls it, is, according to some, purely mythical. Lewis was not in fact devastated by the Anscombe argument, although he agreed that his argument needed revision. (This is the view taken by Anscombe herself.) The fact that he wrote no further book-length works of apologetics can be explained by other factors besides a putative loss of nerve in the wake of a shattering defeat. This view is most notably championed by Victor Reppert and John Beversluis.

However, the evidence of the new letters, such as it is, is more supportive of the first view. Most important is the letter to Stella Aldwinckle, secretary of the Socratic Club, of June 12, 1950. Lewis was proposing speakers for the new term, and he suggested that "Miss Anscombe" speak on "Why I believe in God." His comment was this:

The lady is quite right to refute what she thinks bad theistic arguments, but does this not almost oblige her as a Christian to find good ones in their place: having obliterated me as an Apologist ought she not to succeed me? (Letters 3:35; emphasis mine.)

One may question whether there is more irony than bitterness in this comment; nevertheless, it shows that Lewis was felt, either by himself or others, to have sustained a crippling blow.

The same feeling is evident in a letter to Robert C. Walton of the BBC on July 10, 1951:

... like the old fangless snake in The Jungle Book, I've largely lost my dialectical power. (Letters 3:129)

Another key piece is the letter of Sept. 28, 1955, to Carl F. H. Henry, who asked him to write some apologetic articles for Christianity Today:

I wish your project heartily well but can't write you articles. My thought and talent (such as they are) now flow in different, though I think not less Christian, channels, and I do not think I am at all likely to write more directly theological pieces. . . . If I am now good for anything it is for catching the reader unawares — thro' fiction and symbol. I have done what I could in the way of frontal attacks, but I now feel quite sure those days are over. (Letters 3:651; emphasis Lewis.)

All of this suggests that Lewis really felt a change in himself in the wake of the Anscombe disputation. Nevertheless, he did from time to time return, in a small way, to apologetics, most notably in revising Chapter 3 of Miracles in line with Anscombe's critique for a 1960 reprint, as well as a variety of smaller pieces.

Of course, it should also be noted that Lewis's feelings and Lewis's arguments must be assessed separately. The fact is that his argument about naturalism was not obliterated by Anscombe, and in fact has enjoyed a revival, most notably in Alvin Plantinga's Warrant and Proper Function. Many of Lewis's enemies (for instance A. N. Wilson) attempt to employ Lewis's own retreat from apologetics as an ad hominem attack on the totality of his work, without engaging the particularities of the argument, or of Lewis's revision of it in the 1960 Miracles.

Personally, I prefer to see the hand of Providence in Lewis's turn from formal apologetics. If he hadn't turned to "fiction and symbol," would we have the Chronicles of Narnia, Till We Have Faces, The Four Loves; or the great critical works, such as The Discarded Image or Studies in Words? Omnia cooperantur in bonum.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: The "argument from reason": Victor Reppert, C. S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea: In Defense of the Argument from Reason; Alvin Plantinga, Warrant and Proper Function, 1993; Richard Taylor, Metaphysics, ch. 10 (1974). See Reppert's blog for other references, both pre- and post-Lewis.

UPDATE: For Jim Davila and others who have inquired: Anscombe's paper can be found in her collection Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Mind (1981; vol. 2 of her Collected Papers), which also contains her own memories of the disputation; Lewis's initial response and the minutes of the Socratic Club meeting are reprinted in the collection God in the Dock, pp 144-146 (UK title: Undeceptions).

Papa Ooh Mouw Mouw

Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Seminary, has a blog. Dr. Mouw entered the Fuller scene after I graduated, but I've followed his Presidency with admiration. His books are worth reading; his academic field is philosophy, but he writes well for a general audience. I particularly recommend Uncommon Decency.

The blog looks like it will be interesting, if he can keep it up. Welcome to the 'sphere, Doc!

How conservative am I?

How conservative am I? More conservative than Colin Powell, but not as conservative as George Bush père, according to this test. (HT: Althouse.)

My score: 22. Actually, just about right in the middle, which is what I've always claimed.

Department of Redundancy Department

From a story on Ben Roethlisberger's bad year as Pittsburgh quarterback:

''It was tough, frustrating,'' Roethlisberger said. ''At least you know it will be awfully hard for next year to be any worse next year.''

Third Annual Ralphies (3): Books

BEST NON-FICTION BOOK (Scholarly): Again, I didn't read anything published this year. The closest I came was in reading Joe Fitzmyer's 3rd edition of his commentary on the Genesis Apocryphon (2004; good) and Klaus Beyer's revised volume 2 of Die Aramäische Texte vom Toten Meer (2004; ditto). But the Ralphie goes to Alan Millard's Reading and Writing in the Time of Jesus (2000), an excellent survey, and subtly subversive of a number of scholarly shibboleths.

BEST FICTION: I read and enjoyed King Dork (2006) by Frank Portman, but the best novel I read all year was one I read the same week in May: The End of the Affair, by Graham Greene. Very moving.

BEST GRAPHIC FICTION: So many to choose from. Marvel's Civil War series is great, if published at a glacial pace; also great is the current story arc of Ultimate Fantastic Four written by Mark Carey. I also have to mention the must-read Hatter M; my nephew Greg Cook works on that book as "Cartographic Chronicler and Historian." The Ralphie, however, goes to Brian K. Vaughan's Y: The Last Man. No, it's not a male fantasy; it's an exciting quest tale that illuminates, and deconstructs, a number of assumptions (both male and female) about what the world would look like if all the men died (except one). Vaughan has recently been hired as a writer for ABC's drama Lost.

That's it for this year, folks!

Happy Birthday, O pale Galilean

Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath

—A. C. Swinburne, Hymn to Proserpine

The skeptical Swinburne, under the guise of a pagan critique of Christianity, really was writing against, I suppose, the dull pieties of Victorian Anglicanism, but his attitude crops up quite a bit still. The grey world? yet as I look out my window, the neighborhood is a blaze of brightly colored lights, glistening decorations, and crazy plastic figurines. These things are only the echoes or the outskirts of genuine religion; but could a life-denying faith really engender such a merry display?

The other day in the New York Times, an unrepentantly Jewish writer talked about how she and her husband celebrated Christmas for the first time:

I love that as soon as I told a Catholic friend what I was up to, she invited me to a gingerbread-house decorating party. How fun is that? And why wasn’t I invited before? What does a gingerbread house have to do with Jesus?
...
Some nights, I put on our Starbucks Christmas CD, light a fire, turn on the tree and play with the different settings, put liquid smoke in the train’s smokestack and turn on the choo-choo sound effects and then I sit back and enjoy my first Christmas, in all its kitschy splendor. I feel a little guilty when I look at our lone menorah on the mantel (the only evidence of my faith other than my guilt), but I ask you: how can this much pleasure be wrong?

It reminded me for some reason of a passage from Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran, when one of her students told of the religious instruction in the university after the Islamic Revolution:

On one side [the teacher] had written, in large white letters, MUSLIM GIRL, and drawn a vertical line in the middle of the board. On the other side, in large pink letters, he wrote CHRISTIAN GIRL. He had then asked the class if they knew the differences between the two. One was a virgin, he said at last, after an uncomfortable silence, white and pure, keeping herself for her husband and her husband only. Her power came from her modesty. The other, well, there was not much one could say about her except that she was not a virgin. To Yassi's surprise, the two girls behind her, both active members of the Muslim Students' Association, had started to giggle, whispering, No wonder more and more Muslims are converting to Christianity.

I know that neither woman's experience is religious, or has anything to do with "authentic" Christianity; but it has everything to do with the world that Christianity made. After 2000 years, there are still plenty of people out there, on the outside looking in, who have the impression that such a world, with its colored lights and gingerbread, has something to do with pleasure and liberation. The pale Galilean, who was criticized for enjoying food and drink too much (Luke 7:34), might, after all, have had something to do with that.

Happy birthday, Lord. And many more.

Third Annual Ralphies (2): Film

BEST MOVIE: Boy, what a lousy year for movies, just as we knew it would be. I enjoyed Nacho Libre and Pirates of the Caribbean 2, but they're not really Film of the Year material. The one movie I was anxious to see, For Your Consideration, turned out to be a disappointment. So, I hate to get all haughty and everything, but I just can't award a Ralphie this year for Best Movie. However, I can start a new category:

WORST MOVIE: Lots of competition here. But I'd have to give it to Strangers with Candy, which is not only the worst movie I've seen this year, but possibly the worst movie I've ever seen. Like, in my life. I started checking my watch to see how much torture I had to endure after five minutes. It's even worse than the second worst movie ever, which I also happened to watch this year on DVD: Broken Flowers.

BEST TV SHOW: I've built my schedule around two shows this year, Lost (still great) and Heroes (also terrific). But the Ralphie goes to The Office. It's the only show I watch with Amy, whose taste otherwise runs towards earnest PBS documentaries. So, huge kudos to Carell & Co. just for luring my wife to network television.

Atheists vs. Liberals

Heave an egg outside a Pullman window anywhere in the United States today, and you will probably hit an atheist. In fact, I hope you do. There is a new prominence of what I term, drawing on my theological training, Mean Atheism. I refer to such writers as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, who are taking the old Village Atheist tradition to the ... well, to the global village. Yeah, that's it: the Global Village Atheists.

For orthodox Christians, it's all rather tiring. Didn't we just get done arguing down The DaVinci Code and guaranteeing that the movie would be the lamest and least successful Tom Hanks vehicle since Bonfire of the Vanities? We buried that sucka! Yeah! But now *sigh* there's a new shipment of nitwits that are just begging for the old double-barrel rational refutation treatment. It's exhausting. Can't we get a break?

You know what I say? I say, Let the liberals handle it this time. We orthodox folks are going to take some time off, and we'd really like some of the usual left-wing religious suspects to take this on for us. How about Katherine Jefferts-Schori, new Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church? How about it, Kathy, you up for a fight? Why don't you take on Sam Harris? How about you, John Shelby Spong? Marcus Borg? Elaine Pagels? Dom Crossan, why don't you get in the ring with Richard Dawkins? Or John Hick: yes, you. Right now, start refuting. You do think there's something to all this existence of God business, don't you? Well, do us all a favor and crush some of these guys, or at least soften 'em up until the rest of us get back from Christmas vacation? Huh? Whaddya say?

No response? I thought so. Wimps.

Third Annual Ralphies (1): Music

I've decided to do the Ralphies in a series this year, in order to prolong the agony (yours, not mine). Today's Ralphies are for music.

SONG OF THE YEAR: A lot of good songs this year. Who doesn't love "Crazy"? And even if you hated it, you couldn't escape it. Also "Teach Me Sweetheart" by the Fiery Furnaces was probably one of the best this wonderful group has ever done. But the award goes to .... "Code Monkey" by Jonathan Coulton. Irresistible.

ALBUM OF THE YEAR: Bitter Tea by the Fiery Furnaces. So good my mind is still boggled by it.

BEST BOB DYLAN ALBUM OF THE YEAR: Snake Farm, by Ray Wylie Hubbard. Honorable mention: Modern TImes, by Bob Dylan (OK to listen to, but the lyrics and music are pretty lazy and derivative).

Ralph Turns Two

"Ralph" is 2 years old today. It's been a quiet year, but 2006 did see the single biggest day in RTSR history, in terms of hits, links, and chat-room chatter, caused by this post. It also saw Bloglines subscriptions reach an all-time high of 66 (and then begin falling; current number is 61).

Beginning tomorrow: Year 3 A. R.

I've been busy.

Sorry for the non-blogging. Since I've had a full-time non-academic job this year, most of the available writing time that I've had (not much) has been devoted to other compositions:

• a Dictionary of Qumran Aramaic; so far the draft reaches from aleph to het;
• a review of Ursula Schattner-Rieser's L'araméen des manuscrits de la mer Morte for Journal for the Study of Judaism, now published;
• an article for Aramaic Studies, "The 'Kaufman Effect' in the Pseudo-Jonathan Targum," now in page proofs, to be published in volume 4/2;
• a 2000-word entry for the Dictionary of Early Judaism on "Aramaic, Jewish use of in the Second Temple Period"; I spent Thanksgiving vacation finishing that one.

So ... see? I've been writing, not blogging. It's amazing how much you can get done when you don't blog. I do miss it, though, and hopefully the coming year I can blog a bit more.

Armistice Day

From Paul Fussell's The Great War and Modern Memory (1975):

There is one unforgettable vignette which if true is fine, and which if apocryphal is even better. It is Herbert Essame's memory of the German machine-gunner signaling the closing of a long run on November 11, 1918: "On the Fourth Army front, at two minutes to eleven, a machine gun, about 200 yards from the leading British troops, fired off a complete belt without a pause. A single machine-gunner was then seen to stand up beside his weapon, take off his helmet, bow, and turning about walk slowly to the rear."

Bright Fountain

Today is the feast day in the Anglican Communion of Richard Hooker, priest, author of On the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. Hooker's remarkable book is still influential in the Communion among both liberals and conservatives, and his extraordinary prose style — the finest, in my opinion, of the Elizabethan period — reminds us that he was a contemporary of Shakespeare. There were giants in the earth in those days.

Here is an excerpt, in which Hooker argues (against the Puritans) for the value of secular learning:

There is in the world no kind of knowledge whereby any part of truth is seen, but we justly account it precious, yea, that principal truth, in comparison whereof all other knowledge is vile, may receive from it some kind of light. Whether it be that Egyptian and Chaldean wisdom mathematical, wherewith Moses and Daniel were furnished; or that natural, moral, and civil wisdom, wherewith Solomon excelled all men, or that rational and oratorial wisdom of the Grecians, which the Apostle St. Paul brought from Tarsus, or that Judaical, which he learned at Jerusalem sitting at the feet of Gamaliel, to detract from the dignity thereof were to injury even God himself, who, being that light which none can approach unto, hath sent out these lights whereof we are capable, even as so many sparkles resembling the bright fountain from which they rise.

"To injury," by the way, is not a misprint; just a sign of how the language has changed since 1589.

Some Hebrew Phrases in the Qumran Texts

I've just recently run across an article by Phillip Davies, "Death, Resurrection and Life after Death in the Qumran Scrolls" (in Judaism in Late Antiquity, Vol. IV, Leiden, 2000). Davies is always worth reading, even when one disagrees with him.

However, this notice is just to gratefully acknowledge that, on. p. 197, Davies refers to my translation of raz nihyeh in the Dead Sea Scrolls, i.e., "The Secret of the Way Things Are," as "perhaps the most felicitous" of modern attempts to render the phrase in English. While we were revising our various sections for the second edition, I gave serious thought to doing away with "the secret of the way things are," but in the end I decided not to change it (although I did revise the work given that title, and divided it up differently).

Not everyone has been positive about our original renderings. Other phrases that I gave another long, hard look at are "Leader of the Nation" for nesi ha-edah (conventionally translated "Prince of the Congregation") and "Flattery-Seekers" for dorshe halaqot (usually "seekers after smooth things"). Both of these came from a dissatisfaction with the conventional renderings, and in the end, they were retained in the revised edition.

Nesi ha-edah, a messianic designation, is based on a biblical phrase (in Num. 31:13, Josh. 9:15, etc.) that older translators rendered as "princes of the congregation," but which more modern ones give as "leaders of the community/assembly." "Prince" is not a happy equivalent for nasi, and, at Qumran at least, edah in general designates the whole of Israel (and not just the sectarians). Therefore > "Leader of the Nation."

My problem with "seekers after smooth things" is that in modern English the phrase conveys no clear meaning. However, Hebrew halaqot is often used in the bible to denote "flatteries" or perhaps "pleasant untruths" (a key background text for this is Isa. 30:10); hence, "flattery seekers," a derogatory reference to an opposing sect, probably the Pharisees. It might be that halaqot was chosen as a dig at the opponent's love of halakhot (legal rulings), but this is not proven, since the latter word is not attested in the Hebrew of this period.

James Barr

James Barr died on October 14, according to a report on the Agade list. Barr was the author of many important works in biblical studies, most notably The Semantics of Biblical Language (1961), Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament (1968), Fundamentalism (1978), History and Ideology in the Old Testament (2000), and others too numerous to mention. All of them are marked by keen intelligence, vigor of thought, and a clear prose style.

I had lunch with Barr once, years ago, at the UCLA faculty club, with Stanislav Segert and Vinton Dearing. I don't remember what was talked of, though I am sure that, callow grad student that I was, my own tongue remained tied throughout the course of the meal. I do remember that Dearing asked me some question about translation technique, which I dodged by passing the buck to Barr. Of the four of us who ate together that day, I am the only one still living.

After lunch Barr spoke to Segert's graduate seminar on Genesis 2-3. His thoughts on this subject were later to be published as The Garden of Eden and the Hope of Immortality (1993). His own immortality in the field of biblical studies is guaranteed, and it is to be hoped that the new generation of students will not neglect his writings either as a source or as a model.

More Dylan Thefts

Henry Timrod made some news a couple of weeks ago by getting some of his lines quoted, or re-used, by Bob Dylan in his new album Modern Times. Timrod was a Confederate poet whose works are now in the public domain. Apparently Bob consciously or unconsciously snipped a few florid Victorian phrases and dropped them into some of the old-timey songs on his record. I don't think there's anything really wrong with that; it's not like he took whole passages and used them wholesale.

And yet Dylan, in his memoir Chronicles, comes pretty close to doing exactly that with other authors. Look carefully at this short passage:

Walking back to the main house, I caught a glimpse of the sea through the leafy boughs of the pines. I wasn't near it, but could feel the power beneath its colors. (Chronicles, p. 162)

Compare that to this longer passage from Marcel Proust's Within a Budding Grove, especially the passages in italics:

But when, Mme. de Ville-parisis’s carriage having reached high ground, I caught a glimpse of the sea through the leafy boughs of trees, then no doubt at such a distance those temporal details which had set the sea, as it were, apart from nature and history disappeared ... But on the other hand I was no longer near enough to the sea which seemed to me not a living thing now, but fixed; I no longer felt any power beneath its colours, spread like those of a picture among the leaves, through which it appeared as inconsistent as the sky and only of an intenser blue.

I don't think there can be any doubt that Bob had to have consciously taken these sentences and, with some revision, passed them off as his own.

Another example is from a book that I imagine Dylan knows well, Huckleberry Finn:

Every night we passed towns, some of them away up on black hillsides, nothing but just a shiny bed of lights; not a house could you see. ... There warn't a sound there; everybody was asleep.

And now look at Chronicles, p. 165:

One night when everyone was asleep and I was sitting at the kitchen table, nothing on the hillside but a shiny bed of lights ...

My last exhibit (a less exact quote) comes from a book called Really the Blues (1946) by Mezz Mezzrow and Bernard Wolfe, in which a hipster introduces "his chick" to Mezzrow:

Baby this that powerful man with that good grass that'll make you tip through the highways and byways like a Maltese kitten. Mezz, this is my new dinner and she's a solid viper.

And now, part of Dylan's description of his friend Ray's girl, Chloe Kiel:

She was cool as pie, hip from head to toe, a Maltese kitten, a solid viper — always hit the nail on the head. I don't know how much weed she smoked, but a lot. (Chronicles, p. 102)

And later in Really the Blues, a black man was "sitting there actually talking to a white woman cool as pie."

Now what are we to think of these "borrowings"? I know that borrowing and revising tunes and song lyrics is standard practice in folk and blues music, and Dylan has done plenty of that, quite openly, as have others. That doesn't bother me. But in a sustained piece of prose that is not meant to be sung or played, but taken as the author's own composition, it is not standard practice. In the instances given above, I think Bob comes pretty close to real plagiarism, and for all I know there are more instances in Chronicles yet to be identified. Frankly, as a Dylan fan from way back, I'm a little disappointed. Say it ain't so, Bob.

UPDATE: A couple more.

Jack London, Children of the Frost:

"Rum meeting place, though," he added, casting an embracing glance over the primordial landscape ...

Chronicles, p. 167: I cast an embracing glance over the primordial landscape ...

Jack London, Tales of the Klondyke:

Another tremendous section of the glacier rumbled earthward. The wind whipped in at the open doorway ...

Chronicles, p. 217: Wind whipped in the open doorway and another kicking storm was rumbling earthward.

UPDATE II: Yet more:

Sax Rohmer, Dope (1919), A tiny spaniel lay beside the fire, his beady black eyes following the nervous movements of the master of the house.

Chronicles, p. 167: A tiny spaniel lay at the guy's feet, the dog's beady black eyes following the nervous movements of his master.

London, Children of the Frost: And then they are amazingly simple. No complexity about them, no thousand and one subtle ramifications to every single emotion they experience. They love, fear, hate, are angered, or made happy, in common, ordinary, and unmistakable terms.

Chronicles, p. 169: Yet to me, it's amazingly simple, no complications, everything pans out. As long as the things you see don't go by in a blur of light and shade, you're okay. Love, fear, hate, happiness all in unmistakable terms, a thousand and one subtle ramifications.

UPDATE III (Oct. 2): Jack London, Tales of the Klondyke: Through this the afternoon sun broke feebly, throwing a vague radiance to earth, and unreal shadows.

Chronicles, p. 112: The afternoon sun was breaking, throwing a vague radiance to the earth.

Jack London, White Fang: He carried himself with pride, as though, forsooth, he had achieved a deed praiseworthy and meritorious.

Chronicles, p. 63: He didn't need to say much—you knew he had been through a lot, achieved some great deed, praiseworthy and meritorious, yet unspoken about it.

R. L. Stevenson, Providence and the Guitar: As Leon looked at her, in her low-bodied maroon dress, with her arms bare to the shoulder, and a red flower set provocatively in her corset, he repeated to himself for the many hundredth time that she was one of the loveliest creatures in the world of women.

Chronicles, p. 127: I bought a red flower for my wife, one of the loveliest creatures in the world of women.