What Should We Talk About?

There's a biblioblogging session coming up in Philadelphia at the AAR-SBL meeting, as a session of the Computer Assisted Research Group. Two papers will be given, by Jim Davila and Rick Brennan. Then follows 80 minutes of panel discussion by 5 (or is it 6?) panel members, of which I am one.

What should we talk about?

We'll introduce ourselves, I imagine, and say a few words about our blogs. We will no doubt say some things about what Rick and Jim have said. What else should we talk about? Open (source) studies? Blogging and the nature of public scholarly discourse? Peer review? Blogging and conformity? How to kill time while waiting for Blogger to upload your post? What's better, news or opinion or baby pictures? Why are there so few female bibliobloggers? What's the point of it all? Who's your favorite team?

One thing I hope we don't talk about is the term "biblioblogger." There the term is, and we're stuck with it. And I hope we don't discuss "what is a biblioblogger," or the forgery scandal, or minimalism, or the historical Jesus, or what our desks look like, or which character from the Simpsons we are, or such worthy-but-irrelevant topics.

If each of us talks for 5-10 minutes about ourselves, that'll kill a lot of time. That could be good or bad.

I don't know. Got any ideas? Suggestions welcome.

Fat Yanks

It's interesting to read in tandem the blogs of Mark Goodacre and Michael Pahl. Mark has moved from Birmingham, UK to Durham, NC, while Michael has moved from (somewhere in) Canada to Birmingham, UK. These passages particularly struck me. First from Michael:

Food portions are smaller, which partly explains why people are smaller. There's no 'Super-Size Me' here--a trip to Burger King at the Bullring gave us regular-size drinks that were equivalent to smalls in North America, and just enough fries instead of far too many. The American obesity epidemic is one cultural export which is 'largely' absent here (couldn't resist that!).

And from Mark:

After our first weekend living in America, I feel a little like Morgan Spurlock in Supersize Me, though I'm happy to say that our diet has been more interesting and varied than his in that film; I just find that I eat so much more here, and less of the right things, and need to find ways of curbing this.

Here's my question: Is this true just of fast-food restaurants in Europe, or in general? Or is it a UK thing? I spent a week in Holland and Belgium last year, and I don't recall ever noticing that the portions served were smaller. In fact, at the Vismarkt in Groningen, I got a serving of (excellent) fish n'chips so large that I couldn't finish it. But, while abroad, I never ate at any American-style fast food restaurants. (Interestingly, I noticed a lot more Burger Kings in Holland than "Maison McD.")

Here's a shot of moi in Groningen last year:

Weekend Reading

Hi, everybody. No, I'm fine, I've just got writer's blogk. In lieu of my own brilliance, here's a funny piece from the New Yorker. An excerpt:

“Today,” the Lord God said, “let’s do land.” And lo, there was land.

“Well, it’s really not just land,” noted Vishnu. “You’ve got mountains and valleys and—is that lava?”

“It’s not a single statement,” said the Lord God. “I want it to say, ‘Yes, this is land, but it’s not afraid to ooze.’ ”

“It’s really a backdrop, a sort of blank canvas,” put in Apollo. “It’s, like, minimalism, only with scale.”

“But—brown?” Buddha asked.

“Brown with infinite variations,” said the Lord God. “Taupe, ochre, burnt umber—they’re called earth tones.”

“I wasn’t criticizing,” said Buddha. “I was just noticing.”

Read it all.

NTCS Again Available

As Christian Brady noted in an earlier comment, the website for the Newsletter for Targum and Cognate Studies is now available once again, thanks to his efforts.

For those who are interested, my Psalms Targum translation is also once again available. Many thanks to Chris for hosting these pages on his personal site.

The Redolent Metaphor

Mark Liberman at Language Log discusses the expression "to stink in the nostrils" as a metaphor for hatred, revulsion, or disapproval. After two cups of coffee, he had still not tracked down an "authoritative model" for it.

Did this expression emerge into common use during the 17th century, and stay in the phrasal vocabulary of the English language to this day, without any authoritative model at all?

I was able to find at least one source before the 17th century: One of the Marprelate tracts (1589) ("for feare of smelling in the nostrels of her Maiestie & the State") and possibly a century earlier in the Book of the Knight of La Tour-Landry : compiled for the instruction of his daughters : translated from the original French into English in the reign of Henry VI, 1484:

• the synne of lechery stinkithe afore God and his aungeles
• the unlefull synne of lecherye, the whiche stinkithe and crompithe vnto heuene

—although there are no "nostrils" in that text.

But neither one of these texts is authoritative in the way that Liberman would like. I could have sworn that this expression was Biblical, but as Liberman shows, there is no exact model in the early English translations (although Hebrew be'ash, hib'ish "to stink, cause to stink" = to incur dislike, is well known).

Unless the metaphor is a natural evolution from Biblical models, I'm also stumped for an "authoritative model," unless the French original of the Book of the Knight points to a continental source. Is there any classical or medieval scholar out there who can trace this back into French or Latin literature?

In David's Palace

Back by popular demand: another excerpt from "David and Abishag." This one goes out to Dr. Joe Cathey, with best wishes for his continued good health.

The scene: Gur the harpist has an appointment in Jerusalem, in the palace of David.

No day dawned in Jerusalem without the the renewal of the sounds of hammers, saws, cranes, wheels, pulleys, and shouting workmen. Jerusalem, the ancestral citadel of the Yebusi kings, was being made over into the capital of the House of David.

Dominating the hill south of the old Yebusi tower was the royal palace, built in the Tyrian style with massive blocks of limestone, hugely piled, course upon course, with a few great square entrances. The severe, gigantesque impression of the exterior was softened, in some of the living quarters, by occasional facings and moldings carved out of cedar. Nevertheless the edifice as a whole still looked — and was, in parts — raw and unfinished.

Gur sighed as he entered the west entrance of the palace compound. The new palace (still "new" after 25 years) was undeniably imposing, but David and his minions had absolutely no sense of style. Those inner walls, now — could not some plaster be laid over the naked stone and some pictures and designs painted on them? Cedar was all very well, but even the few rooms that were completely paneled in wood seemed austere and dark. But that was the Phoenicians for you — swift, elegant little ships on the sea, but great clumsy buildings on land.

And David was not so very different from his Tyrian allies. Not that he, or any Israelite, would be caught dead in a ship: no, indeed. But David was no more a city dweller than they were — he was a soldier, and a farmer, and would rather live in a campaign tent, or at least a country villa, than in a house made of ashlars and cedar wood. His palace, and the other royal buildings going up in Jerusalem, owed more to David's image of what belonged to royalty than to his personal inclinations.

Even so, there was still something of the farmhouse about the palace of David — donkeys, sheep, and camels were often quartered in the lower rooms next to their keepers instead of in a stable; and sometimes horses were found tied to pillars in the entrance portico. Roosters were likely to walk out from behind a chair at any time, even in the throne room. The scent of manure mingled with the odor of cooking food and unwashed bodies.

However, a palace was a palace, and had advantages, thought Gur, as he sat in an anteroom and let a slave wash his feet. In Egypt the slave would have a bowl to dip his feet in, some sweet-smelling stuff to rub on them, and a cloth to dry them off. Here the slave just poured water from a jar over his feet and let the water run over the flagstones, then he handed Gur a fistful of hay to clean and dry them off himself. And instead of giving him house sandals, the slave clapped his road shoes together, making the dust fly, and then handed them back. Still, Gur thought, I'll take these cool stone walls and country servants over Yawab's camp tent with no walls at all any day.

He was then ushered into a dining room at the upper levels, one with a balcony facing west to catch the breeze, if there was one. The appointments were no more lavish than elsewhere, but here all was neat and clean, and the table was laid with wine, snow-cooled water, figs, dates, and pomegranates, while fresh fish roasted on a grill nearby. A harp and stool were set out ready for him.

Texas vs. Ohio State

Tonight is the Texas-Ohio State football game. I graduated from Texas, as did my father before me. My daughter is a senior at Ohio State.

Does this cause family tension? Absolutely not. We are not the kind of family to let petty sports events cause interpersonal problems. Also, Elizabeth just doesn't really care who wins.

But do I care who wins? My attitude can best be summed up by recalling that a Baptist church in Fayettevile, Arkansas, years ago, put up a message on its marquee prior to the annual Texas-Arkansas bloodletting: FOOTBALL IS ONLY A GAME. ONLY SPIRITUAL THINGS ARE ETERNAL. NEVERTHELESS, BEAT TEXAS.

Change that last sentiment to BEAT OHIO STATE and you've captured my viewpoint exactly. I am of the opinion that sporting events are entirely too important in today's society, and football in particular is too often violent and crass, encouraging inappropriate displays of partisan bitterness.

Nevertheless, Hook 'em, Horns! Whoo-hoo! Crush the Buckeyes!!

Looting and Proverbs 6:30

Here and there on the web, one may occasionally find a discussion of looting in New Orleans together with a citation of Proverbs 6:30: "Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy himself when he is hungry." The proverb nicely captures a widespread moral intuition (which I fully share) that "looting" by the hungry or thirsty is not morally culpable, or is less culpable than looting out of sheer greed.

There is, however, a minority report on this verse (in various commentaries) that takes it as a question: "Do not men despise a thief, even if he steals to satisfy himself when he is hungry?" I think this is an unlikely reading of the Hebrew, and no widely used English translations that I've seen have followed this understanding. Still, the fact that it has been made means that the majority report contains at least a modicum of interpretation. (Note also the LXX version: "It is not surprising if a thief is caught, when he steals," etc. The translator apparently departed altogether from the text in the beginning of the verse.)

Three other points about the verse: (1) It appears to be descriptive, not prescriptive. The writer is describing what in fact people do, not necessarily how they should behave. Otherwise he would have written al tavuzu, "do not despise," instead of lo yavuzu, "they do not despise." (2) The real point of the paragraph in which the verse is embedded (Prov. 6:20-35) is: Don't commit adultery. Thievery is mentioned, by way of contrast, as an offense that can be forgiven in some circumstances, and compensation can be made (v. 31), but adultery is never forgotten or forgiven. (3) This larger context makes an implicit appeal to the habits of a "village culture" where everyone pretty much knows everyone else's business, even their most intimate misdeeds. The weight of the exhortation lies not on culpability as such, but on avoiding shame, dishonor, and reproach.

I guess my point is this: It's hard to simply lift verses out of the Bible and use them as ethical prooftexts or simple moral guidance for a situation. They don't come away cleanly, ready for re-use elsewhere; even the plainest of them are stuck to their literary and cultural contexts in persistent and unexpected ways. This is true even of this verse of Proverbs, which in isolation seems to say pretty much what we agree with in any case. I'm not saying the Bible is not a source of moral understanding, just that the raw text needs to be cooked up with some historical and critical understanding before it is ready to be used.

For a rational-theological approach to the question, Thomas Aquinas deals with "Whether it is lawful to steal through stress of need?" here.

Some Book Reviews

I've discovered a number of book reviews I've written for Catholic Biblical Quarterly available at FindArticles.com.

For those who are interested, here are some of them:

Diggers at the Well: Proceedings of a Third International Symposium on the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Ben Sira. Edited by T. Muraoka and J.F. Elwolde.

The Bible at Qumran: Text, Shape, and Interpretation. Edited by Peter W. Flint.

The Dead Sea Scrolls at Fifty: Proceedings of the 1997 Society of Biblical Literature Qumran Section Meetings.Kugler, Robert A. and Eileen M. Schuller, eds.

The Scrolls and the Scriptures: Qumran Fifty Years After. Edited by Craig A. Evans and Stanley E. Porter.

Die Qumran-Essener. Die Texte vom Toten Meer. Band 1, Die Texte der Hohlen 1-3 und 5-11. Band 2, Die Texte der Hohle 4, by Johann Maier (Uni-Taschenbicher 1862-63; Munich/Basel: Ernst Reinhardt, 1995).

The Scepter and the Star: The Messiahs of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Ancient Literature, John J Collins.


In the near future, I'll add the links to the area at the right.

High Water Blues: Remembering 1927

This blog makes the apt comparison between the Katrina disaster and the Mississippi Flood of 1927.

The flood (caused by river flooding, not hurricane-related effects) made a strong impression on African Americans, especially in music. Most notably, Charlie Patton wrote "High Water Everywhere":

Look-a here the water now, Lordy,
Levee broke, rose most everywhere
The water at Greenville and Leland,
Lord, it done rose everywhere
Boy, you can't never stay here
I would go down to Rosedale,
but, they tell me there's water there

And Memphis Minnie wrote "When the Levee Breaks," memorably re-recorded by Led Zeppelin in the '70's:

Cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good,
Now, cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good,
When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move.

Blind Lemon Jefferson wrote "Rising High Water Blues":

People, since it's raining, it has been for nights and days
People, since it's raining, has been for nights and days
Thousands people stands on the hill, looking down were they used to stay

Children stand there screaming: mama, we ain't got no home
Oh, mama we ain't got no home
Papa says to the children, "Backwater left us all alone"

Backwater rising, come in my windows and door
The backwater rising, come in my windows and door
I leave with a prayer in my heart, backwater won't rise no more

And Barbecue Bob Hicks wrote "Mississippi Heavy Water Blues":

Lord, Lord, Lord, I’m so blue, my house was washed away
and I’m cryin’ how long ‘fore another pay day?
That’s why I’m cryin’ Mississippi heavy water blues.

Most recently, Randy Newman wrote and recorded "Louisiana 1927":

The river rose all day
The river rose all night
Some people got lost in the flood
Some people got away alright
The river have busted through clear down to Plaquemines
Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline

You can donate for disaster relief at the Red Cross site.

After Katrina

The disaster on the Gulf Coast continues to defy almost all comment. To our prayers and to our checkbooks; there doesn't seem to be much else to do.

I've heard (through channels) from my Cook relatives in Hattiesburg, MS; all are well and holding on, despite the lack of water, power, or phone.

No doubt many of my readers have friends or relatives in New Orleans and vicinity. Information about Tulane University can be found here; the latest post says that there are no known casualties among staff, faculty, or students. Further information can be found at the SBL website. Our special thoughts and prayers go out to Chris Brady, blogger and Tulane faculty member, and longtime friend of "Ralph." Chris and his family are safe.

The least important casualty of Katrina is my "Psalms Targum in English" (link at right), which is hosted on the Tulane server. No doubt it will re-appear in due course, but it's of little consequence.

"Behold, God is great, and we know him not" (Job 36:26).

UPDATE (9/2): Chris has left a comment below; good to hear from you, CB.

Evan's narrative of evacuation here is must reading.

Open Studies, Peer Review, and Kuhnian Paradigms

I see that my initial question about "open studies" has spawned a number of discussions, most notably concerning the role of peer review in open scholarship. I want to say a few words about peer review and its role in our field, especially since Jim West has denounced peer review and its defenders in a vitriolic post, which has prompted a blunt (and in my view wholly justified) response from Jim Davila.

A few years ago Richard Schedinger published "Kuhnian Paradigms and Biblical Scholarship: Is Biblical Studies a Science?" in JBL. In it he argued that Biblical studies was not a science, and therefore loose appeals for "paradigm shifts" in the Kuhnian sense were out of court. He averred that Kuhn's description of paradigms applied only to the natural sciences such as physics and biology; since Biblical studies, as one of the humanities, was not ruled by research-determining paradigms, it had, essentially, no "big" paradigms to shift, only groups of more or less equal competing paradigms. He concluded:

Biblical studies, as a discipline situated squarely within the humanities, must embrace diversity, a multiplicity of paradigms, and the living conversation between scholars that this diversity makes possible.

I think the most charitable interpretation of Jim West's post is that he sees Biblical studies as Schedinger does, only more so. But Jim (West) also implies that there are no standards by which to judge a good or bad idea (other than the "test of time," whatever that is — error is just as persistent as truth), and that any attempt to do so (via peer review) is a "popularity contest" or an illegitimate exercise of power by those who "control" the discipline. (The bitterness of West's post makes me wonder if there is some kind of unpleasant personal experience behind it.)

But I think that Schedinger (and by extension, West) are wrong; or, at least, not completely right. It is true that Biblical studies is not a science judged by the model of the physical sciences, or by the model of Kuhnian research-determining paradigms. Nevertheless, it is a science, like at least some of the other humanities, in that it is, or should be, based on disciplined, rational, and systematic enquiry and established and accepted canons of research. Actually the German word for "science," Wissenschaft, encompasses this meaning, and Biblical studies really is scientific (wissenschaftlich) in this sense.

And in fact Biblical studies (which I will not abbreviate by its initials) also has its "big" paradigms. Schedinger cites the case of biology vs. creationism to illustrate the difference between paradigmatic biology and non-biology. He says, "If one is a creationist, one cannot, by definition, be a biologist. There is no inter-paradigm debate within the bounds of the biological community." (Some may not like this illustration; but let it go, OK? It's Schedinger's, not mine.) But then he implies that the humanities don't have these kinds of boundary line cases. They do, however. In modern history, Holocaust revisionists are not considered real historians at all. In ancient history, a Velikovskian catastrophist or someone who believes in a literal Atlantis is also not considered a historian at all, but a crackpot. In the English department, anyone who argued that someone besides Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare's plays would not be considered a real scholar.

In the same way, Biblical archaeology or Biblical studies has cases of "junk scholarship." I submit that the case of the Temple is one. As I argued in an earlier post, those who argue that there simply was no First Temple are perpetrating "junk history." And that is what peer review and other scholarly gate-keeping conventions are for: to keep out the junk and the nonsense. When I open JBL, I may read many things I disagree with, even some things that I think are jargon-ridden, shallow, trendy, and ill-written. But I know I'm not going to read anything that suggests that the Ezekiel held converse with space aliens, or that Adam and Eve spoke Latin, or that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalen and later went to Tibet. (For that I have the Internet.)

I believe that Jim Davila, in his original post discussing this issue, was saying the same thing: that First-Temple-deniers are not perpetrating scholarship at all. It is not that they have failed to produce evidence powerful enough to overturn a scholarly consensus, but they have failed to be scientific (wissenschaftlich) at all in providing sustained, disciplined, and rational engagement with the field as a whole or the historical understandings that make the field possible.

The question of how this all relates to open scholarship (or whatever it's called) is difficult. If "open" means "anybody can play," then it's not going to be worth much. Therefore I submit that a worthwhile collaborative "open studies" initiative has to come up with some way of maintaining a level of scientific scholarship. And that's going to mean some kind of gatekeeping or peer review.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Robert Shedinger, "Kuhnian Paradigms and Biblical Scholarship: Is Biblical Studies a Science?" Journal of Biblical Literature 119 (2000) 453-471.

Open Source Studies: a question

I know that there is a plan to gather bibliobloggers in Philadelphia for a lunch meeting to discuss "open source" biblical studies. (Most recently from Tim Bulkeley.)

Before I commit to this lunch, I have one question: What is open-source biblical studies?

This is not a rhetorical question.

UPDATE (8/29): Tim Bulkeley provides more light here — and many thanks to those who provided comments. This whole movement (or initiative, or whatever) is something I favor; but whether I have time in the near future to participate in any particular project is very doubtful.

Three Cheers for Zimpher

The big news here is the resign-or-be-fired ultimatum given to Bob Huggins, University of Cincinnati basketball coach, by Nancy Zimpher, UC president. Paul Daugherty, the excellent sports columnist of the Cincinnati Enquirer, says this:

At most schools where coaches loom godlike and untouchable, presidents leave well enough alone. They enjoy the national acclaim. They tolerate the Faustian deal they cut to achieve it. They know that challenging a big-time coach is more trouble than it's worth.

Zimpher didn't look at it like that. She challenged a Cincinnati icon and won. Her victory will be judged by how she handles the reconstruction.
...
In Zimpher's world, academic and athletic success are twin sons of the same mother. The Aug. 8 letter, again: "UC believes it can better advance its mission by building a winning program around scholar-athletes who earn degrees that will allow them to succeed not only in athletics but more importantly in life generally."

Large goal, that.

Also one that a university president has every right to set. If Zimpher were president of UC men's hoops, then hang her from the highest backboard for this. She ain't. You can say she has thrown the basketball program into darkness. You can say she has thrown Huggins' loyalty to the curb. What you cannot say is that, as president, Zimpher isn't obliged to do what she feels is in the best interests of the entire place.

People in Zimpher's camp say that, behind the scenes, Huggins has urged big donors to close their wallets. They argue that a spiteful Huggins prolonged the fight knowing he would take the buyout eventually, that he waited as long as he did to hurt the basketball program.

Believe what you want. Regardless, if UC were to retain its self-respect, Zimpher had to win.

Three cheers for Nancy Zimpher.

Bob Huggins took UC basketball back to the big time, but at a cost. The graduation rate of the players is abysmal, and inversely proportional to the length of their rap sheet. Not only that, but he never could quite ... get .. to the Final Four. (Did he, once, years ago? Memory fails.) Plus, he's one of those screaming, shouting, abusive coaches, with a record of DUI's. Good riddance.

The lumpen Cincinnati sports fans will crucify her, though. The vitriol on the sports talk shows has to be heard to be believed.

Poor David

This is an excerpt from a novel that I gave up writing years ago. It is set in the time of King David. There has just been a sheep-shearing followed by a feast at which my shy young heroine, Abishag of Shunem, was listening to the harpist from Judah sing some famous songs. She is a shepherdess, and Shumi is the head shepherd of the flock; he was elsewhere during the feast.

The next day Abishag went in search of Shumi and found him trimming goats' horns in one of the folds. Leaning over the fence was the old harpist.

"Ya, Abishag," said Shumi. "This man is Gur, the harpist."

"I bless you by Yahweh," said Abishag politely.

Gur nodded and eyed Abishag appreciatively. They all stood silent for a moment. Then Abishag blurted, "I heard you last night."

"Did you indeed?" said Gur. "I'm sorry I didn't see you there."

"Song of Deborah again?" asked Shumi.

"Oh dear, yes. Can't avoid playing it in these parts. They still love Deborah and Barak up here. Pity there's no song about Gid'on — him that folks here call Yarub-Baal. Wouldn't they love that in Shunem!"

"That they would," said Shumi, still filing a horn.

"I had quite a success with a new one, though — all about Shaul and Gilboa. The tears were falling like shekels, not a dry eye."

"Is it true, what you said," Abishag said shyly, "about the King composing it?"

"Well, as to that," said the harpist, "who knows? He does make up songs, or used to, you know, odes and hymns and things. He was himself a harpist, they say, long ago, when he came to Shaul's court."

"I thought he was a shepherd," said Shumi. "Isn't that how the story goes?"

Gur laughed. "There are so many stories about David, who can tell which one is true? Like all that talk around the fire last night about him killing Shaul's family. Down in Judah they say Yawab is to blame and that David's hands are clean."

"Still," said Shumi, "you must admit that Yawab is David's man. If Yawab got rid of the house of Shaul, he did it either with or without David's orders. If with, then David is the true murderer. If without, then David can't control his men and is a weak king. Either way, David looks bad."

"But if a son of Shaul's house survived, David might not be king. Wouldn't that be a greater loss?" asked Gur. Shumi shrugged his shoulders.

"Poor David," said Abishag. The men burst out laughing and Abishag reddened. "I just meant," she stammered, "that nothing that he did or could do would put things right. How awful for him."

"That's what it means to have power, my dear," said Gur. "To have many choices, most of them hard. Even the right choices usually end up making an enemy of somebody."

"'Poor David,'" laughed Shumi. "You sounded so sad."

Uncle Poison

The New Yorker of Aug. 22 has an interesting article on Bruce Lawrence of Duke University who is studying the Arabic writings of Osama bin Laden. Of several noteworthy points, this one especially caught my eye:

[Lawrence] even detects a dark sense of humor in bin Laden's writings. "In one of the translations, he talks about Uncle Sam. In Arabic, Uncle Sam is 'Amm Sam' — it rhymes, you see. The Arabic word samm means poison, and an uncle, in Arabic, is supposed to be someone you can trust."

Wow — who knew that the Evil One was an inveterate punster? In fact, OBL's insulting wordplay is right in line with hoary Near Eastern tradition, which likes to find negative meanings in the names of supposedly bad folk. One might mention, among several examples from the Hebrew Bible, the name Jezebel, Heb. iyzevel, probably originally containing a reference to zevul, "prince," a title of Baal. But the wicked queen's name was pronounced so as to recall the word zevel, "dung." In rabbinic times, the failed rebel Simon Bar Kosiba was referred to as Bar Koziba, "son of the liar" (after having been known more positively as Bar Kokhba, "son of the star").

The words themselves in "uncle poison" have interesting Semitic connections, as well. Arabic amm is cognate to Hebrew עם, am, "people." Hebrew has generally lost all connection to the supposedly primitive significance of the word, which is, as in Arabic, "paternal uncle." But there are a few personal names in ancient Israel that retain the meaning; e.g., Ammishaddai (Num. 1:12) probably means "Shaddai (the Almighty) is my uncle." (If the culture had stayed on this track, we might now be talking about the "unclehood" of God, instead of His "fatherhood.")

The word "poison" (Arabic samm) is, I surmise, a loanword from Aramaic. In the North-West Semitic dialects, sam(m) means "spice" (Biblical Hebrew, as in Ex. 25:6, etc.), "medicine" (post-Biblical Hebrew, as in m.Yoma 8:6), "paint," "dye," "fluid," "drug," etc. Aramaic sources use the expression samma de-mota, "death drug" for "poison," and this latter meaning, with the headword only, was borrowed by Arabic speakers (just as English speakers borrowed the meaning and headword chef of the French expression chef de cuisine, "head cook").

Can't we come up with a good retort? Like "Osama bin Rotten," or the like?

UPDATE: Michael Gilleland has a crappy followup.

Another Stolen Artifact

A report out of Israel says that an artifact from the Second Jewish Revolt has been recovered from antiquities smugglers:

The IAA, the Customs Authority and the Postal Authority worked together to prevent a precious artifact, a lead weight, from being smuggled out of the country. The weight dates back to the time of Bar Kochba (the second century AD) and is decorated with traditional Jewish symbols, including a palm tree and menorah.
...
The IAA was able to locate the sender, a former antiquities salesman, who wanted to send the valuable artifact to his colleagues in America. More antiquities were revealed in his apartment. Police say there have been other smuggling attempts, and the investigation has expanded to the US.

This reminds us irresistibly of the recently discovered Leviticus fragments, also said to be from the Bar Kokhba period. Were they looted at the same time and the same place? Will we ever know?

Although the news story says that the inscription (not legible in the photograph) refers to "Shimon bar Kokhba," I would be surprised if the inscription used the form "Kokhba" — the authentic name known from contemporary sources is "Kosiba." And the coins (so far as I know) refer only to "Shimon" or "Shimon, leader of Israel." (Corrections on this point will be gladly received.)

Who are the smuggler's contacts in the US? Anybody know?

UPDATE: Not really news, apparently, already noted in Paleojudaica months ago.

Sufjan Stevens and a Biblical Image

The remarkable Sufjan Stevens has a song on his record Seven Swans titled "All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands," and a great song it is, too. Interestingly, the All Music Guide review (found here, among other places) implies, by referring to the song's "gorgeous title," that the name of the song is original with Stevens.

In fact, the title is a quotation from Isa. 55:12, "the hills shall break forth before you into singing; and all the trees of the fields shall clap their hands." The Hebrew is yimcha'u kaph, literally, "they will strike palm." I've noted before here that trees are the most human of all flora, and it's easy to imagine them raising their branchy arms and smacking them together in applause.

But even this natural metaphor was too strong for the Septuagint translators, who translated as "all the trees will applaud with their branches." The Targum similarly renders "they will rejoice with their branches." (The Vulgate and the Peshitta render literally.)

Interestingly enough, there is another instance of the same metaphor, found in Ps. 98:8, "let the rivers clap their hands" (again, yimcha'u kaph). Here it is harder to imagine the metaphor translated into concrete reality; rivers, unlike trees, don't have anything like hands, although one can imagine the rushing sound of a river as a kind of applause. Possibly the locution "to strike palm" was already a dead metaphor, with no more literality to it (like to kick the bucket), with the simple sense "to acclaim loudly."

However, in this case the Septuagint, possibly stumped for a more natural metaphor, translates pretty literally "let the rivers applaud by hand." The literal translation is also chosen by the Targum, Peshitta, and Vulgate.

Is Sufjan Stevens aware of all this? I doubt it, but on the other hand it wouldn't surprise me. This is one multi-talented guy. There are some free MP3's here.

UPDATE (8/17): Thanks for all the comments (including this one). I should clarify that the "all this" that I doubted SS was aware of was not the biblical background of the phrase, but the textual-philological maunderings I added.

Arad 18 and the Temple of the Lord

(This post is my contribution to the Kesher Talk blogburst for Tisha B'Av.)

It has been claimed that, since the Ivory Pomegranate and Moussaieff Ostraca have been rejected as forgeries, there is now no epigraphic evidence of the existence of the "Temple of Yahweh" in ancient Israel. This is not quite true; an ostracon from Arad, dating to the early 6th century BCE, mentions a byt YHWH, "house of Yahweh" (Arad Ostracon no. 18).

The relevant portion of the ostracon reads as follows: ולדבר אשׁר צותני שׁלמ בית יהוה הא ישׁב. Translations vary. James Lindenberger translates "As for the matter about which you gave me orders — all is well. He is staying in the Temple of YHWH." Lindenberger's comment is this:

Only the temple in Jerusalem can be meant. At an earlier time there was a small temple in Arad, but it had been destroyed before this letter was written.

William Dever translates "the house (i.e. temple) of Yahweh is well; it endures," and he comments: "This may be a reference to the earlier tripartite temple of Arad brought to light by Aharoni, or it may refer to the temple in Jerusalem." But even if the Arad temple was standing (contra Lindenberger), there seems to be no reason why Eliashib, who was presumably in Arad, would need to be informed about the welfare of the temple there.

The "house of YHWH" could be another temple in another location in Judah, but I think that it is probable that the Jerusalem temple is meant. But regardless of how Arad 18 is interpreted, the mention of this temple should remind us that the temple of the national deity was not an optional institution in the ancient Near East; it was an absolute religious and political necessity for any state. Those who deny the existence of a "First Temple" in ancient Judah, standing in the national capital Jerusalem, find themselves in defiance, not only of the biblical record, but of all historical analogy, and must be suspected of having something on their agenda other than an interest in history.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. Lindenberger, Ancient Aramaic and Hebrew Letters, 1994; W. Dever, What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It?, 2002, p. 212.

UPDATE (8/12): See today's post at Paleojudaica for the larger context.

Secondary Wordplay in Translation?

Brandan Wason points us to this review in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review, of the first Harry Potter book translated into Classical Greek. It sounds like a fun read.

This part of the review struck me:

"It was really lucky that Harry now had Hermione as a friend," from the "Quidditch" chapter, becomes "kai hermaion dê ên tôi Hareiôi to Hermionên nun echein philên" (p. 147) -- lovely and idiomatic use of "hermaion", lovely pun on Hermione's name, lovely "dê".

Indeed. (Hermaion: "a god-send, wind-fall" according to Liddell & Scott.) But note that the Greek translation now has a wordplay that is not present in the original English. In Biblical studies, occasionally we hear that a certain work or part of a work must have been written in Language X, because a wordplay is present that is only possible in Language X. However, as this example shows, a clever and adept translator might introduce wordplays where none existed in the original. My guess is that such translators are the exception rather than the rule; but we might do well to keep the possibility in mind. The better the translator, the more skillfully he will hide his tracks.