Category Archives: News

Palindromes, Ecclesiastes, and Weird Al

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As it turned out, Loren Rosson III at the busybody had posted some of his thoughts on Palindromes (the movie, not the trope) here and most recently here. In his original post Loren linked to Ebert’s collection of excerpts from other reviews. I found these to be quite reassuring — evidently I was not alone in my reactions to the film! (See my original post here).

I did a bit more searching and found that Peter Chattaway had also blogged on the movie here and here. Peter thought that the film was a bit tilted towards the pro-choice side of things, though I’m not so sure. I found this series of dialogue quite damming to the pro-choice side:

  • Mom: But really, be reasonable, the baby has got to go. What happens if it turns out deformed, if it’s missing a leg, or an arm, or a nose, or an eye? Or if it is brain-damaged or mentally retarded. Children of very young mothers often turn out that way… and then what? And ten you’re stuck, your life is ruined forever, you end up on food stamps alone.
  • Aviva: But it’s my baby!
  • Mom: But it’s not a baby, not yet, really, it’s just… it’s like it’s just a tumour.
  • Aviva: I’m keeping it.
  • Mom: No you’re not!
  • Aviva: Yes I am.
  • Mom: You have the baby you find another home!
  • Aviva: You can’t take my baby away from me!
  • Mom: It’s too late, I’ve already made the appointment.

This next conversation — really more of a monologue since Aviva doesn’t say anything but nonchalantly eats her sandwich– is even more chilling, IMHO:

  • Mom: When you were just a little girl, around three or four, I was pregnant. And at first I was all happy and excited. A new friend for you I thought, a little baby brother. I used to think I’d call him “Henry” after my grandfather Heinric who never cared about money. But then our father and I had a long talk and I begun to realize that there were other things to think about. Your father was out of work, my paintings weren’t selling (I was blocked), I started smoking again, there were bills, a mortgage, a lawsuit. If I’d had another child I wouldn’t have been able to give you all that I had. The time we spend together, just you and me, and the little things your father and I pick up for you. The N’Sync tickets, Gap account,… Ben and Jerry’s. We couldn’t have afforded it. It would have been too much of a strain and we all would have been miserable.

In the context of the movie you realize Aviva doesn’t have any choice (it’s her parent’s choice), and it’s the Christian family who does accept into their family the “deformed” and “brain damaged.” Of course, like I said, no one comes out unscathed. The Christian family is also played so over the top that it’s ridiculous (and the father is complicit in the killing of an abortionist).

Loren also suggests a connection with the book of Ecclesiastes. I think it would be quite interesting to flesh out this connection — especially considering that Norbert Lohfink argues that Qohelet borrowed heavily from Greek thought and structured his book as a palindrome! (See his Qoheleth: A Continental Commentary [Fortress, 2003; Amazon.ca or Amazon.com]). The deterministic view expressed in the film fits well with Ecclesiastes, as does the frequent juxtaposition of opposing viewpoints with no easy resolution. Finally, Qohelet’s overarching assessment that everything is hebel — absurd, meaningless — conforms well with the film.

Take, for instance, this piece dialogue near the end of the film between Aviva and her cousin Mark Wiener, who has been accused (unjustly?) of child molestation:

  • Mark: People always end up the way they started out. No one ever changes. They think they do, but they don’t…. There’s no freewill. I mean I have no choice but to choose as I choose, to do as I do, to live as I live. Ultimately we’re all just robots programmed arbitrarily by nature’s genetic code.
  • Aviva: Isn’t there any hope?
  • Mark: For what? We hope or despair because of how we’ve been programmed. Genes and randomness — that’s all there is and none of it matters…
  • Aviva: What if you’re wrong? What if there’s a God?
  • Mark: Then that makes me feel better.

It sounds like Mark has been reading Ecclesiastes! Of course one of the keys to interpreting Ecclesiastes is to read right up until the end:

The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God, and keep his commandments for that is the whole duty of everyone. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil (Eccl 12:13-14).

For those interested in exploring the connection between Ecclesiastes and popular film, I encourage you to pick up Robert K. Johnston’s Useless Beauty: Ecclesiastes through the Lens of Contemporary Film (Baker, 2004; Buy from Amazon.ca or Amazon.com).

At any rate, as you can probably tell, this movie gives you much to think about, and for that reason alone it is worth watching — but be warned, even though this movie has no profanity or nudity, it is nonetheless not for the faint of heart or easily offended.

A little known palindrome fact: the comedy singer “Weird Al” Yankovic produced a song entirely of rhyming palindromes on his 2003 album Poodle Hat, called “Bob.”

Leviticus Scroll Fragment Article Now Online

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My ChristianWeek article on the Leviticus Scroll fragments is available online here (I have also heard it will be picked up by CanadianChristianity.com).

In addition, I have brought together my posts and pictures of the fragments — including some new hi-resolution pictures –at my Resources Relating to the Dead Sea Scrolls pages.

TWU Septuagint Institute Press Release

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I originally announced the creation of the Septuagint Institute at Trinity Western University back in July (“Septuagint Institute at TWU/ACTS“). I just received my invitation to the the official Septuagint Institute inauguration as well as the special dinner; I know it would be quite a drive (11 hours), though I may attend if ony to touch base with Pietersma.

The following Press Release (via 24-7PressRelease) has quite a bit of good information, so I think it is worth quoting in full:

Translating history: TWU and ACTS now North America’s hub for Septuagint studies

/24-7PressRelease/ – LANGLEY, BC, CANADA, August 24, 2005 ”The Septuagint, the earliest Greek translation of the Old Testament and the Bible of the early Christian church, was one of the key religious texts in the third century B.C. ”and it’s soon to have a high profile in western Canada. On September 17, Vancouver’s Trinity Western University launches the Septuagint Institute, a hub for Septuagint research, translation, and publication projects.

Even prior to the official inauguration, the Institute has received national support. Until recently, the place to go for Septuagint studies in Canada was the University of Toronto. Now two Toronto professors—among the world’s foremost authorities on the Septuagint—are donating their personal libraries to the next generation of researchers in ancient Greek texts at TWU and ACTS, making Langley a flagship for such scholarship in not only in Canada, but in North America. One of the Toronto Septuagintalists, Professor Albert Pietersma, will be giving a lecture at the Institute’s inauguration. Other speakers will include Professor Emanuel Tov of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, also a Septuagint specialist and the Editor-in-Chief of the recently completed Dead Sea Scrolls publication project, and ACTS Professor Robert Hiebert, Ph.D., Director of the new Septuagint Institute.

“The launch of the Septuagint Institute is a truly historic event,” says Hiebert, “not only for our campus, but also for Canadian and international biblical scholarship. This new research centre is the only one of its kind in North America, which makes it vital since the Septuagint is such an important part of Jewish and Christian history in the Graeco-Roman period.”

Hiebert, who reads Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, and Latin, as well as German and French, has spent much of his academic career to date in Septuagint research. He and three other TWU and ACTS professors have recently completed translating portions of the Septuagint into English. These specialists are part of an international team of more than thirty scholars working on the entire corpus of the Greek Jewish Scriptures. It is the first such English version in 160 years. Called the New English Translation of the Septuagint (NETS), the text reflects both the wealth of manuscript evidence that has been brought to light since the 19th century and, of course, current English idiom. The complete translation is scheduled for publication in 2006 (Oxford University Press), though provisional editions of more than twenty Septuagint books are now accessible online (http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/nets/edition).

Hiebert says that knowledge of the differences between the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek Septuagint contributes to an understanding of the Bible’s transmission and interpretation history. “One example involves the description of Enoch in the book of Genesis,” he says. “The Hebrew Bible reports that he walked with God, while the Septuagint states interpretatively that he was well pleasing to God, which is precisely how the New Testament puts it.” Citing instances in which the Septuagint of Genesis reflects cultural shifts, he mentions the story of Rebekah’s betrothal. The Hebrew text says that the gifts she received included a nose ring, but the Septuagint reads earrings “because nose rings weren’t part of the fashion scene in third century B.C. Alexandria, Egypt where the translation likely took place.”

SI is expected to complement TWU’s already established Dead Sea Scrolls Institute (DSSI) which was established in 1995.

“Having the Dead Sea Scrolls and Septuagint Institutes at the same university makes a lot of sense,” says Hiebert. “Both Hebrew and Greek texts provide important parts of the picture of how the Bible came about and, in fact, often represent distinctive vantage points from which that picture may be viewed. Yet some very interesting convergences also become evident as one investigates those textual histories.”

“We have people qualified in both areas,” he continues. “The creation of the DSSI was an intentional move by the university from the outset, but the idea for the SI really began to develop once we started to notice how many people with expertise in Septuagint research had found their way to this campus. When you consider how much the University of Toronto’s Septuagint Studies program accomplished with only two experts in the field while we have four, it gets really exciting.”

Those in the Greater Vancouver area are invited to attend the official Septuagint Institute inauguration on September 17, 2005 from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon at TWU in the Northwest Auditorium. Contact: (604) 513-2121 x.3866; www.acts.twu.ca

Trinity Western University, located in Langley, B.C., is a not-for-profit Christian liberal arts university enrolling over 3,500 students this year. With a broad based, liberal arts and sciences curriculum, the University offers undergraduate degrees in 38 major areas of study ranging from business, education and computer science to biology and nursing, and 14 other graduate degrees including counselling psychology, theology and administrative leadership. For more information: www.twu.ca, (604) 888-7511

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New St. Catherine Monastery Website

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The Holy Monastery of St. Catherine at Mount Sinai now has a very nice looking official website. The website is currently only in modern Greek, though English and Arabic versions are in the works.

The site contains information about the monastery as well as a great collection of photographs of the monastery, surrounding areas, iconography, and some of their manuscripts. It only has one page on Codex Sinaiticus that I could find, that provides a bit of history of the manuscript and a small picture. (Alexander Schick/Stephen Goranson via Textual Criticism list)

New Story on the Leviticus Scroll Fragments Published

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My story on the recently discovered scroll fragments of the Book of Leviticus has appeared in the print edition ChristianWeek. It actually made the front page. Now that the article is published I will blog a full account of my interview with Hanan Eshel in the near future.

Here is the ChristianWeek article (I have cropped and edited it so only my article appears on the page):

(click for a larger image)

Yehukal Seal Tracing Update

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I had some very helpful comments by Robert Deutsch on the tracing of the letters on my Yehukal Seal blog entry. I have updated the image to reflect most of the recommendations, though I have to admit that I cannot make out some of the suggestions on the picture of the seal I am working with — even after magnifying the image and making changes to the contrast and colour balance, etc., with Photoshop. For instance, I just don’t see the upper half of the first lamed, but I think I do see part of the middle bar on the yod (the second letter). At any rate, I did make some of the suggested modifications. (A higher resolution picture would perhaps make it easier to trace).

As I noted in the comments thread to the original post, the (only) purpose of the tracing was to bring the letters — as best as I could discern them from a lo-resolution photograph — into sharper relief so that people who haven’t ever looked at a seal or other inscriptions can use the chart to read the seal. Thus, my purpose was pedagogical, not paleographical.

Robert Deutsch remains convinced that the bulla is from the late 8th or the first half of the 7th century BCE, while Peter van der Veen defends Mazar’s date of late 7th early 6th century BCE. Perhaps we’ll need to get them to debate their evidence to see if some consensus can be reached on the date.

Yehukal Seal Picture and Discussion (Updated)

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Here is a pretty clear picture of the Yehukal bulla that was discovered by Eilat Mazar in her Jerusalem dig:

(Thanks to Joseph I. Lauer for the link; the picture was published in the Taipei Times)

Here is a tracing of the bulla I made to show the letters in greater relief; note that the first nun begins on the second line and is incomplete and the heh-vav at the end of the second line were difficult to make out in their entirety (Thanks to Ed Cook for the identification of the partial nun).

While it is not the easiest to decipher, it appears to read: ליהוכל בנ שלמיהו בנ שבי, which could be translated variously as “Belonging to Yehukal son of Shelemyahu son of Shobi” or “Yehukal son of Shelemyahu son of Shobai.” I translated the name שלמיהו with a shin primarily because that is a known name (Jer 36:14, 26; 38:1; Ezra 10:41; 1Chron 26:14), while Selemyahu is not. The same argument can be made for Shobi (2Sam 17:27) and Shobai (Ezra 2:42; Neh 7:45). Moreover, since most (if not all) Hebrew names are related to verbal roots with specific meanings and include theophoric elements which interplay with the meaning of the root, both Shelemyahu and Shobi make sense, while the alternatives readings with the letter sin do not.

This may very well be the same person mentioned in Jeremiah 37:3 יהוכל בן שלמיה “Jehucal son of Shelemiah” (NRSV) and 38:1 יוכל בן שלמיהו “Jucal son of Shelemiah” (NRSV). Robert Deutsch, however, dates the bulla on paleographical grounds to the late 8th, or the first half of the 7th century BC, precluding the identification with the Yehukal mentioned by Jeremiah. In respone to this dating, Peter van der Veen has defended Mazar’s date well within the range of Jeremiah’s career. He notes: “the unequal stance of the horizontal lines as well as the long top horizontal bisecting the vertical shaft are strong indications of a late 7th-6th cent. BC date (as we know from all the provenanced material!!). The lack of field dividers (though more common around 700 BC) is not an argument against a late Iron Age IIC date. Similar bullae were found at Lachish Str. II and hence are well attested ca. 600 BC” (From Jim West on Biblical Theology).

For those who may know Hebrew, but are unfamiliar with the archaic Hebrew alphabet, here is part of a handout I give to intermediate Hebrew students:

There are a number of good discussions of the seal on the web: Ed Cook perhaps has the best at Ralph the Sacred River. Jim West also has a number of posts on the subject at Biblical Theology blog: here and here. Duane Smith at Abnormal Interests has also posted a good discussion of the seal.

King David’s Palace Discovered – Minimalists Convert!

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The International Herald Tribune has posted a story on the recent excavations and discoveries in Jerusalem: “King David’s fabled palace: Is this it?” (Also available at the New York Times). The find purportedly includes “the partial foundations of a sizable public building, constructed in the Phoenician style, dating from the 10th to 9th centuries B.C., the time of the united kingdom of David and Solomon.” (Picture of Mazur by Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times). Here is an excerpt:

Even Israeli archaeologists are not so sure that MS. Mazar has found the palace – the house that Hiram, king of Tyre, built for the victorious king, at least as Samuel 2:5 describes it. It may also be the Fortress of Zion that David conquered from the Jebusites, who ruled Jerusalem before him, or some other structure about which the Bible is silent.

Either way, they are impressed by its likely importance. “This is a very significant discovery, given that Jerusalem as the capital of the united kingdom is very much unknown,” said Gabriel Barkay, an archaeologist from Bar-Ilan University. “This is one of the first greetings we have from the Jerusalem of David and Solomon, a period which has played a kind of hide-and-seek with archaeologists for the last century.”

Based on the Bible and a century of archaeology in this spot, MS. Mazar, 48, speculated that a famous stepped-stone structure excavated previously was part of the fortress David conquered, and that his palace would have been built just outside the original walls of the cramped city, on the way to what his son, Solomon, built as the Temple Mount.

“When the Philistines came to fight, the Bible said that David went down from his house to the fortress,” she said, her eyes bright. “I wondered, down from where? Presumably from where he lived, his palace.”

“So I said, maybe there’s something here,” she added, referring to East Jerusalem.

While it is obviously too soon to know the significance of the find, it will be fun to see the “minimalists” do everything they can to deny a connection with David and the “maximalists” muster the evidence to “prove” that David existed just as the Bible says! (Gee, do I seem a bit skeptical of the nature and tone of the minimalist/maximalist debate?)

UPDATE: Jim West over at Biblical Theology blog has posted on this story as well. The battle for Middle Earth Jerusalem is about to begin…