Author Archives: Tyler F. Williams

Happy Canada Day, eh!

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Happy Canada Day, eh!

For unaware readers, Canada Day is the celebration of the anniversary of the formation of the union of the British North America provinces in a federation under the name of “Canada” on July 1st. This year marks Canada’s 138th birthday. Happy birthday to us…
Here are twenty-five signs that you might be Canadian:

  1. You know all the words to “If I had a million dollars” by The Barenaked Ladies, including the inter-stanza banter between Steven and Ed.
  2. You understand the phrase “Could you pass me a serviette, I just dropped my poutine on the chesterfield.”
  3. You eat chocolate bars, not candy bars.
  4. You drink Pop, not Soda.
  5. You dismiss all beers under 6% as “for children and the elderly.”
  6. You don’t care about the fuss with Cuba. It’s a cheap place to go for your holidays, with good cigars and no Americans.
  7. You know that a pike is a type of fish, not part of a highway.
  8. You drive on a highway, not a freeway.
  9. You have Canadian Tire money in your kitchen drawers.
  10. You can do the hand actions to Sharon, Lois and Bram’s “Skin-a-marinki-dinki-do”.
  11. You get excited whenever an American television show mentions Canada. You make a mental note to talk about it at work the next day.
  12. You brag to Americans that Shania Twain, Jim Carrey, Celine Dion & Mike Myers are Canadians.
  13. You use a red pen on your non-Canadian textbooks and fill in the missing ‘u’s from labor, honor, and color
  14. You know what a touque is, eh!
  15. You design your Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit.
  16. You know that the last letter of the English alphabet is always pronounced “Zed”.
  17. Your local newspaper covers the national news on two pages, but requires six pages for hockey.
  18. You know that the four seasons mean: almost winter, winter, still winter, and road work.
  19. You know that when it’s 25 degrees outside, it’s a warm day (You also think -10 C is mild weather).
  20. You understand the Labatt Blue and Molson Canadian commercials.
  21. You know how to pronounce and spell “Saskatchewan”.
  22. You perk up when you hear the theme song from “Hockey Night in Canada”.
  23. You are in your first year of university and not a “freshman”.
  24. “Eh?” is a very important part of your vocabulary and is more polite than, “Huh?”
  25. You actually understand these jokes, and forward them to all of your Canadian friends! Then you send them to your American friends just to confuse them!

Big Thanks to Jim West

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Ency_DSS.jpgI am sitting on the couch in my family room browsing through my new two-volume Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Lawrence H. Schiffman and James C. VanderKam, eds.; Oxford, 2000; Buy from Amazon.ca | Buy from Amazon.com) compliments of Jim West (see here for how I won the set). From the condition the package was in when I picked it up today, it appears Canada Post was practicing their corner kicks with it! Thankfully, the volumes were not damaged.

This is an excellent reference work with over 450 original articles by 100 distinguished scholars from diverse traditions (and I was happy to see many Canadians in the contributor list). Looking through the list of contributors is a virtual who’s who of scrolls scholars, including blogger Jim Davila. It has entries from Aaron to Zoroastrianism and is the most comprehensive critical synthesis of current knowledge about the Dead Sea scrolls, and their historical, archaeological, linguistic and religious contexts. It has an awesome index as well as a provisional list of scrolls, among other things. Most of the articles are written in non-technical language and as such can be recommended to all readers. I recommend it to all — especially if Jim will send it to you! 🙂

My only beef is the title; why is Oxford University Press publishing an “Encyclopedia” rather than an “Encyclopaedia“?

Thanks again, Jim!


Will the Real King David Stand Up!

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The most recent volume of the Catholic Biblical Quarterly has an interesting article by David Bosworth entitled, “Evaluating King David: Old Problems and Recent Scholarship” (CBQ 68 [2006] 191-210). Bosworth examines a number of recent academic biographies of the biblical figure of David and argues that these recent portrayals say more about the modern authors and their methods than the ancient monarch. The monographs that he engages are:

I think that Bosworth makes a number of valid points. Halpern and McKenzie both present a picture of David as a villain by reading between the lines of the text and favouring a propagandistic interpretation. With this approach David becomes a murderous usurper. Steussy’s approach is a bit more balanced, according to Bosworth. Unlike Halpern and McKenzie, she has no interest in uncovering the “real” David, but instead explores the portraits of David throughout the Scriptures — including the book of Psalms. The edited work by Desrousseaux and Vermeylen includes essays that — like Halpern and McKenzie — take a propagandistic reading, while Dietrich’s sophisticated reading is more akin to that of Steussy.

I personally find elements of a propagandistic reading plausible, but I appreciate Bosworth’s point that leaders are often accused of more crimes than they actually commit! Moreover, Bosworth points out the problems with equating apology with indictment and indictment with history — politics of any age are never so simple!

After evaluating modern critics, Bosworth investigates David among his ancient contemporaries. As it turns out, David’s biblical portrait, while similar to ANE royal account, is more complex. As Bosworth concludes, “the text is not as simple as ‘royal propaganda.’ It shows an awareness of the problems involved in evaluating great figures who succeed in establishing positive institutions at the expense of usurping prior institutions” (p. 209).

All in all, Bosworth’s article is worth taking a gander at — as are the books noted above. Of course, when all is said and done, perhaps the “Biblical David” is the only David we can ever recover.


Animals in Heaven?!

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Animals_in_heaven.jpgJimmy Kimmel Live had a funny segment tonight on whether or not animals will be in heaven. The segment featured my favourite television prophecy gurus, Dr. Jack and Rexella Van Impe. Those of you who are wondering if Lassie, Garfield, and other animals will be with you in heaven will be relieved to know that “Dr.” Van Impe believes that they will — they have even produced a video on the subject.

The proof text appealed to for the notion that animals will be with us in heaven is Isaiah 11:6-8. The question I have is what happens if you have had a whole bunch of pets during your life? I’m not sure if I want all of my cats and dogs back, let alone all of the rabbits I had (and I imagine that the rabbits I sold to the butcher would be a bit peeved with me! Talk about an ackward reunion!). Just think the size of fish tank people would need if they get all their fish back!

What about pets in hell? (Kimmel’s segment on “Animals in Hell” was even funnier!)

So what do you think?