In the Wednesday night Bible study that I attend with a few other members of our congregation, we have just begun a study of the book of Ecclesiastes. As might be expected, someone mentioned the many ways in quotations from and allusions to the book of Ecclesiastes have found their way into music and literature. I’m also teaching a wisdom literature class this semester, so Ecclesiastes is much on my mind at present. Some years ago, the idea of putting together a soundtrack—in the vein of those “music from and inspired by movie M” compilations—for the book of Ecclesiastes. I doubt I’ll ever actually buy the rights to produce such a thing, but you can do it virtually by following my track listing over a coming series of blog posts.

Track 1, “from or inspired by” Ecclesiastes 1:1–11, is “What Goes Up” by Blood, Sweat, and Tears. Too much commentary from me might ruin your aesthetic experience of reading the passage and then listening to the music, so I will say only that the song, while not based on the passage (in the manner of the Byrds’ “Turn, Turn, Turn,” to which I shall, um, return in a future post), nevertheless echoes the biblical poem’s sense of the inescapable repetitive circularity of life under the sun.

I stayed up late on Sunday night working—not entirely successfully—on my paper for the Bible in Ancient and Modern Media (BAMM) session. Therefore, I slept in on Monday morning instead of attending the Restoration Quarterly breakfast as originally planned. I also stayed in to work on the paper, and then went to Kinko’s to print it, instead of attending the National Professors of Hebrew session that I wanted to go to at 9:00 am. I am very interested in the topic they discussed in that session: the dating of biblical texts by linguistic means (but not exclusively). This is a topic the NAPH has taken up for the last few years, and I hope that a large edited volume comes out of it.

At 1:00 I did attend my the National Association of Professors of Hebrew open session, in which I presented my paper, “What Does the Mob Want Lot to Do in Genesis 19:9?” I have previously posted a draft of this paper on the blog, and I’ll be submitting a revised version for publication (one of the attendees solicited the submission for a journal he edits, so I’m hopeful that it will work through the peer review process well and see the light of day within the next year or so). The first paper in the session was by Tim Finlay of Azusa Pacific University; his topic was a form-critical discussion of the list genre(s) in the Tanakh. The third paper, by Mayer Gruber, was a really engaging study of Job 31:1, 9–10. Hopefully, Gruber’s paper will be published somewhere, sometime, and the sooner the better. The usual understanding of Job 31:9–10 is that Job is holds a typical patriarchal attitude, thinking that his wife should be victimized sexually as punishment if he, Job, had hung around a neighbor’s house intending to rape or commit adultery with the other man’s wife. However, Job also swears off looking at a young, unmarried woman (בתולה) lustfully, in 31:1—which is not a typical patriarchal attitude. He also bequeaths property to his daughters at the end of the book—again, not a typical patriarchal attitude. Gruber then adduced other evidence to support his argument that Job was not saying in Job 31:9–10 that his wife should be raped in punishment for his own marital infidelity (which, of course, is all hypothetical, since Job never did anything like that), but rather that Job is saying that his wife should be free to disregard her marital vows (so to speak) if Job himself had ever done the same.

At 4:00 I attended the aforementioned Bible in Ancient and Modern Media session, where I led of the session with my unfinished paper on Dogma. Perhaps I’ll blog more about that paper later; for now, I’ll just say that I think I have a strong beginning and I don’t know what to do with it. The other papers were on The Passion of the Christ as a horror film, the Coen brothers’ films as “Christian” films, and one urging a more critical engagement between biblical studies and film theory. The two that interested me the most, probably, were Richard Walsh’s paper on The Passion, and Esther Hamori’s paper on Brokeback Mountain. I am by no means a big fan of Brokeback Mountain, but Hamori’s paper was interesting because she focused on the way the film explores notions of what “masculinity” entails. She then used this—now we get to the interesting part—as a springboard to explore the extent to which “divine masculinity” in the Hebrew Bible is understood in ways that don’t necessarily match up with modern notions of “masculinity.” The big “take-away” point was that although God is normally described using masculine language in the Hebrew Bible, God’s biblical “masculinity” shouldn’t be reduced to modern constructions of “masculinity.”

After this session was over, I was very tired, so I got some dinner, went back to the hotel, watched Heroes and a bit of football, then went to sleep.

Well, the SBL is drawing to a close. There’s just one more slot for presentations, tomorrow morning at 9:00 AM, and I’m pretty sure that I won’t be attending any of those. One more trip to the exhibitor hall, one attempt to buy some sort of souvenir for each of my boys, and then I’m off to Washington-Reagan to fly back to LA. I’ve had a good meeting but I confess I am really something of a homebody and I’m ready to get back to more familiar surroundings. Here’s a quick “SBL diary” for Saturday the 18th.

At 9:00 AM I attended the Pentateuch session focused on the book of Genesis. The first paper, “Portraying a Distant Past: The Literary Effects of Genesis 1–11″ by Mark McEntire of Belmont University, was pretty good though it did not stimulate many questions or discussion. In short, McEntire detailed a number of elements in Genesis 1–11 that clue readers into the fact that these narratives are set in a world that its readers do not inhabit. Walter Moberly gave a rather nice delivery of a paper about which I need to think more before agreeing or disagreeing. Moberly argued that what he called the “evil thought clause” in Genesis 8:21—which parallels a similar clause in 6:5—is a gloss based on the earlier occurrence. Clearly Moberly was the big draw in this session, because as many as 1/3 of the attendees left the room after he finished. The third paper was substituted in from another session, originally scheduled for the next day. In “Twilight of the Idols,” Philip Michael Sherman argued that Rachel’s theft of Laban’s teraphim had something to do with “achieving family solidarity.” I will probably come back and blog in more detail about this one, because I think that Sherman is incorrect. The fourth paper was “Food Fight: The Significance of Food in Genesis 37–50″ by Katie Heffelfinger, apparently a graduate student at Emory. Heffelfinger showed that food is an important leitmotif in Genesis 37–50, and that trends in the food motif carry along the plotline. In the fourth paper, “Honor and Shame: A Call to Loyalty under the Empire in Genesis 39,” Donna Laird analyzed the Joseph-and-Potiphar’s-wife story in light of the Egyptian “Tale of Two Brothers,” and she related it to Jewish issues related to ethnicity under the Persian empire. All in all, I felt that there was not much that was new, and not much that was engaging, in Laird’s paper.

Immediately after the Pentateuch session, I went to a luncheon hosted by the Christian Scholarship Foundation, which generously gave me a fellowship for a couple of years during my Ph.D. program. The walk over from the Pentateuch session caused me to run a bit late, so I didn’t get to visit with as many people as I would have wished, but at least I got to sit between Stacy and Fred. At the lunch, Pat Graham gave an interesting talk about the future of theological libraries and libraries in general.

I mistakenly thought that I had a 3:00 meeting on Saturday—actually, it was set for Sunday—so in the 1:00 time slot I chose a session where I thought I really only wanted to hear the first paper. I went to the SBL Forum session on comics, graphic novels, and the Bible, where the first paper was entitled “Do Superheroes Read Scripture?” Andrew Tooze laid out a kind of very simple typology of biblical references in superhero comic books. Tooze showed examples of the use of Bible as an icon (at comic-book weddings and funerals), then three types of biblical references/allusions: (1) direct quotations, often out of context and used in different ways; (2) references to biblical characters that don’t require much biblical knowledge to understand the comic-book story; and (3) comic-book plot elements that subtly mirror biblical plot elements and thus require some biblical literacy to perceive. Tooze’s paper was somewhat interesting, though I was hoping for a bit more theology and instead got a classification scheme. I slipped out of that session after Tooze’s paper, and later, after double-checking my schedule, found out that I had misremembered my Sunday meeting as a Saturday meeting. So I went to the exhibit hall and bought my sons the latest illustrated biblical adaptation from EKS, ויצא יעקב (Jacob’s Travels).

At 4:00, I went to a demonstration of Logos Bible Software’s new syntax search tool, which is set up to work with three different syntax databases. The demonstration was quite impressive. However, since I use an older PowerBook, I’m going to have to wait either for Logos for Mac to release or for Pepperdine to refresh my current machine with an Intel-based Mac (or, preferably, both).

Well, that about does it for Saturday. After the Logos demonstration, I got some dinner and some rest. I didn’t go to the SBL Presidential address; I was tired and figured that I can read the address in JBL next quarter anyway.

… for your lights—eight of them, or rather, eight days’ worth—have come! Come to the Anachronism arena, that is. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been sharing on this blog the cards from the upcoming Judah Maccabee warrior pack for the Anachronism game. The time has come to reveal the final card in the pack. For those of you not familiar with Anachronism, each warrior comes with four support cards. One of those is labeled “special,” which is just a catch-all category for “something else we want to put in here but it doesn’t fit one of the other categories, or we already have a card in that slot but we want to give him this too.” A special card can be just about anything. Judah’s is, appropriately:

Due to an apparent typesetting error—I know that the correct spelling was supplied to the manufacturer—the sublinear dot was omitted from the card’s Ḥag ability, although the sublinear dot appears correctly in the card title.

Unfortunately, it looks as though the cards will just be shipping from the printer/packager tomorrow, so I doubt I’ll have any in hand at SBL. Still, if you want to see how the game works, I’ll bring along Julius Caesar, Beowulf, and some other goodies.

According to 1 Maccabees 3:9–12,

Apollonius now gathered together Gentiles and a large force from Samaria to fight against Israel. When Judah learned of it, he went out to meet him, and he defeated and killed him. Many were wounded and fell, and the rest fled. Then they seized their spoils; and Judah took the sword of Apollonius, and used it in battle the rest of his life.

In the Anachronism card game, each warrior comes equipped with a weapon, and Judah’s is the sword of Apollonius. (By the way, it is my fault that “Apollonius” is misspelled as “Appolonius” on the card—I typed it incorrectly in some information I sent to the game developers and I didn’t catch my own typo.)

In the Anachronism game, every warrior comes with an inspiration card, a card that represents the warrior’s motivation. For many warriors, it is a god (Ramses II’s inspiration is Ra), a code (like Bushido), an ally (Anne Bonny’s inspiration is Calico Jack Rackham), or an enemy (Beowulf’s inspiration is Grendel).

For his inspiration, Judah Maccabee, the first warrior to be revealed from the Tribes of Israel culture in the forthcoming Anachronism 7, is on a quest to purify the temple from Seleucid depredations.

In his Anachronism incarnation, that is—the first of the Set 7 Tribes of Israel cards to be publicly revealed.

In Anachronism, “inspiration” cards are cards that describe things that motivate the warriors to fight. Usually, a card representing a god—current examples include Zeus, Jupiter, Mardukh, Odin, Thor, Freya, etc.—will be an inspiration card. Thus, Judah’s special ability allows him to discard pagan gods. Cool, huh?

Those of you who are my colleagues in professional biblical studies are likely gearing up for the SBL meeting, much as I am. I still have a lot of work to do on my papers presentations, and I am way behind on those preparations. Next week will be difficult in that regard.

To anyone who is interested, I extend invitations to my presentations in the following program units:

S20-73 National Association of Professors of Hebrew
11/20/2006
1:00-3:00 PM
Meeting Room 12 - RW
“What Does the Mob Want Lot to Do in Genesis 19:9?”
Genesis 19:9 presents a curious, though rarely-discussed, philological and interpretive conundrum. The Sodomite mob is quoted as telling Lot “גש־הלאה.” Most English translations render this instruction as “Stand back,” but a few interpreters have suggested quite the opposite sense “Come here.” Clues from the immediate literary context and wider philological considerations are marshaled in this paper to try to resolve this semantic ambiguity.

S20-103 The Bible in Ancient and Modern Media
11/20/2006
4:00-6:30 PM
142-CC
“God in a Bind: The Dilemma of Divine Decrees in Dogma, the Bible, and Modern Theology”
For all its irreverence, the movie Dogma raises some interesting theological questions that resonate with certain biblical texts and trends in modern theology. The presumed immutability and non-contradiction of divine decrees drive Dogma’s plot, but these themes are complicated when referred to Amalek’s annihilation and Saul’s election and rejection. This paper will examine potential biblical and theological resources for addressing the problem that lies at the heart of the film.

For those of you who are friends and want to be sure we get to visit in person, I’ll be staying at the Metro Center Marriott. If you wish, e-mail me and (if I trust you with it) I’ll give you my cell phone number.

And, of course, I have to make a plug for Anachronism. I don’t yet know whether I’ll have any Tribes of Israel cards on hand (shown here is the artwork from the Devora card, which comes in Barak’s warrior pack)—they haven’t been shipped to stores yet and it’s still an open question whether the warehouse can get me some advance copies—but if you’re going to be at the SBL meeting and you enjoy games, shoot me an e-mail and I’ll try to find a time to show you Anachronism. It’s a game where you pit historical figures against one another in five minutes of gladiatorial combat, so I bet Jim West won’t be interested. But Joe Cathey might. Could Judah Maccabee take down Genghis Khan? In Anachronism, you can find out.

Compromised.

That’s the best word I can think of to describe the majority of the characters in the first few episodes of Battlestar Galactica, season 3. Compromised. Everybody is compromised. Lee is not battle-ready. Adama has reinstated the Sharon aboard Galactica, but continues to hide Hera’s existence from her. Chief Tyrol leads the human resistance against the Cylons, but in so doing turns humans into suicide bombers. The Cylons are fracturing, turning on each other. Humans are policing other humans for the Cylons—hidden behind ski masks to protect their identities (shame on you, Jammer). Ellen Tigh sells out the resistance to, she thinks, protect Saul. Saul’s hatred of Baltar blinds him more than the loss of his eye. And, somehow, inexplicably, the words “Kara Thrace” and “maternal instinct” actually go together in a meaningful sentence (I think Casey’s injury was faked, by the way, to try to flip Kara to the Cylon cause).

I can hardly wait for next week.

As a side comment, it seems that this is “name your TV episode after a biblical book” month. The first episode of Heroes was “Genesis,” and now we have a two-part “Exodus” on Battlestar Galactica. I’m just waiting for “Song of Solomon” to show up on Lost. There’s already a heavy helping of religion in Battlestar Galactica; is Adama shaping up to be a new Moses? “Let my people go, you toasters!”

Only a couple of days ago I got the table of contents notice for The Expository Times 117.10 (July 2006), and now here in my inbox is the notice for 117.11 (August 2006). Most of the items on the table of contents that relate to the study of the Tanakh are actually book reviews not more than half a page long.

I do commend to your reading the article by Clive Marsh, “‘High Theology’/'Popular Theology’? The Arts, Popular Culture and the Contemporary Theological Task.” This is the first in a four-part series by Marsh to be published in The Expository Times. In this first installment, he argues that “high culture” should not receive all the attention in “theology and culture” discussions, but that “theology’s work inevitably has to be conceived in a way which allows God-talk to be undertaken in interaction with whatever cultural products people actually encounter and consume” (p. 450). Marsh also asserts that

[t]heology is compelled to try and make itself a public and not a private discourse. This is not cheap evangelism or lazy apologetics. It is a challenge for theology to consider:

• Where God-talk is happening or able to happen in the arts, media and popular culture
• How it can participate and promote such discussion and reflection in a positive, stimulating manner
• What will happen to the content of theology as a result of this.

Of course, I am biased here, having actually published in the “Bible and film” area and being ensconced in a similar project even now. So, with that disclosure, I still recommend the article.