Abnormal Interests

April 27, 2011

Finkelstein On The Politics Archaeology Of Jerusalem

Israel Finkelstein writes, “In the Eye of Jerusalem’s Archaeological Storm: The City of David, Beyond the Politics and Propaganda” for The Forward,

Archaeological activity in Jerusalem has been sucked into a whirlwind of conflicting political agendas, and the site commonly referred to as “the City of David” is in the eye of the storm. At issue is a place of seminal importance for the Jewish people and indeed for anyone who cherishes the heritage of Western civilization.

When dealing with archaeology in Jerusalem, one must first know the facts. Otherwise it is easy to be led astray by unfounded historical interpretations or to succumb to misinformation from those pursuing their own political agendas.

Finkelstein’s whole article is well worth the short time it will take to read it.

If this post seems al lot like one from Jim Davila’s PaleoJudaica.com, that’s because I first heard of Finkelstein’s piece there.

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Posted by Duane on Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 3:13 PM (UTC-08:00)
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April 26, 2011

My Thoughts On The Upcoming Royal Wedding

Thanks for asking.

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Posted by Duane on Tuesday, April 26, 2011 at 10:57 AM (UTC-08:00)
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April 24, 2011

Too Much Of A Good Thing

The important message from this latest study is interesting because, while saying that swearing as a response to pain might be beneficial, there is evidence that if you swear too often in everyday situations the power of swearing won't be there when you really might need it.

So says Richard Stephens, benevolent swearing researcher at Keele University. This is why I confine my swearing to the involuntary type.

Via The Huffington Post

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Posted by Duane on Sunday, April 24, 2011 at 9:37 AM (UTC-08:00)
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April 22, 2011

Divining Balaam: A Problem With Omens

In which, hoping to avoid confusion, I trot out a confusing array of Greek, Latin, and English technical terms.

In the study of divination, it is common to differentiate between solicited and unsolicited omens, omina impetrativa and omina oblativa. For example, the inspection of an animal’s internal organs, extispicy, is always solicited. The diviner, generally after some ritual and sacrifice, examines a sheep or goat liver (or lung or things too fierce to mention) to determine the will or mind of the gods. Likewise, the casting of lots, cleromancy, is always solicited. Lots don’t cast themselves. Ornithomancy, to use what I hope is an unambiguous term, can be either auspicia impetrativa or auspicia oblativa. Indigenous Hittite ornithomancy was solicited; bird fight patterns were read to answer specific questions: “Have you, O god’s, approved?” “Have we nothing concerning him to fear from rebellion?” to use Richard Beal’s, 69-70, examples. Hittite augurs sought out answers to such questions through systematic study of bird behaviors. As far as I can tell, Assyrian and Babylonian (and Homeric) ornithomancy is always unsolicited. Birds present themselves in the context of human events and their very presence and activity have (or may have) implications that stand in need of explanation. In this type of ornithomancy the birds appear; they are not sought out.

Until yesterday afternoon, I thought the dreams of oneiromancy were unsolicited. Omens embedded in dreams were always omina oblativa or so I thought. While asleep, a dream in need of an interpretation comes without the willful intervention (sometimes against the will) of the sleeper. But I'm beginning to worry a little about this. While still trying to figure out the the respective semantic ranges of Hebrew קסם and נחשׁ, I looked at the biblical story of Balaam in Numbers 22-24 through new eyes. Balaam appears actively to seek the will of god by going to sleep or at least retiring for the night (22:8-13 and 19-20). And when he arises, he knows not only god’s will but god’s very words concerning a specific predetermined topic. We are never directly told here that Balaam had dreams but what else might be going on? Hmmm. Are the resulting messages from god solicited or unsolicited? The narrative sure makes them seem solicited, omina impetrativa. Balaam retires with a rather specific issue before him and receives a very specific reply.

Later in the narrative, he quite clearly has conversations with his ass, with YHWH’s messenger, and with YHWH himself while awake. But between his nighttime experiences and these seemingly more direct, daytime exchanges, something has changed in the narrative. Or I think it has. Still later in the narrative, Balaam calls for sacrifice before separating himself to receive the god’s message.

The first line of the Deir ‘Allā Balaam text refers to Balaam as a seer ḥz(h) and says something like, “The gods came to him in the night, and he envisioned a vision (wyḥz . mḥzh).” Notice the use of מַחֲזֵ֤ה in Numbers 24:5. Is it with the special talent of a seer like Balaam that the distinction between omina impetrativa and omina oblativa breaks down? If so, what is it about Balaam that makes the contrast no longer helpful?

Just in case anyone is wondering, I certainly see all this Balaam stuff as fictive. But I also see it as culturally and linguistically instructive.

Reference:

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Posted by Duane on Friday, April 22, 2011 at 12:36 PM (UTC-08:00)
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April 21, 2011

The Bible On Net Neutrality

According to David Burton,

But we talk about it today because it is a principle of free market. That’s a Biblical principle, that’s a historical principle, we have all these quotes from Ben Franklin, and Jefferson and Washington and others on free market and how important that is to maintain. That is part of the reason we have prosperity. This is what the Pilgrims brought in, the Puritans brought in, this is free market mentality. Net Neutrality sounds really good, but it is socialism on the Internet.

He said even more stuff like this on a recent radio show. I guess if you think that the “principle of free market” is a Biblical principle then it's only “logical” that Net Neutrality is unbiblical. It also follows by way of the same logic that freeways and socialist free surface streets are equally unbiblical.

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Posted by Duane on Thursday, April 21, 2011 at 7:21 AM (UTC-08:00)
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April 19, 2011

An Uneventful Day

Today is one of those days in life that seems like it should be a milestone day but isn’t. I just send sent off (actually uploaded) my essay on the Mesopotamian origin of Homeric augury to a journal for peer review. That seems like a big deal to me, but only to me. As usual, there are now three possible outcomes, only one of which is really a milestone: 1) the reviewers might flat out reject my essay. 2) The reviewers might raise major concerns while holding out the hope that if I address their concerns they wound look more favorably upon the essay a second time around. 3) They might recommend that the journal publish the essay with perhaps only a few minor revisions. Of course, the second and third possibilities actually represent the ends of a continuum. But the only things that really are milestones in this process are having it accepted for publication and having it published. Should the process go well, having the essay accepted for publication is likely months away and having it published may be a year or two away.

Now, on to two essays I've had on the back burner for a while.

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Posted by Duane on Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 2:13 PM (UTC-08:00)
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April 18, 2011

Hector Avalos On Biblical Ethics and Slavery (Soon)

Sheffield Scholarly Press has just announced Hector Avalos’ forthcoming book, Slavery, Abolitionism, and the Ethics of Biblical Scholarship. The announcement blurb alone will stir the pot. Here’s the last paragraph from the blurb.

Avalos’s close readings of the writings of major abolitionists such as Granville Sharp, William Wilberforce and Frederick Douglass show an increasing shift away from using the Bible as a support for abolitionism. Biblical scholars have rarely recognized that pro-slavery advocates could use the Bible just as effectively. According to Avalos, one of the complex mix of factors leading to abolition was the abandonment of the Bible as an ethical authority. The case of the biblical attitude to slavery is just one confirmation of how unsuitable the Bible is as a manual of ethics in the modern world.

Abnormal Readers can read the first two paragraphs of the blurb themselves but I do think this from the first paragraph deserves repeating, “Such a claim [that biblical ethics supports the abolition of slavery], he argues, is characteristic of a broader phenomenon in biblical scholarship, which focuses on defending, rather than describing, the ethical norms encountered in biblical texts.”

I haven’t read Avalos’ book and am not meaningfully familiar with either the biblical scholarship in this area or the writing of the abolitionist to have a reflected opinion on the specifics of this one way or the other. I do believe that the adoption of any ethic of authority constitutes an abdication of moral responsibly. So I guess I’m predisposed to Avalos’ position. Being predisposed for or against a position does not relieve one of a responsibility to critically address that position. So I, like most of you, I must await the book. We may need to wait until the fall.

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Posted by Duane on Monday, April 18, 2011 at 1:40 PM (UTC-08:00)
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April 17, 2011

Divining Birds Or Snakes In Deuteronomy 18:10-11

Deuteronomy 18:10-11 provides the most complete condemnation of divination of any passage in the Hebrew Bible. But exactly what is condemned?

The Hebrew reads,

The JPS translates this, “Let no one be found among you who consigns his son or daughter to the fire, or who is an augur (קֹסֵ֣ם), a soothsayer, a diviner (מְנַחֵ֖שׁ), a sorcerer, one who casts spells, or one who consults ghosts of familiar spirits, or one who inquires of the dead.”

I inserted the Hebrew word that I think is being translation in a couple of places. Because of the linguistic complexities of translation translations shouldn’t always be word for word and some license should be granted even when translating what amounts to a list.

But let’s look at a couple of other translations. Keep your eye out for augury.

NRSV: “No one shall be found among you who makes a son or daughter pass through fire, or who practices divination (קֹסֵ֣ם), or is a soothsayer, or an augur (מְנַחֵ֖שׁ), or a sorcerer, or one who casts spells, or who consults ghosts or spirits, or who seeks oracles from the dead.”

KJV: “There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination (קֹסֵ֣ם), or an observer of times, or an enchanter (מְנַחֵ֖שׁ), or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.”

Exactly what word, if any, means augur? Is it קֹסֵ֣ם as JPS seems to think or is it מְנַחֵ֖שׁ as NRSV seems to think? And where is the augur in the KJV? Perhaps Martin Noth summed up the situation correctly, when he said, “We no longer know what techniques and purposes lay behind the individual practices in vv. 10-11.” I even think he is right in saying, “In the list completeness seems to be attempted” but I find his following subordinate clause problematic, “though we must probably not assume that all these practices could be sharply distinguished from each other.” I bet the author and first readers of these verses knew exactly what these practices were and how to distinguish them from each other. I’m too lazy to check out more recent commentaries just now but I will in due course.

But one thing is abnormally interesting, the LXX appears to render מְנַחֵ֖שׁ οιωνιζομενος meaning, I guess, “augur" (LSJ 1211) but in some contexts it the Greek is more general, "diviner." The following appears in Xenophon, Cyropaedia 1.6:44, παρὰ γὰρ ἱερὰ καὶ οἰωνοὺς μήτε σαυτῷ μηδέποτε μήτε στρατιᾷ κινδυνεύσῃς, “Never put yourself or your army in harms way contrary to a serpent and bird-omen (or something like that).” An οἰωνός of bird of prey and ἱερὰ is some kind of a serpent. But οιωνιζομενος can also mean one who divines in the more general sense. What do they mean when conjoined by καὶ? Obviously, they can simple mean the omens provided by a serpent and a bird taken separately or together as in Id. 12:200-207. Καὶ can on occasion have a more associative meaning. In this case, one might understand ἱερὰ καὶ οἰωνοὺς as “serpent and interpretation (of the serpent).” The reason I bring this up, is that the root of מְנַחֵ֖שׁ is at least orthographical related to a word that means “snake” in Hebrew. The nouns נַחַשׁ, “divine” and נָחָשׁ, “snake” not only look alike they are pronounced almost the same. In a few passages נַחַשׁ, “divine,” and נָחָשׁ, “snake,” seem to stand in a punning relationship. Even if מְנַחֵ֖שׁ in Deuteronomy 18:10-11 eventually came to be understood as augury (the Vulgate has the rather unambiguous auguria), did it once stand for a reader of snake omens? My thought process here involves several rather problematic speculations. And I’m pretty sure מְנַחֵ֖שׁ is used on occasion to mean divination in a rather general way. There are also than a few big IFs in all this. But as I often say, “this is a blog” not a scholarly paper. If I can’t engage in speculation divination here where can I?

I see no reason to render קֹסֵ֣ם “augur,” if that is in fact what the JPS really intended.

By the way, I think any discussion of this question also needs to consider omens 20-22 on tablet 24 of Šumma Ālu. But that’s another topic for another day.

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Posted by Duane on Sunday, April 17, 2011 at 12:40 PM (UTC-08:00)
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April 15, 2011

Lewis Binford (November 21, 1930 – April 11, 2011)

Lewis Binford died on Monday of this week. Here’s part of what the Southern Methodist University had to say about Lewis Binford.

Lewis R. Binford, SMU Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, died April 11 in Kirksville, Mo. During his 40-year career as an archaeologist, Binford transformed scientists’ approach to archaeology, earning a legacy as the “most influential archaeologist of his generation,” according to Scientific American.

Binford first gained attention in 1962 as an assistant professor at the University of Chicago when he wrote a path-breaking article in American Antiquity proposing that archaeologists abandon their emphasis on cataloguing artifacts and instead study what the artifacts revealed about prehistoric cultures. The proposition launched what is now known as “New Archaeology.”

Please read the entire piece.

It is nearly impossible to overstate Lewis Binford’s impact on every aspect of archeology.

Via afarensis

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Posted by Duane on Friday, April 15, 2011 at 12:24 PM (UTC-08:00)
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April 14, 2011

Should We Have A Bake Sale?

According to today’s print edition of the Los Angeles Times, the CEO of Exxon Mobil Corporation “received slightly lower compensation last year.” At a measly $21.4 million, a 1% decrease from the year before, and with gas prices on the rise, it’s hard to see how he can get on. Shirley was so upset that she was thinking of having a bake sale for his family.

But I pointed out that most of his ill fortune was due to a $9% decrease in stock awards. His actual salary increased 7% to 2.2M and his bonus rose to $3.4M. Shirley seemed somewhat relieved at this news. Perhaps all we need to do is give him a Costco Membership.

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Posted by Duane on Thursday, April 14, 2011 at 9:35 AM (UTC-08:00)
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