The N. T. Wrong Blog

Which reminds me of the vitriolic words of Augustine in his various rants against the Manichaeans:

“The cucumbers suffer while you are cooking them,
without any benefit to the life that is in them: for a
boiling pot cannot be compared to a saintly stomach.”

“One of your silly notions is that the tree weeps when
the fruit is pulled. Doubtless the life in the tree
knows all things, and perceives who it is that comes
to it. If the elect were to come and pull the fruit,
would not the tree rejoice to escape the misery of
having its fruit plucked by others, and to gain
felicity by enduring a little momentary pain? And yet,
while you multiply the pains and troubles of the fruit
after it is plucked, you will not pluck it. Explain
that, if you can!”

“Your objection to eating flesh will be that you
cannot eat animals alive, and so the operation of your
stomach will not avail for the liberation of their
souls. Happy vegetables, that, torn up with the hand,
cut with knives, tortured in fire, ground by teeth,
yet reach alive the altars of your intestines! Unhappy
sheep and oxen, that are not so tenacious of life, and
therefore are refused entrance into your bodies! Such
is the absurdity of your notions.”

Israel Knohl has recently claimed a pre-Christian prophecy of the resurrection of the Messiah from the dead after three days, based on his interpretation of a recently discovered text (Hazon Gabriel - The Vision of Gabriel). The interpretation rests on a significantly reconstructed text, so is still somewhat speculative. But if Knohl is correct, and his reconstruction is certainly at least worth suggesting, then the text would be important evidence of one of the trajectories of development in messianic thought in early Judaism.

However, the idea that it takes the messiah three days to come back to the world of the living employs a very familiar mytheme. The idea that the dead take three days to return to the world of the living is a familiar one. The time period of three days is often given as the distance between the netherworld and earth.

A very relevant example is in the Ugaritic Rephaim Texts (KTU 1.20-22) from ca. 1200 BC. It is very relevant, because the Ugaritian and biblical traditions share a broadly common geographical locale, many common beliefs and traditions, and a broadly similar language (although are separated by some 500+ years). The traditions about the Rephaim (Saviours) are included in the biblical books with very similar accompanying mythological themes (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah).

KTU 1.20 ii 5-7a says:

… which in English is (as Wyatt translates):

“They journeyed a day and a second. After su[nrise on the third] the Saviours arrived at the threshing-floors, the di[vinities at] the plantations.”

The picture here, although from another fragmentary and uncertain text, is of the 3-day journey from the netherworld to Ugarit by the long-deceased heroes (-kings) who were the deified heroic ancestors of Ugarit. In some sense, they appear to have blessed Ugarit at the the cultic feast here on earth by their presence.

Note that the dead return after sunrise on the third day. Now read Mark 16.2.

Given the Messiah’s/Michael’s function as defeater of death, it is unsurprising that this mytheme should recur in respect of a Messianic resurrection account from the first century BC. Note the mythic concatenation of themes of sea-monster–heart of the earth–three nights—Son of Man in Matthew 12.40. Sounds to me like it was based on an apocalyptic-mythic prophecy which employed these mythic themes.

A startling new theory suggests that Yahweh may have been a computer designed by an ancient civilization:

“If you look at the way the people of a few thousand years ago interacted with their God, the similarity to interacting with a computer is inescapable.

Consider the behavior of a computer when you try to interact with it and it’s feeling uncooperative. The obstinacy, the perverse malevolence, the capriciousness, the dictatorial edicts telling you to do this certain thing, when this certain thing doesn’t exist, its snide little windows telling you how stupid you are and how badly you’ve screwed up. The computer is unapproachable except on its own terms. You have to do precisely what it says, and then it perversely tells you that was the wrong thing to do. You must pay obeisance to it and its procedures to gain access to communication with it, and even then, it smugly refuses to answer, or answers another, unrelated question altogether.”

- Ed Martin, ‘Was the God of the Ancients a Computer?’

Ben Myers provides a good review of Daniel Radosh’s new book, Rapture Ready! Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture (New York: Scribner, 2008).

According to Myers, Radosh is good-natured and generous towards his subject most of the time. But, when it comes to the Left Behind series, Radosh doesn’t hold back. Radosh quotes this gratuitously violent passage from the final book in the series, which is meant to describe what occurs at Jesus’ return in glory:

“Men and women soldiers and horses seemed to explode where they stood. It was as if the very words of the Lord had superheated their blood, causing it to burst through their veins and skin. Their innards and entrails gushed to the desert floor…”

Radosh sums the tone of that passage, and much of the Left Behind series, with a fine piece of mimicry:

“Gloria in excelsis Deo, motherfucker!” ( p. 78 )

Rosemary Reuther presented the Eugene M. Burke lecture on February 25, 2008: ‘American Empire and the War Against Evil’. UCTV has now made it available on YouTube.

(Yes, Jim, the medium of internet video ranges in content from the sublime to the banal. This is the case for the medium of the book, too.)

“In this Burke Lecture, Dr. Reuther examines how the idea that the US is an elect and messianic nation has encouraged abuses against the rights of others, both foreign and domestic.”

“Our enemies are all diabolic.”
- Rosemary Radford Reuther (with heavy sarcasm)

Join William Dever as he uncovers historical kernals in J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit.

Recommended for ages 6-14.

Tom Levy introduces William Dever as “The Bad Boy of Archaeology”, in this interview on UCTV’s Dig This, February 2008. Dever gives an overview of Palestinian/Israeli archaeology:

“There has grown up in Europe, particularly, a new school of biblical scholars - they call themselves ‘revisionists’ - who think the Hebrew Bible is a collection of fairy tales, basically - there’s no history at all to be derived from it. I wouldn’t go to that extreme. The Bible is not history in the modern sense, doesn’t purport to be, but I think the Bible contains a lot of historical information about the Iron Age of ancient Palestine or ancient Israel.”

On those, unnamed minimalists, who suggest the Tell Dan inscription may have been a fraud:

“What kind of scholarship is it that discredits the inconvenient evidence? This is the extent to which extremists will go to argue that there was no ancient Israel. And if you think perhaps there is an ideological agenda there, you’re quite right … There are some people who - let’s put it gently - are not friends of Israel, ancient or modern, some people who believe that archaeology can be used to settle competing clams between Israelis and Palestinians today … And there are always people who don’t like the Bible, and enjoy Bible-bashing. I don’t think that’s honest scholarship.”

I should add, there’s nothing new here (it’s a general overview interview), but I was amused by the description of Dever as “The Bad Boy of Archaeology”. Very Indiana Jones. William Dever seemed chuffed.

There’s a review of Loveday Alexander’s interesting collection of articles, reading Acts against the Hellenistic literary background, in Review of Biblical Literature:

Loveday C. A. Alexander, Acts in Its Ancient Literary Context: A Classicist Looks at the Acts of the Apostles (2007)

It’s always good to read somebody who has a proper grasp of the source material! Well, I can only add an amen to that comment from the reviewer.

In Part 4 of Tom Wright’s special children series, ‘Bishop Potter’, the good Bishop has his hands full with an invasion of Hogwarts Theological Seminary by 2000-year-old zombies. Bishop Potter eventually discovers that the zombies are the resurrected saints referred to in the Gospel of Matthew (27.52-53). Bishop Potter is given an ancient Jewish prophecy from Qumran by a passing magic mushroom vendor. The prophecy clearly states that the Parousia will be delayed until these zombies are put back to sleep. It’s up to Bishop Potter to usher in the eschaton. But instead, he seems intent on writing a 1000-page book on the historicity of the Jerusalem undead. Things get worse and worse in the outside world, but Bishop Potter seems oblivious to the cosmic conflagration unfolding around him …

Recommended for 10- to 16-year-olds.

Daniel B. Wallace was one of the first biblical scholars to attempt the crossover to the lucrative Children’s Book market. And the kids loved it. Learning Koine Greek was never so much fun. Once children have found Wally, he leads them through elementary parsing in a fun, lively approach that provides plenty of laughs for everyone. Recommended for ages 3-12.