Bible Archives | Numéro Cinq

Robert Alter on the Literary Structure of the Bible

Aug 232013

Robert Alter is one of those academic stars who should be more of a star. Maybe he’s not more famous than he is because his brand of criticism is formalist and less ideologically driven than some others. I prefer the formalist approach myself because it sees literature as an encyclopedia of technique and structure. I have come to care less about what a book I admire means than how it’s constructed. Alter also opened up the Bible to me in ways I found comprehensible and fascinating. Along with Frank Kermode, he edited The Literary Guide to the Bible, which is my Bible bible. Here’s a lecture on literary repetition; you get a taste of his mind. (Be patient, the video takes a few seconds to get going, and the first person to appear is the man giving the introduction, not Alter himself.)

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2013, NC Blog

Introduction to the New Testament in 26 Lectures from Yale University

May 212013

1 Introduction: Why Study the New Testament?

2. From Stories to Canon

3 The Greco-Roman World

4 Judaism in the First Century

5 The New Testament as History

6 The Gospel of Mark

7 The Gospel of Matthew

8 The Gospel of Thomas

9 The Gospel of Luke

10 The Acts of the Apostles

11 Johannine Christianity: The Gospel

12 Johannine Christianity: The Letters

13 The Historical Jesus

14 Paul as Missionary

15 Paul as Pastor

16 Paul as Jewish Theologian

17 Paul’s Disciples

18 Arguing with Paul?

19 The “Household” Paul: The Pastorals

20 The “Anti-household” Paul: Thecla

21 Interpreting Scripture: Hebrews

22 Interpreting Scripture: Medieval Interpretations

23 Apocalyptic and Resistance

24 Apocalyptic and Accommodation

25 Ecclesiastical Institutions: Unity, Martyrs, and Bishops

26 The “Afterlife” of the New Testament and Postmodern Interpretation

Introduction to the Old Testament in 24 Lectures from Yale University

May 202013

Yale University offers some amazing free courses online, not the least of which is this one on the Old Testament. I’m adding this to the NC Necessary Books page (which, megalomaniac that I am, I am considering turning into a treasure trove of literary and cultural history). In any case, this lecture series is a brilliant introduction to the Old Testament. Christine Hayes, the lecturer, is the kind of person you could listen to all day and long into the night, sharp, amiable, clear and engaging. What she teaches is just surprise after surprise.

If you want to, you can also go to the Open Yale site and download audio files of all the lectures.

1 The Parts of the Whole

2 The Hebrew Bible in Its Ancient Near Eastern Setting: Biblical Religion in Context

3 The Hebrew Bible in Its Ancient Near Eastern Setting: Genesis 1-4 in Context

4 Doublets and Contradictions, Seams and Sources: Genesis 5-11 and the Historical-Critical Method

5 Critical Approaches to the Bible: Introduction to Genesis 12-50

6 Biblical Narrative: The Stories of the Patriarchs (Genesis 12-36)

7 Israel in Egypt: Moses and the Beginning of Yahwism (Genesis 37- Exodus 4)

8 Exodus: From Egypt to Sinai (Exodus 5-24, 32; Numbers)

9 The Priestly Legacy: Cult and Sacrifice, Purity and Holiness in Leviticus and Numbers

10 Biblical Law: The Three Legal Corpora of JE (Exodus), P (Leviticus and Numbers) and D (Deuteronomy)

11 On the Steps of Moab: Deuteronomy

12 The Deuteronomistic History: Life in the Land (Joshua and Judges)

13 The Deuteronomistic History: Prophets and Kings (1 and 2 Samuel)

14 The Deuteronomistic History: Response to Catastrophe (1 and 2 Kings)

15 Hebrew Prophecy: The Non-Literary Prophets

16 Literary Prophecy: Amos

17 Literary Prophecy: Hosea and Isaiah

18 Literary Prophecy: Micah, Zephaniah, Nahum and Habbakuk

19 Literary Prophecy: Perspectives on the Exile (Jeremiah, Ezekiel and 2nd Isaiah)

20 Responses to Suffering and Evil: Lamentations and Wisdom Literature

21 Biblical Poetry: Psalms and Song of Songs

22 The Restoration: 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah

23 Visions of the End: Daniel and Apocalyptic Literature

24 Alternative Visions: Esther, Ruth, and Jonah

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2013, NC Blog, NC Magazine

Sometimes desire is just a caper-fruit after all

Mar 122011

Here’s the TLS review of 400 Years of the King James Bible. It toucheth on many topics including translation and mistranslation and, here, yes, even on Robert Alter, critic and translator, whose formalist approach to the Bible (and the novel) dg hath always found revelatory. This little bit is quite funny.

The liveliest essay in the volume is Robert Alter’s “The glories and the glitches of the King James Bible”, in which he matches wits with the KJB translators. As the editor-translator of The Five Books of Moses (2004) and The Book of Psalms (2007), Alter is well qualified to appreciate not only the skill of the translators, but also their mistakes. After reading Alter’s essay, it is hard to feel quite the same way about the KJB’s rendering of the final chapter of Ecclesiastes, which many Anglicans of a certain age can still recite by heart: “the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets”. Alter is justly admiring of this “great sombre poem on mortality and the decay of the body”, but also points out that some of the poetic effect is actually the result of mistranslation. The Hebrew word hagav, which the KJB translates as “grasshopper”, may refer to the locust-tree; the word aviyyonah, which the KJB translates as “desire”, is probably another plant, the caper-fruit.

via 400 years of the King James Bible by Arnold Hunt – TLS.

A little biblical humour, not for the weak in spirit(s)

Jan 162011

First thing this lovely sunny morning, my son Jacob sends me this email.

I am listening to a lecture about the historical Jesus right now and the lecturer was talking about St. John the Baptist jumping in his mother’s womb for joy because Mary, pregnant with Jesus, was there. The lecturer called him St. John, The (are you ready for this?) Prophetus!

We Feed Horses in the Hopes that the Lowly Sparrows Might (eventually) Benefit: Christmas Sermon — Rev. John Ekman

Dec 212010

Once upon a time, sermons were a vibrant literary form, not to be forgotten. This is a Christmas sermon delivered by my friend Rev. John Ekman (we once or twice went downhill skiing together, now we meet at the gym from time to time) five years ago at his church in Saratoga Springs, New York. John often preaches from “extended notes” or thought points, but this Christmas sermon is the full written out version (for an example of the thought points alone, see a second sermon which I have appended below).

I use “extended notes,”…what you received is what I would call FULL text. Some preachers go from memory…I can do that for a short piece but not for 12-15 minutes. I usually go on the shorter side: “The mind can not absorb what the butt cannot tolerate.” Other preachers would read their sermon from a text like I have sent you. And others (that would be me) use notes where “the unnecessary words” have been taken out and the speaker is left to supply verbs/adjectives, etc. My method allows me to take a quick look at a “section” and then make eye contact with the congregation as I have then “re-memorized” a short script. I’ll send you an e.g. and you can pretty much tell what I am saying just by looking at key words and supplying your own connectors.

John’s text reads as a kind of poetic argument. His mix of typographical emphasis and parentheticals is rhetorical, meant to be spoken; it reminds me of the essays of the Black Mountain poet Charles Olson (see “On Projective Verse”). John’s message is earthy, comic and highly political, but political in the way the Old Testament prophets were political, critics of their own culture and time, critics of the effete and useless rich and their shallow piety. His socially engaged Christianity seems a far cry from the family values Christianity we hear about on Fox-News.

For another example of a sermon at NC, see Hilary Mullins “Hear My Call“.

“We Feed Horses in the Hopes that the Lowly Sparrows Might (eventually) Benefit.”

(Luke 1: 47-55, Is. 61:1-4, 8-11.)

A sermon by the Rev. John Ekman, Presbyterian/New England Congregational Church, Saratoga Springs

I. Folks who run ad campaigns know that they’ve got to change the message and rework the images, or in the case of the lottery alter the game in order to keep interest up. Failure to update for public consumption means death to the product. Buick tried this with “It’s not your mother’s Buick.” [Of course it–still–was your mother’s Buick!] The NYS lottery has gone with King Kong. I guess there’s not much marketing value in the Lion King.

II. In matters of our faith story there is a danger (actually a severe danger) that by growing so familiar with the Biblical images the message loses its power to change and transform us. The meaning of the story becomes lost in the mundane commonality. “Frankly: we’ve {just} heard THAT story too many times.”

III. The FACT is that our biblical faith is pretty radical stuff. In fact the Bible ought to come with a warning, “Dangerous to your sense of well being and comfort.” The Bible should say, “Use with caution. Drink plenty of water if you believe you’ve ingested too much of this product.” The Bible story should be toxic to our common assumptions and it should actually alter our understandings of life.

IV. Take Mary’s song in Luke. The Magnificat, when set to music is a wonderfully artistic creation. BUT look at the words! Radical. Totally disquieting and discomforting. If you live in poverty in the third world you can find solace and hope. We, you—I—the very comfortable—should be dismayed!

“Pull down princes from their thrones. Exalt the lowly. The hungry go away full…the full empty.” OUCH! There are lots of refugees along the Gulf Coast or in Darfur or in Gaza who will have trouble putting food on the table. What are we planning for Christmas dinner? “Please pass the stuffing—again.”

When we actually read the text and really seek to comprehend the meaning, the lovely notes of the Magnificat should fade into unabridged message of terror.

V. Let’s move on to Isaiah. Surely, we say, it cannot be worse than Mary’s song? Jesus got into big trouble reading this passage in his home town. I reckon if you’re a prophet you ought to be from somewhere else! Isaiah’s story says: “Gods spirit is upon me. Good news to the poor. I mend the brokenhearted. I free the captives. I hate robbery. I love justice. I despise all wrong. This is the year of the Lord’s favor.”

VI. Actually the year of Jubilee (or the year of the Lord’s favor) never did happen as Biblically stated. It was too radical! Supposedly the year of Jubilee was a time when all debts were to be cancelled…the land returned to the original owners…and the entire society would start over again. The slate would be cleaned. Life, hope, opportunity and promise would all be renewed. Jesus said, “This time is now!” That’s radical stuff!!

For us this should be another Biblical OUCH! In the year of Jubilee your credit card debt would be cancelled—I guess that is good news for lots of Americans. But it is only momentary good news! The Biblical finger is always pointing (back) at us. Let’s face it, our comfort pretty much comes at the expense and discomfort of others!

We like cheap lettuce. Our salads come on the backs of underpaid, illegal, stoop labor. [If we do not understand that practical lettuce growing business truth…we aren’t paying attention.]

VII. I’ve got to be honest. This is not the Christmas message that I (or you) came to hear. We like bright lights, expectant children, familiar hymns and family gatherings. That is what Christmas is all about! We prefer the comfortable and dulled familiarity to the conscience prodding awareness of God’s searing truths.

VIII. The birth of Jesus is about a Jew so radical that he had to be murdered. The wonderful children’s pageant of today ends with the agony of Good Friday. Conspiracy and state killing was the only rational protection of the status quo. And Jesus said, “It is finished.”

IX. My reading of the Bible leads me to believe that God actually cares about ALL people. God wants ALL creatures made in the divine image to have a chance to achieve the fullness of their humanity. In the end this desire of God is good for us! Society and the world benefits when ALL are able and encouraged to contribute.

Who knows what discoveries and inventions lie unearthed because millions of human minds are wasted, ignored, starved or murdered? BUT advantage and opportunity tend to flow up—not down the social ladder.

X. Today there are vast chasms between the rich and the poor, between those lacking opportunity and those having it all. This bodes ill for society’s and the world’s long term health and viability. In the end we need each other healthy and contributing…not angry and destroying.

XI. Most often politicians come from the privileged classes. Our laws and tax breaks benefit thems that has. This is not in the long term good of our nation…but it is the “way of the world.” What’s common in politics is not the way of Jesus. It is not the radical Christmas message!

XII. Let me speak personally. Kristen has worked very hard to get where she is. We are proud of her. She has spent lots of time studying for written exams and oral medical boards, when her friends were out doing pleasant whatever. Kristen also has parents who know the value of education and are willing to sacrifice to do what is good for their children. [Lots of you feel the same about your kids. Your experience and pride echoes Judy’s and mine.]

XIII. Let’s be honest. Few of us, including Kristen (or our John or Wendy) got where they are by their own efforts. We all had parents or teachers or employers or friends who were looking out for us, giving us recommendations or opening doors. Most people do not have that advantage. In today’s North America the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer and lots of folks who think they are in the middle class—aren’t!

Trickle down economics really says, “Lets feed the horses and hope that the lowly sparrows eventually find nourishment in what the horses leave behind on the road.” It doesn’t happen. There are too few horses and far too many sparrows, and what flows from the rich doesn’t bring employment to those below.

XIV. Think about the scriptures today. Why should the rich get a tax break they don’t need so that other folks can do without? Among well moneyed special interest groups in the DC beltway you get the perception that the “Greedy are needy and the needy are greedy.” We feed the horses and hope that the lowly sparrows benefit from the droppings.

XV. This is not the story you came here today to hear! We like our spirits lifted at Christmas time. Bright lights, expectant children, familiar hymns, the gathering of family. But the Christmas story is so much more than that. The story is about God’s justice and inclusion. Think of Mary’s song and Isaiah. Theirs is a story about God’s passion for the poor. It is a radical story that ends with (a) murder.

AMEN

[This sermon was preached in Christmas of 2005.]

{just} Sit and Wait

A sermon based on James 5:4 to 10

I. Don’t talk drive. Judy retaliates doing crafts/word puzzles. Lately “talking books.” Bought two ½ price Rocky River. One good—one really bad. One good : “Jesus Dynasty,” B. scholar Jim Tabor.

When knee jerk think early Christianity=PAUL. After-all 7/14 letters to churches NT written by him. Moved serious antagonist to chief protagonist for faith. Much pop thought dominated character Paul. BUT theme “Jesus dynasty” basically members Jesus immediate family REALLY took over nascent movement/ from Jerusalem guided through early years following Jesus’ death.

Story/scholarship worth $3 change cost me—better $9 spent Victor Frankle.

II. According Tabor: “Jesus dynasty” JAMES written by THE James: brother of Jesus/ first leader of church/among first thrown off tall building/beaten death club or stoned -courage lead viewed “power” unpopular/threatening movement. JAMES (good Jews was) stresses two “faith issues.” ONE became unpopular w. later Jesus followers…OTHER been constant theme.

III. First-the somewhat unpopular/always contentious. (P) For Jews (acting on best beliefs) faith incorporated ACTION. Judaism at best not so much “proper belief” as “ right action.” [Not lot heresy trials among Jews.]

IV. TORAH doc. be lived…not set ideals spoken of sanctimonious/warm tones. (P) Letter JAMES not easily favored candidate admission to our Christian NT. (P) Martin Luther “Justification by FAITH—not works” called JAMES “epistle of straw.”…JAMES talking justification/getting rt. w. God by works!

I-AS many you-like JAMES. (P) “ FAITH W/O WORKS IS DEAD.” OR “You say you have faith….show me your faith apart from your works….by my works…I show my faith.” (P) Makes sense. (P) For me: concrete/real…actual parameters of action by which give life to my faith.

V. JAMES second strain DID into Christianity. (P) THEOL. HOPE end times. In hard times/Jews felt “couldn’t get worse” HOPE attached God’s arr. kingdom. [Much lesser feeling—like frustration w. inability Washington “do right thing” –esp. when that “right” complex not easily agreed on. Need God come down straighten mess out!]

VI. Read B. hist.—look US today…”more change-more stay same.” ARE people conscience who wealth—{also} lot people “live very very well” seem feel NO sense social obligation (except themselves-expanded extravagance own comfort.) JAMES no stranger prophetic diatribe: “ Laborers mowed your fields—you cheated them. It you condemned innocent-killing them.” {More change-more remain same!}

VI. That desperate context 1st C. hoped “Kingdom of God.” (P) James says, “Wait for Lord’s coming.” God’s REFORMATION ACTION in REAL time/Kingdom happen on this earth…maybe {even} Jesus thought happen before all disciples died.

VII. Worked sermon struck me “juxtaposition.” One hand JAMES: Faith-works go together…so get out there and work. Other hand {almost} passive waiting for God make things right.

VIII. Read Middle East-much Jewish political analysis. Piece Falk-Jewish/UN official Gaza typical. Realize Israel estab. fact. Real people live there. Realize pressure among Jews for Israel’s creation came Western/Christian violent anti-Semitism. Way too many Christians sat hands/lent hands to Hitler’s diabolical efforts.

IX. Whether giving Jews homeland in “land cousins” wise—open question. [Many State Dept. time wondered wisdom!] What’s interesting—ORTHODOX JEWS felt “faith depended” God set time tables Jewish return/Jewish safety.” (P) Any human effort estab. state w. political-armed means betrayal faith in God.

X. JAMES (is Jewish) similar bent. Reminds “patience Job” {wasn’t very patient till first-last part booked added}…counsels same quiet/purposeful waiting for real/structural change-come on God’s time.

I. Today two extremes. Bumper Sticker: “Don’t worry God’s in Control,”—lead social irresponsibility: Global warming no big deal—God take care of it. (P) Other extreme (I happier w.) “God no hands but ours.” (P) We created in God’s image. Have capacity love/care. Estimate future consequences; sense what works-doesn’t…AND {an} enlightened conscience should tell us “what’s obviously fair.”

II. Neglecting laborers (white collar workers) mow fields…firing them/denying fair wage/excluding medical care/taking away HOPE so “few” obscenely richer—neither fair nor safe for society. Recipe misery-disaster.

III. Question is: Do wait patiently Lord—as James says JOB did? OR is our responsibity: DO faith-take action-human good/social well being? (P) Obviously I have my opinion… AMEN.

[This sermon was delivered Dec 12, 2010]

—John Ekman

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Leitwort, leading word, word repetition as a technique

Nov 192010

I was listening to Christine Hayes’ fine lectures on the Hebrew Bible today (you can download them at Open Yale) and she was talking about leitwort, the technique of word repetition that is key device biblical writers used. E.g. She made reference to the seven repetitions of “…it was good.” It turns out Martin Buber coined the term. Here is his definition. It’s crucial, I think, to see that he describes the effect of the repetition in physical terms, as “movement.” This is obviously a very useful device in any kind of writing.

Jael and Sisera, or something about the wisdom of letting women play with hammers and nails

Nov 172010

Like many Bible readers, I come at the text from a blind spot created by Sunday school teaching and pulpit homilies and pop cultural sermonizing. The more I read it, the more fascinating it becomes—partly because it is never what I expect and not at all what I was taught. Part of me (the 15-year-old part, that is, about 90% of me) is still at the stage of being surprised and delighted by the moral waywardness of the characters, the shocking violence, and the prevalence of prostitutes and concubines. My Sunday school teacher, for example, did not dwell on the wonderful details of Ehud’s assassination of the fat king Eglon of Moab in the Book of Judges when the fat closes around the dagger and the shit gushes out of the wound (Ehud is kind of an Israelite Jason Bourne—the passage reads like that). [I realize I have posted about this story before—what does this tell you about me?]

003:015 But when the children of Israel cried unto the LORD, the LORD
raised them up a deliverer, Ehud the son of Gera, a Benjamite,
a man lefthanded: and by him the children of Israel sent a
present unto Eglon the king of Moab.

003:016 But Ehud made him a dagger which had two edges, of a cubit
length; and he did gird it under his raiment upon his right
thigh.

003:017 And he brought the present unto Eglon king of Moab: and Eglon
was a very fat man.

003:018 And when he had made an end to offer the present, he sent away
the people that bare the present.

003:019 But he himself turned again from the quarries that were by
Gilgal, and said, I have a secret errand unto thee, O king:
who said, Keep silence. And all that stood by him went out
from him.

003:020 And Ehud came unto him; and he was sitting in a summer
parlour, which he had for himself alone. And Ehud said, I have
a message from God unto thee. And he arose out of his seat.

003:021 And Ehud put forth his left hand, and took the dagger from his
right thigh, and thrust it into his belly:

003:022 And the haft also went in after the blade; and the fat closed
upon the blade, so that he could not draw the dagger out of
his belly; and the dirt came out.

I turn from this to the equally shocking and delightful tale of Jael nailing Sisera’s head to the floor. Sisera is on the run after losing a battle to the Israelites. He asks Jael for a cup of water. She invites him into her tent and offers him a glass of milk instead. Exhausted, he falls asleep. Then she, um, drives a nail through his head. A kind of Home Depot-style biblical assassination. Here is the no-nonsense, stripped down account in Judges.

Sexual Dysfunction in the Bible

Oct 172010

.
Vermont College of Fine Arts old timers may remember the note taped the corner of a desk in Howland Hall: “Let’s put the fun back in dysfunctional.”

I was back rereading the Bible over the weekend, starting at Kings 1. The first verses are about King David in his dotage, losing power in all sorts of ways. His courtiers send out for a good-looking girl. They find Abishag the Shunammite (I think the word means virgin). She curls up in bed with the old man, but he still can’t get “heat” and he never “knows” her.

This passage reminds me of a much younger self reading Anatole France’s novel Penguin Island in the old Loyalist port city of Saint John on the Bay of Fundy where I was starting life as a newspaper reporter after abandoning my career teaching philosophy at the University of New Brunswick. Somewhere in the novel France has a little riff on Abishag and this couplet:

I am thy Abishag, I am thy Shunammite.
Make, oh my Lord, room for me on thy couch.

Here are the Bible verses.

001:001 Now king David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat.

001:002 Wherefore his servants said unto him, Let there be sought formy lord the king a young virgin: and let her stand before the king, and let her cherish him, and let her lie in thy bosom, that my lord the king may get heat.

001:003 So they sought for a fair damsel throughout all the coasts of Israel, and found Abishag a Shunammite, and brought her to the king.

001:004 And the damsel was very fair, and cherished the king, and ministered to him: but the king knew her not.

Abishag stays around, apparently with Bathsheba’s acquiescence, and then comes in once more after David is dead as a point of contention between Solomon and his brother Adonijah.

The figure of Abishag has inspired poets and painters. Here is Rilke’s take.

Abishag

She lay, and serving-men her lithe arms took,
And bound them round the withering old man,
And on him through the long sweet hours she lay,
And little fearful of his many years.

And many times she turned amidst his beard
Her face, as often as the night-owl screeched,
And all that was the night around them reached
Its feelers manifold of longing fears.

As they had been the sisters of the child
The stars trembled, and fragrance searched the room,
The curtain stirring sounded with a sign
Which drew her gentle glances after it.

But she clung close upon the dim old man,
And, by the night of nights not over-taken,
Upon the cooling of the King she lay
Maidenly, and lightly as a soul.

The King sate thinking out the empty day
Of deeds accomplished and untasted joys,
And of his favorite bitch that he had bred.
But with the evening Abishag was arched
Above him. His disheveled life lay bare,
Abandoned as diffamed coasts, beneath
The quiet constellation of her breasts.

But many times, as one in women skilled,
he through his eyebrows recognized the mouth
Unmoved, unkissed; and saw: the comet green
Of her desired reached not to where he lay.
He shivered. And he listened like a hound,
And sought himself in his remaining blood.

—Rainer Maria Rilke

Might we hear a little applause for that “quiet constellation of her breasts?”

My feelings about this passage have changed considerably since that time in Saint John. I don’t really like David much. The books of Samuel seem somewhat of a public relations campaign to discredit Saul (one of the most interesting character in the Bible, to my mind) and authenticate David as the founder of the line of great Israelite kings. But David is a prima donna and a nudge and changes sides when he needs to and is death on women (I lost count of his wives–for Solomon, the Bible gives you stats). The editors of the books like him because they have a clear bias toward any king who promoted the temple cult. Saul is between the new cult and the more ancient religions. He falls into trances with Sufi like prophets and consults witches. God doesn’t like him.

David arranges the foul murder of his loyal officer Uriah the Hittite, but God doesn’t mind. There is a lot of tension throughout these pages between the cult enthusiasts and the more human and humane reader who might not find Saul’s confusions so difficult to understand and might be offended by David’s outright immorality.

Also, of course, the Bible is mostly about and for men. Women rarely show up as protagonists. What did Abishag think of all this? Lost to memory. (This is so obvious, it hardly seems worth mentioning.)

For example, here is one of those difficult white-washing passages about David. David is “perfect” with the Lord except for that tiny matter of adultery and murder. Hmmm. This comes in 1 Kings, after the kingdom has been split into Judah and Israel.

015:001 Now in the eighteenth year of king Jeroboam the son of Nebat reigned Abijam over Judah.

015:002 Three years reigned he in Jerusalem. and his mother’s name was Maachah, the daughter of Abishalom.

015:003 And he walked in all the sins of his father, which he had done before him: and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father.

015:004 Nevertheless for David’s sake did the LORD his God give him a lamp in Jerusalem, to set up his son after him, and to establish Jerusalem:

015:005 Because David did that which was right in the eyes of the LORD, and turned not aside from any thing that he commanded him all the days of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite. [My emphasis.]

Berserkers in the Bible

Oct 122010

Jonathan and his armour bearer climbing to attack the Philistines

In Samuel 1, 13 & 14, there is a fascinating little story about Saul’s son Jonathan. The Philistines are attacking and it is suddenly the case that there are no blacksmiths amongst the Israelites. The Israelites have to go to the Philistines even to get their axes, mattocks and ploughshares sharpened (didn’t anyone think about this ahead of time?). So Saul gathers his more or less weaponless army and hangs around wondering what to do. Jonathan, his son (who does have weapons), goes berserk (or a reasonable facsimile) and attacks the Philistine all by himself except for his faithful armour bearer who tags along. They climb a cliff to get to the Philistine host and fall upon it, killing twenty men right away.

014:011 And both of them discovered themselves unto the garrison of
the Philistines: and the Philistines said, Behold, the Hebrews
come forth out of the holes where they had hid themselves.

014:012 And the men of the garrison answered Jonathan and his
armourbearer, and said, Come up to us, and we will shew you a
thing. And Jonathan said unto his armourbearer, Come up after
me: for the LORD hath delivered them into the hand of Israel.

014:013 And Jonathan climbed up upon his hands and upon his feet, and
his armourbearer after him: and they fell before Jonathan; and
his armourbearer slew after him.

014:014 And that first slaughter, which Jonathan and his armourbearer
made, was about twenty men, within as it were an half acre of
land, which a yoke of oxen might plow.

Continue reading »

Hear My Call: Sermon — Hilary Mullins

Jul 012010

Herewith a sermon by VCFA graduate Hilary Mullins, not a former student of mine, though she was in a novel workshop with me once, just a friend, but an old and good friend who comes up to the campus every residency to visit and sits in for a lecture or two or a reading. I has fond memories of long evenings spent in Francois Camoins’ room in Noble with Hilary and Ralph Angel and any number of students and faculty rotating in and out. Good friends, good conversation.

I offer this sermon in the Numéro Cinq spirit of subversiveness and outlawry. Once upon a time, the sermon was a hot nonfiction form. Books of sermons were routinely published and became best sellers. Nowadays, creative nonfiction is pretty narrowly defined and almost all literary prose has turned secular. I offer this sermon to remind you of a form, now too often ignored, a vibrant form that by definition looks to the deepest places of the human heart. Also to remind you to look to the side, to avoid defining yourselves, your reading and your writing too narrowly.

dg

Hilary Mullins, Author’s Note:

Sermons are a great form, and–as a writer addressing other writers–I am here to tell you it’s a form you do not have to be ordained to practice. You should be informed of course, but that is not the same as being ordained. In my case, I’ve taken a couple of seminary classes plus a three-year lay training program in Vermont where I live. I have also studied a fair amount on my own. But that is all. And yet it’s enough.

Naturally, since I also run the services I preach at, my sense of the sermon’s potential exceeds the parameters of the sermon itself. For me the form is the whole service: from the prelude and call of worship, to the first hymn and prayer, to the sustained silence that comes next, and on and on, each element flowing along in the larger structure of the liturgy, creating an ongoing rhythm that, if you do it right, wakes people up—to themselves, to each other, to the deeper river running through all things.

But as for the sermon itself, it has its own dynamics as well. Even more obviously than a short story or an essay, the sermon is a wonderfully flexible form that you can shape shift in just about any direction that will serve, mixing facts and figures with quotations or poetry, alternating straight-up exegesis with story. And in the liberal denominations I work in, which are Unitarian Universalist and Congregationalist, I have the freedom to work with texts beyond the Bible. For instance, when it comes to picking scripture for a Sunday, I have often paired a Biblical passage with a poem, using works by Rumi, Mary Oliver, Sharon Olds, and Gerard Manley Hopkins. Some denominations won’t allow this, it’s true. But the limitations are not in the form itself.

Then there are effects that, though they don’t play in a reprinted sermon, work well in person with a congregation before you. Smile when you stand up, and they’ll smile back. Then as you get going, talk quiet or talk loud, slow up, slow down, use your body. Speak as if you were a channel for something good and something good can happen. And maybe best of all, the thing that other writers so rarely get to do: look in their eyes. Worlds are there. And they will come forth as they look back at you.

The Bible, a comic interlude

May 192010

Sorry to obsess. But look at 1 Samuel 5 & 6, a passage that has the feel of parody. The Israelites have just gone into battle against the Philistines taking their Ark of the Covenant with them as backup. But the people have been backsliding again and the battle is lost and the Ark goes over to the other side. The Philistines of Ashdod put the Ark in the temple of Dagon, one of their gods, a statue of some sort. The next morning that statue has fallen over onto its face. They put the statue back up, but the next morning they find it with its head and hands cut off and placed on the temple threshold. This is an uh-oh moment for the Philistines of Ashdod who quickly make arrangements for the Ark to be handed off to another Philistine town. Thus begins a kind of musical chairs situation and God rains down destruction and slaughter: plagues of emerods (hemorrhoids) “in their secret parts” and mice. After seven months, the Philistines decide to put the Ark on a driverless ox-cart and send it down the road toward the Israelites. They include a parcel of trespass offerings, golden emerods and five golden mice! I love the emerods and the mice and the head of the god stuck in the doorway. I can’t escape the feeling that the author here was being a bit lighthearted at the Philistines’ expense. No doubt, I shall be reproved by biblical scholars around the world.

The Ark cart eventually trundles into an Israelite farming community called Bathshemesh where the people open of the cart and check out the offerings and make celebratory offerings of their own and notify the Levites to come and take the Ark back. This is all cool except that the poor Bathshemeshites unwittingly have made a fatal error: God whacks 50,070 of them for looking inside the Ark (more collateral damage).

Jephtha and his daughter, more collateral damage from the Book of Judges

May 162010

Another of the gorgeous Dore illustrations

In Judges 11 we find another fascinating little story. Jephtha is another one of the “judges” called to save errant Israel. He’s an interesting character in himself. Son of a prostitute, he has to live in exile in the land of Tob until the Ammonites attack Israel. This echoes several Bible stories including the early life of Moses who has to escape from Egypt for a while before coming back to save the Israelites from Pharoah. Any number of Biblical heroes have to live in exile or in the Wilderness before achieving greatness (echoing shamanic practice).

The Israelites promise Jephtha he can govern them if he helps them fight the Ammonites. So off he goes to whack some Ammonites after promising God to sacrifice the first thing that comes out of his front door when he returns home victorious (what was he thinking? what was home life like? what sort of innocuous thing wandered in and out of his front door? goats? puppy dogs?). As luck would have it, the first thing that comes through the door to greet him is his little daughter who dances out happily expecting big hugs and, maybe, souvenir t-shirts. She asks Jephtha why he looks grumpy and he tells her, well, now I have to offer you as a burnt offering to the Lord. She is, to my mind, justifiably dismayed, but she’s a good daughter. She says, okay, but let me go up into the mountains with my girlfriends to mourn my virginity for two months. Jephtha says okay to that (the text emphasizes that his daughter is an only child–think of it). And the girl and her friends spend two months camping and hiking in the mountains bewailing her virginity (have teenage girls changed since then; I mean, really?). Then she comes back and Jephtha burns her on the altar. The KJV translation here is absolutely gorgeous in its description of a sweet, real little girl on the cusp of womanhood.

The Levite’s Concubine & other sentimental Bible stories

May 152010

Gustave Dore illustration

I have surged through Joshua, Judges, Ruth, and part of 1 Samuel (Kings), catching mistakes and misinterpretations from the last time I read through. The Bible seems more strange and alien than ever, fascinating in its fierce anarchy. (Might I just mention in passing the plague of hemorrhoids God sends to the Philistines and their attempt to make a Trespass Offering by fashioning five gold statues of their hemorrhoids. 1 Samuel 6:4 I went to bed last night trying to imagine what a golden hemorrhoid would look like.)

Briefly, since I’ve been trying to keep track of what I called the slaughter of the innocents (or collateral damage), I want to draw your attention to the horrific story of the Levite and his concubine (Judges 19). This follows a murky little bit of text about a man named Micah who seems to set up his own mixed religion with pagan images and Hebrew sacred items mixed and a Levite priest to conduct services–this is during one of those backsliding moments when the Israelites have fallen away from the truth faith. Judges 19 seems to start fresh, but it could be the same Levite priest. He takes a concubine (later she’s referred to as his wife as well), but she “plays the whore” with him and runs away to her father’s place. The Levite goes to get her and eventually starts home. They stop for the night at a place called Gibeah where a nice old gentleman invites them to stay at his place. During the night a crowd of party animals called “sons of Belial” surround the house and ask the old man to send the Levite out so they can have sex with him (this is a repetition of the Genesis 19 episode at Lot’s house in Sodom). The old man offers them his daughter and the concubine instead, but the rowdies want the Levite.

Finally, the Levite convinces them to take the concubine after all. The young gentlemen rape her through the night, and when they’re done, they turn her loose. She manages to crawl to the door of the old man’s house, manages to reach up and get her hands on the doorstep, and dies. In the morning, the Levite gets ready to leave and notices the concubine. He tries to rouse her, but she doesn’t respond. He packs her on his donkey and takes her home. And then he gets a knife and cuts her body up into 12 parts (including the bones) and sends the bits off the the far corners of Israel. His reasoning is that he wants to gather a horde to wreak vengeance on the men of Gibeah–and he does. (This part of the story refers forward to 1 Samuel 11:7 where Saul cuts up a yoke of oxen and sends the pieces to the corners of Israel to summon the hosts. Weird connection, yes? concubine=oxen?) But my mind is still back there with the concubine for whom things have not gone well. Not well at all.

Here is the climactic bit of the story (my emphasis).

019:021 So he brought him into his house, and gave provender unto the
asses: and they washed their feet, and did eat and drink.

019:022 Now as they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of
the city, certain sons of Belial, beset the house round about,
and beat at the door, and spake to the master of the house,
the old man, saying, Bring forth the man that came into thine
house, that we may know him.

019:023 And the man, the master of the house, went out unto them, and
said unto them, Nay, my brethren, nay, I pray you, do not so
wickedly; seeing that this man is come into mine house, do not
this folly.

019:024 Behold, here is my daughter a maiden, and his concubine; them
I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them
what seemeth good unto you: but unto this man do not so vile a
thing.

019:025 But the men would not hearken to him: so the man took his
concubine, and brought her forth unto them; and they knew her,
and abused her all the night until the morning: and when the
day began to spring, they let her go.

019:026 Then came the woman in the dawning of the day, and fell down
at the door of the man’s house where her lord was, till it was
light.

019:027 And her lord rose up in the morning, and opened the doors of
the house, and went out to go his way: and, behold, the woman
his concubine was fallen down at the door of the house, and
her hands were upon the threshold.

019:028 And he said unto her, Up, and let us be going. But none
answered. Then the man took her up upon an ass, and the man
rose up, and gat him unto his place.

019:029 And when he was come into his house, he took a knife, and laid
hold on his concubine, and divided her, together with her
bones, into twelve pieces, and sent her into all the coasts of
Israel.

A new look at Rahab the harlot & a confusion of Judges

May 032010

Eglon, king of the Moabites, from Figures de la Bible (1728) Illustrated by Gerard Hoet (1648-1733), and others.

Procrastination has reached biblical proportions this packet round–on the other hand, not all my students got their packets here on time, so I have an excuse.

Over the weekend, I got through Joshua and part-way into Judges before I broke down. Joshua divides (like Caesar’s Gaul) into three parts. The first 12 chapters contain the dramatic crossing of the Jordan and the battles for Jericho and Ai (and various other places), also the stories of Rahab, Achan and the trickery of the Gibeonites. The next section is mostly an administrative interlude in which the various tribes are assigned their allotments in the conquered land. And in the last section, Joshua dies. The first few chapters of Judges recapitulates Joshua, sometimes repeating chunks of text and story pretty much verbatim. And then we begin a series of cycles of backsliding (whoring after strange gods) by the Israelites (who, really, never seem to learn), punishment by God, and then rescue by a local hero who, for some reason, is called a judge. Some of the judges get a good deal of face time, their stories told in graphic detail (the Jael and Sisera story mentioned in an earlier post is part of the story of a female judge named Deborah).

The first time I read through all this material I came away with the impression that it was a kind of veiled history of the Israelites establishing themselves as a monotheistic community amidst a land teeming with polytheists. From Leviticus on, the emphasis seemed to be on establishing and maintaining cultural purity against contamination from the other regional communities. This seemed like a reasonable anthropological synthesis of what I was reading. Now, however, with my trusty Literary Guide beside me, I see greater complexity (and confusion). God makes a covenant with the patriarchs in Genesis to make their people prosper and bring them to the Promised Land. But as we read through the later books of the Pentateuch, we see God gradually introducing an override condition. At first the Israelites are the Chosen People, but then, it seems, they will be the Chosen People as long as they obey him. If they keep acting up (whoring after strange gods), he promises to obliterate them (and there is prophetic material that predicts just this). One of the conditions for God’s beneficence is that the Israelites completely eliminate (early ethnic cleansing) all the strange peoples who already live across the Jordan. God says specifically that they should not make any treaties or deals. Then Joshua goes across the Jordan and the very first thing that happens is that his scouts make a deal with Rahab the harlot which allows her and her family to live with the Israelites for always, thus breaking the covenant. The story of the Gibeonites involves a similar deal with the pagan Canaanites who are allowed to live among the Israelites–and the list goes on. Rather than expunging the polytheists, as they were meant to do, the Israelites keep them around, using them as labour, and then begin to intermarry with them, and so on.
Read the rest!

Joshua fit the battle of Jericho

May 012010

I finished up Deuteronomy and the death of Moses this morning and pushed on into Joshua through the well-loved story of Rahab the harlot and the cautionary tale of Achan, the poor guy who stole from the plunder at Jericho and ended up stoned and burned in the Valley of Achor. There’s a great scene in which Joshua gets him to confess by calling him “My son.” When I was a kid we used to sing the old Negro spiritual (that is what they used to call them–what do they call them now? African American spirituals?) “Joshua fit the battle of Jericho” with hand actions. No doubt this set the stage for my later writing career. Here is Mahalia Jackson singing the song. I love the verb “fit” and the way you have to drop syllables in Joshua’s name to make the song work.

Excellent elucidation of the narrative structure of Deuteronomy in The Literary Guide to the Bible: First person narrator quoting Moses quoting God who is sometimes quoting himself (nested quotations technique). Also the time dance. Moses speaks of that time (in the Wilderness, on Mt. Horeb) and this time (now, when is addressing the Israelites beside the Jordan), while so-called Deuteronomist talks about that time (the time of Moses) and this time (the Israelites in exile in Babylon). The book is full of prophecy because Moses seems to know ahead of time that the Israelites will eventually transgress and God will abandon them and they will be conquered and enslaved and long to return to the Promised Land and he knows this just at the moment when they are about to enter the Promised Land the first time.

Great curses, lovely reference to arrows drunk with blood, also the well-named “hill of the foreskins” (this was after the mass circumcision on the banks of the Jordan–imagine it! or maybe not).

In haste, I am doing packets!

On Giants

Apr 222010

The early books of the Bible are littered with strange names and peoples. I mentioned giants last time and the Sons of God who came down and had sex with human females. There are also the mysterious Nephilim or Refraim (I think I am getting the words right). And in Numbers and Deuteronomy, there are the giantish Anaks or Anakim. Of course, later on there is Goliath. The Anakim and Og of Bashan, mentioned in my previous giant post, are cited by Moses’ pusillanimous scouts to emphasize the might of the Canaanite hosts the Israelites will face if they go down across the Jordan as God wants them to do. Their fear (or prudence) is infectious. God gets angry and wants to kill his chosen people (once again). But Moses (once again) talks Him down, and God merely sends them off into the Wilderness til everyone in the cowardly generation dies off.

In any case, I find these giants fascinating, as I do the prophets (like Balaam) and the dreamers (like Joseph & Jacob) and the 70 tribal elders who sit down around the tabernacle, go off into an ecstatic trance, and can’t stop prophecying (although their prophecies aren’t true). I like the Children of Israel dancing naked before the Canaanite Golden Calf and whoring with the Moabite (or was it the Midianite) women (really a quasi-euphemism for lapsing into ancient religious ways)–all these are traces of cultural elements beginning to disappear before the book and monotheism, the first signs of modernity.

I also like that 1971 George C. Scott movie They Might be Giants about a wealthy man who thinks he’s Sherlock Holmes and manages to convince the psychologist his relatives hire that it’s better to live thinking there might be giants than not. Which is, of course, a re-working of Quixote. The words “they might be giants” are from the windmill chapter of the novel. Quixote convinces his friends that life is more interesting when he’s insane than when he’s not. The message of the Bible is somewhat different–there is so much effort put into stamping out the last vestiges of the ancient religions; those old beliefs are a kind of cultural insanity (uncleanness), though the problem for God and Moses is that they are also deeply attractive. As you all know (or maybe not), I wrote a book about Quixote which talks, among other things, about obsession, plot, and books.

I think I used to like Jack and the Beanstalk more than any other fairy tale. I seem to recall lying in bed a night, thinking of how I would approach a giant.

I don’t know where this is leading. Probably the fact that I drove 720 miles to Halifax on Monday and then most of the way back on Tuesday has something to do with this.

Sanders, Shklovsky, and the Role of the Personal Essayist — John Proctor

Apr 182010

Scott Russell Sanders

I would like to add the following as a general rule: a work of art is perceived against a background of and by association with other works of art. The form of a work of art is determined by its relationship with other pre-existing forms. The content of a work of art is invariably manipulated, it is isolated, “silenced.” All works of art, and not only parodies, are created either as a parallel or an antithesis to some model. The new form makes its appearance not in order to express new content, but rather, to replace an old form that has already outlived its artistic usefulness. (Theory of Prose p20)

I start with this quote from Shklovsky not because it necessarily says anything specifically craft-related that I hadn’t already heard this semester, but because it reinforced a couple of truths I think I’ve been subconsciously evading for the last couple of months: 1) that the strength of a non-fiction story doesn’t come only from the events and people themselves but from the formal choices I choose in telling (writing) them, and 2) I can see these formal choices in just about everything I read, if I read pieces for form rather than content. In other words, both my writing and my reading have been focusing on finding the “aboutness” of a piece or an experience, attaching myself to writing and events that have some verisimilitude for me, at the expense of focusing, as an artist, on the formal patterns other artists employ. Doug’s been telling me this from the start, but it’s taken awhile to sink in (and of course still is).

I chose to write critically about Scott Russell Sanders‘s “Under the Influence” because I found it so similar in structure and content to what I was attempting with the creative work I submitted last month. Some of these similarities include the central conflict of understanding the father, the thematic framing of addiction (though I think we differ in our final verdict), and perhaps most importantly the way he juxtaposes the past he remembers so vividly with his present self, a self that seems so removed from that past but still finds bits of it in him. One way he frames the past and present that resonates with me is the juxtaposition of addiction with biblical imagery.

The essay, as implied by the title, is a meditation on alcoholism, primarily his father’s. But it also delves into the nature of addiction, indicting his own obsession with work that prompts his daughter to label him a workaholic, and delving into the influence Sanders’s father had on his siblings’ and his own habits, hence the first two interpretations of the title I found. A third possible interpretation is the influence of the Bible, as a source of mythology, an instruction book for living, and, because of this perhaps most importantly, as a source of shame for Sanders at his father’s miserable failure at living up to these instructions.

As it turns out I had to rethink and revise my work to get to what Sanders was doing formally. I initially chose to write critically about it because I found the people, themes, and events in the essay immediately recognizable, and similar to some of the people and themes I’m writing about in my own work. Because of this, in my first critical essay, I focused primarily on those elements that I connected most to my work thematically and explained how they connected. The next time out, though, I focused on just one section of “Under the Influence” (on pp737-739 of The Art of the Personal Essay) only in terms of its structural patterns, specifically the parallelism of biblical passages and parables with events in Sanders’ family, and tried to discern how these patterns work. This is what I came up with.

Sanders’s intent in this section is to juxtapose his adult understanding of his father as an alcoholic with his childhood understanding of his father as a sinner, which he sets up in the first paragraph of the section:

While growing up on the back roads and in the country schools and cramped Methodist churches of Ohio and Tennessee, I never heard the world alcoholism, never happened across it in books or magazines. In the nearby towns, there were no addiction treatment programs, no community mental health centers, no Alcoholics Anonymous chapters, no therapists. Left alone with our grievous secret, we has no way of understanding Father’s drinking except as an act of will, a deliberate folly or cruelty, a moral weakness, a sin.

This juxtaposition is important because it contrasts Sanders’ adult authorial voice, for whom the phrase “under the influence” in relation to his father’s alcoholism has the commonly accepted connotation of addiction, with his child-presence, for whom the “influence” in the same phrase is far more sinister, mysterious and frightening. One of the most commonly voiced concerns I’ve heard (and voiced myself) is the difficulty, in writing of childhood, of balancing the child-awareness with the adult authorial presence. This mingling of the biblical with the clinical is how Sanders balances the two.

The following three paragraphs give a sweeping panorama of biblical allusions he remembers being used by his church to scare the bejesus out of him, of a different ilk for each paragraph, giving his adult-voice recollection of the connections he made between them and his father. The first one has three proclamations by the prophets Isaiah, Hosea, and an anonymous seer of the Book of Proverbs:

“The priest and the prophet reel with strong drink, they are confused with wine, they err in vision, they stumble in giving judgment. For all the table are full of vomit, no place is without filthiness” – he remembers “fouled tables at the truckstop where the notorious boozers hung out, our father occasionally among them.”

“Wine and new wine take away the understanding” – his father, fairly astute at math, was unable to even help with fourth grade math when he was drinking.

“Do not look at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup and goes down smoothly. At the last it bites like a serpent, and stings like an adder. Your eyes will see strange things, and your mind will utter perverse things” – Here his adult voice is in full command, with an authoritatively ironic “Woe, Woe” dismissively concluding the prophets’ passages.

Sanders then in the next short paragraph, his authorial presence subtly lurking, summarizes the Old Testament cautionary tales of Noah and Lot, in which both violated their parental boundaries when drinking, and Sanders concludes in his adult voice, “The sins of the fathers set their children’s teeth on edge.” And in the last of these three paragraphs Sanders takes his church’s ministers themselves to task, noting their prudish assurance of the children that they were drinking grape juice, not wine, at the Last Supper, and finally noting the implication of the “Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not drink.”

The final three paragraphs of the section go even deeper into the dichotomy of addiction as possession, with “the scariest and most illuminating Bible story apropos of drunkards,” the New Testament parable of the drunkard and the swine. He spends most of the first paragraph summarizing the story of Jesus finding the lifetime drunk of a village, seeing immediately that the man is simply possessed, and sending the demons into a group of swine “conveniently rooting nearby.” The poor hogs go crazy and jump off a cliff, and the now-former drunk “bathed himself and put on clothes and calmly sat at the feet of Jesus, restored – so the Bible said – to his ‘right mind.’”

Sanders begins the next paragraph with, “When drunk, our father was clearly in his wrong mind.” Then, he sets out, in his adult voice, at explaining the connections he made as a child to the story. He says he saw his father as this lunatic, both “quick tempered, explosive” and “maudlin and weepy,” and notes the support he received for his theory from the local church, which referred to liquor as “spirits” and “demon drink,” and local newspapers with their reports of driving “under the influence” (interestingly, the paper probably meant it in the clinical sense, but as a child he took the influence as demonic). And finally, in the last paragraph, he asks four questions in succession in the confused, pleading voice of the child he was:

If my father was indeed possessed, who could exorcise him? If he was a sinner, who could save him? If he was ill, who could cure him? If he suffered, who could ease his pain?

And then he answers them in the sad, regretful voice of the adult who sees beyond the time and place:

Not ministers and doctors, for we could not bring ourselves to confide in them; not the neighbors, for we pretended they had never seen him drunk; not Mother, who fussed and pleaded but could not budge him; not my brother and sister, who were only kids. That left me. It did not matter that I, too, was only a child, and a bewildered one at that. I could not excuse myself.

Interestingly, even as an adult, the answers he gives are not really answers, but ironic justifications of the answers he gave as a child. The effect is chilling, but also endears him to the reader – he still is questioning, and even the answers just bring in more questions. This seems central to the voice of the personal essayist – not the desire the answer the questions, but to raise them, bringing the reader into the story, with his or her own questions, and his or her own answers.

–John Proctor

For a further discussion of aboutness, verisimilitude, and patterns, see dg’s essay “The Novel is a Poem” in Notes Home from a Prodigal Son.

From Genesis; In haste, something I adore

Apr 172010

I started rereading the Bible yesterday; it seems quite different from the last time. Now I recognize favourite passages or structural elements that organize the stories. But the recognition of familiar bits also frees me up to appreciate new things. More on that later. Right now here is one of my absolute favourite verses from Genesis.

There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after
that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men,
and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men
which were of old, men of renown.

Read it out loud for the sonorous rhythms. This passage describes the era after Adam and Eve and before Noah, God’s little temper tantrum starts in the very next verse. What’s interesting to me, besides the poetry, is the claim that before the Flood there were giants and also that the “sons of God” (whoever they were) had sex with human women who bore a race of heroic men. This is stirring stuff, but it somewhat clashes with conventional biblical readings. I never learned about the giants in Sunday school, though I would have enjoyed hearing about them. (Also mentioned in Deuteronomy 2:11.) And, of course, in the New Testament, Jesus is God’s only begotten son–apparently, the author forgot all the others; either that, or we have here a little Orwellian rewriting of history. But, really, I don’t mean to trivialize the passage by descending into simple-minded textual comparisons. The verse about giants and the sons of God is one of those bits that slipped into the Old Testament from some more ancient myth cycle–there are lots of these textual erratics: I still keep puzzling over the famous “incident of the bloody husband”–something about a demonic apparition and a hasty do-it-yourself circumcision (Exodus 4:24), for example. But I love the words and the feel of an ancient speaker speaking to me.

This is written much in haste, first thoughts. I almost forgot Og of Bashan (if I ever have another son, I will name him Og).

Deut. 3:11 For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants;
behold his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in
Rabbath of the children of Ammon? nine cubits was the length
thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of
a man.

Leitwort, a technique

Mar 102010

I am back from the dead, er, I mean packet flu, er, I mean the really enjoyable weekend I had reading through your wonderful packets.

I was reading a bit in The Portable Nietzsche last night; Jacob is writing an essay about Beyond Good and Evil. Anyway I noticed a passage I had marked years ago, and it reminds me to remind you that technique can be discovered anywhere.

This is a paragraph from Walter Kaufman’s introduction to The Portable Nietzsche.

Taking their cues from Wagner’s leitmotifs, Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig have pointed out, in connection with their remarkable German translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, that the style of the Old Testament often depends on Leitworte, words which are central and particularly emphasized in one passage and then picked up again elsewhere, thus establishing an unobtrusive cross reference–an association which, even if only dimly felt, adds dimension to meaning. Perhaps no major writer is as biblical in this respect as Nietzsche.

And here’s Kristian Evensen’s site explaining Wagner’s leitmotifs. Leitmotifs in Der Ring des Nibelungen – an introduction

See also Wagner’s Use of Leitmotifs on The Horn.