Enjoyed a fun conversation about Bible Babel with radio host Faith Ranoli yesterday. Listen live in a week or so.
We talked for about an hour about all things Bible -- where it came from, what's the best translation, how people use the Bible to argue different sides of the same issue, why the Bible says people lived for centuries, and what's with all those names for God. I'm afraid I rambled an awful lot but it sure was fun.
If most people don't get the biblical references, why do the creators of popular tv, movies, music and lit still use them so much? Pondering this question over iced tea with a novelist, Ph.D.-candidate friend, we decided: it's tough to say. Here are a couple of ideas that we bounced around:
1) Audiences do recognize the biblical language, themes or characters and that's enough because the Bible continues to resonate or at least suggest something greater than what immediatley meets the eye.
2) The creators know that only a few people are going to know the reference but think, "Who cares? We know it's in there. It's cool and adds levels of meaning that are super-rich. The minority who pick up on it are going to love it."
3) It keeps people like me in business. Ok, no. That's definitely not their reason... and it's hardly a business for me. But I do love catching those biblical references, contemplating how the creators integrated and interpreted them, and what that means for the greater story or art.
What do you think is the explanation?
Our neighbors across the Atlantic are typically less Bible-happy in political discourse than we in the States. So Gordon Brown made news by (mis)quoting the Good Book recently. The British Prime Minister, facing attacks from political rivals, asked his church audience to recall "the great story of Micah in the Gospel." But Micah is an Old Testament, Hebrew prophet; "the Gospel" is "the good news" of Jesus; and the gospels are books of the New Testament.
Now, I don't want to come down too hard on the guy. It's a minor flub in an on-the-spot comment. Compounding the error, though, he went on to attribute a sensible but non-biblical saying to Micah: "Have done with people who are just presenting images. Have done with people who are just talking or singing songs that don't mean anything. Have done with the irrelevancies. Get to the center point." The lofty, sort of antiquated nature of the language makes the aphorism sound a bit King James-y, and it seems like the kind of timelessly good idea that we might find in the Bible; but finally it's simply not there.
He did, however, choose another inspiring statement that is indeed in the Bible: "Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." In its context, it's a ringing endorsement of social justice (hello, Glenn Beck). This charge, as powerful now as it was for Martin Luther King Junior's audience and for ancient Israel, does not, however, come from Micah. Rather, it's found in the biblical book of Amos -- a different Hebrew prophet. Micah might have known about Amos, since Amos prophesied in the northern kingdom of Israel a few decades before Micah's ministry in the southern kingdom, Judah. And Micah gave us another quote (identical to one in Isaiah) that's a real favorite about beating swords into plowshares; but the justice and righteousness quote comes from Amos. Finally, note taken, what an awesome and timeless charge this one for justice and righteousness.
And because I can't seem to leave it alone, how evocative the water imagery! I've just begun reading Barbara Kingsolver's essay in the April (yes, I'm a bit behind) National Geographic, an issue devoted exclusively to the topic of water. Water, water, water. Yesterday, a beautiful, breezy, and unusually warm day made for great sailing on Lake Anna. Today, the the soft misty rain puts the last of the azaleas and first rhododendrons in bright relief against deep greens. The dogs cool off in kiddie pools, and I pour another cup of tea. Rolling-down, gently flowing, water, water, water. It's all here, two parts hydrogen one part oxygen. The justice and righteousness we have to make.
This essay first appeared in the Fredricksburg Free Lance-Star on April 4, 2010.
Of all the Christian holidays, it's Christmas that gets the most attention. And can you blame us for that? Light and life in the dead of winter, gifts galore, and cookies to boot -- no wonder it's a favorite. Yet Easter is the most important Christian holiday and was celebrated long before Christmas became what it is today. We can be comfortable with Christmas, its jollity and twinkling beauty, the stable, newborn, and serene mother. Easter, on the other hand, is different and a bit unsettling. For one thing, it is preceded by a gruesome, torturous death by crucifixion. What's more, it's based on an utterly unnatural event -- the coming back to life again of a definitely dead man. Let's face it, being born is nothing special. We've all done it, and in every case at least one person was on hand to witness the occasion. But resurrection?...
Today, Christians celebrate Palm Sunday -- the day when Jesus rode into Jerusalem to great "Hosanna!" acclaim. But just exactly how did he do it? The stories disagree in a puzzling way... unless you know something about the conventions of biblical Hebrew and that the New Testament writers (Matthew, especially) often looked to the Old Testament, for ways to understand Jesus.
Mark and Luke agree that Jesus rode in a donkey, and that's the story that's told in thousands of churches today. Matthew, on the other hand, has Jesus riding two beasts at the same time. An odd, albeit remarkable(!) feat to include. Unlike the other two, Matthew explains that Jesus did so to fulfill the scriptures (Hebrew Bible), and he partly quotes the reference in Zechariah, writing, "Tell the daughter of Zion, 'Look your king is coming to you, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.'" That quote usually makes it into contemporary Palm Sunday retellings because of how it underscores the unusual nature of Jesus' kingship -- humble, in this case. But the bit about simultaneously riding both a donkey and a colt gets glossed thanks to Mark and Luke.
Zechariah's text appears as poetry, and the primary characteristic of biblical Hebrew poetry is parallelism. In its purest form, one line is followed by another that repeats its sense. Here's a great example from Proverbs 4:6 (about the importance of wisdom): "Do not forsake her, and she will keep you/ love her, and she will guard you." Get it? "Do not forsake her" is parallel to "love her," "she will keep you" is parallel to "she will guard you." Sometimes the parallelism is not so tidy, though, but rather integrated into a sort of stepped structure that builds with repetition. That's true in Zechariah 9:9 which ends, "riding on an ass [hold the jokes here];... on a donkey, the son of a she-beast." Now add this additional bit of info about Hebrew convention: one single letter serves as every conjuction (our "and," "but," or "or"), and sometimes it shouldn't really be translated at all.
That little letter appears right before "on a donkey," so together with what you now know about Hebrew poetry, you can see that Matthew went literal with his quote. He read Zechariah without poetic parallelism (but rather as a straightforward narrative) and translated the shadow conjunction literally, too. The result: Jesus enters Jerusalem straddling two animals. Spoiler alert: this will not be Jesus' final miracle. The "good news" gospel writers agree on that.
Wonderful to see so many people at the Charlottesville Barnes and Noble last Wed eve! As moderator David Bearinger noted, Winn Collier's Holy Curiosity and my Bible Babel are very different projects, though both concern the Bible. The Virginia Festival of the Book (a Virginia Foundation for the Humanities event) has included panels on religion and spirituality in the past but not specifically on the Good Book. The conversation and questions reflected well the two ways that Winn and I worked with the Bible in our books -- confessional and informational -- and pushed each of us to think and talk about the other. After all, one cannot assume a confessional position without reflecting intellectually, even if just to read and interpret, the text, on the one hand. On the other hand, any academic treatment of the Bible is still treatment of a religious and sacred text, which inevitably draws the investigator into the world of spirituality, even if only to think about how that text has affected and informed the faith of others. Thanks to all who attended!
Did you know that "Eli" means "my God," in Hebrew? Yup. In one form, anyway. So, even if you'd missed all the previews, reviews, and commentary in between on the movie "The Book of Eli," you still might guess that the book in question is the Bible. The English translation King James Version, to be precise. I'm no film critic, so I'll leave that to the pros. But I can say that the movie gives viewers some interesting Bible things to think about, like: Is Washington's character somehow protected supernaturally in his quest to bring the Bible west -- protected by God, or by the Bible itself? If he is, what does that make of God, of the Bible? And: the KJV is undeniably a valuable literary artifact, even if one doesn't believe in it at all. So it would make sense to include in that post-apocalyptic library on the west coast. But does the movie suggest that that particular version is The (one and only) Bible? And do you think that a person knows the Bible if he or she has memorized a particular version? [Me? I think yes... and no...] Then of course there's all the violence. Our Bible-toting hero is no turn-the-other-cheek kind of guy. Timeless question: when should one and when should one not be such a radical pacifist? Finally, how about the evil megalomaniac, certain that if he had that book, his power to control and manipulate toward his own twisted aims would be complete? Does he know the Bible so well? Questions to contemplate, debate....
