Recently in War Category

Ready. Aim. Read some Bible. Fire. Huh? I don't think of New Zealanders as particulary given to compunction, maybe occasionally irascible, but mostly as an easy-going, live and and let live sort of folk. I mean, when your human population is outnumbered by sheep... Yet protest they did, complaining that there was something wrong with the guns used by their troops along with the British, and US in Afghanistan. Turns out, US arms manufacturer Trijicon stamped New Testament biblical references into the gun sights. Trijicon has agreed to stop inscribing bibilical messages and to provide (for free!) the means to erase such references. US military officials are reviewing the purchase of such Trijicon products. Hmmm.

 As my dear friend and colleague Jack Spiro says of this and other Jewish holidays, "They tried to kill us. We survived. Now, let's eat!" Good wishes to Jewish friends and family celebrating this Festival of Lights! Latkes for all. You may enjoy this column by Ben Romer, a Richmond-area rabbi -- a thoughtful meditation on the season. Did you know that although the book of Daniel is set during the periods of Babylonian exile and Persian diaspora, its apocalyptic sections (chaps 7-12) were probably written around the time of the great Hellenization crisis (167 B.C.E. and Jewish victory) that Hanukkah commemorates. Go, Maccabees! 

I've just begun (re)reading Milton's "Paradise Lost." Truth is, I don't remember ever reading the whole thing through before. Snippets here and there for lit classes over the years but never from the beginning to the end. What a ride it is! And to think that Milton wrote it blind. Contemplate that, for a minute.

This, too, impresses: Where most English translations read Gen 1:2 as "the spirit of God hovered over the face of the deeps," Milton follows the Hebrew verb describing the spirit like a bird "brooding" over the waters. That's the way that verb appears elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible -- the protective hovering of a bird over its nest... though Milton imagines the spirit in a masculine form impregnating "the Abyss" below despite the Hebrew's feminine Spirit subject in this verse.

But that's small stuff -- a tiny example of the thousands of ways that Milton appeals to and shifts the biblical text. Fascinating. I'm still a little puzzled by the bad guys that open the story. I mean, Satan appears to be a different character than Beelzebub, and there are cherubim and seraphim in hell. Well, back to it, as the dark powers prepare for war.

Modern believers are frequently encouraged to treat their Bible's with a little less care. Use it! read it! don't worry about marking it up, dog-earing pages, or wearing it ragged, they're advised. A tired-looking Bible is a good sign. Its user is, well, using it. Sometimes, though, the thing itself, that particular copy, really matters. Some might protest that that's to make an idol of the object; but occasionally the object is greater than itself. Maybe it points to a history that musn't be forgotten, its survival is a triumph of right, or it simply reminds that sacredness demands honor and attention. I'm thinking here of the Hebrew Bible, looted by Nazi soldiers in 1938 and finally returned on Monday to the Austrian Jewish community in Vienna. When and how should a Bible be so honored in itself? 

Working with the Old Testament (a.k.a. Hebrew Bible), one is bound to have to reckon with the nature and place of justice. Granted, sometimes God appears to be inexplicably severe, mean, even. But that's for another time. That famous "eye for an eye" quote comes from the Old Testament, and although it's gotten some bad press (Gandhi said that following through on it "makes the whole world blind"), many biblical scholars believe that its intent may not originally have been such a literal application. In that case, what did it mean? Perhaps a limit to retaliation -- rather than going nuts attacking whoever hurt or offended you, exercise some restraint. But, the text would still seem to suggest that some action is appropriate and maybe even necessary. Choosing radical mercy in every case may not be the best thing. George Eliot said, "There is a mercy which is weakness, and even treason against the common good." What do you think? A place for justice? When and where, forgiveness?

Quentin Tarantino's new movie, Inglourious Basterds, was informed in part by taking part in a seder at Philip Roth's house. The Passover seder is a religious practice of remembrance commanded by none other than God in the Bible to commemorate God's liberating the Hebrew people from Egypt in order that they could be free to be servants of God. With violence, liberated from violence. 

In Inglourious Basterds, the extraordinary violence that characterizes Tarantino's filmic art takes on a new meaning in the context of a real, historical moment -- the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel, holocaust survivor, and Nobel prize-winning writer, has championed the importance of remembering -- of remembering in order to prevent horrific crimes such as genocide from happening again. 

Elie Wiesel and Quentin Tarantino on the Holocaust. In the same context? Discuss. What does remembering violence require? And to what end?

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then what's a picture with words

worth? GQ recently published eleven cover pages from ealier Pentagon

intelligence briefings. That they juxtapose biblical quotations with Iraq

war photos has elicited all sorts of righteous indignation.  Predictably,

many people are outraged that Rumsfeld and Bush would blithely endorse

equating Christian mission with a Mid-East military invasion. Others say,

not so fast. Context, as always, is everything -- the context of the photos,

of America's military today, and of those biblical verses.