Where enthusiasm reigns

About once every two years, I get to see my hometown football team play ball. That's how often we go to my parents' house for Thanksgiving, and the "Lincoln County Red Devils" are inevitably still playing, usually in the third round of the playoffs. For this round, the team was picked to lose, but defeated the Wilcox County Patriots 27-12.

Lincoln County is a small dot on the Georgia map with little claim to fame (except to bluegrass gospel fans, who know it as the Lewis Family's home base). The county was named for Benjamin Lincoln, a corpulent Revolutionary War general who manages a footnote in most history books because, when the British Lord Cornwallis sent his second-in-command rather than surrendering in person at Yorktown, George Washington also refused to appear and sent Lincoln to accept Cornwallis' sword.

I dare say most people in Lincoln County don't know that story about the county's namesake -- but they do know about the local football team, a perennial contender for Georgia's Class A (the smallest class) championship, and that's worth some respect.

Sitting beside my father in a chilling rain, I couldn't help but admire the enthusiasm of the young players from both teams. As they lined up for the kickoff, they were so pumped with excitement and so high on testosterone that they bounced in place as if standing on a hill of the area's ubiquitous fire ants.

The players ran, they jumped, they yelled, they high-fived and chest-bumped -- and that was for the coin toss. In the stands, overly zealous fans shook milk jugs with ball-bearings inside -- instruments of war that can render nearby patrons deaf in a matter of minutes.

I remember playing on the same field 40 years ago, always so hyped as to be on the bare edge of control, playing each game as if the world would end if we didn't win.

If only, I mused, if only I had just a touch of that ebullience when it comes to following Jesus and proclaiming the gospel and loving my neighbors. If only our churches could be as fervent about doing missions and supporting missions ... if only our Sunday morning praise could match the ardor of our Friday night cheers ... if we could care about the hurting even half as much as a bunch of boys can care about winning a game ...

can you imagine?

We R Here

I love the text – of whatever biblical passage I’m studying – but I don’t love texting. Maybe one day I will convert, but at present my thumbs, my brain, and my older cell phone keypad just don’t work fast enough to make texting a favored pastime.

My wife received a text from a friend last night, asking if we had safely arrived at my parents’ home in Georgia. Jan, who is little more comfortable with texting than I am, found the “quick text” option for “yes,” and that was the extent of her message.

Within a minute, our friend had responded with a three-sentence paragraph.

Jan just hit the speed-dial button and called her the old-fashioned way, if cell phones can be considered old fashioned.

After landing on a recent flight to Boston, I looked around and suspected that something along the lines of “I’m here” or “On the ground” might be among the most common text messages sent by text-enabled travelers.

This Thanksgiving season, when the economy is in the tank and the nation remains at war, many folks may find it difficult to feel thankful-as-usual. It occurs to me, however, that as long as we can say (or text) “We are here” -- wherever we are -- there’s much for which to be thankful.

So, like the littlest Who in Dr. Seuss’ classic Horton Hears a Who, let’s add our "Yop!" to the season's “WE ARE HERE!” and send the Creator a clear message that we’re both here, and thankful.


[Image from DaveParker's photostream at flikr.]

An ocean of learning

Sunday at the Society of Biblical Literature offered an embarrassment of riches when it came to informative and pertinent lectures. My biggest problem was deciding between equally appealing papers being presented. Before the day was over, I had heard presentations by scholars from America, Italy, Israel, Korea, Great Britain, and Switzerland.

In the morning session I heard updates on archaeological excavations at Kinneret and Megiddo (right, from the expedition website). The latter report was by the inimitable Israel Finkelstein, who directs the expedition with David Ussishkin.

I then switched gears and moved over to a section on Hebrew Bible. There, I heard a delightful reconsideration of the Ehud/Eglon story in Judges 3, and a less helpful reprise of social identity theory as applied to the origin and identity of early Israel.

During the first afternoon session I sat in on the Deuteronomistic History section and heard five lectures on various aspects of the books of Samuel and Kings (non Deutero-philes probably won't want the details), which was time well spent.

For the late afternoon session, I chose a section dealing with the relationship between archaeology and contemporary media. Most of the lectures took apart docudramas like Simcha Jacobovici’s “The Exodus Decoded” and James Cameron’s “The Lost Tomb of Jesus.”

Speakers like Duke University’s Eric Meyers decried the abuse of archaeology by poorly informed media folk who fail to do appropriate research and prefer the spectacular to the real. Chris Heard of Pepperdine University talked about how he used his blog Higgaion to thoroughly debunk “The Exodus Decoded." He pointed out that filmmakers like Jacobovici work by casting doubt on the views of real experts, jumping to conclusions and then using the conclusions to support other views, handling chronology loosely, massaging data to suit their purposes, and using snippets of interviews with knowledgeable archaeologists to make it appear that they agreed with the bogus claims of the films.

Speakers questioned whether real scholars have done an effective job of debunking sensationalist but unfounded “finds” from Israel, and expressed hopes that something like a centralized website can be founded through which real archaeologists can announce finds in a responsible way, and respond to unfounded or poorly interpreted claims from those who write their own rules for “science.”

It can’t come too soon.

Esoterica unleashed

After spending Saturday listening to lectures at this weekend’s Society of Biblical Literature meeting in Boston, my ears are tired. And, I have a renewed appreciation for how my students must feel when I’m trying to introduce a concept they’ve not previously encountered.

Some lectures left me scratching my head because I just didn’t get the point the speaker was trying to make, assuming there was indeed a point. There were others I struggled to understand through heavy German or Hebrew accents. In some cases, I understood well enough, but left wondering why anyone would bother spending good time on such esoteric thoughts.

Then again, maybe if I’d understood what they were saying better, I wouldn’t question the value of their enterprise.

Maybe.

I heard one lecture regarding instances in which Paul refers to himself with feminine, motherly metaphors. For example, in 1 Corinthians 3:2 he complains that he had fed the Corinthians with milk (like a nurse?), but they refused to grow up. In Galatians 4:19, he complains that his “little children” are putting him through the pains of childbirth all over again.

The speaker suggested that Paul’s imagery drew from Roman notions of what it meant to be a mother or even a wet nurse, one who could not exercise full control over children, but who could continue to have influence. All of that seems straightforward and generates some intriguing thoughts, but when the speaker kept using “queer” as a verb and said Paul retained the right to such queering in communicating his intent, I had more trouble following her train of thought.

That was nothing, however, compared to keeping up with a speaker who talked about “Metonymies of Empire,” focusing on the Book of Revelation’s image of Rome as the harlot Babylon. Most of the lecture was devoted to an examination of Dea Roma, a goddess whose name means “strength” and who was the personification of Rome. Rome’s essence was masculine, he said, but its personification as Dea Roma was feminine. However, Dea Roma typically wore a man’s military attire, complete with a sword or spear (as on the back of this coin). This, the speaker summarized, revealed Rome as “a man dressed as a woman dressed as a man.” When the author of Revelation then compared Rome to a harlot, he added another layer, describing Rome as a man dressed as a woman dressed as a man, then stripped of her manly attire and dressed as a prostitute, or “Babylon in triple drag.”

And you thought academics were a boring lot.

I could tell you more about lectures I heard on understanding the image of God as function vs. capacity, on Job’s “theo-aesthetic” view of God, on applying Foucault’s theories of power to 1 Samuel 16 - 2 Samuel 5, or on applying social dominance theory to the same text and coming up with a Greek tragedy, but I doubt there would be much interest in those or the several other topics I sampled today.

I think I’ll just ruminate a bit longer on some social-scientific perspectives of David and Jonathan’s friendship, and call it a night.

People are people

Some days are like Christmas, except with new experiences rather than gifts. Friday was like that for me, as I spent most of it wandering the halls of Boston's Museum of Fine Art (MFA). The museum is currently hosting Art and Empire: Treasures from Assyria in the British Museum, and it was worth the trip for that alone.

Set of protective spirits

Assyrian, 645–640 B.C.

Gypsum

*The Trustees of the British Museum ME 118918

*© The Trustees of the British Museum 2008. All rights reserved.

*Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

There is something special about standing inches from a massive wall panel from Sargon's palace in Khorsabad, and wondering if Israelites taken captive in 722 BC may have been required to help saw the stone from the quarry, or drag it to the king's new palace, or even to carve images that were designed not only to be decorative, but as royal propaganda. Did the powerful Ashurbanipal, perhaps Assyria's greatest king, employ Hebrew artisans to carve the protective spirits that guarded every corner of his new palace in Nineveh, or massive murals such as the Battle of Til-Tuba, which commemorates his victory over the Elamites?

That particular relief, described in the exhibit catalog as "arguably the finest large-scale example in Assyrian art," depicts a massive battlefield scene in which the Elamite king Teumann and his son Tammaritu appear in multiple stages of defeat: their chariot crashes, they try to hide but are surrounded by Assyrian soldiers, their heads are sliced from their bodies and then carried back in triumph to Ashurbanipal.

Other wall reliefs portray similar scenes of violence: siege engines, like ancient tanks, overwhelm the defenses of cities. Defeated enemies are impaled on poles for public display, frequently beheaded, trampled by horses. Rebels are forced to grind the bones of their ancestors into powder. It's hard not to think of similar atrocities being committed in the same area today: the heart of Assyria was in the area surrounding Mosul in northern Iraq. Violence is no stranger to that part of the world. Or, for that matter, to any part of the world.

I had a chance to talk with curator Larry Berman, an Egyptologist by trade, and ask him what lessons contemporary folk might learn from the ancients. Looking around at the magnificent artistry of the Assyrians who lived nearly 3,000 years ago, he noted that one doesn't need a lot of modern technology to do accomplish great things.

Mainly, though, he said we can learn from history. And one thing we learn is that "people are people" who want to express themselves through language and art and many other ways. When studying their works, their accomplishments and their art and their attitudes toward others, "you learn more about what makes you human," he said.

I was reminded that humans are capable of both heartless violence and tender sentiment, of lavish lifestyles and spiritual searching. I was reminded that humans have choices -- and of how important it is to choose wisely.

[Note: The MFA also has an impressive permanent collection of ancient art, including some magnificent holdings from the Ancient Near East (with art going back to the Sumerian period and beyond). For those who are unlikely to visit Boston in the near future, the museum's website has an interactive page that features 10 of the most impressive pieces.

The museum is better known for its terrific collection of Egyptian artifacts, many of which were recovered in excavations sponsored by the MFA and Harvard University, and which also has an interactive page online.]

Ready for a challenge?

Public television's Nova series debuted a two-hour special called "The Bible's Buried Secrets" Nov. 18. It's scheduled to be repeated several times, including next Monday night (Nov. 25) at 9:00 p.m., at least in our neighborhood (check your local listings here).

The TV program is worth watching, and the website is worth exploring.

The program will challenge many viewers: it accepts the Documentary Hypothesis over Mosaic authorship, for example, and leans strongly toward the social revolution theory of Israel's origin. It argues that the Exile was the forge in which Israel's monotheistic faith was finally, definitively formed. Most viewers will find something about the program with which to disagree -- but also many things that will provoke productive thought. Viewers will come away with about as good a critical introduction to the emergence of the Bible and of Israel as is possible in a two-hour span.

Even the scholars cited in the program don't agree with each other (they're academics, after all), but there's no question that many of them have a deep love for all things biblical, a desire both to understand and to communicate the faith of Israel.

I hope you'll take the time to tune it to the program -- it may challenge your faith, but faith, like Israel's, may develop best under pressure.

Translation station

There are folks, you may or may not know, who make it their business to translate things into a written language for apes. Instead of words, the apes recognize and "read" lexigrams -- picture symbols for words or concepts -- that they have been trained to recognize. Occasionally we see stories about chimps or other apes who have learned to recognize and use hundreds of symbols (a review here).

At socialfiction.com, researchers are into "Primate Poetics," an exploration of ape language. And, they have used lexigrams from the primate vocabulary to translate the world's oldest known epic into ape language. "Gilgamesh for Apes" translates the story of Sumeria's great hero-king into sentences like "Gilgamesh big house many bedroom make. Enkidu said, we not go there. Monster has nest in forest. Enkidu is scared. Gilgamesh is not scared. Gilgamesh has knife." The translation effort is somehow appropriate, because the cuneiform script used to write Sumerian also employs ideograms, like a symbol for "house," along with symbols that represent syllables.

I pass this on in case you have a chimp or bonobo on your Christmas list and are having trouble what to buy. Discovering this story, however, reminded me of another translation story I ran across lately, one having to do with translation issues faced by mission-minded folks who also happen to believe the King James Version is the only truly inspired version of the Bible.

A few months back I received (unrequested) the Summer 2008 issue of The Unpublished Word, a quarterly publication of "First Bible International," which is affiliated with Franklin Road Baptist Church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Franklin Road describes itself as an "independent, fundamental Baptist church" that adheres to a belief in "the verbal inspiration and authority of the King James Bible," among other things.

"First Bible" is a mission effort of the church, described as "a fundamental approach to the 10/40 window."

One of the biggest issues it faces is based in its belief that the King James Version is the only inspired and authoritative Bible. Some KJV-only adherents believe it is wrong to translate the Bible in any other way and criticize such efforts, insisting that missionaries must teach new converts to read and understand 17th century English so they can then read the "real" Bible.

The folks at Franklin Road are "progressive" enough to think it's possible to translate the Bible into other languages, though striving to make the translation a "King James equivalent." In an article in the summer issue (you can download it as a pdf file here), editor Charles Keen argues that it took 1,000 years for the English language to develop into the form we find in the King James Bible, so translators should be given grace and not be expected to produce a perfect King James equivalent the first time.

Oy vey.

And you thought Southern Baptists were conservative?

A time to mourn ...

Permit me, please, some time to grieve. My denominational family home of almost 30 years isn't home any more. The locks haven't been changed, but the message on the welcome mat outside the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina (BSCNC) has been changed ... again.

For years I have sat on the floor of the annual convention meeting, listening with chagrin to the hoots and hollers and catcalls of those who cheered every effort to take money from the Biblical Recorder, to exclude churches who believe God has a place for gays, to exclude Woman's Missionary Union when it refused to be controlled, to exclude opportunities for supporters of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF)to work side by side on equal footing.

Every step toward exclusivity has been a step toward fundamentalism as the only option for full acceptance in the BSCNC family. Fundamentalism is, by definition, convinced of its rightness and intolerant of other views.

For many years, North Carolina bucked the national trend and refused obeisance to the notion that the BSCNC should live and act as nothing more than a state chapter of the SBC. We sought to work together beneath a big tent where unity amid diversity was not only allowed, but celebrated.

Those days are gone. The hooters and hollerers have had their say and won the day. They have declared an end to the toleration of CBF supporters in their midst. They have sold their Baptist birthright for a can of spinach. Some elder statesmen of the ultra-conservative movement will express chagrin that the young pastors who spearheaded the latest debacle did not remain in their seats, but you can't train up young guns and not expect them to shoot. And, it appeared that the vast majority of the 55 percent who voted "no tolerance" for CBF were much closer to 55 than 25.

While attending this year's meeting, I wore my reporter's hat. I focused on taking notes, counting votes, snapping pictures, putting it all into a cohesive story and then getting it posted. I was focused on reporting and living on adrenaline, refusing to let the righteous rhetoric of intolerance affect my feelings or interfere with my work.

That lasted until about 4:00 a.m. the next morning, when sleep fled and I awoke with a deep sense of sadness. It endured through the day as I did what I needed to do, but with the focus of a dust cloud and the energy of a wet noodle. A sort of delayed depression set in as I began to feel what had been lost. I gained a new appreciation for Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, who predicted Judah's downfall but took no comfort in being right.

I would rather have been wrong when I predicted that someone would move to delete the CBF option from the Cooperative Program Giving Plan Committee's well-intentioned proposal. I would rather have been wrong when I predicted that the effort would succeed.

I would rather not feel the way I do, but the convention I have loved and supported for nearly 30 years has changed so markedly that it's hardly recognizable -- and it no longer recognizes me and my non-fundamentalist friends as acceptable partners in mission and ministry.

Fortunately, like many others, I do have another home. I'll move on with my CBFNC family, where there are constant reminders that folks like me are welcome. Even so, it's hard to say goodbye to what is left of my former home.

Just permit me, please, some time to grieve.

BSCNC to no longer "tolerate" CBF

Encouraged to “pull out a can of spinach” and “put an end” to toleration of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF), messengers to the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina (BSCNC) annual session pulled out their ballots and approved a new budget structure that eliminates any option for contributing to CBF.

The action came Nov. 12, during discussion of a proposal to scrap the four cooperative giving plans the BSCNC has offered for more than a decade.

The initial proposal, from the Cooperative Program Giving Committee, would have retained an option by which churches could designate 10 percent of their gifts to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF).

Matt Williamson (right), pastor of Oak Forest Baptist in Fletcher, offered an amendment to eliminate the CBF option, saying the BSCNC should not partner with an organization that might send new converts to a church that does not teach inerrancy. “I will die on the hill of inerrancy,” he said.

Eric Page, of Victory Baptist in Columbus, said keeping the option would imply that the BSCNC tolerates CBF. Like the cartoon character Popeye, he said, the convention should “pull out a can of spinach and put an end to it.”

The proposal also called for funding for theological education at North Carolina Baptist divinity schools, budgeted at 10.9 percent of the current Plans B and C, to become a sharply reduced two percent option. The proposal was approved with that option intact. The BSCNC is currently in the middle of a two-year budget cycle, so the new structure will not take effect until 2010.

On the previous day, messengers approved the first part of a two-year overhaul of the convention’s Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws. It reduced the length of the amended sections by about one-third, reportedly to increase clarity and decrease redundancy. Amendments also removed Woman’s Missionary Union of North Carolina (WMU-NC) from its position on the BSCNC executive committee, relegating it to observer status with an ex-officio seat on the convention’s board of directors, and finalized a change in relationship between the BSCNC and five Baptist colleges, which will now be known as "affiliated institutions." In the new relationship, the schools will give up direct funding from the BSCNC and take full control of appointing their trustees.

Having largely expunged WMU-NC from participation in Baptist life, convention leaders announced a new women’s ministry called “Embrace.” Allan Blume, president of the BSCNC board of directors, made no mention of WMU-NC as he introduced Phyllis Foy (left), who chaired a task force appointed to develop the new program.

Foy expressed thanks for the “joy” and “privilege” of leading the task force. Foy said the program will lead women to live in intimacy with Christ, to serve Christ through the local church, and to promote discipleship and missions.

Embrace will seek to educate women to “study and apply God’s word” and to establish family Bible study in their homes, while also equipping women for “kingdom work” both locally and globally, she said. Despite the obvious overlap with WMU-NC’s mission tasks, officials insist that Embrace will not seek to duplicate the work of WMU-NC.

Messengers were also introduced to “North Carolina Baptist Aging Ministries” (NCBAM), a new ministry of Baptist Children’s Homes that was initiated after the departure of Baptist Retirement Homes from the BSCNC fold. Michael Blackwell, president of BCH, said the new ministry will be “nonresidential” and “noncompetitive” with the ministries of the Retirement Homes.

Blackwell said the program will be a practical and personal ministry that will work through churches and associations to offer educational services, quality information, and practical assistance for senior adults.

Neither Embrace nor NCBAM required approval from messengers. Messengers did vote, however, to transfer about $870,000 in escrowed funds to the new NCBAM program. The funds were originally budgeted for BRH, but messengers had voted the previous year to hold them in escrow while negotiations with BRH continued.

Rick Speas, pastor of Old Town Baptist in Winston-Salem, was re-elected as BSCNC president. First vice-president Leland Kerr and second vice-president Phil Ortego declined to run for second terms.

Ed Yount, pastor of Woodlawn Baptist in Conover, was elected as first vice-president. Yount was chair of the Giving Plans Study Committee that recommended the return to a single plan. Mark Harris, pastor of First Baptist in Charlotte, was elected as second vice-president. Harris is a member of the Biblical Recorder board of directors, and a former president of the board of trustees for Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. There was no opposition for any of the positions.

The meeting opened with an appointment service of the International Mission Board Nov. 10. Thirty-eight missionaries were appointed, including 15 from North Carolina.

Mark Dever, pastor of Capital Hill Baptist Church and one of the SBC’s most outspoken proponents of Calvinism, preached the convention sermon Nov. 11.

In his executive director’s address, Milton Hollifield pledged that the BSCNC will be a “Christ centered, gospel focused ministry that is grounded in the local church,” while declaring a desire “to re-work, streamline, and refocus the energies of this Convention to the needs of the churches.”

Attendance at the meeting continued a multi-year trend of sharp decline. About 2,125 messengers registered, compared with 2,547 in 2007, 2,662 in 2006, and 3,200 in 2005. The trend has been downward since 1990, when 6,400 messengers attended.

In a lively exchange during budget discussions Nov. 12, Vic Ramsey of Moyock Baptist made a motion that he said he would vote against. Ramsey moved to amend a motion to set the North Carolina Missions Offering (NCMO) goal at $2.1 million, asking that the portion designated for associational partnerships be deleted. Ramsey said he supports associations and would not want to see them lose funding. But, he said, the associations are not "directly related" to the BSCNC, and their staff hires are not subject to BSCNC review. That was the argument officials used in 2007 to oust WMU-NC from the NCMO, he said.

Ramsey said he hoped his motion would fail, and in doing so "repudiate the policy" used to justify removing WMU-NC from the offering. Steve Hardy, chair of the budget committee, said the associations should be treated differently because the BSCNC's governing documents call for it to work through the associations.

The motion was overwhelmingly defeated, after which Ramsey moved that WMU-NC be reinstated in the NCMO, since the messengers had failed to uphold the policy that had been used to eliminate WMU-NC from the offering. That motion received a scattering of support, but also failed by a wide margin.

Fragile freedoms and Baptist Higher Education

During a fellowship dinner sponsored by Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina, Wingate University president Jerry McGee took a cue from Walter Shurden’s famous analysis of Baptist life’s “Four Fragile Freedoms” by suggesting that Baptist Higher Education also depends on four fragile freedoms that are not negotiable. McGee spoke in behalf of five universities and a college that had seen a new relationship with the Baptist State Covention approved during its annual session earlier in the day.

The first, he said, is academic freedom. There’s no such thing as “Presbyterian biology” or a “Methodist map” or “Baptist English” in higher education, he said. “We must seek the truth wherever it may lead us, even if we do not like where it leads us.” There is a difference between education and indoctrination, he said: academic freedom is essential.

Faith identification is a second fragile freedom for Baptist schools, McGee said. Wingate, like other N.C. Baptist schools, has been “nurtured and supported by Baptists throughout our existence, and we have no intention of moving from that heritage,” he said. When a former student complained that the new change in relationship between the schools and the Baptist State Convention (BSC) would move Wingate away from the convention, McGee said, he explained that “The new relationship is the only way we can continue to have a relationship with the Baptists of N.C.”

A third fragile freedom, McGee said, is trustee selection. For many years the schools steadfastly cooperated with the BSC in choosing trustees, McGee said. “As limiting as it was, we were able to make it work because the committee on nominations was willing to work with us.” When the committee began to impose its will on the process by imposing conditions based on the committee members and not in consultation with the colleges, he said, the process was no longer workable. The new relationship, in which the schools surrender direct funding but choose their own directors, “allows us to be more Baptist than we’ve ever been before,” he said.

McGee named cooperation as the fourth fragile freedom of Baptist Higher Education. “We will cooperate with Baptists of North Carolina not because we are being forced to cooperate or paid to cooperate, but because we want to cooperate,” he said. Such voluntary cooperation does not label some as right and some as wrong, but allows the construction of a “big tent” that includes Baptists of different stripes and types. Wingate, he said, “will continue to cooperate with the Baptists of North Carolina, not because of any mandate, but because we choose to. It represents a fragile freedom that we will honor – but only in a manner that respects everyone’s freedom.”

Paul Baxley, chair of CBFNC's "New Day Task Force," concluded the meeting with an upbeat update. Despite the downturn in the economy and the struggles some other groups are facing, gifts to the CBFNC Mission Resource Plan (MRP) are at an all-time high, he said, amounting to more in the first 10 months of 2008 than in the entire previous history of the program.

Nearly $1.25 million has been received this year, Baxley said, with the traditional best months for giving still to come. Currently 85 congregations use the MRP as their sole or optional giving plan, or have indicated plans to begin doing so in 2009. Baxley invited other churches, if they feel a change is needed, to explore the MRP option.

[The image above is a sample of what happens when I forget to bring in my real camera and try taking a picture with a cell phone.]

Believe it ... or not

Books and tourist town sideshows produced by Ripley's "Believe It ... Or Not" have drawn in the incredulous for years, featuring attractions that seem too weird, crazy, or otherwise impossible to believe.

I haven't needed a ticket to view such craziness lately. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has received dire emails bewailing Barack Obama's election as something approaching the end of the world. A particularly disturbing (or disturbed) message arrived over the weekend, describing election results as a "body slam" to believers and a clear demonstration of the nation's moral bankruptcy. The only potential good, the message implied, is that Obama's election shows that America, like a drug addict, has hit "rock bottom," deemed a necessary step in a national realization that the country needs to turn around.

I think many Americans probably felt the same way about the results of the current administration's dismal eight-year record, which is why the present president became a pariah within his own party and "change" became the operative word for the election.

I was pleased by John McCain's gracious concession speech, in which he pledged to work with the new president. I think he is a man of honor, and trust that he will. I couldn't help but notice, however, that some of his own supporters booed. If he had won the presidency, I wonder if they still would have been so fickle, decrying the first decision that didn't go their way?

While religious conservatives often act as if there are only two moral issues, some of the nation's most narrow-minded folk seem to think there is only one acceptable ethnic identity. They responded to Obama's election with racist graffitti and Ku Klux Klan-like scare tactics, gaining far more attention than their misbegotten ideology deserves.

Whether it's a skin-head spewing hate-filled epithets or a fundamentalist Christian painting the poll results a national collapse, the intensity of the rhetoric reveals a scary level of tunnel-vision radicalism that would be more at home in Iraq than America.

In the U.S., we believe in free speech to the point that fear-mongers can say just about anything they want, so long as they don't make specific threats. We can't -- and shouldn't -- try to squelch others' right to say what's on their mind. Neither, however, must we accept their shrill verdicts or support the organizations that provide their platforms.

It's one thing to be a sore loser -- it's another thing to be a scary one.

Ashurbanipal Invades Boston

I'm drooling, but not for barbecue or even Thanksgiving dinner. A feast for the eyes has arrived in Boston, and my own eyes are itching for the view when I visit that fair city in a couple of weeks. I'm posting this notice in hopes that other travelers won't make the mistake of visiting Boston without including the Museum of Fine Arts on their itinerary.

Statue of the king -- Assyrian, 875-860 BC The Trustees of the British Museum ME 118871 (c) The Trustees of the British Museum 2008. All rights reserved. Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

My official Boston business will be to attend the Society of Biblical Literature's annual meeting, where scores of resume-building presentations designed to be impressively impenetrable will be the order of the day. I don't want to discount the prospect of choosing from a cornucopia of arcane topics from the academic side of biblical studies -- but I confess to being more juiced by the anticipation of laying eyes on a a six foot magnesite statue of the Assurnasirpal II (above), an ambitious leader who transformed the small country of Assyria (in the neighborhood of present-day Mosul, in northern Iraq) into a world power during his reign (883-859 BC).

Assurnasirpal II, a contemporary of the Israelite kings Omri and Ahab and of Judah's king Jehoshaphat, is not mentioned in the Bible, but his military expeditions took him as far as the Mediterranean Sea, where he claims to have cleansed his weapons. He demanded tribute from Tyre and Sidon, Israel's northern neighbors, setting the stage for later kings like Tiglath-Pileser III, Shalmaneser V, and Sargon II to dominate the Levant, enter the biblical picture at many points, and ultimately lay waste the kingdom of Israel.

Contemplating actual artifacts and artwork from the impressive palaces built by these ancient kings is more than an artistic exercise: it brings history home. A wall panel called "Attack on an Enemy Town" commemorates a victory by Tiglath-Pileser III and details the same sort of military strategies that his successors Shalmaneser V and Sargon II used to overthrow Samaria, the capital of Israel, in 722 BC.

Assyrian, reign of Tiglath-pileser III, 730-727 BC, Gypsum
The Trustees of the British Museum ME 118918
(c) The trustees of the British Museum 2008. All rights reserved.
courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Thousands of laborers were employed in constructing massive new cities and palaces such as Ashurbanipal's royal residence in Khorsabad. Were former Hebrews among those who carried the mud bricks and cut the stone and carved the massive wall panels like "Lions in a Garden" (below) to decorate Ashurbanipal's palace? I've seen images of these and many more artifacts in textbooks and archaeology magazines, but the thought of standing beside the real deal sets my heart as well as my mind to racing.

Most Assyrian artifacts outside of Iraq are in the possession of the British Museum, which is making available 250 incredible objects from its collection for the special exhibit.

If you plan to attend the SBL meeting, have other business in Boston, or are looking for a worthy weekend destination, don't miss "Art and Empire: Treasures from Assyria in the British Museum." It's on display through Jan. 4, 2009. For more information, check out the museum's impressive exhibit website, where you can see video of the exhibit's installation and hear audio excerpts from the Epic of Gilgamesh (a clay tablet from the Gilgamesh epic from Ashurbanipal's library is part of the exhibit). Advance tickets, available here, are recommended.

Sargon, here I come!

Assyrian, reign of Ashurbanipal, 645-640 BC, Gypsum
The Trustees of the British Museum ME 118914
(c) The Trustees of the British Museum 2008. All rights reserved.
Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Praising Eeahooah?

It's tempting to talk about election results this morning, but candidates on every side have decried "pundits" to such an extent that I'd just as soon not act like one and add to their consternation. On the subject of elections, I'll just say "Hallelujah! No more negative ads!" -- until the next election, at least.

Speaking of "Hallelujah" -- that word is really a compound Hebrew term meaning "Praise Yahweh," in which "Yahweh" has been abbreviated as "jah." Last week I posted a note commenting on the Vatican's decision to ban the use of "Yahweh" in Catholic worship -- I wonder if they'll also have to cut their "Hallelujahs" to "Hallelu's."

On that subject, I recently read a delightful article that suggests an alternate way of understanding the divine name. In The Jews Invent Vowels, Joel Hoffman discusses how the writers of early Hebrew -- which was originally written without vowels -- began to employ three consonants to do double duty as both consonants and vowels. The letter we would transliterate as "Y," in certain cirumstances, could represent an "i" or "e" sound. The letter we would render as "H" could be used as an "ah" sound, and the letter we represent as "W" could indicate the sound of an "o" or "u."

Those happen to be the very same letters in the divine name revealed in Exodus 3:15, YHWH. YHWH is sometimes refered to as the "tetragrammaton" (four letters), since no one knows for sure how to pronounce it. Hoffman takes note of this, and says

The tetragrammaton is unique in ancient Hebrew, in that its pronunciation seems divorced from its spelling. It also seems to lack any plausible etymology, and is unattested in similar ancient languages. Now we know why. The Hebrews paid homage to the vowel letters that made it possible to spread the Word of God by using those letters to refer to God.

I have to disagree with Hoffmon on that point, if for no other reason than that the abundant usage of "yah" in personal names seems to attest that the "Y" was considered to be a consonant. If Hoffman is correct in saying that all four letters of the divine name are intended to be vowels rather than consonants, however, the divine name might be pronounced as something like "Ee-ah-oo-ah," or "Eh-ah-oh-ah."

Maybe we should all try praising "Ee-ah-oo-ah" this Sunday -- and see what it feels like to speak in tongues.

[The top graphic is a tattoo of the tetragrammaton in paleo-Hebrew script. The lower graphic represents the divine name in standard block Hebrew letters.]

Is the sky falling?

On Saturday morning I received an "urgent" e-mail from a conservative Christian activist who quoted a recent letter from Don Wildmon of the American Family Association, claiming full agreement with the most horrid example of hyperbole I've yet to hear in a year filled with overstatements, misstatements, and big-fat-lie statements.

In an e-mail blast to supporters, Wildmon claims "If the liberals win the upcoming election, America as we have known it will no longer exist." Rather, the nation "founded on Judeo-Christian values" will be "replaced by a secular state hostile to Christianity."

As if that overblown specter is not enough, Wildmon asserts that a "liberal" victory would mean "This 'city on a hill,' which our forefathers founded, will go dark," creating permanent damage that can never be repaired.

After reading that, I noticed a distinctive odor and checked my shoes, even though there's not a bull left within miles of my house.

Wildmon's shrill nattering has to appear as complete and utter nonsense to anyone who doesn't share his delusion that America under the current administration is a model "city on a hill." America has never been perfect or loved by all, but there was a time when America was the world's most respected nation and a model of values respecting human rights and national sovereignty. In a deeply divisive eight years, the "Christian values" Bush administration has squandered America's value capital and surrendered the moral high ground the nation had enjoyed for many years. Huge portions of the world now see America as a nation that invades, that tortures, that imprisons without charges or trials, that cares only for its own interests and torpedoes the global economy with its undisciplined profligacy. If we are to regain our place of respect in the world, our crying need is for a truly moral and intelligent president who understands the value of diplomacy and the priority of respecting human rights and others' beliefs.

Single-issue readers may respond that anyone who supports abortion rights or gay rights cannot claim to be Christian, just, or concerned with human rights. Such matters are important and must be a part of our national discussion, but all morality cannot be defined on the basis of one or two issues.

Is there clear evidence that John McCain would be a strong Christian leader? Other than a tired story about his Vietnamese prison guard drawing a cross in the dirt one Christmas, I've heard McCain say little about his personal faith. He wallows in riches that were -- and continue to be -- made of profits from a family beer distributorship led by his wife, whom he dated while his first wife lay gravely injured. I wonder how many children and adults have died and will die from the drunken drivers whose beer purchases could be traced directly to the family business? How many homes will be ruined by alcoholism fueled by beer sales that fatten the family purse? Is this a moral icon?

It's not my place to judge the sincerity of John McCain's faith, of course. Likewise, it's not Don Wildmon's place to make unsubstantiated, fear-mongering claims that Barack Obama -- a professing Christian who talks easily and often about his faith -- would transform America into a secular nation that is hostile to Christianity.

As it is, such frantic alarms reveal more about the would-be prophet's narrowness of vision than the clarity of his perception.

Calm down, Chicken Little: the sky is not falling.


[Image from disney-clipart.com]