Easter

Happy Easter! Christ is risen, and Marshmallow Peeps are still nasty. Over here, we're all lounging around and enjoying the end of our Lenten fast. I broke fast with a few bad comic books of no account, and am now enjoying The Importance of Being Earnest, which is just as clever and shallow as I had always hoped it would be.

We'll be back soon with some of the kind of stuff we used to do around here before Lent and Josephus got in the way, but in the meantime I want to say a few irreverent things and then a less irreverent thing.

First, on the irreverent side, I have discovered that you can tell a good deal about a person by the way he handles his Easter basket. When a young child, I knew a person, not to be identified to strangers on the Internet, who pulled the fake not-at-all-resembling-grass stuff out of his basket, shook all the candy out of it, and put the candy into a bowl for easy access. I, on the other hand, arranged the candy as decoratively as possible in the basket and then rearranged it whenever I took a piece out in order to, as long as possible, preserve the idyllic pastoral scene in which a hollow chocolate bunny and his Peeps companions benevolently watch over their nest of jelly beans and Cadbury Creme Eggs. This says a great deal about the differences in our personalities; I'm just not sure what it says exactly. One thing it says is that I don't really like eating candy all that much.

Second, still on the irreverent side, Fr. Erik, don't expect to see me at Mass in a suit again for another full year. That thing only comes out of the closet once a year, and I consider that more than enough. As an archaeologist, geek, and bachelor, I have a rep to keep up, and that means a strict dress code of grungy tee-shirts and cargo pants. Besides that, I'm given to foppishness and dandyism and always feel like I'm showing off when I dress up. Besides, that suit is huge; I got it in high school when my well-meaning mother believed I would "grow into" any clothes I acquired, not really understanding that I have to eat a good deal to keep my weight up, more than I would be able to eat in college. I was about ten pounds heavier when that suit was merely baggy. I do wish I had more shirts to go with that bow tie, though.

Third, though I'm now reading fiction again (with a vengeance), I intend to spend Easter season reading the "sequel" to Josephus. I mean, of course, the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius. The edition I have is the Ferrari of Eusebiuses, but it unfortunately appears to be out of print, though a paperback edition is still available (Eusebius: The Church History). This is a "sequel" because Eusebius, who chronicles the history of the Church from its origins to Constantine, quotes Josephus profusely, because Maier (in my copies) comments on both ancient historians, and because Eusebius and William Whiston (who translated our Josephus) were both Arians. So, as you see, there are strong, tenuous links between the two. Strong and tenuous. Both. At the same time.

The hardback edition of Eusebius that I have and that you will have trouble acquiring is a model of the way books ought to be bound. This is a tiny, slim volume, but it must weigh at least seven pounds due to the solidity of its cover, which appears to be Samsonite or something similar, and the heavy weight of the acid-free pages. This thing would probably survive a nuclear holocaust. Besides that, it has full-color illustrations throughout, ample commentary, and dates in the margins to keep the reader from getting lost. On top of that, it has Maier's highly readable translation (Maier, you may remember, is a successful novelist as well as an historian). It may very well be the finest translated edition of Eusebius ever created. I have one, and you don't.

Oh, and as for those Peeps, I guess it is true that eating one is kind of like the feeling you get when you break a man's mind, enslave his will, and slurp down his soul.

Book Review: The New Complete Works of Josephus

A not quite ideal presentation of the great work.

New Complete Works of Josephus, translated by William Whiston and edited by Paul L. Maier. Kregel Publications (Grand Rapids): 1999. ISBN: 0-8254-2924-2. 1142 pages. $24.99.

It is of course pointless for me to review the works of Josephus. They are, for obvious reasons, among the Great Books. Only serious historians can presume to critique Josephus, so I will leave that up to them. William Whiston's translation, too, is the most readily available in English, so a review of it would be likewise presumptuous and unnecessary. I will only mention that his style is slightly archaic and for that reason enjoyable, and then move on to discussing the Kregel edition specifically.

The Kregel hardback edition of Josephus's complete works appears to be well constructed; it withstood the abuse I gave it during this reading, the paper is opaque and of a good weight, and the text, though not exactly large, is no smaller than what can be found in a typical well-printed Bible. On the whole, it is a handsome edition (though shame on Ragont Design's cover art).

It could, however, use some improvements. Several photographs and a few maps appear throughout, but the photos are frequently blurry and the maps are usually unhelpful. The few maps that are present are general maps that do not serve to illustrate the text or help the reader locate most of the places Josephus mentions. An edition with better photographs and more helpful maps is in order. Also, a table of figures and illustrations should appear after the table of contents to make these features easier to find.

This edition is replete with typos. I expect a few typos in a volume this size, and if I only noticed two or three, I wouldn't mention them, but I noticed typos every five or six pages. Usually, they come in the form of single incorrect letters that change whole words (such as bad for had), which in turn make hash out of Whiston's already complicated sentences.

Probably the only thing that could make this edition of Josephus more attractive than another hardback edition is Paul L. Maier's commentary. The commentary is, however, quite sparse, and Maier usually does little more than summarize Josephus's information on certain subjects. He also fails to deliver on at least one promise: the book is supposed to contain a reconstructed version of Josephus's section on Jesus (Ant. 18.63), which contains Christian interpolations. This reconstruction never appears in this volume, though Maier does present it in the appendix to his translation of the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius.

On the whole, this is a good edition, but it needs to be more carefully edited and could benefit from a few improvements.

And that, finally and at last, ends the 2008 Lenten Nonfiction Read-a-Thon. You may now return to your pulp literature.

2008 Lenten Read-a-Thon Day 45

Wait a minute...day 45?

New Complete Works of Josephus, translated by William Whiston and edited by Paul L. Maier. Kregel Publications (Grand Rapids): 1999. ISBN: 0-8254-2924-2. 1142 pages. $24.99.

Ever feel like you've gotten more Lent than you signed up for? I'm kidding, of course; I know how it all works: it involves numbers and stuff, which means I don't want to deal with it.

Speaking of which, finishing this book is like finishing a doctoral dissertation: sheer pain. Things were going fine while we had J Dawg himself giving us the lowdown on the history of the Jewish people, but after that's all said and done, translator William Whiston has to step in and offer a verbose selection of essays, the longest of which is (*shudder*) "Dissertation 5: Upon the Chronology of Josephus." This might not sound so bad until I remind you that Whiston was, by trade, a mathematician. I'd tell you what this essay is about, but I remember not a word of it. Not a word.

The other essays aren't nearly so bad. Indeed, watching Whiston argue his bizarre positions based on scanty evidence is quite amusing. I was particularly entertained by his argument that Josephus became an Ebionite Christian and wrote the fragment of a homily on Hades. Whiston has not a leg to stand on, but he still fills a few pages on the subject. He also convinces himself, and tries unsuccessfully to convince me, that Josephus had access to a set of scriptures laid up in the Temple by Nehemiah, and that these scriptures were better and more accurate than all our extant copies, and that this explains most of the differences between the Old Testament and Josephus's Antiquities. Especially, Whiston spends a good deal of time arguing that the phrase "until this day," which appears many times in the Old Testament but fewer times in Josephus, are later interpolations. In response, I point out that Josephus paraphrases and summarizes the texts rather than copying them exactly. Furthermore, he would naturally leave most occurrences of this phrase out of his history, since most of them would no longer apply after the Romans had destroyed Israel. Besides that, Josephus has clearly worked later commentary into the text and changed parts that might embarrass him before a Gentile audience.

So there you have it: our final reflection on the book. Barring mishap, I'll come back tomorrow with a review.

Palm Sunday

(I hope Joel at Crummy Church Signs doesn't mind if I borrow this picture.)

You really do have to wonder about a sign like this. In particular, I wonder about the church's slogan, "Through the fire to the fire." Presumably, they're headed to the fire for posting a sign that attributes the quote, "Bring me that ass," to Jesus.

I hoped, when I saw this, that the sign's decorator had simply made an unfortunate choice of biblical translations, but alas, no. I can find no translation in which Jesus says, "Bring me that ass," so we're forced to conclude that someone was knowingly making an inappropriate attempt to be funny. A more correct quote would read something like, "And when they drew nigh unto Jerusalem, and were come to Bethphage, unto the mount of Olives, then sent Jesus two disciples, saying unto them, Go into the village over against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her: loose them, and bring them unto me" (Matthew 21.1-2). I guess that's not as catchy.

We are now down to the final week of Lent. This is Palm Sunday, when we celebrate shop-lifting...no, wait a minute...this is Palm Sunday, when we celebrate Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, during which the crowds put palm branches and coats in front of Jesus while he rode into the city on a donkey. This is the beginning of Holy Week, or as some call it and I prefer, Passion Week. This Thursday is Maundy Thursday, when we celebrate...um...maundies,* this Friday is the curiously named Good Friday, the swell day when our Savior got arrested, falsely accused, and executed, and then next Sunday is Easter (or Resurrection Sunday for the purists).

If you're absolutely riveted to your computers, wondering if I'll finish the Complete Works of Josephus before Easter, all I can say is, been there, done that. I finished all the parts Josephus wrote on Friday, along with the excerpt on Hades that translator William Whiston incorrectly attributed to him. I'm currently in Whiston's bizarre little set of essays in the appendix, of which there are seven, and of which I'm on the fourth. In the near future, I'll give another reflection on the reading and follow that up with a proper book review of the edition I'm using. That will polish off our Lenten Fiction Fast, and then this blog can get back down to its regular business of wallowing in science fiction, action movies, and comic books while occasionally straining for an allegory.

*The good Archdeacon Smiter will flay me alive if I don't mention that it's called Maundy Thursday because it is a celebration of the Last Supper, the Passover meal at which Christ instituted the Eucharist, and that maundy is from the first word of the Latin of John 13.34, which I'm going to let you look up yourself, since that's the normal thing to do with passages from John, at least at baseball games.

2008 Lenten Read-a-Thon Day 34

Speaking of which....

New Complete Works of Josephus, translated by William Whiston and edited by Paul L. Maier. Kregel Publications (Grand Rapids): 1999. ISBN: 0-8254-2924-2. 1142 pages. $24.99.

Now that our grossly unpopular Lenten Read-a-Thon has just about halved the blog's traffic (people apparently expect to see some science fiction on this science fiction blog), I must say that the siege of Jerusalem has put me in mind of another siege in another great work of literature. I mean, specifically, the siege of Troy in The Iliad (which I refuse to read in any translation but Pope's, much as I refuse to read the Arabian Nights in any translation but Burton's).

The Iliad is evidence of the singular fact that, if you are a great literary genius, you can get away with any amount of idiocy in your writing. I do not mean to say that Homer is himself an idiot or even that his Iliad is itself idiotic; nay, rather, Homer is a great poet and the Iliad a great poem, but there can be no denying that it is a great poem about great idiots.

I don't even mean that Agamemnon and Achilles are a couple of dislikable hotheads; I expect to meet hotheads in a lengthy poem that dwells on graphic violence. What I mean, rather, is the way these morons go about committing said graphic violence.

Do you realize that the Greeks sat in front of Troy in their boats for nine years before it occurred to any of them that it might be a good idea to put up some fortifications? And how about the Trojans, who sat in their city for nine years before someone finally said, "This kinda blows. What say we go out and fight those Greeks?"

And why is it that none of these herculean men, who could hurl gigantic boulders at each other, pierce multiple layers of armor with their thrown javelins, and build monumental architecture overnight, had not the capacity to construct even a primitive siege engine? For nine years, the Greeks sat in their boats in front of Troy, confounded by the presence of a wall, and for nine years, the Trojans sat behind that wall, confounded by the presence of Achilles. Why didn't any of the Trojans build something to hit Achilles from a safe distance while he was posturing out on the plain? And why didn't any of the Greeks say, "Y'know, last night I had this idea--we like to throw stones at each other, right? How about we build a sort of gadget that can throw stones over that wall? Or better yet, how about a movable tower, as high as the wall--and we could even put men in it, who could climb over the wall...."

I mean, honestly!

(And I refuse to read The Aenid in any translation but Dryden's. That makes me, so I understand, a 1697 Dryden-only Virgil-believer.)

2008 Lenten Read-a-Thon Day 33

Into the War.

New Complete Works of Josephus, translated by William Whiston and edited by Paul L. Maier. Kregel Publications (Grand Rapids): 1999. ISBN: 0-8254-2924-2. 1142 pages. $24.99.

I have just completed book 4 of the Jewish War and am, I believe, well on my way to finishing the book by the allotted time, which is a great relief to me, as I've no doubt I would be much lowered in the eyes of my readers if I was found to be unable to complete a book of a mere 1,100 pages in 40+ days.

Josephus was eye witness to much of what he describes in the War. In particular, he is quite detailed in the description of the siege of Jotapata, in which he was opposite number to General (later Emperor) Vespasian. At the end of the siege, when Jotapata was taken, Josephus pulled one of his more conniving stunts. Having hidden himself, with a number of others, in a hole in the ground, he desired to surrender to the Romans but was prevented by his companions, who preferred death and threatened to kill him. Josephus then convinced them all to make a suicide pact and slay each other. When the smoke cleared, Josephus and one other person were still standing. The two of them promptly surrendered to the Romans. Ah, Josephus, you sneaky bastard.

At the end of the present book, Vespasian has become emperor, and we are now getting ready for the siege of Jerusalem itself. The various factions at Jerusalem have been spending their time slaughtering each other so as to make the Romans' job easier. In particular, Josephus has many harsh words for a particular John of Gischala, on whom he lays almost all the blame for Jerusalem's destruction. In particular, John apparently had working for him a group of killer transvestites:

...and during this time did the mischievous contrivances and courage [of John] corrupt the body of the Galileans; for these Galileans had advanced this John, and made him very potent, who made them suitable repayment from the authority he had obtained by their means; for he permitted them to do all things that any of them desired to do, while their inclination to plunder was insatiable, as was their zeal in searching the houses of the rich; and for the murdering of the men, and abusing of the women, it was sport to them. They also devoured what spoils they had taken, together with their blood, and indulged themselves in feminine wantonness, without any disturbance, until they were satiated with it; while they decked their hair, and put on women's garments, and were besmeared over with ointments; and that they might appear very comely, they had paints under their eyes, and imitated not only the ornaments, but also the lusts of women, and were guilty of such intolerable uncleanness, that they invented unlawful pleasures of that sort. And thus did they roll themselves up and down the city, as in a brothel-house, and defiled it entirely with their impure actions; nay, while their faces looked like the faces of women, they killed with their right hands; and when their gait was effeminate, they presently attacked men, and became warriors, and drew their swords from under their finely dyed cloaks, and ran everybody through whom they alighted upon. [War 4.9.10 (4.558-563)]

History is weird, man.

Catchup

Today, I'm reading. I'll try to give you a new update and reflection tomorrow.

2008 Lenten Read-a-Thon Day 24

Hasmoneans! I can't remember my Hasmoneans!

New Complete Works of Josephus, translated by William Whiston and edited by Paul L. Maier. Kregel Publications (Grand Rapids): 1999. ISBN: 0-8254-2924-2. 1142 pages. $24.99.

Well, here we are. Because of Leap Year, I actually have one more day to read than I had calculated. This might save my bacon.

We are now a little over halfway through Lent, and so, appropriately, I am now a little over halfway through Josephus. Not yet out of the Antiquities, I should have gotten through the death of Herod the Great (Book 17, Chapter 8) by the time my head hits the pillow tonight.

Much study does indeed weary the body. The push to get through this volume is beginning to wear on me, but it wouldn't be a challenge if I didn't pick a formidable work, would it?

It was tough getting through the Hasmonean Dynasty. Somewhere around Book 12, Josephus's major source is 1 Maccabees. As a work of history, 1 Maccabees is probably one of the best in the Bible, but it is also one of the driest and densest books in the Bible. Josephus's work keeps going in this vein after 1 Maccabees is finished. There are too many wars and rumors of wars, and too many people named John, Jonathan, Alexander, and Ptolemy. I can't keep it all straight.

Things get interesting again when we get to the Herods. In partcular, Josephus spends a good long time with the life of Herod the Great. The Herods were the ultimate dysfunctional family. The tree of this family didn't fork much, if you know what I mean, and they spent most of their time trying to assassinate each other. Herod the Great's favorite pastime was torturing people he suspected of plotting against him; after a long life, he eventually died in a hideous manner, the medical explanation of which is still open to some debate. Intestinal blockage is the only explanation I remember off-hand.

For our purposes, one of the most interesting stories of Herod the Great related in Josephus involves the tomb of Kings David and Solomon. According to Josephus, these two monarchs of the United Kingdom had a large and richly decorated sepulcher in Jerusalem. A certain Hasmonean, Hyrcanus, had previously opened the tomb and retrieved money in a time of need. Herod later despoiled the tomb himself; after entering it, he took out the lavish furniture he found there, but, upon an attempt to proceed further into the tomb and find the very bodies of David and Solomon, "two of his guards were killed, by a flame that burst out upon those that went in, as the report was" (Ant. 16.7.1 [16.182]).

What do we learn from this? Probably very little, as it is unlikely that such a rich tomb would have survived intact from the time of David until the first century, so whatever tomb was there probably wasn't really David and Solomon's. Also, this story in general appears fantastic and is likely only legendary.

Nonetheless, what we do learn from this is that ancient tombs full of rich treasures do indeed have booby traps, just as you have seen in the movies. Also, we learn that it is always the expendable workmen who fall prey to these booby traps and not the principal hero.

Aaagh! It's the 25th Already!

Sorry all, this is a Josephus catch-up, so no post today.

2008 Lenten Read-a-Thon Day 16

More Josephus than you can shake a stick at.

New Complete Works of Josephus, translated by William Whiston and edited by Paul L. Maier. Kregel Publications (Grand Rapids): 1999. ISBN: 0-8254-2924-2. 1142 pages. $24.99.

In my copy of Josephus, I have just this morning completed Book 10, Chapter 7 of Jewish Antiquities, which falls on page 344, putting me slightly behind for our Lenten Read-a-Thon due to a flurry of writing I was engaged in over the last few days. I now must play catch-up.

So far in the Antiquities, Josephus has been using mostly biblical texts as his sources, but has drawn a few embellishments from other places, particularly Herodotus's History. Some embellishments are, as far as I know, of unknown origin. One of my favorites is in the story of King Uzziah. In the biblical text of 2 Chronicles 26, Uzziah goes into the Temple to burn incense and is stricken with leprosy for his presumption. The same story in Antiquities 9.10, however, is more dramatic: when Uzziah enters the Temple, an earthquake cracks the Temple's roof and sunlight shines through, striking Uzziah in the face and causing the leprosy. William Whiston mentions in a footnote that Zechariah 14.4-5 refers to an "earthquake in the days of Uzziah." It's likely that passage gave rise to the version of the story we find in Josephus.

Sometimes, Josephus alters details, probably because he would find them embarrassing if they were known to a gentile readership. One of these I most readily noticed was in the story of Samson. In Judges 14.5-9, Samson kills a lion and, upon returning to the carcass later, finds a beehive inside it. He eats some of the honey from the hive and also gives some to his parents without telling them where he got it. Josephus, apparently realizing that eating from an animal's torn carcass violates Jewish law, says instead that Samson only gave the honey to his Philistine wife and her relatives (Antiquities 5.8.5-6 [5.287-289]).

This incident with the lion and the honey gives rise to one of my favorites of Samson's exploits: in revenge for an insult from the Philistines, he captures 300 foxes, ties torches to their tails, and releases them in the Philistines' fields. I'm sure every energetic young boy has dreamed of doing something similar.

And that passage always reminds me of one of the odder verses in the Song of Songs, "Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes" (2.15). In his commentary in The HarperCollins Study Bible, Michael V. Fox suggests "foxes may be a metaphor for lusty youths, vineyards for nubile girls," and I suppose that's as good an explanation as any.

And the Song of Songs puts me in mind of an embarrassing incident that occurred a few years back when I was still a catechumen. I was hangin' with my Catholic homies when one of them came up to me and said, completely serious and apparently much shocked, "Did you know there's erotic poetry in the Bible?" How do you answer a question like that? I considered replying, "I've annotated mine," but eventually I just said, "Uh, yeah." When commentators note that Americans today are quite interested in religion but at the same time religiously ignorant, they ain't kiddin'.

Speaking of religious ignorance, the book description for the above-cited HarperCollins Study Bible claims that the revised edition of this Bible includes an essay on the "literary history of the Pentateuch (those books between the Old and New Testament that Catholics include in their Bible)." Man, if the editors of a study Bible don't know the difference between the Pentateuch and the Deuterocanon, I definitely don't want their Bible.

Speaking of the Bible, I notice Josephus has a habit of taking certain independent books and sticking them into the course of his narrative where he feels they belong. So, for example, the story of Jonah is inserted into the history of the Kings and the story of Ruth is inserted into the history of the Judges. Speaking of Ruth, an old acquaintance of mine who is author of an obscure little book entitled Notes from the Margins of an Old Preacher's Bible refers to Naomi as "the picture of a backslider" (p. 15), which I don't think is very nice. But also speaking of Ruth, you know who Ruth reminds me of? Kyoko Otonashi from Maison Ikkoku. But now I'm getting out of line.

Who else is reading? Where you at?

2008 Lenten Read-a-Thon Day 3

One book gone and still going strong.

New Complete Works of Josephus, translated by William Whiston and edited by Paul L. Maier. Kregel Publications (Grand Rapids): 1999. ISBN: 0-8254-2924-2. 1142 pages. $24.99.


The Vita is now behind us and I have just finished Book 1 of Jewish Antiquities, putting me just about where I need to be on Day 3. In other words, we're right up to speed.

Is it just me, or does the edition I'm using have the world's ugliest cover?

The Antiquities, in its first several books, is an outline of biblical histories with some interpolated material. For someone who's read through the Old Testament multiple times, Josephus's version makes for a nice, fresh angle. He tends, like some other ancient historians, to give the characters lengthy speeches, which are fun. He also attributes a great deal of astronomical and mathematical knowledge to the Patriarchs; of particular interest to me are the two pillars containing astronomical data, supposedly constructed by the Sethites before the Flood. A little tidbit like that sparks the imagination of a fantasist.

Also fun are translator William Whiston's footnotes. Whiston comes across as a congenial, credulous, and slightly verbose man of letters. Barely able to contain his own eccentric theological ideas and fond of quoting various texts that he apparently accepts uncritically, he makes for an entertaining guide to Josephus's writings. In particular, Whiston is of the strange opinion that Josephus converted to Christianity. Paul L. Maier, editor of this volume, usually adds no comments to Whiston's rambling footnotes, but at that one, he steps in to mention that Josephus's conversion is attested in no source whatsoever.

Maier's own commentary is quite sparse and appears in a few boxes placed at intervals through the text. So far, he has merely summarized what Josephus says and has sometimes added a few historical details.

Book 1 of the Antiquities ends with the death of Isaac. Tomorrow, I will start in on Book 2, which begins with Esau and Jacob dividing their inheritance and continues with the story of Joseph in Egypt. Biblically, we're still in Genesis.

Who else out there is reading? Tell us where you're at.

2008 Lenten Read-a-Thon Day 1: Ash Wednesday

"I have come to chew bubblegum and to get ash, and the priest doesn't like it when I chew bubblegum."

--Snuffles the Dragon, overheard at Ash Wednesday Mass

It aint' over til the Against Apion sings.

New Complete Works of Josephus, translated by William Whiston and edited by Paul L. Maier. Kregel Publications (Grand Rapids): 1999. ISBN: 0-8254-2924-2. 1142 pages. $24.99.

Our Lenten Josephus Read-a-Thon is underway. First up on the agenda is Josephus's Life or Vita, the historian's account of himself and how awesome he is. We'll easily be through it tomorrow, as I have just completed Vita 215 (Loeb's numbers), which is on page 30 in my volume, putting us slightly ahead of schedule on this Ash Wednesday, first day of Lent.

Gettin' ash and takin' names!
(Photo stolen from Orthometer.)

So that's our Lenten reading so far. The introduction by Paul L. Maier is quite engaging. He begins thus:

Josephus was a first-century Jew whose life as a diplomat, general, and historian was crammed with contradictions. He studied in the desert but wrote in the city. He was a pacifist who went to war, a military commander who (to our knowledge) had no training in the martial arts but fought as if he had. He battled the Romans, yet was befriended by them. He joined a suicide pact but survived, while thirty-nine lay dead around him. He was the mortal foe of a future emperor--who later brought him into the family! [p. 7]

That should whet your interest. And check this out:

At Cluny...the famous monastery that sparked the Cluniac Reform in the tenth century, Josephus was specified for Lenten reading. [p. 15]

So for a very long time, Christians have been reading Josephus for penance, and we're proud to continue the tradition.

The 40-Day Josephus Read-a-Thon

Holy cow, it's almost time for Lent! This coming Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, the day each year when we celebrate square-jawed, wisecracking zombie-slayers...no wait, that's not it. This coming Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, the day when we kick off the Lenten Season by remembering that we are dust.

Normally, I don't like it when people tell each other what they're giving up for Lent. Matthew 6.16-18 indicates that fasting is supposed to be done in private. Nonetheless, this year I'm going to tell you what I'm giving up because it affects you directly. I'm giving up fiction.

Now, this doesn't mean the blog is going on a hiatus of 40+ days; it merely means that the tenor will change, the news items will increase, and the reviews will stop. In their place, I will offer regular updates on what I intend to make an annual event--The Sci Fi Catholic Lenten Nonfiction Read-a-Thon. I'm inviting all readers to join in the Read-a-Thon either by reading the same text or texts I am, or to choose texts of their own. In the future, I'll try to give more advance notice so you can acquire the desired books ahead of time.

The goal of this year's Lenten Read-a-Thon is to read the Complete Works of Josephus.



The edition I will be using is the famous translation of William Whiston with new editing and additional commentary by popular historian Paul L. Maier. Maier, if you don't know, is an excellent wordsmith. His translation of Eusebius is highly readable, as is his selective translation of Josephus, Josephus: The Essential Works. He has also written a number of novels and has even been accused of creating a new genre known as the "theological thriller." His novel A Skeleton in God's Closet is the first Christian novel I ever read that didn't suck. That book is partly responsible for my being an archaeologist, though unfortunately, my life as an archaeologist looks nothing like that of the novel's protagonist: I have never once been the subject of international scandal, the object of multiple assassination plots, or a participant in covert espionage operations, nor have I had slobbery make-out scenes with women ten years my junior, though that last is okay because at my age I could get arrested for that. I have, however, drunk copious amounts of beer, though the Pope would apparently prefer it if I drank Fanta.

If you'd like to participate in our Lenten Read-a-Thon, put the comics and sf novels down, pick up a weighty nonfiction tome, and prove to the world that Sci Fi Catholics don't just read ephemeral garbage; sometimes we read boring stuff, too. If you're joining the Read-a-Thon, feel free to drop me an e-mail or leave a comment telling us all about what you're reading and your progress along the way, especially if you're joining me in reading Josephus.

Robert Silverberg, "Fantastic Archaeology," and Mormonism

In case I haven't mentioned it, I live in Utah now, which is of course the heart of Mormon country. I know less than nothing about Mormonism. By that, I mean that what I do know, I learned from Bud MacFarlane, Jr., who is to Mormonism what Dan Brown is to Catholicism.

If you figure you better learn a little something about Mormonism, you could do worse than begin with chapter 8, "Archaeology and Religion," in Stephen Williams's Fantastic Archaeology: The Wild Side of North American Prehistory. Williams offers a restrained, if brief, presentation of Mormonism's roots in the archaeological speculations of Joseph Smith's time. Because I try (though often fail) to always make connections between religion and sf on this blog, I must mention that one of Williams's most important sources for this chapter is the nonfiction work, Moundbuilders of Ancient America, by Robert Silverberg, who is better known for his science fiction.

To make a brief summary of Williams's explanations, Joseph Smith is a difficult person to research, for few dispassionate biographies exist: almost everyone who writes of him either saints him or vilifies him (Williams 1991:159).

In 1827, Smith claims to have found, through divine revelation, a set of gold plates buried on Hill Cumorah in New York State (Williams 1991:161). If I'm not mistaken, this is a part of the so-called "Burned-Out Zone" or "Burned-Over District," which experienced a curious proliferation of new religious movements in the nineteenth century (here's a Wikipedia article on it, to which I must append a warning: no more likely to be accurate than the blog you're reading).

Steve Wood, a Catholic apologist, has suggested that the religious detritus of the Burned-Over District was the aftermath of Evangelical revivalist evangelism methods. In other words, the fractured new religious movements that appeared in the Burned-Over District are the product of Evangelicalism's inherent theological instability, which becomes most obvious during its periods of greatest energy. Joseph Smith's own account of what led to his first vision tends to support Wood's assertion: as I read Smith, he was frustrated with the quarrels between different Protestant sects and felt he had no means to choose between them, so he finally gave up on all of them and founded his own. Although Catholics don't grant Mormons the title "Christian," I think Smith probably deserves no more blame that Luther, though he may deserve more admiration for his greater creativity.

Along with the plates, Smith recovered the Urim and Thummin, which he used to interpret the plates, which were inscribed in "reformed Egyptian," whatever that is (Williams 1991:162-163). Already, Mormonism hits a serious archaeological snag. There's no such thing as reformed Egyptian (Demotic, maybe?), though I will posit the wild guess that Smith was aiming here for a language the Israelites might have borrowed from Egypt and altered after the Exodus. A set of reformed Egyptian characters allegedly copied from one of the plates does exist, but scholars regard it as a nonsensical jumble (Williams 1991:163).

Williams does not discuss the Urim and Thummin at any length, but I should comment on those as well. Josephus depicts them as glowing jewels (in Antiquities iii.8.9, according to the Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon p. 22) and the Dead Sea Scroll sometimes entitled "Tongues of Fire" depicts them this way as well (texts 1Q29 and 4Q376, which you can find on p. 178 of The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation). Philo describes the Urim and Thummin as embroidered images sewn to a bag used to carry them (Brown-Driver-Briggs again, p. 22). Most scholars today assume the Urim and Thummin were something like dice used for casting lots. As far as I know, the concept of the Urim and Thummin as lenses to look through in order to read ancient texts is original to Mormonism.

One of the basic idea of Mormonism, that the Moundbuilders of the Ohio Valley were from the Lost Tribes of Israel (Williams 1991:164-165), is not original to Smith but was a popular notion at the time, though it, like other Lost Tribes legends, is now out of favor with scholars. Williams mentions an interesting development in Mormonism: Smith imagines grand civilizations that are lacking in New York, so modern Mormonism usually depicts the events of the Book of Mormon taking place in Mesoamerica, though this is clearly not Smith's original intent (Williams 1991:166).

Thus when archaeology was finally brought into the Mormon question, it was usually with regard to the high cultures of Mesoamerica and Peru. Today Mormon literature, including my copy of the Book of Mormon, is illustrated with color pictures of copper, bronze, and gold artifacts from Peru and with temples from Mexico, not Ohio Valley Moundbuilder relics. Christ is shown visiting the New World in the midst of a ceremonial plaza with a broken Maya stela on one side.... [Williams 1991:166]

So, there you go. There's more, but I recommend you grab the book and read it yourself. Tomorrow, I'll discuss some other interesting elements in the chapter.

Williams, Stephen
1991. 8. "Archaeology and Religion: Where Angels Fear to Tread" in Fantastic Archaeology: The Wild Side of North American Prehistory 156-188. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia.