Into the Great Beyond

3 Comments

It is a sobering moment when one of your advisors shuffles off the mortal coil. Just a year after my master’s degree, Harrell Beck, my program advisor passed away amid a flurry of unusual happenings. Just a few years back, Simon Parker, his colleague and an Ugaritologist who befriended me, also slipped into the netherworld. I just received the obituary of John C. L. Gibson, my doctoral advisor from Edinburgh, reminding me that my obvious concerns with death and religion in this blog have a very practical application. We all have to face it sometime, and hopefully our legacy will be a good one.

Professor Gibson was best known for his revision of outdated but valuable reference materials. His work as a Semitic linguist was highly regarded, but he didn’t wander too far from convention. As a clergyman in the Scottish Kirk, he had natural constraints. He also had a clever way of turning a phrase. Late in my time at Edinburgh University, I started to keep a list of his aphorisms. If I’d started earlier I might have some more nuggets to lay out here, but I thought it a fitting tribute to a fine gentleman scholar who always took a dram with his breakfast to pass along a few of his choice quotes in this post. You’ll have to do your best to imagine the Scottish burr —

“Don’t lead with your chin” (this was in the context of taking on academic debate).

“Skullduggery is just around the corner in archaeology.”

“Archaeologists and epigraphers shoot each other on sight” (this was in reference to Ebla).

“In Job the daring word is often the right one.”

“If you want to stand against him, do so. But get your armor on first!” (This remark came after I challenged a time-honored thesis by the late James Barr, while he was still early.)

“Every word in Arabic refers to a part of a camel as well as something else.”

“Inscriptions like Ajrud, they’re a nuisance; they shouldn’t be there.” (Kuntillet Ajrud is the site of one of the famous “Yahweh and his Asherah” inscriptions.)

“Who is Asherah and what is she doing here with Yahweh?” (In the same conversation as the previous comment.)

“Turning pages is a major activity of scholarship.”

There were, of course, many more. Professor Gibson will always remain a large part of my Edinburgh experience. Sitting in his pipe-smoke during one of my sessions, I noticed he had no computer. “Ach, aye, they offered me one, but I wouldna used it,” he explained. He didn’t even own a typewriter. In my mind, his passing is like the passing of old school scholarship itself.

J. C. L. Gibson, a cipher, and Nicolas Wyatt

J. C. L. Gibson, a cipher, and Nicolas Wyatt

Papal bull?

3 Comments

In world news, yesterday’s paper ran an article entitled “Pontiff praises Africa as font of spirituality” (New Jersey Star-Ledger). This brief piece concerning a clerical meeting about Africa (held in Italy), dredged up some interesting concepts: that the African continent is a font of spirituality, but it suffers from materialism and fundamentalism. Having never been to Africa, I am not in a position to assess how materialistic the continent is, but from the images seared into my brain of barely clothed, starving children who own nothing, having this comment come from the opulence of the Vatican is jarring. Teaching by example is far more effective than, well, pontificating. Perhaps if some of the art and Christian swag were sold to invest in the poor, there might be reason to listen to rebukes from foreign potentates.

Catholics and Fundamentalists sometimes share political agendas and cooperate to get their holy candidates elected, but clearly they clash when it comes to issues of religious praxis, and especially, authority. I watched with horror over the last two decades as Roman Catholic bishops paired up with the likes of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell to support the Bush family legacy because they agree on the same conservative side of the issues. I even saw this on a small scale at Nashotah House. Once the victory is won, however, the honeymoon is over and the claws come unsheathed and fangs are bared.

Religious fundamentalism is an extremely dangerous force, and Rome is right to call it a “virus.” Like Catholicism, however, it is based on fear of dissing the almighty. If we dare probe deeper, underlying all the obsequious servility towards the divine, both forms of Christianity thrive on their own power. Being able to control the masses with claims of sole spiritual authority — sorry, only one set of keys to the kingdom — is also a dangerous thing. Benedict IX, meet Jimmy Swaggart; Jimmy, meet Bennie.

Jerry blesses a papal bull

Jerry blesses a papal bull

Let Us Make Moses in Our Own Image

5 Comments

This week’s Time magazine contains an article entitled “How Moses Shaped America” by Bruce Feiler (actually it is an abstract from his book, America’s Prophet: Moses and the American Story). Feiler points out how Moses has been manipulated and utilized by various factions of American society from the earliest pilgrims up through President Obama’s campaign. There’s some interesting stuff here, from the proposal of the Great Seal that depicts the parting of the Red Sea to the Mosaic elements in the Statue of Liberty. No doubt about it, America loves Moses.

As intriguing as I found Feiler’s thesis, I couldn’t help but be a little bit disturbed by it. Serious biblical scholars are early taught to avoid prooftexting like a plague of frogs. Prooftexting is part of a Fundamentalist’s daily spiritual calisthenics, right after chapter-and-verse-presses. Prooftexting is pulling random Bible verses out of context to support a confessional position on any issue. You can always tell it’s coming when someone opens with “the Bible says…” Then you get a chapter-and-verse punctuation mark. What Feiler is describing in his article is just that, a use of Moses that fits the crisis of the moment. While there is nothing wrong about looking to a great leader in time of need, whether that leader be mythical or historical, I wonder how different this is than marching into battle with “Gott und Ich” inscribed on your belt-buckle.

One statement Feiler makes, however, I must take exception to: “With the rise of secularism and the declining influence of the Bible in the 20th century, Moses might have melted away as a role model.” No doubt secularism was in the ascendant during the twentieth century, but the influence of the Bible was never stronger. The twentieth century saw the Bible co-opted as part of a powerful political agenda that drove this nation to the brink of destruction. Never before had the Bible been used to deceive many thousands of untrained religious believers in the ways of war and greed and inhumanity. Bible-thumping had become more effective than rational thinking or coherent speech in the political debates we all so painfully watched. No, the Bible’s influence has not been shrinking. What is needed is a Moses to wrestle it back to its proper place. Even the Bible can be a golden calf.

Moses gets down

Moses gets down

Noah’s Lark

3 Comments

This podcast deals with the myth of the great flood. It begins with a consideration of why modern expeditions do not find anything (nothing to be found), and considers the reasons the story is so appealing to present-day readers. The Sun Pictures productions on the flood story are reviewed, along with the story of the hoax played on Sun in their 1992 made-for-television movie. The history of the flood story is briefly narrated, beginning with George Smith’s 1872 discovery of the Mesopotamian flood story, back to Atrahasis and the Eridu Genesis from Sumer. The flood story is one of the earliest religious stories known.

Science Me This

2 Comments

I’ve just finished going over the creation and flood myths in Genesis 1–11 with my students. By my reckoning, this is about the twentieth time I’ve taken this journey. One comfort of walking a well-known trail is you know what to expect. The fact that always sticks in my mind is how good of a job the Creationists have done. In every setting where I have taught I have many students who unquestioningly accept that Genesis 1–11 was written as science by some kind of Mosaic mosaic of scientist, law-giver, and prophet, a regular Bronze Age Renaissance man. Since biblical scholars do not communicate well with the public (nor do they play nicely with each other), most students come into class wondering why the Creationist viewpoint is even under question.

I want to suggest something radical here: in our culture where science, technology, and finance are highly valued, we neglect to educate our kids in the basics of literary study. Schools push the technological envelope, and this is not a bad thing, but the kids come home and are shuffled off to church where the Bible is revered and a basic disconnect forms in their minds. A compartmentalized Bible, factually true, resides in one region of the cortex while in another scientific theory lurks. And when fact clashes with theory, fact always wins. They know they have to tell biology teachers that they understand evolution, they simply don’t believe it. They come to collegiate religion classes expecting Sunday School part 2.

Just this summer a grown man, Randall Price, director of Liberty Uni-, Univ-, University’s (sorry, I always choke on that one) Center for Judaic Studies once again made the weary trek to Mount Ararat to find Noah’s Ark. If he’d read Atrahasis or even Gilgamesh, he might have known he was looking in the wrong place. Nevertheless, he received coverage from a major news network (FOX, of course!), and those who never studied ancient mythology cheered him on. If we could teach children that the Bible is a literary document, teach them that it can be studied seriously, and that the Big Bang and “let there be light” are not the same thing, we might make some progress. Until then, we will have to contend with silly cartoons trumping hard-earned education.

Jack Chick has more publications than any Bible scholar

Jack Chick has more publications than any Bible scholar

Banned Bible?

Leave a comment
Florian b.'s 2005 image

Florian b.'s 2005 image

It’s Banned Book Week again. Each year the American Library Association promotes free thought by raising awareness of books that have been, or currently are, banned. Having just exited ABE books’ Weird Book Room (among the currently featured: Paint it Black: A Guide to Gothic Homemaking, The Bible Cure for Irritable Bowel Syndrome, and Is Your Dog Gay?), it is easy to see how the morally squeamish might wish that some books had never been written, but being a firm believer in personal expression, I give them a rousing cheer. Odd ideas are also among the Lego blocks that build our world.

I also ponder the texts with which I have spent so much time, and wonder what the ancient censors would have done with the great classics of antiquity. History’s first great novel, the Epic of Gilgamesh, would certainly have been on their crushed clay list. On only the second tablet we read, “Enkidu sits before the harlot. The two of them make love together… For six days and seven nights Enkidu came forth, mating with the lass. Then the harlot opened her mouth, saying to Enkidu: ‘As I look at thee, Enkidu, thou are become like a god” (Speiser’s rather tame translation). A sex scene with the first woman Enkidu ever met? We can’t have our kids reading that! Where do you put the V-chip in this tablet?

Perhaps the people of ancient Ugarit would have fared better? Their epic tale, the story of the trials and ultimate triumph of Baal, includes his unfortunate defeat at the hands of death. Baal is ordered to the underworld. “Mighty Baal obeyed. He loved a heifer in the pasture, a cow in the steppes of death’s shores, seventy-seven times he laid with her, she let him mount eighty-eight times.” Whoops! Hope the kids weren’t reading that. Surely this is some kind of sacred marriage ritual with Anat and not a cow? Good thing we never figured out where KTU 1.10 fits into the cycle! There’s another one for the rock crusher.

It’s a good thing the Egyptians were more civilized. Their culture would never allow for such liberal, naughty writing, would it? Well, maybe if we ignore the Memphite Theology. Not for the shy, here we are told how Ptah brought the Ennead into being using just his fingers.

I started reading the Bible as a child. To my surprise, it would not have gotten away with a G rating either. It seems to me that books deal with the greatest complexities human beings face. Sacred books as well as secular delve into the darker grottoes of the mind, and here the Bible is clearly among them. If we had systematically destroyed all written work that had offended others throughout history, we wouldn’t even have the Good Book left to argue about.

Clergy Letter Project

2 Comments

A few years back I had the privilege of working at the same university as Dr. Michael Zimmerman, currently a biology professor at Butler University in Indianapolis. In my temporary stint as a Lecturer in the Religious Studies department at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, I discovered that Dr. Zimmerman, then the Dean of the College of Letters and Science, was the very man responsible for the Clergy Letter Project. I had read about the project before; in an attempt to demonstrate that Creationism is not mainstream Christianity (nor science, for that matter), the Clergy Letter Project was attempting to acquire a few thousand signatures from the ordained of various denominations who were willing to admit that evolution posed no threat to their religion.

As an occupational hazard of someone with my background, I know many, many clergy. I offered to solicit some help in reaching the goal on the list and spent the rest of the semester contacting various sacerdotal practitioners who rightfully saw the Creationist ploy for what it was and continues to be. Creationism is nothing short of an attempt to break through the church and state separation clause and attain federal support for a particular religious viewpoint. That particular viewpoint is not shared by the majority of informed Christians, but the population is easily swayed by Creationist rhetoric. Creationists do not deserve sympathy, for they are much more aggressive than they pretend to be. Subterfuge in the cause of truth is a contradiction in ethics.

Religion may be hardwired into human brains, but it need not seek to pick fights with factual truth as it is learned. At each stage along the progression of human achievement, various religious believers have felt that the new knowledge discovered confronted their faith with unsurpassable barriers. Faith, however, is a belief system, not a factual construct. If faith requires proof, as even the Bible itself says, it is not really faith at all. If you know any clergy who are willing to sign on for common sense and belief in the rational world in which we find ourselves, please send them this link and ask them to weigh in on the question. Nearly 12,000 clergy have signed to date. There are even separate lists for Rabbinical and Unitarian-Universalist clergy. Don’t worry about the Creationists. They will always be back for more.

An early Creationist attempt at intelligent design

An early Creationist attempt at intelligent design

God and the Boss

Leave a comment

I seldom gush, nor am I given to great displays of emotion. Although I appreciate great accomplishments in others, I have never considered a living person a hero. Only Bruce Springsteen. An article in the newspaper yesterday described the first academic conference on the Boss’s music, held right where it all began — New Jersey. Unfortunately unable to attend, I relish the fact that others see in Springsteen what must be something like I see.

Last year at the Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting in Boston, I picked up a copy of a new book, The Gospel according to Bruce Springsteen, by Jeffrey Symynkywicz (Westminster John Knox, 2008). I am not a fan of “Gospel according to —” books, but there is a trenchant depth of struggle with religion embedded in Bruce’s songs that transfixes me almost as much as Melville’s Moby Dick. Now, this is deeply personal with me. I don’t discuss my amazement that borders on worship of Springsteen with anyone. Coming from a decidedly blue-collar background, and having wrestled against circumstance for everything I’ve earned, including my degrees, I hear resonances of empathy throbbing through what Bruce sings. He is not an icon; he is an authentic human being. And his music is a gospel.

Boss

I haven’t read Symynkywicz’s book yet. Whenever I’ve tried to read the popular bios of the Boss I soon become frustrated at how trite they all make it sound. Having survived (barely) the Reagan-Bush era with its utter lack of sympathy for the condition of most Americans, sometimes I just need to crawl into the corner alone, slip on the headphones, and listen to Nebraska over and over again.

For God and For Gold

Leave a comment

The Associated Press today released a story about an Anglo-Saxon treasure hoard discovered in England this summer. The trove, which likely contains at least 1500 items, many of silver and gold, is calculated to cause substantial reassessment of Dark Age England. Leslie Webster, a former curator at the British Museum, suggested that given the nature of the artifacts, new light could be cast on the relationship between warfare and Christianity.

Apart from the obvious deliria of daydreams of wealth that such finds always drag in their cloaks, this treasure once again underscores the connections between religion and violence. The Anglo-Saxons, Germanic invaders of England following the decline of the Roman Empire, had been early converts to Christianity. Even Alaric the Goth was a good Christian, although he had little patience with the oversight of Rome. The recently uncovered hoard contains mostly military trophies, but among the finds was a gold strip reading “Rise up, O Lord, and may thy enemies be dispersed and those who hate thee be driven from thy face” (Numbers 10.35). Already bloggers are drawing comparison with Jules’ quote from the fabricated Ezekiel 25.17 in Pulp Fiction, but the connection of Christianity and conquest is much more intimate than that. Once Christianity became the official Roman religion under Constantine, the imperial imperative took over. It became a religion of conquest. A similar phenomenon occurred after the advent of Islam. The zeal of the converted should never be underestimated.

I'm trying really hard to be the shepherd

I'm trying really hard to be the shepherd

So, what are we to make of this scriptural quote among sword knobs and doom sticks? Is it simply more evidence that religions, like the Roman Empire (according to Octavius) “must grow or die”? Those who believe carry a deep-seated fear that their religion might be proven false. On it ride serious (and often eternal) consequences. One way to ensure the quelling of that fear is to silence the heretics who decry the one true faith: take up your swords and nukes and threaten the infidel. The road less traveled, however, is to rise above our insecurities and simply enjoy the ride.

Sky God

Leave a comment

The latest issue of Wired arrived in my mailbox yesterday. Generally the people who write for the magazine frighten me — they are so smart and hip and ahead of the curve, something that a scholar of very ancient stuff hardly even aspires to. When I can understand what they are writing about, however, I am often fascinated. A story that caught my attention is entitled “Sky Wave” by Mike Olson. Around the world people have been noticing a new type of cloud that is being called undulatus asperatus. undulatus1 Here is a Gnu-license photo of one of these clouds; there are more dramatic images, but they are mostly covered by copyright. What immediately caught my attention in the Wired article was the subtitle: “Weather Geeks Are Championing a New Armageddon-Worthy Cloud.” The Bible appears in the sky yet again.

Back when I was doing the research on my (still unpublished) book on weather terminology in the Bible, one of the pitches I used to potential publishers was the upward inclination of religion. Ask any kindergarten-dropout where God is and the fingers inevitably reach skyward. From earliest times people have associated the divine with the sky. Among the Sumerians, keepers of the earliest recorded religion, the deity An, the sky-master, was the most ancient of deities. While the origins of religion will forever remain obscure, it is certain that they have a celestial component.

I have to confess to being in love with the sky. If I didn’t have to earn a living I would spend hours each day staring upward. It is the repository of endless potential and ineffable beauty. Clear skies remind me that no matter how far we might go upward, there will always be more of it ahead of us. Cloudy days provide a palette and a canvas for the imagination. Even the brilliant writers at Wired can be forgiven for a foray into the mythology of the sky. Its power over us is as endless as its very expanse.

Harry Potter and the Evangelical Emperor

2 Comments

There’s a chill in the air this morning that warns of impending winter and the visceral melancholy of autumn’s graceful death. As I try to warm up like a lizard awaiting the ascending sun, I think that maybe I’d better write this post before everyone forgets Harry Potter completely. It is the beginning of the witching season as sometime late tonight fall officially begins and people in temperate climes are permitted to show their fears as the barrier between seasons becomes effaced and the darkness slinks in. A few Harry Potter novels ago, a local town in Wisconsin sponsored a downtown release party for the book with a street-fair sporting a feel of general bonhomme. While sauntering down the incongruously sun-lit streets, enjoying the sense of people just having fun, I spotted this man with a placard across the street.

No caption necessary!

No caption necessary!

The truly scary part of this scenario is that I knew exactly where this fellow was coming from: the Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it. Black and white. Right and wrong. Good and evil. Strangely enough, there was no such dividing line for fact and fiction. Yes, I knew that the Bible condemns witchcraft, but I also knew that J. K. Rowling was a fiction writer. I had read the Bible enough times to know that it contains no commandments about what genre of fiction is permissible and to know that some biblical heroes were deeply flawed characters. Jonah and his big fish. David and the giant monkey on his back. Hezekiah and his doubts. I can’t pretend not to know the searing sting of needing a clear answer, and yet I had already discovered the infinite shades of gray that reside between pure white and absolute black. Bible covers should all be gray.

That very year a conservative evangelical administration had axed a highly praised job of over a decade’s duration, believing it to be in the name of righteousness. A conservative evangelical president was unleashing hellish terror on a country that had the misfortune of being the victim of a bloodthirsty dictator. And this man with a placard felt he had to underscore that even a flight of fantasy on a broomstick over a quidditch field of imagination was evil incarnate. Once again my mind turned to Molech, the perhaps fictional Canaanite deity who is never satisfied. In the Bible it was enough simply to believe that people were sacrificing their children to the fiery Molech. “White and black,” I could almost hear the tremulous author whispering as he penned his horrid fiction. History tends to paint a different picture, but then, historians make liberal use of the myriad shades of gray.

Rosslyn, New Texaco

2 Comments

Back before Dan Brown had becoming the Most Important Human Ever, even before he published Angels and Demons, my wife and I visited Rosslyn Chapel in Roslin Glen, Scotland. While not actually seeking the Holy Grail, I had been doing some research on Celtic lore, ostensibly where the Grail legend originates, and so we made our way to the remote and (then) desolate site of this unusual church. Officially the Collegiate Chapel of St. Matthew, it is, without doubt, the busiest piece of architectural stonework I have ever witnessed. We went for the grail. We stayed for the art.

WikiCommons image, ours isn't this good

WikiCommons image, ours isn't this good

The research I had been conducting (finally published just last year as a contribution to a Festschrift for Nicolas Wyatt) involved the Mabinogian, a repository of Celtic mythology, and the legend of Bran. For sharing the name of a healthful breakfast cereal, Bran is renowned for also having had a life-restoring cauldron. He even made a journey to the netherworld and his head kept singing even after having been dissociated from his body. An uncommon hero indeed. All historical indicators, however, point to the cauldron as the original of the Holy Grail. Certainly the Bible does not mention it, nor does it appear very early in Christian mythology.

People, as Dan Brown’s financial independence loudly indicates, like a good conspiracy theory. There is a comfort in believing that a magical object of great power is out there somewhere and that a rather ordinary Harvard professor (!) might be able to find it, yet resist taking it. Far truer to life is Indiana Jones and the Final Crusade; people feel the need to touch, to control the power beyond themselves. Even at the cost of their lives. Despite the fact that the Grail is a fiction, it simply will not disappear — although no one can find it and it has never been seen. Faith tends not to be based on tangibles. This is attested every time Dan Brown makes his way to the bank and the population reads with wonder about meanings that simply don’t exist.

Leggo my Ego!

2 Comments

Last week on my way to an interview, as I was merging onto the interstate, a state trooper in the center lane let out a whoop on his siren and broadcast on his speaker, “the left lane is for passing — got that?” Naturally I assumed the broadcast was directed toward me; I was in the right lane and the trooper was moving considerably slower than the posted limit. Should I pass him on the right or slow down? Now I was apparently joining a highway drama already in progress (status quo for New Jersey) and after a few intense heart-thumping minutes I realized that the cynical lawman was likely addressing a slower driver in the left lane. All of this is to introduce the problematic mindset of egocentrism.

The human brain, we are informed, is the most complex thing in the universe. It is also our gateway to all experience, knowledge, revelation, insight, and inspiration. We are limited in all our ventures by the tangible limits of our biological brains. Everything we associate with religion is mediated and filtered by our brains. As my friend and seminary professor K. Marvin Bruce likes to say, “consciousness is as much a curse as a blessing.” Our brains can be traps as well as explosive openings into new worlds. Everything begins and ends with the humble ego.

I was recently reminded of this while looking at the latest round of Hubble Space Telescope images released from NASA. We consciously know the universe is incomprehensibly large, the number of stars way beyond human imagination. And yet, on this smallish planet racing around a medium-sized sun somewhere in the outer banks of the universe, people have always thought the gods were concerned with them. The earliest cultures believed that humans were created in the service of the gods. We live, we wonder, we die. As long as the gods are pleased, the world continues much as it always has. In their eyes the stars that far outnumber the human population were gods. Their universe was more divine than profane. Yet even in our galaxy-filled universe, our brains can’t help but believe that somehow we’re in the very middle of it all.

Where's Wiggins? Not even on the map!

Where's Wiggins? Not even on the map!

Turning Brown to Green

Leave a comment

Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol comes out tomorrow, and I, for one, will not be standing in line to purchase a copy. I actually read his previous two Langdon stories in the correct sequence — Angels and Demons then The DaVinci Code — and what immediately struck me was their similarity of plot and lack of historical veracity. Perhaps as a sometime writer who has had difficulty finding publishers I am just jealous, but the stories to me seem to draw on tired theories of some great conspiracy in antiquity that involved Jesus and Mary Magdalene eloping to France after the crucifixion where they happily raised a family only to be forgotten by history while he was off becoming a deity some thousands of miles away.

I read an interview with Dan Brown about his new book in which he confesses that he’s not a believer in conspiracy theories. To me some of the Area 51 stories sound more convincing than the trite material from Holy Blood, Holy Grail that has been recycled into a fictitious field of academics — symbology — and given a fake pedigree by placing Langdon at Harvard. I was in college when Holy Blood, Holy Grail came out and my literature prof told our class that the work was revolutionary and would restructure modern society. The only restructuring I’ve seen is the planet tipping a little towards Brown’s bank account trying to readjust to all the cash rushing in.

Perhaps my real frustration is with the fact that the ancient world is already fascinating without requiring fictionalization, yet those who actually do know something about it experience difficult times finding non-fictional university posts. Meanwhile average citizens will swirl around bookstores like the insects in an Indiana Jones movie waiting to purchase a copy of a book that fictitiously recreates that ancient world. If Harris tweeds are as miraculous as they seem to be in Brown’s books, maybe I should click my elbows together and say three times, “There’s no place like Rutgers” and I’ll end up in a fulltime professor of Symbology instead of teaching Ancient Near Eastern Religions as a mere adjunct tonight.

An authentic Harris tweed in its native Scottish environment

An authentic Harris tweed in its native Scottish environment

By the Numbers

Leave a comment

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the airport, the Bible Code strikes again! This morning’s newspaper carried the story of Jose Flores, a would-be hijacker of Aeromexico Flight 576. Flores boarded the flight with a Bible and fabricated a pretend bomb out of a juice can (the story doesn’t specify exactly what kind of juice —) and instructed the pilot to fly around Mexico City a Jericho-esque seven times. Flores informed the flight attendants that he was part of a set of four hijackers, the other three, he later revealed to police, were the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The flight landed safely and Flores was extricated from the plane. Why all the fuss? Yesterday was 9/9/09. Flores realized (with or without the help of his three co-hijackers) that upside down this would be 666. Safely on the ground he told reporters “Christ is coming soon!”

So once again we meet a believer in coded messages in the Bible. Clearly one of the most misrepresented books in the Bible is Revelation. This book is a textbook example of apocalyptic writing, a genre wide-spread and easily recognized in the ancient world, but which suffers from being taken literally by people living a couple millennia after it was penned. Even before the ink slipped from John’s pen (we don’t know John’s last name), people were looking for a new world to burst in on this old one in need of radical repair. That urgency has continued unabated for two thousand years.

Is life really so bad that we need it to end? Apocalyptic outlooks are perfectly understandable among the disadvantaged and persecuted that they were intended to console. It is a strange phenomenon, worthy of a sociological dissertation, why many affluent, educated people strain for the end of this god-awful world where they are so comfortable. Perhaps it is that we evolved from lemmings rather than primates, but it seems to me rather another example of the wealthy taking from the poor. Even their hopes of sticking it to the rich have been co-opted.

Something to look forward to?

Something to look forward to?