1. For Black History Month today, I watched Episodes 6-7 of Roots: The Next Generation. The subject I’ll be focusing on in this section is vocation, which also popped up in some of my academic readings.
Alex Haley wondered what he was going to do with his life. Although his father, Simon, believed that education was the key to a black man’s success, Alex didn’t care for school. Contrary to his dad’s wishes, he didn’t want to follow his father’s footsteps and get a Ph.D., then go on to become President of a black college. His grandmother, Cynthia, told Alex that he didn’t have to become like his father, for he had to find his own way—what he felt he needed to do. At the beginning of Episode 6, there was a recap of the previous episode, in which Alex’s mother, Bertha, told her son that Simon (unlike many people) had an important task in life and needed to see it through. The same was true for Alex, but he didn’t know for some time what his task was.
Alex found in the Coast Guard during World War II that he had a talent for writing, for he wrote excellent love letters on behalf of his ship-mates, who were hoping to sweep their sweethearts off their feet. After the Coast Guard, however, he learned that getting a writing career was a lot harder than it looked, and he experienced a lot of rejection. But his boss, Commander Robert Munroe (played by Andy Griffith), told him to write about the things that he’s passionate about, such as the racial discrimination that he experienced as he searched for a hotel room for himself, his wife, and his baby.
Alex accomplished some important work, as he wrote the Autobiography of Malcom X as well as the story of his brother George, who went through law school and became a successful Republican politician (who, since then, has gone on to serve in Presidential Administrations). But he felt that something was missing, that there was a larger reason for his being on earth. He was inspired to see if there was corroboration for the stories that his elderly relatives told—about their descent from the African, Kunta Kinte. But not only was he on a search for his family’s roots in order to understand where he came from. He also wanted to give a voice to the unheard in American history—the African-Americans, who endured slavery and then went on to experience oppression and discrimination.
Vocation. What’s my purpose in this life? There have been times in my life when I’ve thought that I have some destiny—something important to accomplish. But, as I watched Roots and its sequel, I saw that generations come and go, and not everyone becomes famous. Most people don’t. They just get through life, trying to survive, and hopefully enjoying the company of family and friends.
Two of my academic readings today were (1.) Michael Stone’s “Ideal Figures and Social Context: Priest and Sage in the Early Second Temple Age,” which appeared in Ancient Israelite Religion, and (2.) H.I. Marrou’s A History of Education in Antiquity. Stone talks some about Jesus ben Sirach’s comments on scribes. For Jesus ben Sirach, manual labor is good, but a career studying the Torah is even better, for one can be edified therein as well as arrive at a position of status in society. And Marrou refers to a third millennium B.C.E. Egyptian text in which “the scribe Akhtoy [is] trying to encourage his son Pepi to follow the thankless study of letters by painting a satirical picture of the thousand and one drawbacks there are in any kind of manual work, which he contrasts with the happy life of the scribe, and the nobility of his lofty vocation” (xv-xvi).
Personally, at this time in my life, my fantasy is to work at a simple job that earns me enough money to survive, and to contribute to the world of ideas at night, through blogging, as I blog through what I read. As far as my “larger purpose” is concerned, I’m not sure what that is at the moment. Maybe I’ll learn as I keep on doing what I’m doing.
2. In Psalms II: 51-100, I read Mitchell Dahood’s comments on Psalm 98. Dahood calls it “A hymn praising Yahweh’s kingship…extolling him for his triumph over heathen gods both in primordial and in historical times, and foretelling his return to re-establish the universal reign of justice.” In ancient Israelite religion, Yahweh had a lot of enemies, from the chaos that preceded creation to his historical enemies, such as Pharaoh and Sennacherib. The ancient Israelites drew strength and hope from these stories, probably because they believed that they were passed down from generation to generation (Psalm 78), much like the story of Kunta Kinte in Roots.
But is there independent historical corroboration? Some people have questioned Alex Haley’s research. Alex Haley’s thesis was that Kunta Kinte’s name was changed to Toby on the plantation, and Toby had Kizzy, who had Chicken George, etc. But, as the wikipedia article on Alex Haley documents, some scholars have challenged that:
According to Haley, Kunta Kinte was sold into slavery, where he was given the name Toby, and, while in the service of a slavemaster named John Waller, went on to have a daughter named Kizzy, Haley’s great-great-great grandmother. Haley also claimed to have identified the specific slave ship and the actual voyage on which Kunta Kinte was transported from Africa to North America in 1767. However, genealogist Elizabeth Shown Mills and historian Gary B. Mills revisited Haley’s research and concluded that those claims of Haley’s were false.[7][8] According to the Millses, the slave named Toby who was owned by John Waller could be definitively shown to have been in North America as early as 1762. They further said that Toby died years prior to the supposed date of birth of Kizzy. There have also been suggestions that Kebba Kanji Fofana, the amateur griot in Jufureh, who, during Haley’s visit there, confirmed the tale of the disappearance of Kunta Kinte, had been coached to relate such a story.[9][10].
Alex Haley may have an answer for these genealogists if he were alive today, but suppose his facts are off. Does this matter? On some level, “no,” for, even if some of the facts about his family were wrong, Alex Haley still portrayed what happened to African-Americans: being taken from their home in Africa, enslavement in America, challenges in post-slavery times, etc. On the other hand, the miniseries tells us that a big part of his self-esteem and that of his family was their descent from Kunta Kinte, who was from a prominent family in Africa and sought freedom in America, even though it cost him his foot. If that’s not true, then that’s a bummer.
Did God have to fight chaos at creation? Did the Exodus literally happen? Even if not, I hope that there’s some evidence in the world that God triumphs over evil, that evil does not have the last word—even if that evidence is anecdotal.
3. I started Theodore Mullen’s The Assembly of the Gods. On page 5, Mullen refers to “pre-exilic literature in Israel.” I’ll be interested to see what he identifies as such, for, as we’ve seen, he dates the Pentateuch and the biblical historical writings to Israel’s exilic and post-exilic periods. He may date some of the Hebrew Bible’s poetry to pre-exilic times.
I may have to rethink some of what I’ve said about El, Baal, and Yam. According to Mullen, scholars who claim that Baal took El’s place as supreme God of the pantheon are wrong, for Baal merely took control of the cosmos after his defeat of the chaotic Yam (sea). El still had his share of power as head of the pantheon, though, for “No major action could be undertaken in the pantheon without the explicit permission of the high god” (10). On page 9, Mullen says that El supported Baal in his battles. I’m not sure if that’s true about Baal’s battle with Yam, whom El sent to keep Baal in line—unless El changed his mind and supported Baal once Yam got out of hand. Or maybe Mullen’s referring to Baal’s battle with Mot, death. As I said in my post, The Dead, and the Rising, there were gods who helped Baal leave the Underworld, an extremely difficult task.
On pages 1-2, Mullen notes that God is called “El” in the Hebrew Bible and that there are no biblical polemics against El, whereas there are plenty against Baal. Maybe the ancient Israelites believed in the same high god as their Canaanite and Phoenician neighbors. Or maybe they didn’t make a big deal about El because El wasn’t widely worshipped, whereas Baal was (10).