1. William P. Young, The Shack, page 53:
For the first time since Missy’s disappearance, he allowed himself to consider the range of horrendous possibilities, and once it started he couldn’t stop; the imaginations of good and evil all mixed up together in a soundless but terrifying parade. Even when he tried to shake free of the images, he couldn’t. Some were horrible ghastly snapshots of torture and pain; of monsters and demons of the deepest dark with barbwire fingers and razor touches; of Missy screaming for her daddy and no one answering.
What stood out to me here was the prospect of Missy crying out to her daddy for help while she was being tortured, and no one answering her cry. That reminds me of a few things. I think of those two rednecks raping that little African-American girl on A Time to Kill, while she cried out to her parents, who were not near. Or the movie about Ted Bundy, starring Corin Nemec, in which Bundy took a lady to an abandoned shack where no one could find them, and proceeded to rape, torture, and ultimately kill her.
I’ve never experienced such a feeling of helplessness—of being tormented by someone, wondering if there was any chance at all that somebody would save me. I’d be praying that, somehow, God would send somebody who would deliver me, or do something himself. Even though I realize that there are plenty of situations in which God allows nature to take its course, I would still be praying, and thanking God if I got out of that situation—receiving a second chance at life.
2. Robert Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land, page 167:
Being aware that he had but a short time left to live and having neither Martian nor Kansan faith in his own immortality, it was his purpose to live each golden moment as if it were eternity—without fear, without hope, but with sybaritic gusto.
People have told me that I should live each day as if it’s my last. To be honest, that makes no sense to me. If this were my last day, I wouldn’t perform many of my responsibilities. I probably wouldn’t care as much about consequences of my actions, since, in this scenario, today is my last day. I hope, however, that I’d care about the consequences my actions would have on others.
3. Erhard Gerstenberger, Psalms, Part I with an Introduction to Cultic Poetry, page 255:
REPORT OF THEOPHANY…The standardized account of Yahweh’s coming, accompanied by an upheaval of nature, in order to rule and judge peoples. The report reflects an ancient Israelite religious theme and was probably standardized to serve cultic ends…We find traces of this genre in a great many psalms…Its original setting was perhaps the preparation for the holy war…but in psalmic texts it was incorporated into worship services of praise and petition.
The theophanies in the Psalms have often interested me. They sound so apocalyptic. And yet, there are cases in which the Psalmist asks God to intervene in his own situation, personally, with natural marvels. Or he states that God has already done so, shaking mountains, etc. This is what David talks about in a psalm in II Samuel, but that doesn’t happen in the actual narrative, so this theophany stuff could be hyperbole, or something like that. I wrote a post about this topic a while back, entitled David’s Dramatization.
This issue overlaps with (1.): being in trouble, and wanting God to intervene on your behalf to rescue you, maybe in a fierce manner.
4. Alberdina Houtmann, Mishnah and Tosefta, page 2:
…most research as yet has been wittingly or unwittingly influenced by the higher religious status of the Mishnah. The only scholar who dared to criticize the primary and higher status of the Mishnah, Zuckermandel, was fiercely reproved for his dangerous view (in the eyes of certain religious authorities). It proved difficult to question an idea that had such deep seated roots.
The copyright for this book is 1996. In 2000, an essay by Judith Hauptman was published, which presented the Mishnah as a reworking or a supplement to an early edition of the Tosefta. See my post from a while back, Why the Mishnah?. As far as I know, she hasn’t been tarred and feathered! Has scholarship in rabbinics changed, now allowing scholars to maintain that the Mishnah may not have had priority?
I learned about a point of view in Houtmann’s book: one guy said that the Tosefta was a post-Talmudic collection of baraitot—early (Tannaitic) rabbinic statements that do not appear in the Mishnah. Some of these baraitot appear in the Talmud, while others do not. I wondered about this, for I read a short time ago that the Talmud never refers to the Tosefta. Then, I looked at a book which stated that there are statements that appear in the Tosefta, which are also in the Talmud. I wondered how both could be true. The answer is probably that the Talmud doesn’t refer to a document called a Tosefta, but it refers to Tannaitic sayings that were included in the Tosefta.
5. Ehud Ben Zvi, “Introduction: Writings, speeches, and the Prophetic Books—Setting an Agenda”, in Writings and Speech in Israelites and Ancient Near Eastern Prophecy, page 3:
Davies focuses on prophecy as writing. He notes that sociological and anthropological studies show that intermediaries “do not write their words in big books” and, therefore, addresses the question of how prophetic books came into existence.
This will be interesting to read, for there are scholars who treat literary prophecy as, well, literary, rather than the product of fortune-tellers. Why write the prophecies down? I think some of it may have been to convince future generations that God long before predicted what they’re going through, or what has recently happened.
Is Davies saying that prophets normally didn’t write things down? Maybe they didn’t all of the time, but I have a book about prophecy in the ancient Near East, which includes written prophecies. So even non-Israelites wrote their prophecies down, at times.
6. For my ATLA book review reading today, I was intrigued by Sam Wheeler’s summary of Frank Moore Cross’ Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic. According to Wheeler’s summary, if I’m reading it correctly, Cross believed in the historicity of the Exodus and Sinai. Here’s a quote from Wheeler’s review:
In the era of the league, historical events have had an impact on old cultic institutions and the covenant festivals of Israel at such places as Gilgal and Shi-loh (spring) and Shechem (fall) (p. 105n.) These no longer reenact the old cosmogonic myths (although they include this imagery) but celebrate the Exodus-Conquest and Sinai covenant events in ritual form.
This appears to be saying that, earlier, Israelite sanctuaries celebrated God’s continual triumph over chaos, thereby preserving creation. But, at some point, historical events had an impact on the cult, which then proceeded to celebrate those. I’m not sure how that worked. Plus, I’m assuming that “historical events” mean things that happened in history, but could Cross mean the creation of a historical epic, which may not have literally happened? I don’t know.
7. V was awesome last night. Ryan and Joshua, two influential members of the Fifth Column—the group of aliens that is resisting their fellow aliens’ invasion of earth, have rejoined Anna, the alien leader, who is plotting the invasion. That means that the game is up for Erica, played by Elizabeth Mitchell. Erica is an FBI agent who is secretly helping the Fifth Column, but, on the surface, she’s the protector of the invading aliens, whom most earthlings don’t believe are invading them! So Ryan and Joshua may expose her to Anna, unless there’s still some humanity in them. And they can also expose Anna’s daughter, Lisa, who has been helping the Fifth Column on occasion.
Ryan and Joshua joined the Fifth Column because they had developed human emotion. All of the aliens are lizards, but they have a human costume, and the ones who developed love, empathy, and attachment to human things joined the Fifth Column. That’s how Lisa got into it. She developed feelings for Erica’s son, Tyler. Anna has been trying to get rid of the Fifth Column by testing all the aliens on her ship to see which ones have empathy. Those who do are killed. Fortunately, Joshua was the one conducting the test, so he got a free pass from that! But, on last night’s episode, Anna got her first human emotion—sorrow—for she learned that someone had killed the soldiers she was breeding to take over the earth. Now, the leader has what she has tried to blot out from others!
It looks like all is lost, since Ryan and Joshua can tell Anna everything they know about the Fifth Column’s members, sympathizers, and activities. But Anna’s propagandist on earth, reporter Chad Decker, has learned that the Vs are not as friendly as they appear. He has been presenting them as saviors of humanity, but Joshua told him to look into a room on the ship to see what Anna is doing to the humans who are living aboard it. Chad sees a human woman being tortured during an experiment. Now, he’s sympathetic towards the Fifth Column. But will Joshua tell Anna that he told Chad to look in that room, meaning the game could be up for Chad, too? Will Chad find a way to gather intelligence from the Vs, and bring it to the Fifth Column?
We’ll see in six months!