Dying-and-rising savior-god an ancient Jewish tenet

Or so a brief tablet, with 87 lines of Hebrew text, pictured by the New York Times at right, would indicate.

We’re only eight years into the 21st century, but this may last the next 92 as the most significant find in biblical archaeology.

Daniel Boyarin, a professor of Talmudic culture at the University of California at Berkeley, said that the stone was part of a growing body of evidence suggesting that Jesus could be best understood through a close reading of the Jewish history of his day.

“Some Christians will find it shocking — a challenge to the uniqueness of their theology — while others will be comforted by the idea of it being a traditional part of Judaism,” Mr. Boyarin said.

As the story notes, nobody has yet challenged the authenticity of the tablet, dated so far to the late first century BCE. (Why does the NYT use the anachronistic, for academia, and for New York City’s large Jewish population, for that matter, of “BC”?) Chemical analysis, though not yet released, appears to confirm that.

If so, it would be the first pre-Jesus (assuming that such a person as Yeshua bar Yusuf actually existed) text to speak of a dying-and-rising Jewish messianic figure.

As the article notes, modern critical New Testament scholarship assumes that Jesus’ own statements about dying and rising in three days are later additions. Maybe they’re not.

That then said, what’s the provenance of this text, other than starting as some sort of gloss on passages from Zechariah and Daniel? Can it be connected to any particular movement in Second Temple Judaism at that time?

It would seem to fit with scrolls associated with Qumran, as this “Dead Sea scroll on stone,” from what is extant, takes the form of an apocalypse revealed by the angel Gabriel.

Other questions abound, too.

Why was the Simon of this scroll supposed to die? His death, at least from the story, isn’t mentioned as atoning, unlike Jesus claimed for himself.

And, despite the efforts of Jewish leaders from Ezra through the Pharisees, and of course running through the Maccabees, to “purify” Judaism, what does this say about other “outside” ideas running around Judea at this time?

This MSNBC article does a good job of listing all the caveats about this stone, as well as further explicating how a number of “Christian” Messianic ideas (though NOT the dying-and-rising savior god of Judea’s pagan neighbors) have already been documented as being present elsewhere in Judaism.

Liberal white spoofing author speaks up

Christian Lander, the author of the blog, and now, a book, “Stuff White People Like,” has a great interview at Salon about his skewering upper-middle-class liberal whites, from their being Obamiacs to moving beyond old-news Nalgene bottles to schlock like this. (Shock me that it’s from Switzerland.)

If you’re not familiar with him/it yet, here’s his blog, with the full list of the 103 cool things these types of whiteys like.

It’s hilarious the take Lander has on many things in the interview, like the holy trinity of liberal-certified Target, Apple and IKEA. Target is just Wal-Mart with better marketing (don’t you know they have labor issues there?), IKEA is coasting on Swedish image, and Apple’s Steve Jobs is, in his own way, as arrogant as Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer.

As a non-upper-middle-class white who is actually more liberal, as well as more skeptical of many things than the people he skewers, I find other things laughable.

Like Whole Foods? It’s about image for these folks, not the organics. (Which usually aren’t local, either. And, possible not fair-trade priced, either.)

Lander doesn’t go too much into the PC language side of these types of white people, who always want to read the worst into language about race, gender and other issues people outside their club use, but it’s still a great read.

NOT on the coffee table – Pat Buchanan’s latest

Folks, when the errors start ON THE DUST JACKET, you've got a bad book. Unfortunately, Amazon doesn't have a negative-star rating.

Bad from the dust jacket on is indeed the case, as Buchanan perpetuates and propagates the myth of the "punitive" treaty of Versailles. Adjusted for inflation and France's smaller population, the Prussian treaty imposed at the end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 was far more punitive, in terms of reparations.

And, you know what? The French paid off the whole thing. In advance. Without inflating their currency.

There's other nonsense, starting with his coverage of World War I. In the Pacific, Japan may well have declared war against Germany without any British alliance. They were smart enough not to go after British islands or American ones; that left German holdings.

As for World War II in Europe, even someone as bumbling as Hitler might have beaten the Soviet Union without Britain at his back. (The real "story" of WWII is that Hitler tried to have "guns and butter" until 1943, not putting the German economy on a total war footing until after Stalingrad.)

Then, in spite of post-Munich evidence to the contrary, Buchanan would have us believe if Neville Chamberlain and French Premier Edouard Daladier had forced Poland's Beck to appease Hitler by giving up Danzig and a rail corridor across the Polish Corridor, Hitler would never have asked anything more from Poland. (Hitler's second meeting with Chamberlain, of course, had him saying the Sudentenland was not enough.)

Then, we have the absolute laugher of Pat claiming that Hitler's motivation on attacking the USSR was not ideology. That said, re the paragraph above, also contrary to Buchanan, Hitler would not have invaded the USSR in 1940 if the British and French had not declared war on im in 1939.

Contra page 360, where Buchanan claims there's no evidence Hitler intended to make Britain a slave state, we have a Nazi list of British intellectuals and politicians Hitler intended to round up and send to concentration camps.

But, when has Buchanan let facts get in the way of a story line?

Next, "Mr. Realpolitik" reaches deep into the right-wing dungeon to trot out the old "sellout at Yalta" schtick.

Then, we get into errors in Cold War history. Many historians would argue with Buchanan that Yugoslavia was not behind the Iron Curtain after 1954. And, Buchanan also overlooks Albania's "defection" to Beijing in 1961.

Then, there's annoyances of his writing style.

I have NEVER before heard Joseph Chamberlain called "Joe," first and foremost.

And, at oversized type and leading, this is really a 300-page book, too.

Finally, we have the irony, and hypocrisy, of Buchanan criticizing Churchill on grounds of racism.

And, any legitimate puncturing of Churchill's myth can be found in real history books rather than this rag. Amazon ought to bar the tag "history" from being used on this book.

Dallas NOT a safe place to drive

Whether you’re in the good hands of study-conductor Allstate or not, you’re surrounded by bad drivers here in Big D. (Scroll about halfway down.)

Worse than in Helltown, I mean Houston, even.

Is the AP ‘out to get Obama’ or not? I say ‘not’

I’d say it’s not quite the open-and-shut case that some liberal bloggers want to make it to be out of Jennifer Loven’s story.

First, Obama had a string of clear flip-flops coming up to the “refine” comments about Iraq and Iraq withdrawal. That includes a huge flip-flop on FISA, a notable straddle on gun control after the DC handgun ban was struck down, and a flip-flip at least as big as the FISA one when he opted out of public campaign financing. (Josh at TPM overlooks all those in the commentary he has behind the AP story.)

That said, let’s look at what Obama was getting at, specifically in his second July 3 conference, where he had the opportunity to explain his “refine” comments:

He said the refining wouldn’t be related to his promise to remove combat forces within 16 months of taking office, but to the number of troops needed to train Iraqis and fight al-Qaida. But then he acknowledged that the 16-month timeline could indeed slip if removing troops risked their safety or Iraqi stability.

No, it’s not a flip-flop, like the first and third issues above. It’s not even a straddle, like the gun control issue.

Is “trimming” a fair word, though? Especially given the history leading up to this on other issues? He admits that he may redefine the number of troops that will need to stay in Iraq as “combat troops,” (he still has never talked about just how he will decide what constitutes “combat troops”), and he did say, clearly, that the 16-month time span could lengthen — without saying by how long.

I say yes, “trimming” is a fair word.

As, as for the point I made above, Obama also, while saying he may refine how many troops need to stay in Iraq, has never, from his first iteration until now, even offered a guesstimate of how many that will be.

In other words, it’s clear he really is trying to have his cake and eat it too, on Iraq, and liberal Democratic Party bloggers like Marshall, Kos, etc. are refusing to call him on it.

How many of them have ever asked Obama to put a number on it?

You know the answer, and it’s “zero.”

Science roundup — Greenland, Mercury, Pompeii, Mexico, West Nile, pulsars, sweat

Greenland glacier melt not as fast as fearedNot that this gives George W. Bush, or Chinese President Hu Jintao, a reprieve in the global warming court of world opinion. Iconic images of rapid-flowing Greenland glacial meltwater are a summer-only phenomenon. On the other hand, isn’t that a “duh” finding, to some degree?
Pulsars confirm general relativityTwin pulsars orbiting one another confirm the theory.
Volcanism on MercuryThe MESSENGER spacecraft from NASA says volcanism played a key part in shaping Mercury’s surface. It also says the planet is shrinking faster than expected, in just two of several interesting discoveries already made.
Pompeii at risk againNo, Vesuvius is not about to blow its top again. Instead, the Italian government needs to put a crowbar in its wallet to adequately fund maintenance of the historic site.
Mexican cave openedArchaeologists have started to explore a Mexican cave found 30 years ago and kept sealed since then.
New West Nile strainAnd it could do better in the U.S. than the older strain, and even push West Nile into Canada.
Don’t sweat summer outInstead, get used to it and adapt. Agreed. I exercise outdoors, pretty briskly, three days a week in Dallas summers.