Please come to Fountain Books in Richmond's Shockoe Slip tonight Feb 8 at 6:30 pm for a BIBLE BABEL book talk and signing!

 I love the movie Groundhog Day. It's such a great story about redemption, and I for one, an accomplished bumbler, would love a few do-overs to get things right. Besides, the film's hilarious. I might have guessed that it would have some sort of religious theme to it, but until recently, I didn't imagine that Punxsutawney Phil and Jesus share that auspicious day... and not by mere coincidence. Groundhog Day is exactly forty days after Christmas Eve, and Jewish religious tradition required that certain things happen forty days after a boy's birth. Those traditions, together with ancient legends, ultimately led to the connection of that cheeky little varmint with the Christian "light of the world." 
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Given its title, I figured that the movie would have something to do with demons -- a whole, well, legion of them... in full-on "possession" mode. After all, "Legion" is the name of a biblical demoniac, according to the stories in Mark and Luke, because many demons were involved. But in the movie, Michael (our hero-angel gone rogue) actually goes to some trouble to explain explicitly that the troops of zombie-like murderers are not possessed by demons but rather are angels fulfilling the command of God. And yet. Here the movie suggests that the line between angels and demons frays as God's patience wears thin. That's just one thing among many that I found intriguing about this movie. Another (and I admit I loved this) is the paradox of obedience. [spoiler alert!] Michael is finally deemed a better servant of God than the hyper-obedient Gabriel, set on fulfilling God's command to kill off the human race. Precisely by disobeying, Michael satisfies the "need" (vs. "want" hmmm) of God. That part's a little silly (God as some adolescent to the angels' maturity?!). But hope for a future unwritten (no theological fatalism, here), and mercy at the hint of goodness... I like that.

Did you know that "Eli" means "my God," in Hebrew? Yup. In one form, anyway. So, even if you'd missed all the previews, reviews, and commentary in between on the movie "The Book of Eli," you still might guess that the book in question is the Bible. The English translation King James Version, to be precise. I'm no film critic, so I'll leave that to the pros. But I can say that the movie gives viewers some interesting Bible things to think about, like: Is Washington's character somehow protected supernaturally in his quest to bring the Bible west -- protected by God, or by the Bible itself? If he is, what does that make of God, of the Bible? And: the KJV is undeniably a valuable literary artifact, even if one doesn't believe in it at all. So it would make sense to include in that post-apocalyptic library on the west coast. But does the movie suggest that that particular version is The (one and only) Bible? And do you think that a person knows the Bible if he or she has memorized a particular version? [Me? I think yes... and no...] Then of course there's all the violence. Our Bible-toting hero is no turn-the-other-cheek kind of guy. Timeless question: when should one and when should one not be such a radical pacifist? Finally, how about the evil megalomaniac, certain that if he had that book, his power to control and manipulate toward his own twisted aims would be complete? Does he know the Bible so well? Questions to contemplate, debate.... 

Ready. Aim. Read some Bible. Fire. Huh? I don't think of New Zealanders as particulary given to compunction, maybe occasionally irascible, but mostly as an easy-going, live and and let live sort of folk. I mean, when your human population is outnumbered by sheep... Yet protest they did, complaining that there was something wrong with the guns used by their troops along with the British, and US in Afghanistan. Turns out, US arms manufacturer Trijicon stamped New Testament biblical references into the gun sights. Trijicon has agreed to stop inscribing bibilical messages and to provide (for free!) the means to erase such references. US military officials are reviewing the purchase of such Trijicon products. Hmmm.

When crises hit, many people turn to the Bible... and find many things. While some hear words of comfort, hope and promise, others hear words of condemnation, judgment and blame. The biblically-informed '>Pat Robertson blamed the Haitians for making a pact with the devil for which God is now punishing them. Some Haitians themselves see the destruction as evidence of God's displeasure and desire for them to be more devout, as a recent Washington Post article reports. But Christians and Jews all over the world see in their sacred texts a message of compassion, succor and aid for the Haitians. Countless congregations are gathering funds to help, seeing in this destruction not the devastating hand of a God angry at the Haitians but the call of a passionate God to respond with love. In a rebuttal of Robertson, Jon Stewart (?!) quotes a few such relevant texts. Shoot, the Bible says a lot of things... and so does its God. Meanwhile, basic needs are tremendous and the grief so great. 

Frazzled, ragged, and stressed. The bells and whistles and ringtones of modern life, the opportunities, demands, and wide-ranging responsibilities. These days it's hard not to feel stretched thin, pulled taut, frayed and jagged. Yet our little creature-selves still need silence, stillness, solitude. Silence stillness solitude. A mountain, maybe. Peter Mayer sings of pulling over on the road near Mount Shavano and "staring at the rock and the sky/ my heart began beating more slowly." Until I read David Wolpe's blog this morning, I didn't know that the ancient rabbis actually attributed Mount Sinai, the mountain itself, with Moses' receiving the Torah. Of course they believed that God gave the Torah; but Moses got it "from Sinai." Wolpe writes, "Abarbanel comments that we give the mountain credit because Moses needed the solitude -- the forty days alone -- to be spiritually prepared to receive the Torah." Lacking a mountain, you can take a wide view nonetheless, and silence stillness solitude. As a dear friend wisely told me recently, "Life is a long journey. Be aware of your body as it is right now, and follow your breath..."

A hot summer day, slow river, cooler of bevs, swimsuit, and a few good friends -- ingredients for a lazy day of tubing. At least that's what "tubing" brings to mind around here in Richmond. Drinking, chatting, napping your way through an afternoon on the James in July. In cold weather places, tubing is a winter thing, too. But qualitatively different. You take that great big inner tube like the ones that go inside semi-truck tires, hike it up an icy hill, climb inside, and with a push, commit yourself to fate. Bouncing, whooshing, and careening down the hill, tubing inevitably sends someone to the hospital. The responses I've received from posting my interview with Virginia Currents host May-Lily Lee to Youtube some time ago have been a little like winter tubing. Most were really fun responses and exchanges with people interested in the stuff of Bible Babel, but there was also a great krr-smash(!) -- inevitable, I suppose, when dealing with the Bible. In the interview itself, I got a bit brain-and-tongue twisted at one point. Meaning to note how ancient the biblical texts are, but recognizing that they don't all date to the same ancient period, I fumbled around for "...years ago." I suspect that was where the trouble started, sort of like hitting a tree root that sent me barrelling against a guy who totally misunderstood me. The especially bonkers part of it is that he was furious with me for exactly the opposite of what I think or do. He thought that I was taking particular biblical texts and plopping them down in our time and place as immediately applicable, with no appreciation for their ancient historical or literary context... oh, and that I think I have all the answers. If only I did! But I know that I don't. Besides, I love the questions, the conversation and multi-faceted interpretations. That's where it's at. And when it comes to talking about the Bible, there's no clean slate. Everyone's got a "take" of some sort on it, so we trudge our tubes back up the hill for another wild ride. 

Did you know that even though the weeping willow came from China, its scientific name associates it with Babylon... because of the Bible? Diana Wells explains in her new book The Life of Trees that it's called Salix babylonica because of the biblical tradition of Jews weeping for Zion after being taken into exile by their Babylonian conquerors. Think: Psalm 137 which begins,"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there, we hung up our harps for our captors asked us there for songs. Our tormenters, for amusement, 'Sing us one of the Zion songs..." Or Godspell, where the psalm is rendered into a beautiful, melancholic song. There it's associated with Matt 26:20-30, a Last Supper scene, which concludes with reference to singing the psalms. In the Godspell version, some lyrics have "hung up our lives" rather than "our lyres" -- mistake or reinterpretation?

I wish I'd had the presence of mind to bring a notebook with me to "Sherlock Holmes." I should know better -- that the Bible shows up everywhere. This movie was no exception. A fun flick -- a little cerebral, lots of action, and a sobering reminder that what may seem to be convincing magic is sophisticated manipulation of the physical world. (And its seductive agent may be a malicious liar.) The movie has several biblical references that I just can't remember in detail. In addition to the evil Blackwood's overt associations with Jesus (busting out of his tomb after 3 days, eucharist-like ritual, and address as "Lord"), was it Revelation 1:18 that Blackwood cites? (And does the movie make the common mistake of identifying the book as "Revelations," with an "s" on the end?) Also, I remember being startled to see several Hebrew Bible/Old Testament references in the iconography of Blackwood's estate. For example, was it an altar or a kind of throne-like structure that was flanked by golden winged creatures (like descriptions of the biblical ark of the covenant... which serves in the temple as a kind of divine ottoman)? And what's with the Hebrew shin, lamed, mem, vav, tav writing underneath some structure (again, was it a different scene with Blackwood on a throne)? In the Hebrew Bible that word appears as such as a proper name. It also appears as a word modifying "stones" in a couple of references to building an altar of "unhewn" stones (so translated because the word is based on the root shin, lamed, mem which can mean "whole"; that's where the word shalom "peace" comes from, too). I still don't quite "get" why it would be in that scene, though, unless it's meant to mark an altar where a sacrifice would be perfomed (as in Deut 27:6 and Josh 8:31). Whatever the case, does this association of Hebrew with the occult have anti-Semitic implications? While I don't think that that the movie is anti-Jewish (after all, the guy manipulating these symbols and appealing to New Testament texts is obviously mis-directed... to say the least), such associations can be problematic, given the long Christian suspicion of Jewish rituals and traditions. Overall, the movie was good, entertaining fun and gives astute viewers some intriguing things to think about.