Long God yumi stanap

The nation of Vanuatu gained its independence 31 years ago today. Long God yumi stanap (In God we stand) is their motto, and their anthem reads, in part:

God i givim ples ia long yumi (God has given this place to us),
Yumi glat tumas long hem (We are very glad in it),
Yumi strong mo yumi fri long hem (We are strong and free here),
Yumi brata evriwan! (We are brothers, every one!)

I wish I was there: the weather looks very pleasant. But since I’ve already taken my holiday, let me just congratulate my brothers and sisters in Vanuatu, and wish them well on their national day.

Richard III (Ian McKellen’s 1995 version)

This is one of my favourite films. Transferred to 1930s England, it shows what civil war might have looked like in that time and place, and recreates the dynamics between the characters in a (relatively) modern setting. It also has some wonderful Art Deco locations, such as the University of London Senate House and Bankside Power Station (as a modern Tower of London):

Annette Bening portrays Elizabeth Woodville, the “outsider” in the royal family. Some of her lines have been shortened, but are still powerful:

“Pity, you ancient stones, those tender princes
Whom envy has immured within your walls.
Rough cradle for such little pretty ones.
Rude, ragged nurse, use my babies well.”

Nigel Hawthorne is a superb Clarence (“Simple, plain Clarence! I do love you so, That I shall shortly send your soul to Heaven – If Heaven will take the present from my hands!”). His dream in the Tower is recounted very well:

Henry, Earl of Richmond has an abbreviated prayer, which works very well in context:

“O Thou, whose captain I account myself,
Look on my forces with a gracious eye.
Put in their hands Thy bruising arms of wrath,
That we may praise Thee in Thy victory.
Sleeping and waking, O, defend me still.”

This blog alerted me to the “H7” on the vehicles with which he crosses from France:

There is also a plausible combination of Richard’s boar device with 1930s techniques for building a personality cult among the English population:

It could all have happened, in a universe not too unlike our own. Richard III is not a villain from the past, but someone who could (smiling as he goes) be walking past right now.

Ghost Riders in the Sky

Having blogged one Country classic, “Ghost Riders in the Sky” is another:

This song essentially gives the cowboy version of the Flying Dutchman legend:

In Roger Zelazny’s very clever retelling (“And I Only Am Escaped to Tell Thee” in Unicorn Variations),

“It was with them constantly – the black patch directly overhead from whence proceeded the lightnings, the near-blinding downpour, the explosions like artillery fire.

Van Berkum staggered as the ship shifted again, almost dropping the carton he carried. The winds howled about him, tearing at his soaked garments; the water splashed and swirled about his ankles – retreating, returning, retreating. High waves crashed constantly against the ship. The eerie, green light of St. Elmo's fire danced along the spars.

Above the wind and over even the thunder, he heard the sudden shriek of a fellow seaman, random object of attention from one of their drifting demonic tormentors.

Trapped high in the rigging was a dead man, flensed of all flesh by the elements, his bony frame infected now by the moving green glow, right arm flapping as if waving – or beckoning...”

Bonus points for spotting the Biblical reference in the story title.

C. S. Lewis on the Final Frontier: a book review

C. S. Lewis on the Final Frontier: Science and the Supernatural in the Space Trilogy by Sanford Schwartz

C. S. Lewis on the Final Frontier: Science and the Supernatural in the Space Trilogy is an excellent analysis of the Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis:

The three novels of the Space Trilogy are Lewis’ least popular, for a variety of reasons, but Schwartz does a great job of explaining them. Properly understood, they are wonderful novels.

Schwartz makes two key points. The first is that each book critiques a particular philosophical concept, but from the Christian perspective that most closely relates to that concept. The second is that each book has the same symmetrical seven-part structure. When I do some simple word-frequency calculations on Perelandra, they seem to fit Schwartz’s divisions (although I would have made that first division only two chapters long):

A pattern I’d never spotted! All in all, this book is a “must” for hard-core C.S. Lewis fans.

C. S. Lewis on the Final Frontier by Sanford Schwartz: 4 stars

NASA Manned Space Flight Programme: 5 May 1961 – 21 July 2011

It was fun while it lasted. I remember people even walked on the moon!

Standing like a stone wall

On 21 July 1861, 150 years ago, the first major battle of the US Civil War was fought. The First Battle of Manassas was a bloodier affair than either side expected, and became a Confederate victory falsely promising ultimate success.

Stonewall Jackson received his famous nickname in this engagement, after the shout of “There is Jackson standing like a stone wall. Let us determine to die here, and we will conquer. Rally behind the Virginians!” (in the majority view). A minority view has the sobriquet being less complimentary, but Jackson certainly lived up to it, becoming one of the South’s greatest military heroes. On his death in 1863, Robert E. Lee famously said “I have lost my right arm.” Jackson’s own last words were “Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the trees.”

There is no New Testament word for "wife"

There is no New Testament word for “wife.” No New Testament word for “husband” either, for that matter. There are simply the words “man” (anēr / andros) and “woman” (gynē / gynaikos), with context determining whether “husband” or “wife” is intended. Of course, that is precisely the way that these words are used in informal English. Think of Tammy Wynette’s “Stand by Your Man,” for example:

Paul’s injunction in 1 Timothy 3:2 and similar passages, often translated as saying that an overseer should be “the husband of one wife” (ESV), literally says that the overseer should be a “one-woman man” (mias gynaikos andra). Thabiti Anyabwile, the Senior Pastor of First Baptist Church of Grand Cayman, points this out in an excellent blog post. And, of course, the phrase “one-woman man” is perfectly comprehensible. The NIV spells it out as “faithful to his wife,” but we know what it means.

Similarly, in John 4:18, Jesus’ words to the Samaritan woman are generally translated “you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband.” In fact, what Jesus said was “you have had five men, and the one you have now is not your man.” A stronger statement, and one that explains the woman’s response: “I see that you are a prophet” and “he told me all the things I’ve done.”

James Tissot, La Samaritaine à la fontaine, Brooklyn Museum

Circe

A conversation with a friend got me thinking about the sorceress Circe (Κίρκη), a practitioner of what the Greeks called pharmakeia (φαρμακεία): the use of drugs, potions, spells, poisons, witchcraft, and sorcery. In the Bible, pharmakeia is referred to in Rev 21:8 etc. as well as (in the Greek Septuagint) Exodus 22:18 etc.

Circe’s sorcery is described in Book 10 of the Odyssey:

ὣς ἄρ᾽ ἐφώνησεν, τοὶ δὲ φθέγγοντο καλεῦντες.
ἡ δ᾽ αἶψ᾽ ἐξελθοῦσα θύρας ὤιξε φαεινὰς
καὶ κάλει: οἱ δ᾽ ἅμα πάντες ἀιδρείῃσιν ἕποντο:
Εὐρύλοχος δ᾽ ὑπέμεινεν, ὀισάμενος δόλον εἶναι.
εἷσεν δ᾽ εἰσαγαγοῦσα κατὰ κλισμούς τε θρόνους τε,
ἐν δέ σφιν τυρόν τε καὶ ἄλφιτα καὶ μέλι χλωρὸν
οἴνῳ Πραμνείῳ ἐκύκα: ἀνέμισγε δὲ σίτῳ
φάρμακα λύγρ᾽, ἵνα πάγχυ λαθοίατο πατρίδος αἴης.
αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ δῶκέν τε καὶ ἔκπιον, αὐτίκ᾽ ἔπειτα
ῥάβδῳ πεπληγυῖα κατὰ συφεοῖσιν ἐέργνυ.
οἱ δὲ συῶν μὲν ἔχον κεφαλὰς φωνήν τε τρίχας τε
καὶ δέμας, αὐτὰρ νοῦς ἦν ἔμπεδος, ὡς τὸ πάρος περ.
ὣς οἱ μὲν κλαίοντες ἐέρχατο, τοῖσι δὲ Κίρκη
πάρ ῥ᾽ ἄκυλον βάλανόν τε βάλεν καρπόν τε κρανείης
ἔδμεναι, οἷα σύες χαμαιευνάδες αἰὲν ἔδουσιν.
Εὐρύλοχος δ᾽ αἶψ᾽ ἦλθε θοὴν ἐπὶ νῆα μέλαιναν
ἀγγελίην ἑτάρων ἐρέων καὶ ἀδευκέα πότμον.

In translation:

They called her and she came down, unfastened the door, and bade them enter. They, thinking no evil, followed her, all except Eurylochus, who suspected mischief and stayed outside. When she had got them into her house, she set them upon benches and seats and mixed them a mess with cheese, honey, meal, and Pramnian but she drugged it with wicked poisons to make them forget their homes, and when they had drunk she turned them into pigs by a stroke of her wand, and shut them up in her pigsties. They were like pigs—head, hair, and all, and they grunted just as pigs do; but their senses were the same as before, and they remembered everything. Thus then were they shut up squealing, and Circe threw them some acorns and beech masts such as pigs eat, but Eurylochus hurried back to tell me about the sad fate of our comrades.

Odysseus (Ulysses) gets the better of her in the end, of course:


One interesting thing here is that there is no distinction made between natural (scientific) and supernatural (magical) actions: the emphasis is simply on great talents which are used to evil ends. A parallel can be drawn with Saruman, whose evil likewise crosses the boundary between technology and magic:

Think: a book review

Think by John Piper
The basis for the little book Think by John Piper is that one should “Love the Lord your God with (Greek ex, out of) all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind” (Luke 10:27). Piper’s focus in this book is particularly on the use of the mind (Greek dianoia) as a road to loving God.

Piper points out (p. 60) that Jesus approves of the Pharisees’ logic in Matt 16:1–4: “It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,” but criticises them for not applying the same logic to the “signs of the times.” Piper also quotes 2 Tim 2:7 as a directive to think: “Reflect (Greek noei) on what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all this.” I couldn’t agree more.

Since such thought requires an objective concept of truth, Piper critiques relativism, and discusses the “moral dimension of rationality.” Dante was here before him, of course: it is because of the moral obligation on all people to tell and live the truth that the sins of fraud are described so harshly in the Eighth Circle of the Inferno. Flattery, for example, is revealed by Dante (and Piper) as the filth that it is:


Dante describes the hypocrites as cloaked in lead, much as Piper describes relativists as cloaked in false humility:


Piper and Dante both point out that, without the truth, everything is eventually for sale. “Virtually every structure in a free society,” says Piper, “depends on a measure of integrity—that is, submission to the truth.” Dante, in his poem, illustrates the same point.

Piper then goes on to counter an anti-intellectual strand in American evangelical thought, which does not see that “thinking is a gift of God, whose chief role is to pursue and love and live by ultimate truth.” This section of the book was not quite as clear as it could have been, and did not entirely connect with the principles laid out in the earlier chapters. Piper’s main point – that pride is the fundamental problem – is of course also that of Dante’s Purgatorio. “Thinking and knowing are given to us by God for the purpose of loving God and loving people,” says Piper, but “neglecting knowledge is not the path to love.”

The book finishes with two appendices: an address on “The Supremacy of Christ in Christian Learning,” which presents a philosophy of education building on Kuyper’s “there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’”; and a copy of “The Student, the Fish, and Agassiz,” which reinforces the importance of exceedingly careful study and observation – in every academic field.


Think by John Piper: 3½ stars

Carbon tax?

I’m a little confused by this carbon tax I keep hearing about. This is carbon:


This is carbon dioxide:


Which one are we taxing, exactly?

Miguel Nia Jardin: a Timorese milestone

Grasa Mesak, who I have mentioned before, have recently published Miguel Nia Jardin (Miguel’s Garden), their latest Christian children’s book for Timor-Leste.


The book is in English and in the Timorese languages Tetun and Mambae. The latter is a first, as far as I can tell: I am not aware of any other children’s books in the Mambae language. Miguel’s story frames that of the Garden of Eden:


Having sent most of the print run to Timor-Leste, Grasa Mesak is selling the remaining copies of Miguel Nia Jardin to raise money for printing and distribution costs. The book is available for AUS $10.00 (including postage within Australia). See here for contact details. A worthy cause, as well as a publishing milestone.

Helpmeet: there is no such word

I frequently see the supposed word “helpmeet” on the Internet. While “helpmeet” does appear in the Concise Oxford, that dictionary notes that it is “formed by misunderstanding of Gen 2:18, 20 help meet (i.e. suitable helper) being taken as one word.” This pseudo-word had a popularity spike around 1900, and has never quite gone away, although the more correct “helpmate” has always been used more often:


The use of “helpmeet” indicates a failure to correctly parse the Jacobean English of the KJV. In the phrase “an help meet for him,” the word “help” is being used as a noun (“helper” in modern English) and the adjective “meet” (meaning “suitable”) heads the adjectival phrase “meet for him.” Adjectival phrases generally follow the noun, but single adjectives precede it, so that one says “an help meet for him” or “a helper suitable for him” but “a meet help” or “a suitable helper.” The fact that people don’t talk about “a meet help” shows that they’re not truly understanding what the KJV is saying.

Does it matter? Yes, because the misunderstanding changes the sense of the passage. The term “helpmeet” is often used by people arguing for a single model of femininity, and the passage actually states the contrary. Adam is given a helper (Hebrew `ezer, Septuagint βοηθόος) corresponding to him (Hebrew kenegdo, Septuagint κατ' αὐτόν). A “kind of counterpart,” as Calvin puts it. In other words different men are suitable for different women and vice versa. It is no accident that the catalogue of animals is inserted precisely here, because one man’s ideal complement is a lioness, while another’s is a pen, a hind, or a queen. Conversely, a doe will gain more joy by looking for a buck, rather than a boar.


There is also “no sense derived from the word linguistically or from the context of the garden narrative that the woman is a lesser person because her role differs” (Mathews). One of the most interesting practical illustrations of a “suitable helper” (albeit one from onother time and place) is The Treasure of the City of Ladies by Christine de Pizan, which explores the role of women in medieval French society, from the princess down to the peasant’s wife.


Update: See also the OUP Blog on the history of “helpmeet.”

Natural Experiments of History: a book review

Natural Experiments of History by Jared Diamond and James A. Robinson
Jared Diamond and James A. Robinson, in editing this collection of essays, have bridged “The Two Cultures” of C.P. Snow, by showing how History has “natural experiments” where the similarities and differences within a collection of events can be analysed in terms of explanatory variables.

Seven essays are included in the book. Two of them look at the Polynesian expansion, in which different outcomes arose as essentially the same Polynesian sailors settled in Hawaii and other islands.


James Belich (author of Replenishing the Earth: The Settler Revolution and the Rise of the Anglo-World, 1783-1939) looks at the “Wild West” settlements of the US, Argentina, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and Siberia (the latter more of a “Wild East”), and shows that settlement consistently took place in three phases. In the initial “boom phase,” settlers of the three acres and a cow type succeeded only because they were supplying goods to newer settlers. Essentially a giant pyramid scheme, this led to a natural “bust phase,” followed by an “export rescue” phase in which the economy was restructured around profitable exports such as beef (in Kansas) and wool (in Australia).


Not all essays were quite as good. Nathan Nunn (author of “The Long-Term Effects of Africa’s Slave Trades”) argues that the legacy of the slave trade continues to cripple African economies. However, the linear-regression methods he uses come with assumptions about statistical distributions that do not seem to be met. Furthermore the heterogeneity in the countries considered is not adequately taken into account [there are four groups: (1) North Africa, (2) island nations like the Seychelles, (3) South Africa and former dependencies like Namibia, and (4) other African countries; median per capita GDPs for the groups are $3995, $3464, $4278, & $578 and the correlation vanishes into insignificance when only the fourth group is considered, as shown below]. Economic differences between African countries probably owe more to colonial and recent history than to the legacy of slavery.


Overall, I loved the idea of the book, but found the quality of individual essays to be variable.


Natural Experiments of History by Jared Diamond and James A. Robinson: 3½ stars

The Manual of Detection: a book review

The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry
I have to thank a friend for introducing me to this wonderful little gem by Jedediah Berry. This metaphorical novel is reminiscent of The Castle (with touches of Borges, Bradbury, P.K. Dick, Eco, and Zelazny). I began reading it in the rain, holding an umbrella – not realising that the story would begin exactly that way. It reads beautifully:

“The inexperienced agent, when presented with a few promising leads, will likely feel the urge to follow them as directly as possible. But a mystery is a dark room, and anything could be waiting inside. At this stage of the case, your enemies know more than you know—that is what makes them your enemies. Therefore it is paramount that you proceed slantwise, especially when beginning your work. To do anything else is to turn your pockets inside out, light a lamp over your head, and paste a target on your shirtfront.” (p. 52)

The novel is full of little details (or are they clues?). I caught the 39 Steps reference, but was oblivious to many others. However, between the detectives and the circus, I was not sure where my loyalties lay. I may be a logical thinker, but I’ve always wanted to run away and join the circus. This book reminded me of one of the reasons why.


The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry: 4 stars