More Ark Humor

With thanks to Chuck.

Are Christmas Trees and Santas Originally Canaanite???

Over a decade ago, William H. C. Propp wrote a hilarious "article" in Bible Review (14:6 for December 1998), in which he "argued," incorporating real facts, for the ancient Near Eastern roots of several American Yuletide customs.

His tongue-in-cheek essay begins as follows: I will concentrate here on just two major points: that the Christmas tree was originally a symbol of the Canaanite goddess Asherah and that Santa Claus is an avatar of Asherah’s consort, the high god ‘El, who is equivalent to the Israelite Yahweh. I will conclude by showing that the customs of Christmas were brought to America by the Canaanites themselves.

Among the well-attested evidence: El is a white-bearded patriarch who lives in the far north with dwarf-craftsmen and who is strongly associated with a symbolic, sacred tree.

To read the entire piece, available on-line, click here.

"Was Bringing the Woodpecker a Mistake?"

From one of my OT-1 students:

"The Story of My Life"

Stephen, a student in OT-1, sent this cartoon in today:

"Divinity School Application for Liberals" (Humor)

I recently learned about the "Divinity School Application for Liberals" through a Facebook note. Check it out; it is good for a few laughs. Click here.

April 1st Products from Eisenbrauns

Eisenbrauns has released several exciting books and pieces of merchandise today (April 1st) including this neat ancient Near Eastern "Cylinder Seal / USB computer drive"!

Cylinder Seal USB 8 Byte Drive


Winged Bull Press, 2009
8 bytes,
USB
#BUYABLE#Your Price: $19.95
#BUYABLE# www.eisenbrauns.com/item/APRIL2009D

Twelve Days of Christmas (Humor)

Cartoon courtesy of CartoonChurch.com (click here). Click to greatly enlarge.

Eisenbrauns' April 1st "Releases"

Hearty thanks to Susan Sullivan for forwarding me these links:

Cuneiform type elements for the IBM Selectric

by A.P. Ril
Winged Bull Press, 2008
Akkadian, Sumerian, and Babylonian

ISBN: APRIL2008B
List Price: $600.00
Your Price: $540.00
Copyright (c) 2006-2008 Eisenbrauns, Inc.

Description:
Bring your beloved typewriter into the modern era with a complete cuneiform character set.

Available as a set of 10 (ten) 96-character elements for the Selectric III, or 21 (twenty-one) 88-character elements for the Selectric I and II. Both sets, made of precision cast pot metal, include the complete catalog of 907 Akkadian characters set as outlined in Borger's Mesopotamische Zeicehenlexikon, as well as characters to indicate lemmas, lunas, and loonies.
________

Bite Your Tongue
A Practical Guide to Impractical Phonology

by Hatta Sayyit and Augusta Summer
Edited by Felix Languealchat
Winged Bull Press, 2008
xiv + 150 pages, English
Paper, 5 x 8
ISBN: APRIL2008C
List Price: $75.00
Your Price: $67.50

Description:
PART 1: Hatta Sayyit examines archaeological phonological evidence for linguists doing field research on ancient phonology. Pottery-wheel gramophonology is examined, along with tablets recently discovered by a group of lost tourists in Egypt, including fifteen new sounds unheard in modern languages.

PART 2: Augusta Summer, of the Winter Institute of Linguistics, steps through a series of training exercises designed to bring you up to date with recent discoveries, enabling you to pronounce these new sounds correctly. This mini-course will teach you how to pronounce all the sounds you'll need, including show-stoppers like the bilabial-glottal fricative (pictured on the cover).
Other exercise include Cat Got Your Tongue, The Double-Dog-Dare Flagpole Tongue Freeze and the amazingly difficult, but equally valuable, Tongue Hold. "The ability to speak multiple laguages is valuable," claims Summer, "but the ability to hold your tongue in one is priceless."

Grading (humor)

I'm grading madly to meet a deadline Tuesday for Jan-term grades to be turned in to the VTS registrar. Thus, I thought this grading cartoon from http://www.phdcomics.com/ might be appropriate:

The Pulpit (Humor)

From Dave Walker's CartoonChurch (click here):

The Wreath of God (humor)

cartoon emailed in by Chuck Hatfield.

Grimmy Cartoon Sent In By Chuck H.

Seminary-Life Humor

Here's a short comic just released by a new VTS seminarian, Nik Forti, illustrating certain dimensions of the incoming class's experience of August orientation:

Just Pray Like Mommy (Humor)

I can't seem to get this joke out of my head: Father asked his little boy to say the blessing over the food at a dinner party at their home. The look on the little boy's face told Dad that he needed a little encouragement. "Just pray like Mommy," Dad said. "Okay," responded his son. "Oh God, Oh God," the boy quoted, "What on earth was I thinking when I invited all these people to dinner..."

This Is Your Brain After Grading

A blogging professor has recently posted on the effects of grading on the brain.




Click here to see the post, which got a chuckle out of me. Be sure to read the comments too..



Here is an excerpt of what she posted:

Has anyone ever done a study of the effect of grading on brain function? That is, has anyone does a study in which someone has their head wired to various devices while they grade, and then the images of brain function from the start of grading to the end of grading are compared to see what brain sectors are damaged? Is the damage temporary or permanent? ...

All We Like Sheep... (humor)

Today's Far Side Cartoon:

"Wait! Wait! Listen to me!...

We don't have to be just sheep!"

Job (humor)

Undelivered Email (humor)

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

Obadiah Verse 1 (MCOMBB 1)

Obadiah verse 1
Major Commentaries on Minor Biblical Books - MCOMBB 1
by A.N. Onymous
Winged Bull Press, 2007
xvii + 483 pages, plus extensive charts and plates, English
Cloth
List Price: $75.00
Your Price: $63.75

Description from Eisenbrauns:
For too long biblical scholars have poured all their attention into the major books of the Bible. We feel it is time to pay more attention to the shorter books of the biblical corpus. To further this end, we are introducing a major new commentary series, Major Studies on Minor Biblical Books. The introductory volume, available now, is the biblical book of Obadiah, verse 1. This 500 page volume, lavishly illustrated with extensive charts and full color plates, concentrates on the overlooked importance of verse 1 in the canonical process and its implications for the entire biblical corpus, indeed for all theological undertakings.

U. Will B. Bore, ed. for the series, expresses the purpose of the series very clearly, "We feel that in an age of inclusiveness and pluralism, it is only fair to examine the importance of these frequently overlooked biblical books. We are delighted that Eisenbrauns has agreed to publish this milestone in biblical studies."

We strongly encourage you to place a standing order, since this will be a must-have reference series. The current plan is to issue one volume per year, beginning with Obadiah. The next volume will examine Obadiah, verse 2 and will be available in page proofs at AAR/SBL in November. The current page count for volume two is 479 pages, and we anticipate each volume will be of similar length. Imagine being able to reach over to your bookshelf and have over 10.000 pages of commentary and background information on the book of Obadiah! It staggers the imagination. Now, multiply that times the other shorter books and pericopes of the biblical corpus.

Because of the massiveness of this project, after the initial few volumes on Obadiah, we will begin publishing multiple volumes on other books or pericopes each year. Our goal is to have one volume per month, each month on a different biblical book or pericope. We are currently soliciting authors for the Greek New Testament books of II John (13 verses), III John (14 verses), Jude (25 verses), and Philemon (25 verses).

For the Hebrew Bible, we are in need of authors for some of the overlooked pericopes of the book of Judges. Each of the minor Judges will receive at least one volume, with more planned for important judges, such as Jephtha. We anticipate each volume will cover one verse each and be at least 400 pages. Because of the lengthy undertaking involved, we prefer younger scholars, who are able to dedicate the next 15-50 years of their life to this milestone in biblical and theological understanding.

Build Your Own Ossuary (Humor)

New from the Eisenbraun's Company: Get in on all the recent action forging antiquities!

DIY Ossuary Kit
This item is heavy and will incur extra shipping costs!
Kit includes book of Bible names, measured plans, hammer, chisels, and 1 large block of genuine Indiana limestone, rough-shaped and ready for your inscriptions. Specify color when ordering. Standard size is 22 x 14 x 12"; custom sizing is available.
Bones not included. We suggest contacting your local teaching hospital for legally-obtained, gently-used cadavers.

Winged Bull Press, 2007
English
LImestone
List Price: $950.00
Your Price: $883.50