Published in 1917, Ernest Poole's winner of the first ever Pulitzer Prize in 1918, His Family, is a surprisingly delightful read. The book has been largely out of print in recent years, and much like other early winners of the Pulitzer Prize, including Booth Tarkington's The Magnificent Ambersons, His Family is largely overlooked by modern … Continue reading Thoughts on His Family
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Daniel: A Book of Dreams and Dark Prophecy
The Book of Daniel is an odd book in the Hebrew Bible - it is believed to have been the last or most recent book written that was later included in the Biblical corpus, though its contents take place many hundreds of years earlier during the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. In the deutero-canon, … Continue reading Daniel: A Book of Dreams and Dark Prophecy
Further Consideration of Jonah
Though we know almost nothing about the author of the Book of Jonah, it has been suggested that the book emerged after the Babylonian exile due to its universalist monotheistic message which came about with Second Isaiah, the anonymous sixth-century prophet of Babylonian exile. This global conception of God is a wholly different than the … Continue reading Further Consideration of Jonah
Reflections on Judges
In reading through Robert Alter's translation of the Hebrew book of Judges, it is nauseatingly apparent how "stiff-necked" and disobedient the Israelites are. Joshua dies at the end of the book of Joshua, however his death is again re-described in Chapter II of Judges, and thus the people of Israel are without a leader with … Continue reading Reflections on Judges
Joshua: A Book of Conquest
To recount the Biblical narrative thus far: We are given an account of origins, in which the humans fail to follow the law, and God's frustrations are continually pronounced with human beings (scattering them and confusing their languages, before ultimately deciding to destroy them in a flood). He saves the human beings through the lineage … Continue reading Joshua: A Book of Conquest
The Tragedy of Mob-Rule: Iphigenia in Aulis
Euripides's Iphigenia in Aulis was produced in conjunction with the Bacchae and the Alcmaeon at the Dionysia in 405 BC, shortly following Euripides's own death. It was produced by his relative, Euripides the Younger. It tells the story of the Greeks en route to Troy. Agamemnon is forced to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to Artemis to gain favorable winds in sailing … Continue reading The Tragedy of Mob-Rule: Iphigenia in Aulis
Genesis I-III: The Birth of Law
Today, we moderns call Genesis a book. That is, a whole and complete text. However, Biblical scholarship suggests it may, instead, be a collection and compendium of varying and sometimes contradictory mythologies of the known world, rooted in ancient Canaanite, Babylonian, Egyptian, and Akkadian traditions. Ancient writers would have known it as an "account," a retelling … Continue reading Genesis I-III: The Birth of Law
Notes on Leviticus
Contemporary Biblical scholarship holds that the Torah was assembled by priestly writers sometime during the sixth century after the fall of Judea in 586 BC. Perhaps in Leviticus, the third and shortest book of the Torah, we see an obsessive almost Egyptian need to catalogue and document appropriate rituals. The key verb in the book is hivdil, a … Continue reading Notes on Leviticus
Brief Notes on the Rhesus
The Rhesus is a highly disputed tragedy that is commonly attributed to Euripides. It is a short play, though not altogether a tragedy in the classic sense of the word. Unlike many other Greek tragedies, Rhesus takes place during the Homeric canon, during the events of Book X of the Iliad. The plot encompasses the events of a … Continue reading Brief Notes on the Rhesus
Thoughts on Andromache
It has been suggested that Euripides is obsessed with character, but that he is indifferent to plot. Each one of his tragedies might be said to be a character study into the pure hopelessness faced by human beings. The Andromache is an unusual play for a number of reasons. The unnamed Scholiast, a latter Byzantine, reports that … Continue reading Thoughts on Andromache
