July 2011 Archives
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July 31, 2011
A Prophecy That Is Coming True
“We will make it so that a Democrat cannot govern as a Democrat.” Grover Norquest, President of the United States Dictator of the Republican Party and apparently of the Democratic Party as well, uttered this prophecy at a college reunion...Read all of "A Prophecy That Is Coming True"
Posted by Duane Smith at 11:45 AM
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July 30, 2011
Anomalies With One Horn
For reasons I may go into in a future post, I am going through the Akkadian omen series Šumma izbu. This series of 24 tablets contains omens whose protases concern birth and developmental anomalies in everything from humans to dogs....Read all of "Anomalies With One Horn"
Posted by Duane Smith at 2:37 PM
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July 29, 2011
A Simple, Clean, Solution
While one house of the United States Congress works on a debt ceiling bill that everyone knows has no hope of becoming law, the other house works on a debt ceiling bill that no one wants. Let’s just have a...Read all of "A Simple, Clean, Solution"
Posted by Duane Smith at 2:55 PM
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July 27, 2011
Philo, Shirley and the Society of Biblical Literature
Jim Davila of PaleoJudaica.com directs us to Philonica et Neotestamentica and Torrey Seland’s post on the schedule for the Philo of Alexandria Seminar sessions at the upcoming SBL Annual Meeting. Philo is the principle reason I can’t get Shirley to...Read all of "Philo, Shirley and the Society of Biblical Literature"
Posted by Duane Smith at 12:39 PM
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July 26, 2011
Online Collaborative Research: A Chronographic Document
LIVIUS: Articles on Ancient History has posted a discussion by Bert van der Spek of the Free University of Amsterdam Netherlands and Irving Finkel of the British Museum on a chronographic document concerning Bagayasha (BCHP 18). They provide a description,...Read all of "Online Collaborative Research: A Chronographic Document"
Posted by Duane Smith at 10:21 AM
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July 25, 2011
Finally: Reading Akkadian Prayers and Hymns: An Introduction
Alan Lenzi just distributed an email officially announcing the availability of Reading Akkadian Prayers and Hymns: An Introduction. It is finally out in final form and ready for download. I wrote about it a little prematurely a week or so...Read all of "Finally: Reading Akkadian Prayers and Hymns: An Introduction"
Posted by Duane Smith at 1:31 PM
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July 24, 2011
Truism Of The Day
For lawmakers at every level of government, there are two unalterable prerequisites for making bad policy. One: Paint yourself into a corner. Two: Run yourself up against an implacable deadline. It’s hard to find a more obvious truism than that...Read all of "Truism Of The Day"
Posted by Duane Smith at 7:07 PM
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Towards A Natural Explanation Of Divination
Walter Burkert writes, It is striking how widespread the practice of bird-watching is in divination: observation of the flight of birds, especially birds of prey, is evident in the dominant practice of ancient ornithomanteia, as well as ancient poetry. To...Read all of "Towards A Natural Explanation Of Divination"
Posted by Duane Smith at 2:28 PM
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July 22, 2011
Goodbye Minitel
Minitel 1, 1982Wikimedia Common File PhotoPhotograph by Tieum While I share the sadness of the end of the Space Shuttle program, the coming end of another technology program, Teletel, with which I had some involvement also saddens me. Teletel...
Posted by Duane Smith at 11:37 AM
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July 21, 2011
On Reading Akkadian Prayers and Actually Reading Texts
John Hobbins who reads Ancient Hebrew Poetry along with a lot of other things has posted his preliminary thoughts on the forthcoming Reading Akkadian Prayers and Hymns volume to which Charles the Awilum Halton and I contributed. As John says,...Read all of "On Reading Akkadian Prayers and Actually Reading Texts"
Posted by Duane Smith at 2:46 PM
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July 20, 2011
The Ziyaret Tepe Excavation
The Ziyaret Tepe Excavation has a great blog by excavation director Timothy Matney of the University of Akron. Ziyaret Tepe is an important Late Assyrian site. So far, Matney’s posts have combined interest and fun. I’ve added the Ziyaret Tepe...Read all of "The Ziyaret Tepe Excavation"
Posted by Duane Smith at 12:51 PM
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July 19, 2011
West On P
No, not that West. No, not that P. Martin West has a new book, The Making of the Iliad, in which West uses the letter P to designate the individual who he takes to have been the poet of the...
Posted by Duane Smith at 10:02 AM
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July 17, 2011
Parkinson’s Law Inaction In Action
Ralph Westfall, professor in the Computer Information Systems Department at California Polytechnic University, Pomona, writes, For example, based on data in the California State University Statistical Abstract, the number of full-time faculty in the whole CSU system rose from 11,614...
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Posted by Duane Smith at 11:31 AM
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July 16, 2011
Esarhaddon Royal Inscriptions Online
Akkadian tagged texts and translations from royal inscriptions from Esarhaddon are now online. These are part of the University of Pennsylvania’s The Royal Inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian Period (RINAP) project. As it unfolds, it will become a major contribution to...Read all of "Esarhaddon Royal Inscriptions Online"
Posted by Duane Smith at 1:17 PM
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July 15, 2011
Rollston on ‘Priests’ or ‘Priest’ in the Mariam (Miriam) Ossuary
Christopher Rollston has another interesting post on the Mariam (Miriam) ossuary inscription in which he argues for reading the final few words khn mm’zyh mbyt ‘mry, “priest of (from) Ma’aziah from Beth ‘Imri, rather than khnm m’zyh mbyt ‘mry, “priests...Read all of "Rollston on ‘Priests’ or ‘Priest’ in the Mariam (Miriam) Ossuary"
Posted by Duane Smith at 2:44 PM
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Quotation Of The Day
“So there has been no pressure on the G.O.P. to show any kind of responsibility, or even rationality - and sure enough, it has gone off the deep end. If you’re surprised, that means that you were part of the...Read all of "Quotation Of The Day"
Posted by Duane Smith at 12:48 PM
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July 14, 2011
John Hobbins’ Favorite Dead Protestant Atheist
John Hobbins has an interesting post on Christopher Hitchens and the King James Bible. John says that Hitchens is his favorite living “Protestant” atheist. His favorite all time Protestant atheist is Nietzsche. It’s not clear who his favorite none Protestant...Read all of "John Hobbins’ Favorite Dead Protestant Atheist"
Posted by Duane Smith at 8:03 PM
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July 13, 2011
Please Refresh My Memory
I have a rather clear memory of having once seen what appears to be an alphabetic cuneiform tablet (I almost said “an Ugaritic tablet”) with the impression of the side of two tools, one rather clearly an (miniature?) adze on...Read all of "Please Refresh My Memory"
Posted by Duane Smith at 3:41 PM
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July 12, 2011
I’m Waiting And Worrying
I’m waiting for several things: ILL, a response from an editor, the actual publication of a book and a few of other things. For some reason these acts of waiting have limited several other less strenuous activities like posting here...Read all of "I’m Waiting And Worrying"
Posted by Duane Smith at 1:21 PM
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July 10, 2011
Just How Often Did This Come Up?
To help round out a few of my thoughts on ancient Mesopotamian snake omens, I reread tablets 22 through 26 or at least the nearly complete tablets 22, 23 and 24 and what remains of tablets 25 through 26 of...Read all of "Just How Often Did This Come Up?"
Posted by Duane Smith at 7:10 AM
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July 9, 2011
When To Have A $350 Bottle Of Wine
The lefty online press, in other words, the home of my favorite pundits, is all up in arms about Rep. Paul Ryan sipping a $350.00 bottle of wine with a couple of clients associates. I find nothing unusual about this...Read all of "When To Have A $350 Bottle Of Wine"
Posted by Duane Smith at 7:54 AM
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July 7, 2011
Memory, History And Policy
At a Fourth of July party a friend and I were discussing the changes we’ve seen in the Los Angeles area over the course of our lifetimes. We both mentioned air pollution. Our earliest memories were of the air in...Read all of "Memory, History And Policy"
Posted by Duane Smith at 2:30 PM
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July 6, 2011
The Virgin Mary From The Sky
I’ve more or less lost interest in supposed images of Jesus or Mary or anyone else, but I just couldn’t let this one pass. As Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars says, “Read this article and remind yourself...Read all of "The Virgin Mary From The Sky"
Posted by Duane Smith at 12:37 PM
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Rollston On The Mariam Daughter of Yeshua’ Ossuary
Like me, Christopher Rollston finds the final words of the inscription, dbyt ‘mry, 'of the house of ‘Imry,' “very interesting.” Also like me, he doesn’t seem to have any explanation for these words. Unlike me, he has an abnormally interesting...Read all of "Rollston On The Mariam Daughter of Yeshua’ Ossuary"
Posted by Duane Smith at 11:55 AM
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Divorce and Return?
As some abnormal readers may remember, I’ve been working on an essay in support of reading the appearance of the snake in Genesis 3 in the light of ancient Near Eastern divination. This project is now over a year and...Read all of "Divorce and Return?"
Posted by Duane Smith at 10:49 AM
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July 4, 2011
Mark Twain On Patriotism (repost)
Shirley and I are off to a 4th of July party so I decided to repost this from a couple of years ago. A few select quotations presented without comment or context. Well, without much comment or context. Man is...Read all of "Mark Twain On Patriotism (repost)"
Posted by Duane Smith at 7:30 AM
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July 2, 2011
It’s A Win Win
“Wall Street wraps up best week in two years” – Reuters via MSNBC “Vatican Returns Profit After Three Years In Red” – Huffington Post But due to a few other minor economic issues of little consequence to Wall Street and...
Posted by Duane Smith at 3:02 PM
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“She Didn’t Want To Get In That Green Stuff”
Stephen Lacey at Climate Progress tells how Senator Jim Inhofe became deathly sick after swimming in the algae infected Grand Lake in Oklahoma. The whole story is well worth the read but I can’t help giving away the punch line...Read all of "“She Didn’t Want To Get In That Green Stuff”"
Posted by Duane Smith at 2:28 PM
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July 1, 2011
Akkadian Prayers and Hymns Now Almost Available
An effort, led by Alan Lenzi, that consumed much of my time and that of others over the last many months is nowt available as an open access (that means free) SBL publication. Alan did a herculean job of bring...
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Posted by Duane Smith at 2:17 PM
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Aramaic Cuneiform Tablets From Tal Mabtouh Sharqi?
Yes, there are a very few tablets in cuneiform script where the language of the text is Aramaic. More common are Akkadian cuneiform tablets with Aramaic dockets written on their edge. The real question is, are recently discovered cuneiform tablets...Read all of "Aramaic Cuneiform Tablets From Tal Mabtouh Sharqi?"
Posted by Duane Smith at 1:12 PM
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