Jots & Tittles
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All Things Are Possible (Unless They Violate the First Amendment)
The Ohio state motto—“With God All Things Are Possible”—has been declared unconstitutional. A three-judge panel of the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this past spring that the motto violates the First Amendment’s separation of church and state.
The judges reasoned that because the motto is a word-for-word quote of a statement by Jesus, it advances a “uniquely Christian thought not shared by Jews and Muslims.”
The case against the motto was brought by the Ohio chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and, interestingly, by a Cleveland-area Presbyterian minister. The full Circuit Court will now review the decision; however it rules, the losing side is expected to appeal the case to the Supreme Court.
But is the motto, the state’s slogan since 1959, based on a poor translation of the biblical passage? The statement comes shortly after Jesus’ declaration that “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24, Mark 10:25, Luke 18:27). The disciples are astonished and ask, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus answers, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” At least that’s what he said according to the Revised Standard Version. David T. Ball, chaplain at Denison University, writing in The Christian Century (June 21–28, 2000), points out that the New Revised Standard Version translates the statement as, “For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible.”
It is no minor difference. Ball cites the New Interpreter’s Bible commentary on Luke, which notes that the passage emphasizes that salvation “is not a matter of human ability but of divine power.”
Ball continues, “Jesus reminds the disciples in broad terms of God’s power to do all things. Ohio’s use of the motto to emphasize human potential, albeit in collaboration with God, is thus at odds with its apparent import in the biblical context.”
Making Art Out of the Word
There’s a book on our office shelf titled The Bible in 20th Century Art. Not surprisingly, it is a skinny book. Of all the centuries in which artists have turned to the Bible for inspiration, or simply for a good story to work with, the 20th century has been one of the least productive.
Some might blame this on what they see as modern disdain for religion or a general lack of interest in things biblical. Others would point to the romanticism of the 19th century, when God and the sublime were found in nature, and the closest most artists came to depicting the divine was a lush landscape with brilliant skies that seemed to reveal the luminescence of the heavens.
But in recent years, as abstract expressionism has given way to what art critics call the new realism (that is, not abstract art), as interest in religion has grown, especially in America, and as searching for one’s roots has become increasingly fashionable, a number of contemporary artists have begun to rediscover the traditional stories.
A current exhibit at the American Bible Society, in New York City, taps into this development. Word as Art: Contemporary Renderings features 14 artists, from the United States, Israel and South Korea, who have wrestled with biblical subjects and symbolism, trying to make the most painted and sculpted subjects of all time seem fresh.
The media range from the traditional—stained glass windows and gilded icons, painted in the standard egg tempera on wood—to more contemporary photocollages and ceramics. But even the conventional materials are updated: No Byzantine icon ever had the neon colors, the swirling paint or the fractured faces of Christina Saj’s Madonna and Child (above, left). Ioana Datcu’s painted photo of a downcast Jesus wearing the crown of thorns offers a view of the Passion through the documentary eye of a camera. Mary McCleary’s Good Samaritan (above, top right) recasts the same in modern dress. The subjects display a similar range—from Hagar, in a print by Lika Tov (wife of Dead Sea Scroll scholar and BR author Emanuel Tov), to Angel of 125th Street (above, lower right), a Harlem street scene, overlaid with graffiti-like sketches of the crucifixion, a preacher and an old woman, by painter Keith Duncan.
The exhibit continues through October 21. For more information, contact the American Bible Society, 1865 Broadway, New York, NY 10023; phone: 212–408-1500; Web site: www.americanbible.org.
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Attention: Bible Study Groups
Do you belong to a Bible Study Group? Does your group ever pass around articles from BR or Biblical Archaeology Review? Do you read books published by the Biblical Archaeology Society or show slides from our slide sets?
We’re about to publish a new book that we think is perfect for Bible Study Groups: Abraham & Family—New Insights into the Patriarchal Narratives, which contains 16 BR articles on the most famous extended family of all time.
We’re so confident that this book will be a hit with study groups that we’re even offering a 33% discount for group orders sent to one address.
But we’d like your opinion. Please let us know if your group adopts the book and whether it’s a success.
We’d like to share your reactions with other BR readers by putting them on our Web site, www.biblereview.org. Are there any other articles or books that have worked particularly well in your group? If you have any recommendations, questions or comments for study groups, be sure to include them. (Please give full publishing information and a brief description of any recommended books or articles.)
Tell us about your Bible Study Group: Is it run through your church or synagogue, or is it independent? How many members are there and how often do you meet? What percentage of your time is spent reading the Bible, and what percentage reading articles and other secondary literature?
Write to BR Study Groups, 4710 41st Street, NW, Washington, DC 20016; e-mail bas@bib-arch.org.
Best BR Articles Named
We are pleased to recognize two outstanding scholars—Jerome Murphy-O’Connor and Victor Hurowitz—for their contributions to BR. Thanks to the generous support of the Leopold and Clara M. Fellner Charitable Foundation, through its trustee Frederick L. Simmons, we are able to honor the best articles to appear in these pages during 1998 and 1999. This year’s judges for the biennial awards, Susan Ackerman, associate professor of religion at Dartmouth College, and Amy-Jill Levine, Carpenter Professor of New Testament Studies at Vanderbilt University, chose these two regular contributors to BR as the winners.
First Prize
The 2000 Best of Bible Review award goes to Jerome Murphy-O’Connor of the École Biblique in Jerusalem for his two articles, “Triumph Over Temptation,” BR 15:04 and “Fishers of Fish, Fishers of Men,” BR 15:03. In the former, Ackerman was impressed by Murphy-O’Connor’s demonstration of the literary sophistication and the extraordinary subtlety of the temptation story as found in Matthew and by his use of the Mishnah to establish traditions of how Deuteronomy was interpreted in the early Christian period. In the latter, Levine appreciated both Murphy-O’Connor’s challenge to the stereotype of the first followers of Jesus as ignorant, disenfranchised peasants and his detailed information from a wide range of Jewish and Classical sources on the business of fishing.
Runner Up
Honorable mention is awarded to Victor Hurowitz of Ben-Gurion University, in Beer-Sheva, Israel, also for two articles: “Wish Upon a Stone,” BR 15:05 and “From Storm God to Abstract Being” BR 14:05. In “Wish Upon a Stone,” Ackerman notes, Hurowitz proposed a compelling solution to a problem of interpretation through the use of comparative data, one of the best methodologies modern critical biblical scholarship has to offer. Levine found especially helpful in “From Storm God to Abstract Being” the comparison of Exodus and Deuteronomy not only regarding the portrait of the deity but also concerning the attitude toward the Temple.
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Don’t Be Left in the Dark at the End-Time
BR’s Unofficial Award for the Best Ad That Tries to Sell Off Fears of the End of the World goes to Restoration Hardware’s plug for the battery-free Freeplay Flashlight. The electric light is a must for the end-time, the advertisers claim, because no batteries will be available at Armageddon.
All Things Are Possible (Unless They Violate the First Amendment)
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