Jots & Tittles
“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”—or so I’ve been told. But say this to any poet of worth, even Shakespeare, and he or she will tell you that names often conjure up far-reaching associations.
While most expectant parents are not poets, they nevertheless recognize the same principle: A name is not just any other name. Thus, soon-to-be parents exhaust countless hours scouring books, such as 40,001 Best Baby Names and the even more recent, more ambitious 50,001 Best Baby Names (by the same author, of course)—and the Bible.
It seems the most “popular” book in America also serves as a trusty source for newborn names. Biblical names are heavily steeped in tradition (unlike “Dijonnaise” and “Celery,” both recommended in the books cited above), and they often have the added benefit of connoting positive associations and attributions.
Recently, some observers have noted a resurgence in the use of biblical names. However, Social Security statistics reveal that of the top forty male names last year, approximately one half are “biblical”—a steady statistic since the 1970s—while for females, the number has dropped from eight to just three over the same three decades.
With these numbers, one might wonder why there has been an impression of resurgence. A closer look at the statistics for males provides some helpful clues. Popular biblical names such as Michael, Joseph, Daniel, Matthew and Joshua have remained almost perennially in the top ten. Recently, however, parents have begun choosing more esoteric biblical names, such as Caleb (now ranked 32nd) and Gabriel (ranked 33rd), both of which only became popular after the year 2000. It is the emergence of these “new” biblical names that has likely given the impression of resurgence.
In contrast, a closer look at the statistics for female names further confirms the decreased preference for female biblical names. Unlike the case for males, there has been no emergence of “new” female biblical names in the last decade. In fact, the two most popular names given last year, Emma and Madison, in addition to being nonbiblical, were extremely rare ten years ago.
Thus the trends for female and male biblical names have been diverging. In providing their children with their first sources of identity, parents have clung to the more traditional and decorous names for their sons, while they have wafted towards the more whimsical for their daughters. Ironically, these predilections have been occurring during a time of increased sensitivity for gender equality. Perhaps such a concern has yet to migrate toward the process of naming a child. But, then again, perhaps a rose would smell just as sweet.—Ben Su
Ben Su is a graduate student in liberal studies at Creighton University.
I came to Brandeis as a likely economics major in September 1975. I was looking for a course to take; having read Understanding Genesis in high school, I knew Professor Sarna’s name. He was teaching Psalms, and as a scared freshman, I enrolled. I discovered Bible scholarship, and my life was altered forever; my career as an economist was over.
Nahum Sarna, who died in June, was a leading scholar of the Hebrew Bible. Born in 1923, he was educated at Jews College and University College, both in his home city of London. Sarna lived in Israel for two years but moved to the United States in 1951, receiving his Ph.D. from Dropsie College, in Philadelphia. He held positions at Gratz College and at the Jewish Theological Seminary before moving to Brandeis University in 1965.
Nahum wrote many scholarly articles and was one of the few in his generation to popularize biblical scholarship, particularly to the Jewish community, through such works as Understanding Genesis and Songs of the Heart, a work on the Psalms. His labor of love was translating Kethuvim (Writings, the third section of the Hebrew Bible in the traditional Jewish order) for the Jewish Publication Society, along with Jonas Greenfield, Moshe Greenberg and other scholars. When he taught Psalms and the class disagreed with the JPS translation, he told us with a chuckle, “I agree with you, but I was outvoted on that verse by Jonas and Moshe.” The value of his popular works, in an era when few such books were available, cannot be overestimated; they imparted the very best of scholarship in a clear, engaging fashion.
Nahum’s range was extraordinary. As a student of Cyrus Gordon, he was acquainted with the major Semitic languages; as a student of Isidore Epstein and others, he had mastered classical rabbinic and medieval Jewish texts; and as a product of British schools, he had a strong classical training and was attuned to the literary merit of texts.
He loved to interpret biblical texts—especially Genesis, Exodus, Psalms and the prophets—and to show their literary beauty and moral value. Through his articles and books and his teaching, Nahum played a major role in training several generations of Bible scholars and interested many more in the serious study of the Bible. He was a masterful teacher, engaging, witty and demanding.
Two anecdotes will give a sense of what mattered to him as a scholar. When I was preparing the introduction to his festschrift (a volume of articles written in honor of a scholar), I asked him what accomplishment he was most proud of. To my surprise he did not mention his honorary degrees or books or articles or his numerous awards, but said, “I never came to class unprepared.” I have adopted this as a personal mantra, something to contemplate before walking into a classroom.
The second anecdote could be taken from almost any class Nahum taught. At least once a week he would read from one of his index cards, “On such-and-such a date, when I taught this passage, Mr. or Ms. So and So [a former student] suggested that this verse or word should be interpreted the following way.” He did this long before it was fashionable to think that faculty could learn from students.
Nahum Sarna raised several generations of students who will continue his legacy. This legacy is not expressed through a “Sarna school” of biblical interpretation, for Nahum allowed, even encouraged, his students to disagree with his views (as long as they did not become what he called psychoceramics—crackpots). His legacy is expressed through a deep and abiding sense of the Bible’s beauty and value, which he conveyed to us and which we will try to pass to others.—Marc Brettler, Brandeis University
Leave it to me, the quintessentially naïve Southern boy, to be probably the last person in America (and beyond) to know that Adam and Eve is the name of a leading purveyor of adult entertainment via the mail and the Internet. I guess I shouldn’t really be surprised by that or by the results of a survey conducted by the Tony Roma restaurant chain: Almost 50 percent of respondents believe that men have one less rib than women, although well over 80 percent knew that pork (rather than beef) is typically used to make one of the restaurant’s signature dishes, BBQ baby back ribs.
Adam and Eve are everywhere today. Fortunately, the contexts are generally at a more uplifting and enlightening level of entertainment. Take, for example, recent stagings of Searching for Eden: The Diaries of Adam & Eve, described as a “romantic caper” inspired by the short stories of Mark Twain. In the opinion of one reviewer, the play is a “romp through paradise [that] will tickle your ribs, but won’t leave you gasping for air.” In dialogue and intermittent song, Eve reveals, among other things, “that she enjoys relieving Adam of the burden of naming places and animals, but she wonders why he’s so lazy and aloof. Adam complains privately that Eve is meddlesome and that she won’t leave him alone and won’t let him ascribe names.” Apparently, Twain was privy to sources other than J and P.
Children of Eden, written by the team responsible for Godspell, Pippin and Les Miserables, takes a different approach: “The father [the Lord] creates his children and expects them to love him. He gives them free will but doesn’t expect them to use it. Eventually, they start asking questions.” Now, why does that seem to ring such a familiar bell at the Greenspoon home?
We probably shouldn’t be too surprised by these updated accounts; these modern elaborations of, if not aberrations from, the traditional biblical text have ancient, one might say hoary, precedents. If we needed a reminder of this fact, it was provided a while back by the History Channel’s Banned from the Bible: The Stories That Were Deleted from Biblical History. Among these ancient extrabiblical tales is The Life of Adam and Eve, described as “a more detailed story of creation [that] includes jealous angels, a more devious serpent [is this possible?], and more information about Eve’s fall from grace from her point of view.” Also featured was The Book of Jubilees, which “reveals that Adam and Eve had nine children and that Cain’s younger sister Awan became his wife.” I wonder if Mark Twain knew about this?
Adam and Eve also show up in two recent children’s books. As a critic notes, one illustrator’s “apparent wish to keep Adam and Eve discreetly covered also limits readers’ direct exposure to them.” I suppose this was necessary for a G rating. The other book, casting such caution to the proverbial winds, reveals “Adam’s and Eve’s decorative body paint and one image that exposes Eve’s naked breast.” Once we are in the mood, it doesn’t take long to imagine that Adam and Eve had a weekend marriage seminar with Dr. Phil (as one writer from the Dayton Daily News suggests), that Eve took the cork-tipped cigarette proffered her by the serpent to “make her smarter and look more sophisticated” (this compliments of Art Buchwald), or (via Australia) that “the serpent is a car salesman who also dabbles in domestic appliances such as toasters and hand guns.”
Of course, a perennial question for biblical readers of all sorts is the location of the Garden of Eden, if indeed it did exist. Eight-thousand square miles of Iraqi wetlands and marshes have been “identified by some biblical scholars as the site,” and some monies from the United States and elsewhere may be extended to restore the garden. Still in doubt? Then I suggest you head for the archives of the Chicago Historical Society. Inside Archive Box #1920.1714 is “a piece of the hide of the snake that tempted Eve in the Garden of Eve.” To be more precise, the label, written in French (now that’s a guarantee of authenticity!) avers that “it was killed by Adam the day after its treachery. Adam used a stake, the traces of which can be seen. This skin was a legacy of Adam, and it was preserved by his family in Asia.” It’s signed with “seals of guarantees of doctors and theologians.” When the skin was last displayed, the Historical Society’s label “clearly stated that it was a fraud,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times. I’m not so sure: That snake, as crafty as ever, probably shed his skin on the way to Acapulco or wherever shrewd serpents secretly slither. Okay, maybe I made this part up, but it would make a heck of a musical or reality show!