The Bible in the News: From the Mouth of Animals

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I try to dish out ample portions of Biblical knowledge to my students. In addition, I like to provide some side dishes containing bits (or bites) of popular culture. Even better, I try to combine the two.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve been working assiduously to acquaint the younger generation with one of my favorite ’60s sitcoms: Mister Ed, the talking horse. Let’s consider the connection between Mr. Ed and two Biblical characters: Balaam’s ass (or, if you insist, donkey) of Numbers 22 and the demonic serpent of Genesis 3.

Alas, I cannot take credit for being the first to make such a comparison. Rather, that honor may go to Victoria Coren Mitchell’s televised game show, Only Connect. According to the South Wales Evening Post, in the series “teams compete [at] finding connections between seemingly unrelated clues.” Among the “series of eclectic clues,” this one makes the honor roll: “Donkey, Xanthus, Balaam’s ass and Mister Ed.” Really, how hard can it be to connect these? Why, anybody knowledgeable in popular culture, Classical mythology and Biblical studies should be able to figure this one out!

It might help if the contestants had a scintillating summary of the Biblical story, which in this case is provided by what I would call an unlikely source, the Economic Times (what do Balaam and his ass have to do with GNP or trade imbalances?): “Balaam’s ass saves the life of its irascible master in the Bible three times in a row, even at the cost of a beating. After the third time, however, God opens the mouth of Balaam’s ass, which enables the animal to talk back to its master. Yet, the pigheaded man (no offence to the porcine family) continues his calamitous course, raising the question: Who is the real ass, the steed or the rider, who fails to heed the miracle of the talking ass!”

Are there any famous asses other than Balaam’s? Accounts like this one (from London’s Independent)—“Balaam’s ass, who starved to death because he couldn’t decide whether to eat the hay on the right or the hay on the left”—are invariably followed by corrigenda like this (from the Guardian): In an earlier issue, “we described Balaam’s ass as the ass that starved to death because it could not choose which of two equidistant bales of hay to eat. We were confusing our asses. We should have referred to Buridan’s ass, from the French philosopher Jean Buridan, who used the allegory to illustrate a particular kind of moral choice.”

According to the Irish Times, Balaam’s ass is one of “only seven animals in heaven, there to greet you among the seraphim and cherubim.” Among others is “the dog that once belonged to Tobit, the pious Egyptian Jew of the Apocrypha.” This is surely a heaven where my dogs reside (or will reside), whether or not I, as their human companion, am granted admittance.

Let us move forward (or backward?) from the asinine to the serpentine. Those looking for a lively account of the Biblical story could do far worse than consulting this abbreviated narrative from the Santa Fe New Mexican: “So Adam and Eve (or Edán y Eva, if you’re speaking Spanish) were hanging out in the Garden of Eden in olden days when this serpent guy showed up to tempt them with juicy apples. … Eve initially fell prey to the serpent’s seductive ways (after all, ladies first), but then Adam, gullible dope that he was, followed suit, which is kind of funny because they didn’t wear suits back then.”

After that, the popular press goes into a multitude of metaphors (or other figures of speech). Let us look first at the instrument of seduction. “In our society,” so we learn from the Daily Mail (in an article indelicately titled “Why Every Woman LOVES a Fat Friend”), “transformation is the holy grail—but it’s also deeply threatening. … This one goes back a long way—back to the Garden of Eden, when the serpent as good as whispered to Eve: ‘Here, take the apple. Only 80 calories and absolutely zero carbs.’ The rest of humanity has paid the price in trips to WeightWatchers ever since.” Okay, so we all know it REALLY wasn’t an apple. But why should we let that bit of knowledge get in the way of a good story?

And then something more about the seducer, as recalled by a writer for the Financial Post of Canada: “Monday while watching the TV listings, I misread Space Channel’s Sand Serpents as Sad Serpents. Sad Serpents is a reality program I’d be much more inclined to watch. I’m imagining a Claymation Garden of Eden serpent addressing the camera: ‘Sometimes I miss my legs. I still dream I have them, and when I wake up, it takes a minute to acclimate myself. Maybe God was right and I am a jerk, but this seems harsh.’” Or maybe not harsh enough.

It is difficult to know how to close this column. So, I’ll let commentator William F. Buckley Jr. have the last word: “No one since the Garden of Eden which the serpent forsook in order to run for higher office imputed to politicians great purity of motive.”

I try to dish out ample portions of Biblical knowledge to my students. In addition, I like to provide some side dishes containing bits (or bites) of popular culture. Even better, I try to combine the two.