Hobbit Films On the Way

Read the news here. Peter Jackson and New Line are finally singing kumbaya, their quarrels put aside. The two Hobbit films are slated for release in 2010 and 2011. Jackson, however, will be producing rather than directing them. Let's hope he's pro-active enough so the films will have the same feel and texture of The Lord of the Rings.

The Hobbit really doesn't merit two films (it could easily be done in a single two-and-a-half hour installment), and the story isn't a fifth as profound as Lord of the Rings (being an action-adventure for kids), but who's complaining? I'm looking forward to revisiting Middle-Earth on screen. And Bilbo has always been my favorite character, even if Frodo got the better story.

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Slackers Unite

Slackers are traditionally defined as people who avoid work as much as possible. Lately the definition has been honed more precisely to refer to those who avoid excessive work and undue stress, and who are good at mastering the art of indifference in the workplace. Viewed in this light, the slacker is a model employee. You should want these people on your staff -- and you should want to be one yourself.

K. P. Springfield's The Five Habits of Highly Successful Slackers has become one of the greatest advocacies for "Slackism", which promotes stress-free and enjoyable careers. Against the common wisdom which urges passion and enthusiasm in the workplace, Springfield and others argue oppositely: passion is overrated, exhausting, and can be psychologically detrimental to both yourself and your co-workers. Bob Sutton's The No Asshole Rule makes the same point: people often "care too much" in the workplace. You need to watch out for especially passionate and enthusiastic employees, because -- believe it or not -- they're often the assholes of your organization, and in turn easy victims of other assholes.

Take the following Slacker Quiz and see how well you score. Out of ten questions, I got 8 ½ right, so according to these graders I'm a pretty good slacker. Let's look at five of the questions: 1, 3, 4, 7, & 8.

1. When a co-worker who needs help comes to you with a question they are having problems with, and you know the answer, do you:

(A) Smile and say, "Sorry, I don't know the answer to that, but I think Swindla does!"
(B) Pretend you are on the telephone by striking up an artificial conversation with the dial tone and giving the person the "I'm on the phone" hand signal.
(C) Invite them into your office/cube, make some small talk, and then give them the correct answer.
(D) Give them the wrong answer and then anxiously wait to see what happens.

The answer is (C), and I agree. Slackism advises that "successful slackers always help their co-workers to help build a likability factor". And I would further point out that slackers have no reason to view their co-workers as competitors or adversaries. Slackers aren't insecure like that. Unless the person in question is a complete jerk, help the poor soul out when you have a moment to spare.

3. If you are in a situation where either a co-worker or a manager is trying to blame you for the failure of a project or other assignment, and you have proof that you are not to blame, do you:

(A) Go over that person's head and prove with the information that you are innocent.
(B) Send the accuser an email with a subject line that says "Herpes Test Results" while they are in a large meeting with their computer screen on a projector.
(C) Sit down with the individual and try to work out the conflict.
(D) Take the evidence, throw it up in the air and say "Whatever!"

The answer is (D), and again I agree. "Slackers never stick up for what they think is right, because in the corporate world it doesn't matter who is right. Do nothing and let events play out how they may." I wish more people could warm to this wisdom! Let people think whatever they want about you. You know the truth about yourself, and that's all that really matters, right? Yes, that's more easily said than done, but getting defensive over stuff like this will only make you a victim of your own personality in the long run.

(C) might sound like the "mature" answer, but don't kid yourself. People who like to fingerpoint and assess blame usually aren't worth the effort. They tend to be insecure types with poor self-images and thus enjoy seeing others get in trouble. Trying to work through conflict with them only gives them the attention they crave but don't deserve. Indifference is the sure way to go here.

4. When a co-worker has an "action required" item that they urgently present you with, do you:

(A) Ignore it and hope it goes away.
(B) Get the action completed immediately because it is required.
(C) Respond immediately saying that you are on it, but then do nothing until they follow up asking for an update, apologize profusely, and still do nothing.
(D) Tell the co-worker that particular responsibility is not in your job description.

The answer is (C) -- "The successful slacker never completes the task until three requests have been made" -- but I'm afraid I take issue with it. (This was the one question I got "wrong".) I follow this wisdom only in cases of someone I have no respect for or whose requests I consider silly. For the most part I actually prefer (B). After all, I do like helping most people, and I do believe in doing my job. I follow (D) if the task clearly isn't my job, but at the same time I don't like to be anal about the issue. Sticking slavishly to job descriptions can actually go against the slacker's natural tendency to be indifferent about things which aren't worth making a fuss over (see more about this in 7, below).

7. While interviewing candidates for a job, you discover that the interviewee is a potential successful slacker, do you:

(A) Show them the door immediately, you don't need another successful slacker impeding on your established territory.
(B) Ask them a lot of questions to see how qualified they are in successful slacking, and then hire them if they look to be Grade A material.
(C) In the middle of the interview, tell them you have to "take a dump", leave the room, laugh hysterically at yourself, and then spy in the window to see what their reaction is.
(D) None of the above.

The answer is (B), and I definitely agree. Strange as this sounds, when I'm interviewing someone and sense an overabundance of passion, a red flag goes up. These are often the people who will give other employees ulcers, act like pests, and drive you crazy. They can be whiners or loose canons; busybodies or gossip mongers. They question everything, and second-guess everyone -- even about matters which don't concern them. They see problems wherever they look, and love to piss-and-moan about them. They exhaust and demoralize other employees with their unchecked passion.

This isn't to say you want an apathetic employee. Slackism isn't apathy. Apathetic people have little to no interest in any job and shouldn't be hired. They're completely indifferent and don't care at all. Slackers care, but they care in moderation. They pick and choose their battles carefully -- and rarely. They practice the virtue of indifference not because they "don't care about anything", but because they recognize that most things aren't worth stewing over. They argue their points, but concede defeat when overruled by superiors without letting it bother them. They realize that life is too short to be anxious and bitter all the time about little things at work. They get a life and remove the workplace from their emotional center. Bob Sutton best defines the virtue of indifference as that of emotional detachment.

8. You find out that your manager is having an extramarital affair with a co-worker that is inappropriate and could be viewed as a clear HR violation, do you:

(A) Tattle to HR right away like a 2 year old goody-two-shoes.
(B) Inform them that you are aware of their misconduct but will keep it a secret.
(C) Don't say anything and keep it up your sleeve so that it can be used for blackmail purposes at the right time.
(D) Spread gossip around the entire group about a gross over-exaggeration of the truth including a reference to hyena sex using bananas.

The answer is (C), but I only agree with the first part (and so get half-credit). I mean really, blackmail should be beneath a slacker. As far as I'm concerned, true slackers just don't care about dirt like this. It's beneath their notice. They mind their business and are happy to do so.

Lesson learned from all of this? Emulate the slacker. Turn down your passion, up your indifference... and lighten up in the workplace. You'll find yourself going home happy and healthy for a change.

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Gentile Dogs and Hallucinating Exegetes

I want to call attention to Mark Nanos' important essay, "Paul's Reversal of Jews Calling Gentiles 'Dogs' (Philippians 3:2): 1600 Years of an Ideological Tale Wagging an Exegetical Dog?", just put up on his website. Nanos opposes the common idea that Paul is reversing a supposed Judean invective against Gentiles in Philip 3:2 by calling his opponents "dogs". Furthermore, Nanos doesn't think Paul's opponents are Judean in any case. They represent, rather, "some kind of pagan entity or threat" (p 8).

The first part of the argument is so strong it can be deemed conclusive. Nanos points out that the only place we can find a Judean equating Gentiles with dogs is in Mk 7:24-30/Mt 15:21-28 -- the case of Jesus and the Syrophoenician woman (or Canaanite woman in Matthew) -- and the gospels postdate Paul. But even if historical, this is a single text on which many commentators have rested an incredibly strong assumption, that Judeans often equated pagans with dogs. Going through the Hebrew Bible, Nanos shows that there are in fact no texts -- none at all -- which denounce Gentiles as dogs for being Gentile. "Dog" was a general insult used to put down rivals, sinners, and fools -- and in most cases against other Israelites (see p 12). In the few cases where an Israelite calls a pagan a dog (I Sam 17:43; II Kings 8:7-13), it's not for being a pagan, but for being typically hostile, foolish, servile, or whatever (pp 12-13). There is no literary evidence predating Paul that points to the apostle using a "reversal of invective" in Philip 3:2. Even the later rabbinical texts have been overblown regarding "dog" insults (see pp 14-18).

The second part isn't quite as convincing. Nanos argues that in warning the Philippians to "beware dogs" Paul was expressing opposition to "pagan alternatives" rather than Judean circumcision. I think we need to look at Philip 3:2-11 comprehensively:

"Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of those who mutilate the flesh. For it is we who are the circumcision, who worship in the spirit of God and boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh -- even though I too have reason for confidence in the flesh.

"If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, a Hebrew born of Hebrews... [etc]

"Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as a loss because of Christ. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as shit, in order that I may gain Christ... [etc]"

This is Nanos' commentary on the first part:

"Note that Paul does not write what commentators universally read, that is, he does not write that 'we are the true circumcision', 'the circumcision of the heart', 'the spiritual circumcision', or some such thing [as he does in Rom 2:28-29]. By writing 'we are the circumcision', he emphasizes the contrast between circumcision identity and identity associated with other kinds of the flesh... The contrast is with the uncircumcised, the pagan world of the addressees, about which Paul is expressing a specifically Jewish -- i.e. circumcision-oriented -- point of view. Rather than warning his audience to beware of Jews or the values of Judaism, the opposite is the case: Paul is warning his audience to eschew the pagan options to which they might be expected to be drawn, or from which they are encountering opposition." (pp 29-30)

Nanos is right that Paul doesn't explicitly qualify "circumcision" with the word "true" or "spiritual" in Philip 3:2. Many bible translations do supply the qualifier "true" and they are wrong to do so. But the qualifier is implied just the same. Paul's point is much like in Rom 2:28-29 (where the qualifier is made explicit). Otherwise the rest of Philip 3:2-11 makes no sense. If Nanos were right, Paul would essentially be saying as follows:

"(A) Beware of those pagan mutilators. For it is we circumcised Judeans who are righteous (B) and have no confidence in the flesh, even though I have every reason to be to confident in the flesh. I was circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the house of Israel. But I have come to regard this as shit for the sake of Christ."

But that's a non-sequitur. (B) doesn't follow from (A). Paul can only be saying:

"Beware of the Judean mutilators (circumcisers). For it is we spiritually circumcised Judeans and Gentiles who are righteous and have no confidence in the flesh, even though I have every reason to be confident in the flesh. I was circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the house of Israel. But I have come to regard this as shit for the sake of Christ."

That makes perfect sense and squares with Paul's explicit remarks about "spiritual circumcision" elsewhere.

So I think Nanos if half right. Judeans were not in the habit of equating Gentiles with dogs, and so Paul could not have been reversing a standard invective in Philip 3. But he was insulting Judeans just the same. He was using a common insult ("dogs") that wasn't usually associated with any particular group of people, and doing so quite offensively in a polemical passage against Judean advocates for circumcision.

By the same token, I think Nanos is half right about the "shameless hussy" text of Mk 7:24-30/Mt 15:21-28. It's not just the only possible place where a Judean (Galilean) equates Gentiles with dogs -- it's a definite place where it happens. Nanos suggests that Jesus' insult could be an interpolitical one which doesn't target Gentiles per se (pp 19-24), but I don't see it. I think Jesus is clearly scorning the woman as a Gentile dog, to which the woman embraces the insult and bests Jesus at his own game. If the account is historical, it shows that Jesus was offensive on his own right. Neither he nor Paul needed precedent for their insults.

Be sure to read the paper. Nanos is one of the best Pauline scholars for thinking outside the box in important ways.

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Paul and Empire

With thanks to Jeffrey Gibson on Corpus Paulinum, the recording of the recent SBL discussion between John Barclay and Tom Wright on "Paul and Empire" can be downloaded in two parts on Andy Rowell's blog. Barclay argues that Paul didn't care much about the Roman Empire, while Wright holds his ground with a political Paul.

Barclay is pretty impressive here, and I have to agree that arguments for a political Paul have been a bit overblown for the sake of modern relevance. But I do wish Barclay had engaged Richard Horsley in addition to Wright, because Horsley's case for an anti-imperial Paul is probably the best available.

But as I say, I admit that people like Horsley and Wright are pushing political agendas too strongly. Yes, Paul hated the Roman empire, but he certainly wasn't using hidden transcripts (codes) in his private letters to churches. As Barclay points out, hidden transcripts are used more by underdogs like Jesus and when speaking publicly, especially when in earshot of landlords, elites, and other authorities.

I have argued, for instance, that Jesus' "Render to Caesar" statement was a hidden transcript: a veiled way of saying that Caesar's taxes were unlawful, but should be payed "with contempt" since God was about to deal with Rome himself. But Paul's statements about taxation are more straightforward. He encourages counter-cultural behavior (Rom 12:1-21) except when it jeopardizes the Christian movement (Rom 13:1-7). In the latter case (tax evasion) he counsels obedience to Rome -- promising that God's kingdom is "nearer than ever before" (Rom 13:11) and Christians won't have to wait long for the beast to be crushed. Paul was no friend of the empire, but there is no code or hidden transcript here. Like a good Pharisee he tells people to be subject to Caesar's taxes, to respect and honor the emperor on this point. Jesus, in his shaming strategy with the denarius coin, was underscoring the illegitimacy of Caesar's taxes. Both Jesus and Paul were apocalyptics who counted on God to wipe out the kingdoms of men, but Paul had less political bite than his savior. He advised paying taxes not with contempt, but with the respect due authorities.

Be sure to listen to the lively interchange between Barclay and Wright. I didn't attend the SBL meeting, but this must have been one of the best discussions.

UPDATE: Mark Goodacre says that Barclay and Wright were indeed the "academic highlight of the conference". Mark is completely on Barclay's side and not impressed with Wright's rejoinder. I too liked Barclay's quip about the naked emperor, but even more the jibe that Wright has been hallucinating.

UPDATE (II): Michael Pahl thinks that "Barclay has overstated his case by undervaluing the evidence, while Wright has overstated his case by overvaluing the significance of the evidence".

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Rating the Popes: Inferno

The vicars of Christ are a colorful bunch. Some were scoundrels, others unfairly maligned, and a few even earned their sainthood. In a trio of posts I'm going to do my own Divine Comedy: the seven worst popes (Inferno), the seven most maligned (Purgatorio), and the seven best (Paradiso).

We'll start with the Inferno. As in Dante's classic, it's the most fun and prolific part. There are a lot of "bad popes" lists on the web and in print, and we'll consider a few here.

A recent list I enjoyed was Ryan Moore's Five Biggest Badass Popes though it includes a couple of peculiar choices. Moore rightly puts Alexander VI (1492-1503) at the top. (What wasn't offensive about this guy?) But Pius II (1458-1464) is a curious choice (awarded a slot on account of his association with the historical Dracula, Vlad III Tepes). And Honorious III (1216-1227) actually makes the cut for being too pious (summoning demons to challenge himself and keep himself free of temptation, don't you love it). I applaud the inclusion of Stephen VI (896-897) (so zealously self-righteous that he dug up the corpse of his predecessor and set it on a throne to face trial for perjury and coveting the papacy -- the infamous Cadaver Synod). Finally, Sergius III (897,904-911) caps off the list as the only pope to be removed from office then later take it back (and for murdering many, including his predecessor).

Isabella Snow offers her own opinion of the Five Worst Popes Ever, but on the basis of the single criterion of sexual immorality. It's hard to take this list too seriously, though it's entertaining. The offending shaggers are John XII (955-964) (who was admittedly pretty bad), John XIII (965-972) (a lot like his father), Benedict IX (1032-1045) (became pope at the age of 12 and developed an affinity for animals), Clement VI (1342-1352) (so obsessed with sex he talked about it in his sermons), and Paul III (1534-1549) (habitually violated his daughter).

Russell Chamberlin, in The Bad Popes, singles out eight vicars for special indictment: Stephen VI (896-897) (on Moore's list above), John XII (955-964) (on Snow's list above), Benedict IX (1032-1045) (also on Snow's list), Boniface VIII (1294-1303) (the notorious pope consigned to Dante's Inferno, who pushed papal supremacy to an extreme and commissioned countless statues of himself), Urban VI (1378-1389) (who tortured his rival cardinals, and complained that he couldn't hear them screaming loudly enough), Alexander VI (1492-1503) (of course), Leo X (1513-1521) (a spendthrift), and Clement VII (1523-1534) (whose incompetence got Rome sacked).

The most comprehensive ratings of the popes can be found in the appendix of Richard McBrien's Lives of the Popes. McBrien lists 24 baddies, many of whom are included on the above lists, but a lot more post-Reformation popes. I was glad to see the modern Pius X (1903-1914) indicted (despite being canonized a saint) for his crusade against biblical scholars. Scholarship may not have been much to brag about at the dawn of the twentieth century (Schweitzer saw that better than anyone), but Pius' anti-intellectual paranoia set the Catholic church back with a vengeance.

These are all good lists, but if I could put only five popes in hell, I'd have to go with the following:

1. Alexander VI (1492-1503) for, well, everything: buying the papacy, taking nepotism to new heights, letting murder and rape go unpunished, arranging mass orgies, and for all practical purposes adopting a greedy secular life, profiting by any means necessary. No suprise the Reformation followed hot on his heels.

2. Pius X (1903-1914) for anti-intellectualism, and his crusade against theologians and biblical scholars. He may have been a spiritual man (and canonized a saint for it), but didn't deserve it; he opposed freedom of conscience with a vengeance.

3. John XII (955-964) for unbridled hedonism, adultery, rape, and incest. Though I'm usually not one to lambaste someone for sexual immorality, this guy was pretty horrible. He died in the bed of a married woman, no surprise.

4. Urban VI (1378-1389) for abusive rage, sadism and torture (he complained that he couldn't hear his victims screaming loudly enough), and causing the Great Western Schism. His arrogance knew no bounds -- he even turned on those who elected him.

5. Leo XII (1823-1829) for censorship, anti-Semitism, and his crusade against medical progress. Nothing like stifling free thought, confining Jews to ghettos, and denying vaccines to people. Leo had some problems.

That's my papal Inferno. Next we'll consider the most unjustly maligned popes (which will have to suffice for "Purgatory"), and then afterwards the best vicars who surely rest in the bosom of the Lord.

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Are we Q-less?

Catch the Q-buzz in the blogosphere if you haven't already. Mark Goodacre gives a roundup, listing contributions from himself, James McGrath, Stephen Carlson, Rick Sumner, and Doug Chaplin. I'm dreaming of a Q-less Christmas, but it won't happen this year.

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The Strange Things That Please God

According to poet and critic Glenn Arbery, The Iliad is the measure of all literature in the Western canon -- but God's favorite too:

"Of all the poems in the history of the West, actual scripture aside, but including The Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost, and all the devotional lyrics ever written, God loves the Iliad the most. I should write this with the deflecting irony that such a statement needs: the poem is after all pagan and violent, full of wrath and terrible pride and mayhem and shameless deception by the gods. But no matter what arguments the lifted eyebrow might muster, I know about the Iliad what the Scottish missionary in Chariots of Fire knew about the fact that he was a great runner. He tells his sister that the same God who made him a missionary also made him fast, 'and when I run,' he says, 'I feel His pleasure'.

"When I even think of the serious, unsparing world of honor and anguish and beauty that the Iliad brings before the imagination, I feel God's pleasure: not the tepid blessing of the sentimental Smiling Jesus that Flannery O'Connor's wonderful tattoo-covered prophet O.E. Parker finds in the recent section of the religious catalogue, but the stern approbation of the iconic Byzantine Christ, Son of Yahweh Sabaoth, the Lord of Hosts, the God who accepts Abel's blood sacrifice and the smoke of the flesh burning on the altar, because they signify the righteous and obedient heart." (Why Literature Matters, p 151)

Arbery's viewpoint is Christian, but before that poetic; you don't have to be religious to appreciate it. Homer portrayed the heroic ideal in terms of war, wrath, and bloody savagery, yet the Iliad is ultimately about the restoration of humanity's civilized values through an act of mercy: Achilles, compelled by the gods, gives the corpse of his enemy Hector to Priam. Ironically, Achilles own death isn't "for" the gods but "by" the gods, and his death sustains the dignity of life in binding the immortals to the speech of men. As far as I'm concerned, Arbery is right. It's easier to feel God's pleasure (assuming his existence) in the pagan Iliad than, say, the horribly stale Pilgrim's Progress.

Arbery's feelings for the Iliad were much my own for Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ when I saw it in the theater three and a half years ago, and revisited last night on DVD. Though it leaves you feeling pulverized, Passion takes you into the eye of that same paradox where wrath and mercy, retribution and forgiveness, become as one. As in Homer, so in the gospel drama: savagery tied to an act of mercy, a brutal and shameful death underscoring the dignity of life even more. Many critics think Gibson's Passion says horrible things about God, and that the medieval Catholic vision amounts to torture porn. But would these critics say the same thing about the Iliad if it were graphically realized on screen? I doubt it. I think modern feelings about Christianity, the Catholic Church -- not to mention Gibson himself -- get in the way of appreciating Passion for the achievement it is.

Arbery sees no more contradiction in the Iliad being "blessed" by God than Tolkien did his own Lord of the Rings. Both epics are pagan (though Tolkien's intentionally pre-Christian), presenting "a broken world, fallen, and savage, but capable of noble formality and tender mercies; groaning ceaslessly for redemption but without undue self-pity" (ibid, pp 151-152). Perhaps it's in the violent chaos of yearning for something better -- to which the Passion comes as a climax -- that "God's pleasure" runs through these sagas. For in an unredeemed world, the hopeless struggle against evil allows heroes to attain a virtue unparalleled in later Christianity. They're doomed to fail and they know it, but carry on anyway. How could God fail to be moved by such noble tragedy? Give me Frodo and Achilles any day. The Passion may have healed a crippled world, but it also put an end to a "beautiful savagery" which demanded more of people.

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Biblical Studies Carnival XXIII

The twenty-third Biblical Studies Carnival is up on John Hobbins' Ancient Hebrew Poetry.

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Phil Harland Puts Things to Rest: The "Judean" is Here to Stay

Phil Harland deserves a gold star, calling attention to an article by Steve Mason, "Jews, Judaeans, Judaizing, Judaism: Problems of Categorization in Ancient History," The Journal for the Study of Judaism 38 (2007) 457-512. In Phil's view, it puts to rest debate over the correct translation of Ioudaios -- meaning people had best start getting comfortable using "Judean" in place of "Jew" for the 2nd-Temple period.

"Mason builds his argument in three stages. First (pp. 457-480), he deals with the relatively rare ancient terms ἰουδαίζω (verb) / Ἰουδαισμός (noun), which have often been erroneously translated as referring to "Judaism" as a system of belief and practice, rather than to the practice of adopting the ways of a particular ethnic group...

"Second (pp. 480-488), Mason goes on to show how some scholars continue to uncritically employ the concept of 'religion' in studies of ancient Judean culture. In particular, theories by Shaye Cohen and others that propose a shift in the meaning of Ioudaioi from an originally ethnic-geographic category (i.e. 'Judean') to a religious category ('Jew') are built on problematic notions regarding the category of 'religion'. Mason emphasizes that what we as moderns think of as 'religion' was, in fact, not known in antiquity and also intersects or envelopes at least six different categories that were familiar to the ancients (ethnos, cult, philosophy, familial rites of passage, associations, and astrology / magic)...

"Third (pp. 489-512), Mason argues that the Ioudaioi / Iudaei 'of Graeco-Roman antiquity understood themselves, and were understood by outsiders, as an ἔθνος, a people comparable to and contrastable with other ἔθνη'. Ancient authors including Strabo, Posidonius, Tacitus, Philo, and Josephus consistently speak of Ioudaioi in terms of them being an ethnos, a people or ethnic group. Here Mason also deals with common objections to the use of 'Judeans' to translate Ioudaioi, (p. 489)...

"This article, in my mind, has put this question to rest. It is time to speak of 'Judeans', 'Judean practices', and 'Judean culture' in the same way that we would speak of the identity and practices of the many other ethnic groups or peoples that existed in antiquity. The Judeans of antiquity are not a special case."

Bravo, Phil. You're certainly preaching to the choir on this end. I only wish the matter was so easily put to rest!

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Amy-Jill Levine Critiques Esler and Elliott on the Use of "Judean"

It's been a while since I read Amy-Jill Levine's The Misunderstood Jew (see here), and can't believe I forgot her critique of Esler and Elliott who insist on using "Judean" instead of "Jew" when discussing the 2nd-Temple period. It's found on pp 159-166 of the book. Let's consider it.

Levine warns that replacing "Jew" with "Judean" in the New Testament leads to "a Judenrein ('Jew-free') text, a text purified of Jews" (p 160) which feeds neo-Nazi fantasies. Recounting a skinhead who interrupted one of her public presentations, she insists on "the need for the church to recover Jesus as a Jew" (p 161) to fend off dangerous crackpots. She's completely candid about her agenda being driven by political as much as historical concerns (ibid), but in my view, you can't mix the two at the same time. The former precedes the latter. The historical-critical task should be engaged without fear of potential abuse, and only after should we worry about building bridges with today's world.

To be fair, and as I noted in my first post on the subject, Philip Esler does the same thing on the other side of the debate, insisting that it is actually the term "Jew" itself which is so dangerous: it "encourages the anti-Semitic notion of 'the eternal Jew' who, it is alleged, killed Christ and is still around, to be persecuted if possible" (Conflict and Identity in Romans, p 63; noted also by Levine in her book, p 160). And of course, if Jesus' foes in the gospels are understood as Judeans rather than Jews, it dilutes the gospels' inherent anti-Semitism. But this almost amounts to an apologetic trick.

I think Esler and Levine are playing the same game by invoking political concerns about anti-Semitism -- making each other potentially unwitting allies of neo-Nazism. I happen to think they're both right (the use of either "Jew" or "Judean" in NT studies can be pressed into anti-Semitic service, and indeed each has), but also both irrelevant. We shouldn't be basing our historical assessments on how such assessments might (will) be abused. If we did that, we could never practice the scientific method with integrity. We should decide whether "Jew" or "Judean" is the proper term based solely on historical concerns, and then leave the political worries to theologians, pastors, and other responsible teachers.

Of course, Esler and Levine also offer historical reasons for their term of choice, and as I've made plain in many blogposts, I think Esler and Elliott are on the stronger ground: "Judean" is the better term for Ioudaios; Judeans should be distinguished from later Jews. I don't accept Levine's repeated insistence that "continuity outweighs discontinuity" (p 162) when comparing the 2nd-Temple period to the rabbinic one. This completely undermines the territorial relationship the chosen people had with land and temple prior to the latter's destruction. There is continuity, to be sure, just as there is continuity between pre-exilic Israel and post-exilic Judah. But we don't refer to the earliest Israelites as Jews. Nor should we call the Judeans such. On top of this, "Judean" is the more elastic term befitting the time period when geography and ethnicity could blur or not, depending on context. As such it's more useful, even if at first confusing.

I do agree with Levine that portraits of "Jesus the Jew" have erased a lot of damage done in the realms of theology and politics. But as Bill Arnal's trenchant analysis shows, they have also played into contemporary agendas where historical concerns take a back seat. It is perfectly possible to speak of Jesus as a Judean (or better, a Galilean Israelite) and avoid the political spectre of anti-Semitism. And since it's historically accurate, we should do just that.

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Jeffery's Reply to Brown

If you waded through Scott Brown's lengthy RBL review about Secret Mark, you'll want to read Peter Jeffery's reply. It isn't finished yet ("to be continued as I have time", says Jeffery), but off to a tantalizing start:

"Where [Brown's review] gets into problems, I think, is in its tendency to miss the big picture, ignoring the main thrust of some of my arguments for the sake of scrutinizing the fine points. He does this for the best of reasons, of course, because he's trying to engage honestly and fully with what I wrote. Brown is not the sort who invents straw men or puts words in your mouth, fortunately. And he's absolutely right that the minutiae matter. An argument not built up from small facts is resting on thin air. But when you're testing a foundation, it's a good idea to look up once in a while, to get a sense of the entire building."

Be sure to read it. I'll post more as it unfolds.

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The Death of Debate about the Death of the Author

One of my favorite critiques of postmodern foolishness is in Philip Esler's New Testament Theology, which blasts "death-of-the-author" agendas to smithereens. But a shorter and sweeter rebuttal comes from fantasy novelist Stephen R. Donaldson. From the Gradual Interview (2/23/04) on his website:

Q: "What do you think of the postmodern movement to 'reject the author's message'? I read that a lot of writers now expect readers to read their own interpretation into a text. Is this necessarily a bad thing, that the message can be ignored or missed?"

A: "Here's what I think: there's less to this than meets the eye. Reading is an interactive process. Readers have always supplied their own interpretations of what they read. In my case, the issue is simple: I've never had a 'message' I wanted to communicate (impose on the reader), so rejecting my message should be effortless. (I'm a storyteller, not a polemicist. As such, my only mission is to help my readers understand my characters and appreciate what those poor sods are going through.) In general, however, one might say that the task of any writer is to communicate his/her intentions so clearly that the reader will -- as it were spontaneously -- arrive at the appropriate interpretation. And if that task has been accomplished, what would be the point of rejecting the author's message?"

Trust a writer like Donaldson to render superfluous decades of scholary debate. I love it.

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Insanity at the Movies

Here's a list worth checking out: Shiznit's Top 20 Crazy Bastards in Cinema.

20. Frank Costello in The Departed
19. Garland Greene in Con Air
18. Billy Loomis and Stu Macher in Scream
17. Walter Sobchak in The Big Lebowski
16. Michael Myers in Halloween
15. Mr. Blonde in Reservoir Dogs
14. Martin Riggs in Lethal Weapon
13. Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now
12. Francis Begbie in Trainspotting
11. Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
10. Bruce Wayne in Batman
9. Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs
8. Ichi in Ichi the Killer
7. Tommy DeVito in Goodfellas
6. Gary Oldman, period
5. Don Logan in Sexy Beast
4. Frank Booth in Blue Velvet
3. Patrick Bateman in American Psycho
2. Norman Bates in Psycho
1. Jack Torrance in The Shining

See the link for selected video-clips. Five of these (9, 7, 5, 4, 1) are on my own top-20 Great Villains and Psychos amazon-list. Granted no two lists will be the same, I do think it's shortsighted of these raters to omit Max Cady from Cape Fear, Albert Spica from The Cook, the Thief, his Wife, and her Lover, John Doe from Seven, and Seth & Richie Gecko from From Dusk Till Dawn. (I'd readily drop Garland Greene, Martin Riggs, Bruce Wayne, and Gary Oldman in favor of these.) Against myself, I should definitely have included Francis Begbie.

Curious that these lists are indeed dominated by "bastards" (though note Hayley Stark from Hard Candy and Annie Wilkes from Misery on my list). We need more feminine crazies in film.

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DeConick on the Jerusalem Council

April DeConick asks how Gal 2 may be reconciled with Acts 15, without resorting to either artificial harmonization or torching Luke. We've tackled this subject before on the biblioblogs (see here for instance) and it's worth revisiting. Let's take April's points in turn.

1. The solution that Acts 15 never happened doesn't make sense of the fact that Luke knows about a decision (letter?) from James that resorts to Noahide laws, nor that these laws appear to have been known and observed by Christians as late as the third century. These laws have to have been instituted or invoked by someone somewhere in the first century in order to deal with the Gentile problem.

I agree that the apostolic decree is historical and dates to the first century, though not as early as Luke would have us believe. It may belong at Acts 18:22 (as Mark Goodacre suggests) or perhaps even later.

2. Paul's understanding of his meeting in Jerusalem recorded in Galatians 2 does not correspond to Acts 15, neither in terms of outcome or in terms of who was there and what was discussed. Trying to harmonize them results in apology, not history.

Yes. There's nothing worse than artificial harmonization on these questions. While Acts 15:1-29 (not Acts 11:27-30) is reporting basically the same event as Paul recounts in Gal 2:1-10, Luke isn't reporting everything as it really happened, nor even when it really happened.

3. If the decision of Acts 15 had been made prior to the Antiochean Affair, it doesn't make sense that the apostles would then begin a counter-mission to Paul after the Affair and demand circumcision of the Gentiles in the churches Paul missionizes.

No. This is the most common mistake made with the Antioch incident, and it boggles my mind that so many scholars cannot bring themselves to accept the obvious: Paul had extracted an agreement out of James and Peter (against the necessity of Gentile circumcision), which they in turn broke. I've written about this before and would emphasize there is nothing shocking about the pillars' treachery. It makes perfect sense in the agonistic milieu of the ancient Mediterranean; it's what we would expect from them. There is evidently a need on the part of many exegetes to reconstruct more harmony and equanimity in the early church than warranted. Why? For apologetic reasons? To make Paul appear less offensive than he was?

So... how can the Jerusalem Council best be explained given the evidence we have?

I think it can be accounted for rather easily. Bearing in mind that Luke goes out of his way to claim the support of Peter and James by reversing their historical roles (historically they were a lot more like Matthew than as portrayed in Acts), we have as follows: Gal 2:1-10 should be identified with Acts 15:1-29 (rather than Acts 11:27-30), but on the understanding that Luke offers a revisionist account in two important ways. First he brings the apostolic decree forward, conflating the circumcision question with later Noahide concerns. Second he smooths things over in general, portraying things far less controversial as they were. But it wasn't Christians with Pharisaical links who caused the trouble at Antioch (as he depicts in Acts 15:1,5), rather Peter and James (Gal 2:11-14) who broke their own agreement.

UPDATE: More from April, and see also Doug Chaplin.

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Gazing into the Well

By far the most popular sentiment in historical Jesus studies is the idea that a biographer sees his own reflection at the bottom of a well. Albert Schweitzer illustrated this with a vengeance, but he's actually not the one responsible for that metaphor -- which John Dominic Crossan later associated with a Robert Frost poem:

"Always wrong to the light, so never seeing,
Deeper down in the well than where the water
Gives me back in a shining surface picture
Me myself in the summer heaven, godlike,
Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs.
Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb,
I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,
Through the picture, a something white, uncertain,
Something more of the depths -- and then I lost it."
(For Once, then, Something)

It was George Tyrell, not Schweitzer, who used a similar metaphor soon after Schweitzer closed the curtains on the liberal quest for Jesus:

"The Christ that Adolf Harnack sees, looking back through nineteen centuries of Catholic darkness, is only the reflection of a liberal Protestant face, seen at the bottom of a deep well." (Christianity at the Crossroads, p 49)

Schweitzer may as well have written that, but he didn't. I didn't know that until I read John Poirier's essay in The Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus, called "Seeing What is There in Spite of Ourselves" (Vol 4, No 2, pp 127-138), made freely available at the Sage Journals website. Poirier focuses on John Dominic Crossan's misuse of the metaphor. According to Crossan:

"There is an oft-repeated and rather cheap gibe that historical Jesus researchers are simply looking down a deep well and seeing their own reflections from below. I call it cheap because those who use it against others seldom apply it to themselves. Second, it is almost impossible to imagine a reconstruction that could not be dismissed by the assertion of that gibe...What could anyone ever say that would not fall under that ban?" (The Birth of Christianity, p 41)

But I say that's cheap postmodernism. Poirier describes the evolution of the well-gazing metaphor as follows:

"Tyrrell's well gazer, as a figure for Harnack and company, sees nothing beyond the reflection of his own face. (That is, he sees nothing of the true historical Jesus but rather renders Jesus in his own image.) Frost's well gazer, on the other hand, is more cautious in his claim but successful (albeit marginally) in his attempt to see 'something more of the depths'. Yet Tyrrell and Frost share an important element that sets them apart from Crossan: they intend to limit the analogue to their well gazer to a particular person or group, while Crossan uses the well gazer to describe what he considers a universal condition." ("Seeing What Is There In Spite of Ourselves", p 128)

In other words, Frost held out some hope for seeing beyond one's reflection, Tyrell not so much -- though at least he saved his indictment for those who deserved it. Crossan thinks everyone is equally guilty, and as Poirier shows, this misrepresents Frost as portraying an unavoidable and universal condition. But perhaps this isn't suprising, since Crossan is one of the worst offenders in writing autobiography. His portait of Jesus the egalitarian cynic tells plenty about himself and next-to-nothing about the historical prophet. In the above citation, Crossan tries bringing everyone under the ambit of his crime (which he sees as no crime at all), but as we should know by now, some biographers are more objective than others. E.P. Sanders is not a well-gazer, whatever his faults are. Complete objectivity is never possible, but it's the goal to strive for as best we can.

I'm with Poirier: let's not take Robert Frost's name in vain. The well-gazing metaphor is a great one (and can certainly be applied to someone like Crossan) but should be used judiciously. Let's be sure we have the right historians in our sights when we use it, and let's recognize that it's certainly possible to overcome our subjective inclinations in studying figures of the past.

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Biblical Studies Carnival XXII

The twenty-second Biblical Studies Carnival is up on Tim Bulkeley's Sansblog.

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Research Notes on I Peter

I am pleased to see Torrey Seland's new blog which focuses on the underrated epistle of I Peter. (And it's nice to know that Torrey has other interests besides Philo!)

Torrey mentions Jack Elliott's new book, Conflict, Community, and Honor: I Peter in Social Science Perspective, which I'll have to put at the top of my reading list since Elliott is the top authority on I Peter. Torrey notes that, "strangely enough, Elliott does not substitute 'Jews' with 'Judeans'", despite having been the leading crusader for doing this. I wonder why.

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RBL Review of Peter Jeffery

As noted by Mark Goodacre and Stephen Carlson, there is an extraordinarily lengthy RBL review (almost 50 pages instead of the usual 3-4) of Peter Jeffery's indictment of Morton Smith:

Peter Jeffery
The Secret Gospel of Mark Unveiled
Reviewed by Scott Brown

Brown protests too much in the space of 47 pages (has there ever been an RBL review even a fraction this long?), with overstatements noted by Stephen, and I think the review sinks his ship even further. The cases made by Stephen Carlson and Peter Jeffery are so conclusive, in my view, and need virtually no defending at this point. (See my reviews of Carlson and Brown and Jeffery.) Someone in Brown's awkward position can either concede defeat or go on fighting, and it's clear by now that he isn't going to have the grace to do the former.

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Luther's Trap

Aside from mistranslating Ioudaios as "Jew" in the New Testament, the most pervasive scholarly mistake is probably Luther's trap in Rom 14:1-15:6, defined by Mark Nanos:

"Luther recognized that Paul was clearly instructing the 'strong' not to judge the opinions of the 'weak'; however, Luther tripped into the very trap of judging them and then read this judgment as Paul's. That is, Luther was tripped by the faulty assumption (1), that the 'weak' were Christian Jews, into the trap of assumption (2) with its inherent, inescapable contradiction wherein he indulges in the very same kind of judging Paul warned the 'strong' (which Luther considered himself) to avoid." (The Mystery of Romans, p 92)

Nanos then proceeds to demonstrate why the "weak in faith" in Rome were non-Christian Judeans rather than Christian Judeans.

*Note: From this day foreward, in the wake of Elliott's essay, I will be religiously using "Judean" instead of "Jew", the latter only when citing others (as above).

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Is Hector Avalos Right?

In The End of Biblical Studies, Hector Avalos argues that the bible is too irrelevant to take seriously. If the routes taken to this blog are any indication, maybe he's right. Here are my three blogposts which get the most visits, none of which pertain to The Busybody's biblical focus:

Fatal Revenant
The 25 Most Controversial Movies of all Time
Pedophilia and Ephebophilia

Never mind the bible: people want fantasy, scandalous film, and young flesh (or perhaps a combination of all three). Come to think of it, the bible has plenty of this stuff -- fantasy, controversial themes and imagery, low ages of consent -- so what's the problem? Maybe the bible is pretty relevant after all.

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Jesus the Israelite: Questions of Anti-Semitism

After a stimulating Crosstalk discussion and blogpost in which I push for dropping the terms "Jew", "Jewish", and "Judaism" in Jesus' time, it's worth addressing the specter of anti-Semitism. Jim West wrote:

"I wonder - as an aside - why Loren seems to want to drive a wedge between Jesus and Judaism. If I have misunderstood his intention I apologize. But it seems that the discussion so far is trending in that direction and so it sounds very similar to the debates about the Jewishness of Jesus in the 20's and 30's."

And Rebecca Lesses says to me:

"You should be aware that at least to me, you're beginning to sound like the bad old days in the study of the New Testament, when scholars did their best to divorce Jesus from Judaism, in order to make him look so much better than the 'legalistic', 'dessicated' caricature they drew of current-day Judaism."

On the one hand it's hard for me to take these accusations seriously, since I've combatted anti-Semitic caricatures as much as anyone -- not only on this blog but on various academic list-serves. E. P. Sanders has put legalism to rest. No one is using Judaism as an implicit foil by denying that it existed in the second Temple period. The above reactions are actually part of the problem here, because when people associate the arguments of Elliott and Esler with antiquated Lutheran scholarship, it shows how much we've come to lean on the crutch of a supposed "Jewishness" for fear that we're automatically siding with dated paradigms. But you don't need a non-existent Jewishness to avoid these pitfalls.

And I should be clear on another point. I make no assumptions that Jesus' way of being a Galilean Israelite was inherently better than (say) a Pharisee's way of being a Judean Israelite. Good guy/bad guy contrasts have no more place in an historical discussion than do foils and false starts. This is one point where I agree with April DeConick, who warns against portraits of "Jesus the 'good' Israelite from the north revolting against the 'bad' [Judeans] of the south". But that's not where I see scholars like Elliott and Esler going, and it's certainly not where I am in any case.

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Quote for the Day: "Words That Make Us Lie"

Donald Akenson -- ever known for his sweetness and tact -- has the following to say about using "Jew" in a pre-70 context (Saint Saul: A Skeleton Key to the Historical Jesus, pp 55, 61-62):

"Language teachers sometimes refer to 'false-friends', words that are familiar in one language, but which, when they are found in another tongue, mean something entirely different. Unfortunately, the present-day vocabularies of the Jewish and the Christian faiths are so full of false-friends that they almost seem designed to lead us astray. We need to guard ourselves against words that give false continuity...

"Two pivotal words that we will not use to refer to the historical situation before 70 CE are: 'Christianity' and 'Judaism', and their derivative forms 'Christian', 'Jew', and 'Jewish'. That is a very tough line indeed, but the reasons for it are dead-simple... Each of those sister faiths came into being as responses to the ancient world's equivalent of a nuclear explosion, the virtual levelling of the great Temple during the Roman-Jewish war of 66-73 CE... We cannot use 'Christian' or 'Jewish' to describe pre-70 groups, because doing so presupposes a false continuity which, in each case, will lead us to lie to ourselves."

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Jesus Was Neither Jewish Nor Christian

In Jew or Judean? I explained why I think "Jew" is a mistranslation in the New Testament. Chris Weimer rebutted in Jew or Judean Again, and we had a few rounds in comments. Now, coming from the current issue of The Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus, Jack Elliott confirms my convictions even more. Everyone should read his well-argued essay -- even if debates about nomenclature tend to wreck your digestion.

It's called "Jesus the Israelite was Neither a 'Jew' nor a 'Christian': On Correcting Misleading Nomenclature", JSHJ Vol 5.2, pp 119-154. Elliott discusses identification, insider and outsider language, the fact that Jesus is never called Ioudaios in the NT (save on three occasions, and by outsiders), that Ioudaios was understood in either a narrow regional sense or broader ethnic sense (depending on context) -- but in any case correctly translated as "Judean" and not "Jew", and the usage of Ioudaios in the Gospels, Acts, and letters of Paul. In the end, he outlines his "Resulting Picture" (pp 146-147):

(1) Jesus identified himself and his associates as Israelites, and his mission was directed to the House of Israel. He was identified by other Israelite insiders according to his Israelite family and lineage and by his place of birth and upbringing, Nazareth and Galilee. He was Yeshua bar Yoseph, an 'Israelite', a 'Galilean', a 'Nazarene from Nazareth of Galilee, but not a 'Judean' resident in Judea.

(2) Jesus never called himself a Ioudaios and was never designated as such by fellow Israelites. He was called, or thought of as, a Ioudaios only by non-Israelite outsiders whose terminology was consistent with Hellenistic and Roman practice, designating as 'Judean' all residents of Judea, together with all those connected to Judea by blood relations, Torah allegiance, patriotism, and loyalty to Judea, the holy city of Jerusalem and the Temple.

(3) His first followers were identified by fellow Israelites also as 'Galileans', 'Nazarenes', or members of 'the Way', but never as 'Judeans'.

(4) They too, like Jesus, viewed themselves as Israelites. They preferred 'Israel' and 'Israelite' as self-identifiers when speaking to the ingroup Israel and when addressing fellow disciples.

(5) Paul's usage is consistent with this pattern. He too prefers 'Israel' and 'Israelite' as self-identifiers in settings where Israelite Christ followers or Israelites outside the Christ movement are present. With an eye to the Israelite fellow believers who are in the audiences of his letters to the Philippians, the Corinthians, and the Romans, he identifies himself as an 'Israelite'. With an eye to his Gentile readers, on the other hand, he can also identify himself, as a concession to their nomenclature, as a Ioudaios.

So Jesus was no more Jewish than Christian. He was a Judean in the broad ethnic sense often used by Greco-Roman outsiders, but even better a Galilean Israelite from the insider perspective. With Elliott I'm concerned that we "agree to employ terms of identification and self-identification today that reflect, and are consistent with, the historical, social, and cultural situation and practice of Jesus and his early followers" (p 154). Sometimes we don't do this well: the tendency of some scholars to pluralize "Judaism" (and "Christianity") for the sake of emphasizing ancient diversity is unnecessary and patronizing. But erasing "Judaism" from the discussion, as revisionist as it sounds, is completely warranted.

UPDATE: April DeConick reacts strongly to Elliott's proposal, and there are some nice replies in comments (:)).

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Romans 7: The Last Word

As Michael Bird follows up with more thoughts on Rom 7, I too will wrap up yesterday's post in brief. Michael now acknowledges that the Adam interpretation has more going for it than he initially supposed, but this isn't good enough. Here's why his argument about Israel is misguided.

To suppose that "I" in Rom 7:7-25 refers to corporate Israel is no better than supposing that it refers to Paul himself. Israel had no more problem fulfilling the law than Paul did (Philip 3:4b-6). Israel has problems only in hindsight, compared to what the Spirit now offers. So Paul needs to convince Israel that the law actually leads to sin and death instead of life, and he can only do this by using examples of those who truly experienced the futility of trying to do the right thing. He thus draws on the examples of Adam (Rom 7:7-13) and Medea (Rom 7:14-25) to apply the argument to Israel and himself (Rom 7:1; "I"). But Israel is no more the example being illustrated than Paul is.

In other words, Paul is saying this: "Even though we Jews never had problems fulfilling the Torah, we were blissfully ignorant of what was really going on. The best that the law could offer is now available by an entirely different route, the Spirit, which shows us in hindsight that we never did in fact fulfill the Torah, that we only repeated the sin of Adam/Eve -- and indeed that we share more in common with the pagan than we were ever aware of."

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Biblical Studies Carnival XXI

The twenty-first Biblical Studies Carnival is up on Duane Smith's Abnormal Interests.

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What's the Problem with Adam?

Michael Bird has put up a nice post about Rom 7, and I agree with much of what he says: the rhetorical "I" is a speech-in-character reflecting the pre-Christian's plight under the law, understood retrospectively and for the first time ever, from the vantage point of faith. It's a hindsight perspective, in other words. Paul's actual experience under the law was positive. How often does Philip 3:4b-6 need mentioning after Stendahl?

But who exactly is the speech-in-character? Who is "I" in Rom 7:7-25? Is it no one in particular, Israel, Adam, or a Medea-like character out of Greco-Roman literature? Michael opts for Israel, while I say it's clearly the last two (Adam and Medea). Let's procede through Michael's post and see why.

Michael begins with the preliminary point:

What was the purpose of the giving of the law in the first place? In Romans 7, Paul sets out to answer this objection where he defends the giving of the law in redemptive-history.

It's worth noting that Paul took a crack at this question earlier in Gal 3:19-26, and with a different result. There he argued that God gave the law to consign people to sin so that they might subsequently be saved on the basis of faith. The law was an active agent confining people to sin so that they could be redeemed on another basis. But in Rom 7 the law is passive in its relationship to sin. (Thus Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People, pp 65-86, and Esler, Conflict and Identity in Romans, pp 230-231.) God now gives the law "unto life" (Rom 7:10), but his purpose is foiled by the power of sin. Sin consigns people to sin, against the will of God -- but again demanding the solution of faith.

In other words, Rom 7 is essentially about Paul exonerating God from perversity (though at the expense of his sovereignty), in order to assure the Jewish faction in Rome that the Torah is holy, and that God always acted for the good in dealing with Israel. This is the most important preliminary point to be made about Rom 7.

For it forces the original question even more: who does the "I" represent in Rom 7:7-25? If Paul is really talking about the law's purpose in salvation history -- as opposed to an individual's plight under it -- then who illustrates the imposed plight and why?

Michael answers:

[Rom 7] cannot refer to the pre-Christian Paul since we find no evidence that Paul was tormented by the gravity of his sin and anguished over his inability to find a gracious God. The pre-Christian Paul knew that atonement was available through the sacrificial system in the temple and, at any rate, in the letter to the Philippians he apparently regarded himself as 'blameless' not guilt stricken (Phil. 3.6).

Agreed. Paul was no Lutheran, Puritan, existentialist, or whatever kind of anguished soul-searcher we like to suppose.

Paul is not talking about post-conversion Christians in this section since the statement 'I am of the flesh, sold under sin' (Rom. 7.14) conflicts with what he says about Christians in Romans 6 where he declares that they have been freed from sin (Rom. 6.6-7, 17-18, 22).

Agreed.

Paul is not talking about Adam since Paul finished talking about Adam in Rom. 5.12-21 and it is hard to think of Adam as being under the Mosaic law... Paul is speaking in the first person as 'Israel'.

This baffles me. Paul is definitely talking about Adam in Rom 7:7-13, for Rom 5-8 is a unified argument. That Adam wasn't under the Torah is no obstacle here. Paul's point is that Israel's sin under the Torah replicates Adam's disobedience under the Edenic commandment. Look at all the parallels:

(a) Adam, "alive" and newly created, is placed in Eden (Gen. 2:7-9 ~ Rom 7:9) and (b) "commanded" by God not to eat of the tree of life (Gen. 2:16-17 ~ Rom 7:8-12), whereafter (c) the serpent "seizes opportunity" to further its own ends (Gen. 3:1-5 ~ Rom 7:8) and (d) Eve complains that she was "deceived" (Gen. 3:13 ~ Rom 7:11). God then (e) kills humanity, punishing it with mortality (Gen. 3:19,22-23 ~ Rom 7:11). (See Francis Watson, Paul, Judaism, and the Gentiles, pp 152-153.)

Rom 7:7-13 is saturated with the Genesis story and is a clear argument to the Jewish faction in Rome: Jewish behavior under the law replicates Adam/Eve's failure under the primal commandment in Eden, and thus sin continues to foil God's purpose, demanding a solution to salvation apart from the law. In effect, Paul refers to himself ("I") on the surface, and thus to other Jews by implication ("those who know the law", Rom 7:1), but he's really referring to Adam/Eve. His argument is exegetical, saying in effect that the Jewish plight under the law traces back to the horror of the fall.

In the next half of his argument, however, Paul draws on the common moral dilemma found in Greco-Roman literature and speaks, for the moment, as a pagan. Thomas Tobin (Paul's Rhetoric in its Contexts, pp 232-235) notes the following comparisons to Rom 7:14-25, especially Medea:

"I am conquered by evils. And I understand the deeds I am about to do are evil. But anger is greater than my resolves -- anger, the cause for mortals of the greatest evils." (Euripides, Medea 1077b-1080)

"But some strange power draws me against my will, and desire persuades me one way, and my mind another. I see the better and approve, but I follow the worse." (Ovid, Metamorphoses, 7:19-21)

Paul has assumed the role of a Medea-like character in order to portray Jewish behavior under the law as conforming to the dilemma often found in the Hellenized world -- again illustrating how useless the law has been against the power of sin. Again he refers to himself ("I") on the surface, and thus to other Jews by implication ("those who know the law", Rom 7:1), but he's really invoking an argument foreign to Jews who easily counted on the grace of God no matter how often they sinned.

And that is precisely the point. The Edenic commandment and pagan plight are invoked as analogies to drive home the hindsight perspective Paul is aiming for. Adam and Medea work wonders where Israel (as Michael supposes) can't possibly carry any punch, because Israel never really had a problem under the law (as Philip 3:4b-6 makes clear). Israel has a problem only in hindsight, and that hindsight can be appreciated only by calling on examples where the problem is real and acute.

UPDATE: Follow-up here.

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"There is silence all around..."

... at least on this blog lately. But like the Baptist, I'll appear without warning, and with ideas just as fiery and offensive, probably sometime after Labor Day. In the meantime, I'm taking a breather from biblical studies. Doctor Who has been demanding much of my attention in the past few weeks, and one does have to prioritize.

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Doctor Who: The Complete First, Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Seasons

Mark Goodacre and I have been gushing enthusiasm over the new Doctor Who series, and I think it's time I completely reviewed the four seasons. This is probably the longest post I've put up on this blog, an exercise in self-indulgence, and for fans of the classic series who are wondering if the new-Who lives up to all the hype. It does.

We'll start with Christopher Eccleston. He plays the manic and goofy ninth Doctor in season one (2005), taking us on exciting tours: historical adventures in the past, far-off trips to the future, alien invasions in the present. More lonely than his previous selves, he becomes attached to his human companion, Rose Tyler, who brings considerable emotion to the show and comes close to outshining even my all-time favorite, Sarah Jane Smith. Eccleston is fine in the role, though certainly not as impressive as other incarnations -- notably Jon Pertwee (#3), Tom Baker (#4), Sylvester McCoy (#7), David Tennant (#10), and the current Matt Smith (#11). We would have begun tiring of him after one season, so it's good that he went out strong when he was ahead.

Regenerating out of Eccleston's ash is David Tennant, the erratic and garrulous tenth Doctor. He's in seasons two, three, and four (2006-2008), and did three special episodes (in 2009) before going out with a literally explosive bang. This guy stepped into the role so effortlessly and did the unthinkable -- ousting Tom Baker as the most popular incarnation (I still say Baker reigns supreme, of course, but never mind). He took the show to unexpected heights, pushing the romantic chemistry with Rose to a deeper level (in season two), and even making the sacrifice of becoming human (in season three). Not since Tom Baker have we seen a Doctor who can rattle off dialogue a mile a minute so naturally. It's fun just listening to him.

Filling Tennant's shoes beyond anyone's expectations is Matt Smith, the eclectic eleventh Doctor who likes to wear bow-ties, gesticulate expressively, and shout "Geronimo!" He's most reminiscent of the Second and Fifth incarnations, but really his own animal, and definitely my favorite of the new series. There is literally not a false moment he ever has in portraying the Time Lord, and I hope he sticks around for at least another two seasons. With him we get a revamped TARDIS that almost looks magical -- most fitting for the fairy-tale theme of season five.

So Tennant and Smith are excellent, Eccleston okay, but their stories are equally strong, involving plenty of comedy, action, and -- best of all -- gothic horror. But there's also tragedy like we've never seen before, something I never thought would have a place in Doctor Who. Thanks largely to Billie Piper (who plays Rose in seasons one and two), the show is able to offer what I think good TV/film should offer, an emotional experience that uplifts us through pain and loss. As Sally Sparrow says in season three's Blink, "Sad is happy for deep people." A lot of these stories made me cry.

But if we're in a new Golden Age of Doctor Who, there are still plenty of things to criticize. Thus the following episode guide: my ratings and reviews of each story from seasons one to four. For ratings, I use 5=fantastic, 4=very good, 3=good, 2=mediocre, 1=poor. Note that out of 58 stories, 26 get a 4 or 5 from me. That's almost half. Beware of spoilers in the reviews, and enjoy. (Some of the stories are two-parters; these are 90 minutes long instead of 45. And there's even a three-parter in season three.)

Note: all references to season four (above and below) were added on 7/6/08, and all references to season five (above and below) were added on 7/2/10.

Season One

Rose - 2
The End of the World - 3
The Unquiet Dead - 4 ½
Aliens of London/World War Three - 2
Dalek - 5
The Long Game - 2
Father's Day - 5
The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances - 4
Boom Town - 1
Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways - 4

Season Two

The Christmas Invasion - 3 ½
New Earth - 3
Tooth and Claw - 4 ½
School Reunion - 4
The Girl in the Fireplace - 5
The Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel - 5
The Idiot's Lantern - 2
The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit - 5
Love and Monsters - 2 ½
Fear Her - 1
Army of Ghosts/Doomsday - 4

Season Three

The Runaway Bride - 1
Smith and Jones - 2
The Shakespeare Code - 4
Gridlock - 3
Daleks in Manhattan/The Evolution of the Daleks - 1
The Lazarus Experiment - 3
42 - 4
Human Nature/The Family of Blood - 5
Blink - 5+
Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords - 4/3/2

Season Four

Voyage of the Damned - 1
Partners in Crime - 2
Fires of Pompeii - 5
Planet of the Ood - 4
The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky - 2
The Doctor's Daughter - 2
The Unicorn and the Wasp - 2
Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead - 5
Midnight - 4 ½
Turn Left - 3 ½
The Stolen Earth/Journey's End - 0

Season Five

The Eleventh Hour - 3 ½
The Beast Below - 3
Victory of the Daleks - 3
The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone - 5
Vampires of Venice - 3
Amy's Choice - 5
The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood - 4
Vincent and the Doctor - 4 ½
The Lodger - 1
The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang - 4

____________________________________________________

Season One

Rose. 2 stars. Buckle up and get ready to ride. We meet the ninth Doctor through the eyes of companion-to-be, Rose Tyler, as London is being taken over by an army of mannequins. We haven't seen the Autons since the Pertwee era and, if truth be told, for good reason: they're lame. It's hard to be intimidated by an army of plastic. But the Nestene Consciousness (the animated vat of living plastic controlling the rest in London) is admittedly impressive these days with CGI. We get a lot of Rose's irritating mother and boyfriend, which unfortunately foreshadows things to come in future stories. Far from a strong entry, it basically introduces the character of Rose, who will last for two seasons and prove to be the best TARDIS companion ever.

The End of the World. 3 stars. Welcome to the apocalypse. The Doctor takes Rose to the year 5 billion, as the sun expands and the earth is about to explode. Rich aliens have gathered to watch the event on an observation platform, and they're a colorful bunch: humanoid trees, a blue pixie, hooded figures, a glass-encased head (the Face of Boe), and a mutilated flat mass of skin (the last surviving human being). But someone in the group wants to take out everyone else for greedy reasons, so the drama becomes an action mystery in which the death of our world is sidelined. A good story, though nothing spectacular, providing a segue into revelation: at the end the Doctor tells a sobered Rose that his own world has been destroyed and that he is the last of the Time Lords. No more Gallifrey.

The Unquiet Dead. 4 ½ stars. A superb gothic story harking back to the Hinchcliffe era. The Doctor takes Rose back to Cardiff in 1869, where they hook up with Charles Dickens and do battle with undead corpses stalking the city. Turns out the corpses have been animated by gaseous aliens from another dimension (connected to earth by a tenuous rift centered in the city) who want to reclaim every corpse on earth for bodily existence. The Doctor actually helps them accomplish this out of pity, which underscores his fallibility. Frankly he comes off as incompetent in this story, and I love it -- just as I love the séance he makes everyone participate in, including a furious Charles Dickens. Fantastic stuff.

Aliens of London/World War Three. 2 stars. Hold your nose, here come the farting aliens -- and I mean nonstop flatulence. The invasion of present-day London (2005) is reminiscent of the Pertwee era, so that's one strike against it. Add to this the presence of Rose's mother Jackie (whose mouth I'd love to kick every time she opens it) and boyfriend Mickey, and that's at least another strike. I don't mind getting some of Rose's backstory, but Jackie and Mickey become too involved in stories like this one for the sake of kitchen sink soap-opera. I do like the farting aliens, however -- Doctor Who meets South Park's "Terrence and Philip".

Dalek. 5 stars. An instant classic. The Doctor and Rose find themselves in an underground museum in Utah (2012), where the last surviving Dalek in the universe is being held captive and tortured. That draws not an ounce of sympathy from the Doctor, who rages in fury against it. We learn that the Daleks destroyed Gallifrey, though they were killed in turn, making it and the Doctor the last of their kinds. Things get even more interesting when Rose touches the Dalek and it uses her DNA to revivify itself and escape, exterminating hundreds of museum personnel -- but unable to destroy her when given the chance. Killer instincts dampened by her genes, it forms a strange bond with her. It's a weird "E.T." moment, quite emotional, and the climax is brilliant: Rose has to stop the Doctor hell-bent on blasting the Dalek to atoms, the opposite of Sarah who urged genocide back in Genesis of the Daleks. The Doctor has suffered the consequences of his pacifism and moved on. That's a compelling evolution of character. Without question my favorite story of season one.

The Long Game. 2 stars. Here's a hideous alien, lording himself over a brainwashed humanity, killing those who show the slightest inclination toward self-will, and then reanimating them as slaves. The setting is an orbital broadcasting platform in the year 200,000, where people are dominated by the media network. The really scary (and frankly unbelievable) thing is that human society doesn't seem to have changed much in 198,000 years. An incredibly lazy vision mars this story, with supporting characters we couldn't care a whit about. In the end the Doctor isn't impressed with Adam (picked up as a TARDIS companion in Dalek) and dumps him back on earth with a harsh "I only take the very best" -- meaning Rose. But wait for the next story, where Rose may not be best after all.

Father's Day. 5 stars. Tear-jerkers in Doctor Who? This story really made me rethink the potentials of the new series. Rose persuades the Doctor to take her back to 1987 when her father was killed by a motorist. Warned against altering the past, she intervenes and saves him anyway -- creating a wound in time and ushering in Armageddon. Everywhere on earth people are suddenly assaulted by Reapers (winged creatures resembling Tolkien's Nazgul-steeds), parasites that act like antibodies, destroying everything in wounded time until the paradox is gone. The Doctor nearly disowns and abandons Rose -- a "stupid ape" after all -- forgiving her only after a heavy guilt-trip and forced apology. But Rose's father saves the earth through a heartbreaking sacrifice, and in the end the Doctor and Rose are closer than before despite (no: because of) their falling out. Pure tragedy which takes the show to new heights, and my second favorite of the season.

The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances. 4 stars. Now this feels like classic Who: a horror story set during the London Blitz, where microscopic robots are turning people into zombies made over in the image of gas-masked victims of the war. Bonus points are awarded for sheer mood. Everything is gloomy and surreal, from war-torn London, dark alleyways, a smoky nightclub, a creepy hospital, to an old house where starving kids gather for repast. It's incredible cinema. The Doctor is effectual in saving the day (something rare for the ninth incarnation), but actually saves too many people ("everyone lives"). The story unfortunately introduces the flamboyant character of Captain Jack Harkness, a rogue time agent from the far future, who ends up joining as a TARDIS companion. He clashes with an otherwise superbly dark, chilling story.

Boom Town. 1 star. A sequel to Aliens of London/World War Three, and a complete waste of time. Turns out one of the aliens survived the London battle, and the Doctor decides to do humanity a favor and bring it home. But the death penalty awaits for its crimes on the home planet, so the story turns into an uneventful melodrama that serves no purpose other than to push an anti-capital punishment agenda. Oh, and we get plenty of melodrama between Rose and Mickey too. I suspect this filler was placed right before the season finale to make the latter seem all the more impressive; things can only go uphill from here.

Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways. 4 stars. Bring on the adrenaline rush. Christopher Eccleston goes out strong in the season finale and sequel to Dalek (in theme) and The Long Game (in setting). On Satellite Five in 200,100, people are trapped in reality television where everything is a game and losers get vaporized. The Doctor, Rose, and Captain Jack play for their lives and discover the outfit is a front for an impending Dalek invasion of earth. This is what Who-fans have been waiting for: the sight of zillions of Daleks (who can levitate and fly now, thanks to CGI) balling "EXTERMINATE!" and other horrible mantras, more fearsome than ever for having found religion. We knew they weren't really gone forever, and can thank their existence to (wait for it) the Dalek God -- a survivor of the Time War who has been breeding the new army for centuries. The climax is both fantastic and awful (hence my four-star rating), the latter for involving, yes damn it, Jackie and Mickey who appear at the last possible moment to help save the day. The great part is Eccleston's regeneration into David Tennant, who will prove to be the most gifted actor to play the Doctor after Tom Baker. Bring on season two!

Season Two

The Christmas Invasion. 3 ½ stars. Merry Christmas and a happy new Doctor. The tenth incarnation is as erratic and garrulous as the fourth, and this story actually reminds of Tom Baker's own first entry, Robot, involving a threat in present-day London which calls forth a military response. The dramatic tension builds well in the first half due to the Doctor being out of commission as he recovers from regenerating. When he finally emerges from those TARDIS doors, we almost want to clap like little kids. He gets in a good sword fight with the alien-king before banishing his race from earth. A fine way to introduce the character of David Tennant during the holiday season.

New Earth. 3 stars. A sequel to season one's The End of the World. The Doctor and Rose return to the far future (year 5 billion 23) and visit New Earth, a planet affectionately made over in the image of old home. A group of feline nuns have managed to discover cures for every known disease by creating a human farm -- thousands of human clones stuffed into cells like lab rats, and subjected to hideous experiments. Not nice kitties, these. David Tennant is in fine form here, settling into his role, considerably less manic than in the previous story. Like The End of the World, it comes off as somewhat comedic and pedestrian, but it's a good enough story. I like the humanoid cats.

Tooth and Claw. 4 ½ stars. I'd always wanted to see a werewolf story in Doctor Who. We have the ideal setting of the Scottish highlands in 1879, where the TARDIS materializes right in front of Queen Victoria and her passing entourage. The Doctor and Rose join the party and night over in a manor run secretly by a group of ninja-monks who worship a werewolf caged in the lower levels. The monks' agenda is to get the Queen bitten so they can rule the British empire through her. Great horror material here. The wolf is a fearsome bit of CGI, though I agree with the Doctor, it's also "beautiful" (exclaimed even as he's about to get torn apart). Queen Victoria has to be the best supporting actor of the season, and I love how she rewards the Doctor with a knighthood -- and then promptly banishes him, "not amused" by his heathen nature.

School Reunion. 4 stars. A special episode featuring the return of Sarah Jane Smith. She's as spirited and feisty as ever -- and rather pissed that the Doctor never came back for her, prompting an amusingly jealous bitch-fight with Rose. K-9 is back too, though he's rusty these days. Around the fun nostalgia revolves a plot involving batlike aliens who have taken over a school. They're turning children into geniuses to help them solve the Scasis Paradigm, an equation that unlocks complete control of time and space. A powerful concept like this really deserved more attention than serving as a backdrop to the return of old friends, but never mind. The Doctor does have a compelling moment when he considers using the Paradigm to save Gallifrey and the Time Lords, and Sarah reminds him that pain and loss are essential in the course of evolution. Their final farewell choked me up as much as back in 1976 when Tom Baker sent her away. For fans of the classic years.

The Girl in the Fireplace. 5 stars. A girl/woman from the 18th-century is being stalked by robots from the 51st. If that sounds boring, be assured it's anything but. This is a creep-show, fairy-tale, and tragedy all in one, considered by many to be the best story of the season (it's my second favorite). The Doctor, Rose, and Mickey walk onto a spaceship powered by human body parts -- eyes in the camera sensors, a beating heart in the hot interior giving off the smell of cooking meat -- nice stuff. Then there are the curious time windows: gateways to a bedroom in Paris where a girl named Reinette (the future Madame de Pompadour) is being watched over by the ship's repair droids. The demented robots believe her body parts are needed to help power the ship because it's named after her, and the Doctor becomes her romantic guardian, going so far as to strand himself in France to save her. This is a Who-fan's fairy tale -- capturing the innocence of The Chronicles of Narnia and horror of Pan's Labyrinth -- a rare treat.

The Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel. 5 stars. Pretend you never saw the Cybermen before, because let's face it, they were never that good in classic Who (I'll never understand why they were so popular). They get a new genesis here, created on a parallel earth by a Davros-type genius who wants to "upgrade" the human race with robotic immortality. The setting of a parallel world allows the writers to start from scratch without contradicting the past, and opens avenues for other dramatic opportunities. As in the Pertwee favorite Inferno, we see the counterparts of familiar faces: Rose's father still alive and a rich success; Jackie annoying as ever -- did I cheer over her "death by upgrade". But this is Mickey's hour, where he comes into his own, and as much as I've loathed him up to now, I have to admit this story justifies his existence. His farewell to Rose had me in tears. The best Cybermen story in the history of Doctor Who, and my third favorite of the season.

The Idiot's Lantern. 2 stars. I never liked the concept of possessed TV sets (hated Poltergeist and The Ring), so this one didn't have much of a chance with me. It's about an alien who has escaped execution on the home planet by transforming itself into pure energy, and has come to earth to reconstitute itself. To do this it needs massive amounts of human energy, which it gets from the people of London via their televisions. The setting of 1953 is almost pointless -- though the crowning of Queen Elizabeth provides the excuse for everyone turning on their TV's at once -- there's no feeling of period at all, and it could have easily taken place in the present. A mediocre story leaving much to be desired.

The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit. 5 stars. Drum roll: Doctor Who goes against Satan in a gritty action-drama taking place in the deepest space where truly no one can hear you scream. My favorite story of the season steals from classics like Alien, The Abyss, and Robots of Death, and yet it never feels like a rip-off. The Doctor and Rose appear in the 42nd century and get cut off from the TARDIS, stuck with a demoralized space-crew docked on a barren planet that's perched impossibly over a black hole. A gravity field emanating from the planet core somehow keeps them from getting sucked in and pulverized, but they can't escape the hole either. Turns out Satan is chained down in the core, itching to break free of ancient bonds, and the crew become his pawns. He projects his mind into one of them (probably the most frightening possession ever dramatized on PBS) and also dominates the Ood, squid-faced humanoid servants who remind of the servant-robots from the Tom Baker classic. The dread and tension and claustrophobia never let up, with Rose and crew battling the Ood on the sanctuary base above, and the Doctor blindly freefalling into Satan's Pit below. We haven't seen the Time Lord show down a godlike adversary since he went against Sutekh in Pyramids of Mars and the ancient evil in The Curse of Fenric. This masterpiece ranks right alongside them.

Love and Monsters. 2 ½ stars. This seems to be a story either loved or despised, and I can't quite come to terms with it. I want to like it a lot. It tries something cool by sidelining the Doctor so we can see him from the perspective of an innocent bystander who only briefly gets involved with him. The Doctor thus appears different from the hero we're used to following with our God's-eye view, someone who leaves chaos and pain in his wake. That's a terrific idea to explore, and to some extent it works but mostly falls flat for being poorly executed with way too much slapstick comedy. Maybe this one will grow on me with subsequent viewings, but in the end it really doesn't live up to its potential.

Fear Her. 1 star. The great thing about Doctor Who is that it's a children's program without ever feeling like one -- until you watch an abysmal story like this. On a London suburb (in 2012) children are literally vanishing out of thin air, because a girl possessed by an alien intelligence is capturing them on paper by drawing them in her bedroom. The intelligence doesn't mean any harm, just wants a lot of company. It's a creepy enough premise -- one scene with the Doctor interrogating the girl on her back in bed is reminiscent of The Exorcist -- but for the most part it's just silly. Half the time I felt like I was watching Sesame Street. Like Boom Town from the previous season, it's the throw-away story before the finale; the calm before the storm.

Army of Ghosts/Doomsday. 4 stars. A sequel to The Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel, with Daleks thrown in for good measure, and Rose's swan song. This is a Who-fan's wet dream: the two most popular villains invading earth, and then fighting each other to see who's best. The appearance of the Daleks caught me way off-guard; the cliffhanger to the first episode is classic genius. And I love this Cult of Skaro: four elite Daleks with names, designed to think as the enemy thinks, and whose authority supersedes even the Dalek God who died in the last season finale. A great moment is when the Cyberleader proposes an alliance with the Cult, is refused, and demands: "You would destroy 5 million Cybermen with four Daleks?" Reply: "We would destroy 5 million Cybermen with one Dalek. You are superior in only one respect: you are better at dying. This is not a war, this is pest control." As apocalyptic as the last finale, and just as good. But you'll need plenty of kleenex for the end: Rose goes out emotionally, knowing she'll never be able to see the Doctor again. I missed her sorely in season three.

Season Three

The Runaway Bride. 1 star. A travesty and insult to Who-fans, especially for being a Christmas special. A bride named Donna Noble appears in the TARDIS and begins ranting at the Doctor for abducting her. He doesn't know what's going on, but after a while learns that she's been infected with a strange energy (that whisked her to the TARDIS) as part of an alien plan to take over earth. The aliens are the Racnoss, an ancient spider-race hiding down in the earth's core, and Donna is their unwitting tool. The story fails on so many levels and is completely silly, unlike the previous year's Christmas Invasion. But the really bad news is that Donna will return in season four as a regular TARDIS companion. Merry goddamn Christmas.

Smith and Jones. 2 stars. A trip to the moon is a modest way of introducing the new TARDIS companion, but this is a modest story. Meet Martha Jones, a medical student who refuses to call our Time Lord "the Doctor" until she's convinced he's earned the title. Martha may not be a Rose Tyler, but she's fine as companions go and has a lot of smarts. (Rose was up there with Sarah Jane Smith, Leela, and Romana II. Martha holds her own with the likes of Ace, Harry Sullivan, and Liz Shaw. Donna looks like she'll be on the lowest plane with Peri Brown). The plot involves rhino-headed aliens invading a hospital in order to ferret out a stowaway alien for execution. To do this they teleport the hospital to the moon to prevent interference from earthly powers. It's mediocre stuff which basically serves to introduce the character of Martha.

The Shakespeare Code. 4 stars. Scholars attend: the mystery of Shakespeare's lost play is finally solved. The Doctor takes Martha back to 1599, where William is being harassed by a trio of alien witches who use the power of words to unlock space-time boundaries. They need a wordsmith to open a gate for more of their kind to invade earth, and Love's Labour's Won becomes the medium for that goal. As always, there's science behind the superstition: voodoo dolls are DNA replicators; spells are incanted the same way mathematical computations are intoned in the Tom Baker classic Logopolis. There's plenty of humor here, with the Doctor citing quotes that Shakespeare hasn't come up with yet ("I'll have to use that one," muses William). But the climax is hilarious as Shakespeare defeats the witches by using their own weapon against them -- pure verse, which burns them like holy water and closes the gate forever. Fantastic.

Gridlock. 3 stars. You've never been in traffic like this, where it takes six years to travel ten miles, the air pollution suffocates you, and snapping Macras wait to tear apart your car if you're lucky enough to get promoted to the fast-lane. The Doctor returns to New-New York with Martha more than twenty years after his last visit with Rose. Since then the population has been confined to the undercity, with the delusion that they can see the sun again if they're willing to sit through years of gridlock. It's up to the Doctor to liberate the underworld, which he does with flair, leaping from car to car like a neo-James Bond, and eventually finding the means to open the surface of the city. Like the previous installments in this trilogy (The End of the World and New Earth), it's light action-drama, and a fun ride.

Daleks in Manhattan/The Evolution of the Daleks. 1 star. A terrible story set in New York during the Great Depression. The Cult of Skaro -- four elite Daleks introduced at the end of season two, designed to think like the enemy -- had incredible potential, but the idea of them trying to evolve into humanoid form was doomed from the start. Dalek Sec looks (and sounds) ridiculous. When Daleks evolve into something less fearsome instead of more, it kills them. I was applauding when the compassionate Sec finally got exterminated by his mutinous colleagues; he was enough to turn me into a trigger-happy Dalek myself. Let's hope that Dalek Caan (the lone survivor at the end) cooks up something more nasty for us in season four. And let's also hope that we never again see such atrocious overacting from the guest stars. They're the worst performances of the new series.

The Lazarus Experiment. 3 stars. Gospel of John 11:1-12:11 meets Cronenberg's The Fly. A scientist has found immortality, but at the price of uncontrollably shapeshifting into a monstrous giant insect. Not worth it, if you ask me, but I enjoy the fact that Lazarus can burn the Doctor philosophically: when lectured on what it means to be human (as if the Doctor knows), Lazarus retorts that clinging to life at whatever cost is as human as you can get. Quite true. A good romp, nothing amazing. For the rest of the season, it's mostly 4s and 5s.

42. 4 stars. A rip-off of last season's The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit, but I'm a sucker for spaceship-in-distress stories where sweating crew members fight hopeless odds, race against time, and get picked off one by one. The Doctor and Martha appear on a ship which is going to crash into a sun in 42 minutes. Like last time, they get cut off from the TARDIS almost as soon as they step out of it (thus preventing a convenient rescue and escape), and just as before, we get possessed crew members (this time by an angry sun), suffocating claustrophobia, and the Doctor going EVA in the middle of it all. Because the drama unfolds in real time (Doctor Who episodes are 45 minutes long), and punctuated by a nerve-racking countdown, it keeps your blood racing.

Human Nature/The Family of Blood. 5 stars. A pure classic. On the run from aliens who want to harness his Time Lord powers, the Doctor empties himself of them to become human. He makes this incredible sacrifice out of kindness -- preferring evasion over the grim sentence he's forced to execute in the end -- but which ends up bringing horror and death to an innocent village. As public schoolmaster John Smith in 1913, he's a completely new character, with no memory of who he ever was, emotionally vulnerable, and falls in love with a widow. Martha (who is supposed to "reawaken" him only in direst need) assumes the difficult role of his servant in racist times. When the aliens finally hone in on them, the jig is up, but "John Smith" refuses to accept that he's anyone other than the man by that name. This is Tennant's hour, as he delivers a performance so painful, angry and tearful -- so human -- that we almost don't want the Doctor back anymore than he does; we want him to go on teaching, marry Joan, and enjoy a normal life. Considered by some to be the best story of the new series, it shows what it really means to be a Time Lord, and ups the ante with a vengeance. How to top this one? Just wait and see...

Blink. 5+ stars. Don't turn away, and don't blink. Being touched by an angel isn't all it's cracked up to be. The Doctor and Martha have been stranded in 1969 and are desperately trying to forward messages to a woman in 2007 so she can send the TARDIS back to them. He warns her (via DVD easter eggs) about nasties lurking around an abandoned house: the weeping angels, quantum beings who feed off potential energy by throwing people back in time to die by the natural process of aging. "They kill their victims nicely," explains the Doctor. But there's one defense: look at them. They're quantum locked and so freeze into stone when observed. Look away, blink, and the snarling gargoyles are right on top of you -- just one touch and you're gone, forced to eke out a living back in a time that isn't aware of your existence. The most disturbing and talked about story of the new series, and my #1 favorite.

Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords. 4/3/2 stars. Drum roll for the return of the Doctor's arch-nemesis, the Master. The Doctor and Martha (and a returning Captain Jack from season one) run into him at the farthest end of space and time (in the year 100 trillion), and then return to present-day London to find him elected as the new prime minister, "Harold Saxon". Turns out the Master beat them back to earth 18 months before the Doctor had left, so he could engineer his takeover of England (and the world) and be on top of things when the Doctor returned. (Thus all the clever allusions to Harold Saxon running for office in the previous stories.) Unlike other two-parters which are double-length single stories, this three-parter is a trilogy of separate stories. Utopia is very good (4 stars) and The Sound of Drums decent (3 stars), but Last of the Time Lords is disappointing (2 stars) for its comic silliness and heavy-handed Christian allegory. The Master deserved to go out better than this, though the final moment between him and the Doctor -- who begs him to regenerate and "not leave him alone" -- is moving, and encapsulates an entire history of these adversaries being addicted to each other even in despite.

Season Four

Voyage of the Damned. 1 star. Damned in every sense, this Christmas special offends like last season's Runaway Bride but twice as garishly. The Doctor finds himself on a floating spaceship, caught between corporate greed, sabotage, and robotic angels armed with killer halos. It sounds impressive but be sure it's not. There's comedy in every line, but nothing funny; noise and action in every other sequence, but no excitement. It's a sign of how bad a story is when the body count is so commendably high (as in classic Who) but you just don't care about who dies. I'm glad Russell Davies is retiring, and I pray these Christmas specials soon go with him. The Christmas Invasion is already a classic, to be sure, but it can't be relived.

Partners in Crime. 2 stars. Fatsos look out: a company in present-day Britain is selling diet pills which make body fat come alive, break off in chunks, and kill the host. The adipose aliens are silly -- marshmellow cubes straight out of Pokemon -- but the kind of fluff we've come to expect from season openers introducing a new companion (Rose, Smith and Jones). I do get a tickle out of the way Russell Davies milks so much fun out of obesity, but let's face it, this is dumbing down to an all-time low. On the bright side, Donna Noble turns out to be more than a fishwife (when we last saw her in The Runaway Bride) and a worthy companion -- better than Martha, in fact, though certainly not Rose -- more subdued and genuinely funny. Wait for her emotional performances in some of the heavier stories.

Fires of Pompeii. 5 stars. "We're in Pompeii, and it's volcano day!" says the Doctor before the sting, having no idea that he'll be the one to blow up Mount Vesuvius and kill thousands. The season's most ambitious story tackles the dilemma of whether or not history should be altered to save lives. Tennant's struggle to pull the lever and doom Pompeii recalls Tom Baker's agony over committing genocide on the Daleks. Dark stuff. The Sibylline Sisterhood is another throw-back to the Hinchcliffe era (The Brain of Morbius), and half of the season's special effects budget seems to have gone into creating the Pyrovile (stone-magma creatures resembling Balrogs) which the priestesses are hideously transforming into. Easily the best historical piece of the four seasons with a bit of everything -- drama, comedy, horror, tragedy -- and not a minute of screen-time wasted. You'll be weeping with Donna at the end unless you're made of stone yourself.

Planet of the Ood. 4 stars. It's not often Doctor Who gets political and crushes oppression, but it happens from time to time, especially on alien planets in the future. Revisiting the Ood in the year 4126, this time on their icy home base, he takes on and topples the conglomerate which has kept them in slavery for centuries. The best "revolution" story after Tom Baker's Sun Makers (taxation), Warriors' Gate (slavery), and Sylvester McCoy's Happiness Patrol (fascism). It's great seeing the Doctor bring management to its knees when provoked, and in this case he clearly feels guilty for having let so many Ood die in his battle against Satan two seasons ago. But savor the musical climax above all, so haunting it defines the story in a way never seen on the show.

The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky. 2 stars. Don't get excited over the Sontarans: they're not as menacing as in the classic years, and they even chant hakas like football jocks. Don't cheer for UNIT, because the military outfit isn't the same without the Brigadier we knew and loved. And don't applaud Martha, who for crying out loud just left at the end of season three. Groan and exasperate over a substandard invasion-of-earth story in which Sontarans are using human agents to release poison gas into the atmosphere. Like last season's Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks (though not quite as abysmal), this story laughs at our expectations and gives us the finger. I did like the Doctor's passing remark about working for UNIT "back in the 70s...or was it the 80's?", a nod to the unresolved contradictions in the classic chronology. But boobytrapped automobiles don't do it for me.

The Doctor's Daughter. 2 stars. Susan's mother unveiled at last? Not hardly. "Jenny", spawned from the Doctor's tissue sample in mere seconds, is more Little Miss Rambo than Time Lord, born to kick ass in a war against the alien Hath. On an underground planet in the distant future, people have been fighting the Hath for "generations" -- meaning for a single week, since twenty generations are born daily from their progenation machines. Under the delusion they need to combat aliens who usurped power from them in decades past, they imprison the Doctor and Donna as pacifist invaders, while the Hath abduct Martha. The story's center of gravity is the relationship between Jenny and the Doctor, but it isn't impressive, and the emotional climax of her dying in his arms is robbed by a last minute return to life and zipping off like a comic hero. Disappointing overall.

The Unicorn and the Wasp. 2 stars. The Doctor and Donna invite themselves to a posh dinner party in 1926, and when a Professor Peach is killed in the library with a lead pipe they team up with Agatha Christie to find the murderer. Turns out the culprit is a huge alien wasp (the image of which would later appear on the cover of Death in the Clouds) that assumes human form at will. The wasp, for demented reasons, thinks Agatha's mysteries are the way the world really works, and so kills people in caricature of them (i.e. wielding a ridiculous lead pipe instead of just stinging the poor sap to death). It's an unusual story for Doctor Who because there's no threat to humanity, just a bizarre murder mystery -- a surreally comedic Clue game involving an alien. And it makes no sense whatsoever, delivering a non-sequitur climax.

Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead. 5 stars. I dream of planet-sized libraries but wouldn't visit this one. Here shadows kill on contact and eat flesh to the bone, hard to distinguish from the garden variety, and as hard to evade as the weeping angels from last season's Blink. Not a nice place for the Doctor to run into his future wife, but there you have it. Professor River Song, leading a team of archaeologists, has come to investigate this 51st-century library, and with the Doctor learns that 4000 people have been "saved" from the shadows -- to the planet's hard-drive, while their consciousnesses live on in a warped alternate reality. The first half of the story is a horror piece ending on the cliffhanger of "Donna Noble being saved", while the second takes us inside the disturbing Matrix where Donna is married and has kids and no memory of anything else. A creepy, creative story; and the season's best, even if the epilogue waxes schmaltzy.

Midnight. 4 ½ stars. The season's filler episode scores big-time. On a leisure planet the Doctor boards a shuttle bus and gets possessed by an invisible alien, leaving him at the mercy of an hysterical mob. With the claustrophobic intensity of United 93, possession-horror of The Exorcist, and dialogue-drama of Twelve Angry Men, the story succeeds unexpectedly by undercutting the Doctor's hero qualities. Now it's precisely his arrogant superiority that renders him powerless by an alien force and turns people against him (opposite Voyage of the Damned, where his melodramatic speech about a being a Time Lord makes the ship's passengers obey him without question). The tension and yelling reach a horrifying crescendo, as the passengers try to kill him and he's unable to save the day -- something unique in the Tennant years. You'll remember this one for a long time.

Turn Left. 3 ½ stars. "Turn right, and never meet that man," hisses the fortune teller. "Turn right, and change the world!" That's what Donna does, and her life replays without ever meeting the Doctor, who dies as a result. This would have been 4-stars easy if not for gaping plot holes, most notably that if the Doctor died at the start of season three, the world would have retroactively ended in 79 CE, since he doesn't go back to Pompeii and stop the Pyrovile. We also have to revisit Davies' lemons (The Runaway Bride, Smith and Jones, Voyage of the Damned, Partners in Crime) though he makes lemonade out of them with a new outcome of loss and tragedy. There's a lot of good drama here: the Italian family being taken off to a "labor camp" is heartbreaking, as is Donna's life as a refugee. The return of Rose is handled surprisingly well, and Catherine Tate puts in a hell of a performance as she sacrifices herself to turn left and get the world back on track.

The Stolen Earth/Journey's End. 0 stars. A complete shower of piss. Davros is back but gets saddled with the worst story of the entire new series. Think The Five Doctors -- this time The Five Companions: Rose, Sarah-Jane, Martha, Captain Jack, and Donna -- all fanwank, no plot, and five times as hollow. The Daleks have whisked away 27 planets, including Earth, to a hidden part of space for their new empire. If that sounds promising, be sure it's not. In the first half everyone is just trying to telephone the Doctor, ending in the mother of all cop-out cliffhangers: the Doctor starts regenerating but doesn't. The second part gets exponentially worse, with more cop-outs, mockeries of Rose's closure in season two, mockeries of Donna's character and fate, a romantic duplicate of the Doctor. To cap it all off, we're treated to the ridiculous spectacle of the TARDIS towing the Earth back home. Every TV program has its lemons, but when a season finale is this bad, it's a sign that something new is needed. Good-bye, Russell Davies. Time to move on.

Season Five

The Eleventh Hour. 3 ½ stars. Feeling like a leftover of the Davies era, this season opener fares significantly better than previous ones which introduced a new companion, even Smith and Jones whose plot it copies: an illegal alien disguised as a human, pursued to Earth by other alien authorities, around a hospital setting. There is enough Moffat influence to offset the Davies feel, such as the Doctor returning to a much older Amy (shades of The Girl in the Fireplace), and Prisoner Zero being a more fearsome creature than the Autons, Plasmavore, and Adipose combined. It remains what it is -- an invasion-of-earth story in which the Doctor saves the entire planet in the space of twenty minutes -- yet an incredibly fun ride demanding repeated viewings.

The Beast Below. 3 stars. Here are smiles that would give your grandmother a heart attack, the entire British kingdom crammed on a starship searching for a new home, and a beast lurking beneath to eat protesting citizens. This story works on two levels, one as a political fable about society kept in ignorance, albeit democratically by their own choice, and two as a metaphorical commentary on the Doctor's nature. The "Last of the Starwhales" allows Amy to understand the Doctor better, and more polysemously, than previous companions. And she gets to save the day, as the Doctor is caught up in helpless fury as he works to destroy the whale on humanity's behalf. We haven't seen Time Lord fallibility like this since Eccleston, and it's refreshing.

Victory of the Daleks. 3 stars. A rushed episode that needed another to breathe, but a fun World War II story that sees Britain training an army of Daleks to be thrown against the Third Reich. Churchill gets a nasty surprise when they show their true colors, and quite literally: the new and improved Daleks have an intricate caste system (red = drones, blue = strategists, orange = scientists, yellow = eternals, and white = supremes), which will surely be fleshed out later in the season. The space battle between Britain's Spitfires and the Dalek ship is ludicrous but thrilling, and the Doctor's fury as he assaults a Dalek with a spanner surpasses even the Ninth Doctor's rage in Dalek. Not a stellar achievement, by any means, but a fun ride.

The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone. 5 stars. This two-parter is to Blink as Aliens is to Alien: bigger, longer, more. The weeping angels are back in droves, faced off by an army of priestly soldiers who aren't nearly as equipped as they think. Like Ripley, the Doctor understands the menace better than anyone, though not always quite enough, and the angels have some alarming new tricks, like breaking peoples' heads open in order to reanimate their consciousness. In terms of suspense, I haven't been kept on the edge of my seat so much since the Ood closed in on the space crew back in The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit -- and as in that story the body count is high. Amy is in deep trouble, and when on death's door she cries out in a pitifully broken voice, "I'm scared, Doctor," our Time Lord hero callously retorts, "Of course you're scared, you're dying, shut up." Amusingly, when all is said and done, she wants to jump in the sack with the Doctor and fuck his brains out. Not quite as good as Blink, but as close as can be expected, and a crown jewel of the new series.

Vampires of Venice. 3 stars. Vampires return to Doctor Who in a gothic period piece, and the result, while hardly groundbreaking, is fun. The plot is distinctly linear, from the opening as the school of Calvieri welcomes innocent ladies into its monstrous breeding (feeding) program, to the climax which involves an apocalyptic storm of tidal waves, concluding rather lazily with the Doctor saving the day by climbing a tower and pushing a few buttons. Amy's fiance Rory joins as a TARDIS companion, and the love triangle between the three characters reminds of how effectively Sarah was used in School Reunion by putting Rose's relationship to the Doctor into perspective, and calling into the question the way the Time Lord eventually discards his companions.

Amy's Choice. 5 stars. Feeling like Doctor-lite, this story struts with determination to ignore the rules and throw something bizarre at us, only this time with the Doctor getting his usual screen time. By far the weirdest story of the new series, and in a good way, as if David Lynch had penned it. It finds the Doctor, Amy, and Rory flicking back and forth between two scenarios, one of which they are told is a dream they are sharing, the other reality. To die in the dream will cause them to wake up in reality for good, and to die in reality will cause them to really die; so they must choose wisely. The choice, however -- Amy's choice -- ultimately boils down to a choice between the Doctor and Rory, and it comes together splendidly. A work of art.

The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood. 4 stars. Feeling like classic Who more than anything seen before in the new series, this story taps into how everyone remembers the Pertwee era to be, but with shades of Colin Baker too -- protracted torture scenes and luminescent underground sets. It takes a tired cliché and turns it on its head. The alien (Silurian) invaders aren't really aliens but "Earthlians" who have as much claim to the planet as humanity. "From their point of view, you're the invaders," the Doctor lectures his human friends, and actually manages to get the two races to begin negotiating for terms of coexistence before foul play kills hope for a shared planet. The death of Rory is a shocker, and Amy's memory wipe tragic, the most emotionally powerful scene of the season up to this point.

Vincent and the Doctor. 4 ½ stars. A character piece about a tormented genius who has visual acuity beyond the norm. It represents the final year of Van Gogh's life quite well, recreating various sites painted by the artist, the paintings themselves in arresting color, and his disturbing fits of manic depression. The theme of vision permeates every frame, as we learn that Van Gogh can see things others are blind to. On the literal level this plays out in the attack of the Krafayis, an invisible giant bird-reptile that Vincent fends off entertainingly with long wooden poles and armchairs, while the Doctor gets slammed against walls by its tail. On the deeper level, Van Gogh sees things in nature's midst and people's souls. The scoring at the end is a bit rubbish, but aside from that this is a powerfully affective story.

The Lodger. 1 star. Worse than pedestrian, playing like a garden variety sitcom, about a monster luring innocent victims up the stairs of a flat complex. The Doctor moves in to investigate and becomes far more involved with the personal affairs of his flatmate than the alien threat above, and it's never clear why he can't go up the stairs right away to deal with the problem other than to satisfy the demands of an empty script. The direction is barely adequate, the design uninspiring; the cast struggle bravely to deliver what is essentially a trivial love story. The set up of the staircase is promisingly sinister, but it delivers manure. The best thing about the story is the sight of Matt Smith naked from the waist up.

The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang. 4 stars. Like The Eleventh Hour, a guilty pleasure which effectively gives Moffat's predecessor the finger whilst feigning homage. The subtext essentially is, if you're going to raise the stakes to extreme heights, Mr. Davies, this is how you do it. The crack in Amy's bedroom wall proves to be the most successful seasonal story arc in the new series, and while there are certainly resets to be found here, they're not cheap, they come at a fair price, and there's solid emotional payoff. The Doctor's farewell to Amy as he prepares to sacrifice himself -- "You don't need your imaginary friend anymore" -- got me a bit choked up. Well done, Mr. Moffat; bring on season six.

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UPDATE: See Mark Goodacre's reaction.

UPDATE (II): See all stories ranked from best to worst.

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