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orichalcum at 09:33am on 03/04/2009
orichalcum at 09:33am on 03/04/2009Iowa will be an interesting case study for gay marriage tourism, I suspect, as unlike Massachusetts or Connecticut or Vermont it's not normally a major wedding destination.
Random things for a Friday:
I attended an awesome lecture by Anthony Grafton, a Princeton history, professor yesterday, hearkening back to an LJ debate of a few weeks ago. It was about how the Protestant Reformation (mid-late 1500s) humanists Isaac Casaubon (who went to my father's high school!) and Joseph Scaliger researched and were strongly influenced by Hebrew texts and scholarly traditions. Casaubon, in particular, became fascinated with using a greater knowledge of Jewish ritual in order to better understand the New Testament. For instance, he translated and provided the first extensive Christian criticism on a copy of the Passover Haggadah, because he wanted to figure out which parts of the Seder service (since the Haggadah was compiled after the destruction of the 2nd Temple) Jesus would have used in the Last Supper, and which were later additions.
Casaubon is also famous for having written possibly the nastiest and most influential book review in Western history: 800 pages of detailed scholarly takedown of the first 173 pages of the Annals of the Venerable Cardinal Caesar Baronius, the Vatican librarian who tried to prove that Christianity was unchanging from the time of Jesus (complete with bishops, ecclesiastical hierarchy, and all seven sacraments) to his own time (1600 or so). Casaubon claimed he couldn't even stand to finish reading the work, and so focused his ire in his review on just the first 173 pages. My medievalist friends should be especially pleased by this takedown, as Baronius is the inventor of the term "Dark Ages."
Two great stories that Grafton told about Casaubon:
1. In the marginal notes of a letter, Casaubon copies down a Jewish story (possibly from his original manuscript copy of the Babylonian Talmud?) about a Jewish woman who was very upset that her husband wasn't buying enough books, thus diminishing his potential as a scholar (and possibly her own reading material). She told her husband that she refused to go to the mikvah, the ritual bath (and thus by extension refused to have sex with him) until he had purchased more books. This threat was successful, and marital harmony was restored. Casaubon (who was then in debt to half the booksellers of Geneva) comments, "Most beautiful of stories!"
2. When he was later living in Oxford, Casaubon had a Jewish friend and tutor named Jacob Barnet, who taught him about Jewish rituals. Eventually, the Oxford authorities decided that Barnet (who they wanted to become a professor) needed to convert to Christianity. However, at this point, they had lost the knowledge of _how_ to convert a Jew to Christianity, since adult baptism was then illegal in England (due to the Anabaptists). So they wrote to Casaubon, saying, "hey, you're an expert in religion and Judaism, how do we convert someone?"
Casaubon wrote back saying, "I think Barnet is really Jewish! I'd be thrilled if he wanted to convert, but I just don't think he does, so you shouldn't try."
The Oxford Vice-Chancellor ignored this advice, and made preparations for the ceremony, but Barnet decided to flee the town. The professors tracked him down on horseback and threw him in the prison for disobedient undergraduates, where they subjected him to "strenuous questioning," trying to get him to consent to conversion. Casaudet managed to hear of this, luckily, and appealed directly to his patron, King James I. King James ordered Oxford to release Barnet, and he departed for France, where a few years later he shows up happily as the
consultant for Jewish affairs at the royal court of France.
In the Bodleian today you can see Casaubon's edition of Maimonides, covered with commentary and marginal notes in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin.
So, that was nifty. In other news, prenatal appointments the second time around are (at least if all is going well), ridiculously boring. Pee into a cup, get weighed, get blood pressure, get your belly measured, hear the heart beat, nope, no questions. Things that remained exciting and like measures of progress the first time around are just kinda dull now, especially since I know I _don't_ (thankfully) have gestational diabetes or pre-eclampsia.
Amusingly, though, apparently 2.5-3 year olds of both genders reacting to a mom's pregnancy by inventing the baby in _their_ tummy is common enough to be in the standard ob/gyn textbooks. My doctor advised me that it sometimes lasts for 3-5 months after the actual baby is born, and that we should get Mac a doll for right after the birth, so he can take care of "his" baby while we take care of the Manticore.
Random things for a Friday:
I attended an awesome lecture by Anthony Grafton, a Princeton history, professor yesterday, hearkening back to an LJ debate of a few weeks ago. It was about how the Protestant Reformation (mid-late 1500s) humanists Isaac Casaubon (who went to my father's high school!) and Joseph Scaliger researched and were strongly influenced by Hebrew texts and scholarly traditions. Casaubon, in particular, became fascinated with using a greater knowledge of Jewish ritual in order to better understand the New Testament. For instance, he translated and provided the first extensive Christian criticism on a copy of the Passover Haggadah, because he wanted to figure out which parts of the Seder service (since the Haggadah was compiled after the destruction of the 2nd Temple) Jesus would have used in the Last Supper, and which were later additions.
Casaubon is also famous for having written possibly the nastiest and most influential book review in Western history: 800 pages of detailed scholarly takedown of the first 173 pages of the Annals of the Venerable Cardinal Caesar Baronius, the Vatican librarian who tried to prove that Christianity was unchanging from the time of Jesus (complete with bishops, ecclesiastical hierarchy, and all seven sacraments) to his own time (1600 or so). Casaubon claimed he couldn't even stand to finish reading the work, and so focused his ire in his review on just the first 173 pages. My medievalist friends should be especially pleased by this takedown, as Baronius is the inventor of the term "Dark Ages."
Two great stories that Grafton told about Casaubon:
1. In the marginal notes of a letter, Casaubon copies down a Jewish story (possibly from his original manuscript copy of the Babylonian Talmud?) about a Jewish woman who was very upset that her husband wasn't buying enough books, thus diminishing his potential as a scholar (and possibly her own reading material). She told her husband that she refused to go to the mikvah, the ritual bath (and thus by extension refused to have sex with him) until he had purchased more books. This threat was successful, and marital harmony was restored. Casaubon (who was then in debt to half the booksellers of Geneva) comments, "Most beautiful of stories!"
2. When he was later living in Oxford, Casaubon had a Jewish friend and tutor named Jacob Barnet, who taught him about Jewish rituals. Eventually, the Oxford authorities decided that Barnet (who they wanted to become a professor) needed to convert to Christianity. However, at this point, they had lost the knowledge of _how_ to convert a Jew to Christianity, since adult baptism was then illegal in England (due to the Anabaptists). So they wrote to Casaubon, saying, "hey, you're an expert in religion and Judaism, how do we convert someone?"
Casaubon wrote back saying, "I think Barnet is really Jewish! I'd be thrilled if he wanted to convert, but I just don't think he does, so you shouldn't try."
The Oxford Vice-Chancellor ignored this advice, and made preparations for the ceremony, but Barnet decided to flee the town. The professors tracked him down on horseback and threw him in the prison for disobedient undergraduates, where they subjected him to "strenuous questioning," trying to get him to consent to conversion. Casaudet managed to hear of this, luckily, and appealed directly to his patron, King James I. King James ordered Oxford to release Barnet, and he departed for France, where a few years later he shows up happily as the
consultant for Jewish affairs at the royal court of France.
In the Bodleian today you can see Casaubon's edition of Maimonides, covered with commentary and marginal notes in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin.
So, that was nifty. In other news, prenatal appointments the second time around are (at least if all is going well), ridiculously boring. Pee into a cup, get weighed, get blood pressure, get your belly measured, hear the heart beat, nope, no questions. Things that remained exciting and like measures of progress the first time around are just kinda dull now, especially since I know I _don't_ (thankfully) have gestational diabetes or pre-eclampsia.
Amusingly, though, apparently 2.5-3 year olds of both genders reacting to a mom's pregnancy by inventing the baby in _their_ tummy is common enough to be in the standard ob/gyn textbooks. My doctor advised me that it sometimes lasts for 3-5 months after the actual baby is born, and that we should get Mac a doll for right after the birth, so he can take care of "his" baby while we take care of the Manticore.
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