Nebo-Sarsekim : Outed from the Archives

When you do archival research, you can find surprising things. The British Museum announced this week that an Austrian scholar who has been working through an archive of economic cuneiform texts has translated a 6th c. B.C. clay tablet which mentions a Babylonian officer, Nabu-sharrussu-ukin. It appears that this corresponds to the Nebo-Sarsekim who was present at the Fall of Jerusalem recorded in Jeremiah 39.
The tablet reads:

(Regarding) 1.5 minas (0.75 kg) of gold, the property of Nabu-sharrussu-ukin, the chief eunuch, which he sent via Arad-Banitu the eunuch to [the temple] Esangila: Arad-Banitu has delivered [it] to Esangila. In the presence of Bel-usat, son of Alpaya, the royal bodyguard, [and of] Nadin, son of Marduk-zer-ibni. Month XI, day 18, year 10 [of] Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon.

The tablet was acquired by the British Museum in 1920, and came from the ancient city of Sippar, southwest of Baghdad. Sippar was excavated by the British Museum around 1880 by an Iraqi, Hormuzd Rassam. Whether this was a tablet originally found by Rassam in the 19th c. (he uncovered 70.000 clay tablets in Sippar), I'm not sure.

I do know that Rassam's story as the only prominent Middle Eastern archaeologist in the 19th century is fascinating. David Damrosch has told it well in a recent book The Buried Book: The Loss and Rediscovery of the Great Epic of Gilgamesh (Holt, 2006). It's a great book, not just about Rassam, but also about the decipherment of cuneiform in the early 19th c. and continuing to Saddam Hussein's fascination with Gilgamesh. For an excerpt of the book see the May 2007 issue of Smithsonian magazine, "Epic Hero," the story of George Smith, first translator of the Epic of Gilgamesh, which contains an early version of the flood story. It is reported that when Smith, sitting in the British Museum, realized what he was translating, he shed his clothes and began dancing around his desk in his underwear. (You see him on the right in a more modest moment.) Great summer reading, believe it or not!

Papal Pronouncements

Twice in the past week major newspapers have carried stories about papal pronouncements: "Pope Eases Restrictions on Wider Use of Latin Mass" (NYTimes, Sunday, June 8); and "Pope, Restating 2000 Document, Cites 'Defects' of Other Faiths" (NYTimes, Wednesday, June 11). The newspaper articles have brief quotations from Pope Benedict XVI's authorization regarding the Latin mass and this recent restatement of Roman Catholic ecclesiology. But what if you want to dig deeper and see the actual documents?

Two well-organized web sites can help:

1. The official Vatican site is The Holy See (www.vatican.va) with sites in German, Italian, Spanish, French, English, and Portuguese). Here you will find links to recent documents in the news, including Benedict's apostolic letter "Summorum Pontificum" regarding the Latin mass, the letter to bishops on the occasion of the publication of "Summorum Pontificum," and the document "Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine of the Church ." The site is fully searchable, with good cross-referenced links. But there's a problem: There's no officially authorized English translation of the Latin text "Summorum Pontificum." For a translation, see below.
   
   
2. Papal Encyclicals Online is not an official Vatican web site, but provides convenient access to papal encyclicals and other Catholic Church documents from 1226 to the present. Papal encyclicals and other documents may be browsed by Pope or searched by keyword. Includes the full text of papal encyclicals, apostolic letters, apostolic constitutions, apostolic exhortations, and other Papal communications. This site contains an unofficial English translation of "Summorum Pontificum." On this site you can also find such things as the famous papal bull issued by Pope Leo X against Martin Luther in 1520, "Exsurge Domine" (pictured above right)

Behind all of this, of course, are the liturgical texts in question: The 1962 edition of the "Missal of Pius V," also called the Tridentine Mass; and the post-Vatican II "Missal of Paul VI," promulgated in 1970. These texts can be conveniently found in the Catholic Liturgical Library web site. For some concise background history, see the Wikipedia article on the Roman Missal.

The Future of Christianity in Europe

Philip Jenkins's new book, God's Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe's Religious Crisis (Oxford, 2007) continues his ongoing analysis of the present and future of modern Christianity. In The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (Oxford, 2002, rev. 2007) and The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South (Oxford, 2006) Jenkins outlined and analyzed the geographic shift of Christianity from north to south. In the present book Jenkins examines European Christianity as it experiences expanding Muslim immigration as a society in a state of advanced secularism. He does this with his customary presentation of an extraordinary wealth of detail together with intelligent analysis of options for Europe's religious future. According to Jenkins, Christianity in Europe is not dying, but rather, the current situation presents an opportunity for new forms of Islamic and Christian faith to flourish within a predominantly secular environment. While the traditional institutional church in Europe is in decline, he sees signs of revival in various movements in Roman Catholicism and other Christian groups, including vital, growing immigrant churches.

For Jenkins's own brief summary of his current book, see his recent article in Foreign Policy, "Europe's Christian Comeback." The July 2007 issue of the International Bulletin for Missionary Research features an article by Jenkins, "Godless Europe?" and Lamin Sanneh's remarks about Jenkins's book, "Can Europe Be Saved? A Review Essay." Editor Jonathan Bonk introduces these essays with his comments "Europe: Christendom Graveyard or Christian Laboratory?"

"A Hipper Crowd of Shushers"

The New York Times has discovered what the theology reference librarians of Hekman Library have long known - Librarians are very happening people. My colleague and I on the fourth floor of Hekman Library have spent most of our lives trying to be very "unhip," but we give up; we can't fight it anymore. See today's New York Times article in the Sunday Style section: "A Hipper Crowd of Shushers."