Monday, January 3, 2011

Lewis on "the stifling of all deep-set repugnances"

"The very experiences of the dissecting room and the pathological laboratory were breeding a conviction that the stifling of all deep-set repugnances was the first essential for progress."

C. S. Lewis, That hideous strength:  a modern fairy-tale for grown-ups, chap. 9, sec. 5.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Tongue in cheek

And Rebekah lifted up her eyes,
and when she saw Isaac,
she fell off her camel [(וַתִּפֹּל מֵעַל הַגָּמָֽל)].

     A mischievously non-idiomatic reading of the Hebrew of Gen 24:64.

Divine condescension

"And Isaac entreated the Lord for his wife,
because she was barren;
and the Lord let Himself be entreated of him [(וַיֵּעָתֶר לֹו יְהוָה)],
and Rebekah his wife conceived."

Gen 25:21, JPS version of 1917.  Cf. 2 Sam 21:14; 2 Sam 24:25; 1 Chr 5:20; 2 Chr 33:13, 19; Ez 8:23; and Is 19:22.