Julia M. OBrien

Between attending sessions and meetings at the Society of Biblical Literature meeting, I’m living in Reading Lolita in Tehran:  A Memoir in Books.  I say “living in” because that’s how I interact with books.  I live in them and they live in me—some for a few days, some for decades.

A recent New York Times article reports that the U.S. military has turned to a new resource  to help soldiers name and heal from the trauma of war:  the very old literature of Sophocles.

There’s been some discussion over at the Changing Lives through Literature blog about an article I wrote this summer.   You can click here to learn more about this program, which engages offenders in a process of reading and self-discovery as an alternative to incarceration.

I've just had an article published in the on-line journal The Bible and Interpretation.  It calls for biblical scholars to start talking more about why people should care about the Bible, not relying on the fact that they historically have.

"Why are We Still Reading Dickens?" is the title of an article in The Guardian blog.  It's also a question asked by myriad high school and college students.

This week, 60 Minutes ran a piece on firms that represent delebs:  dead celebrities.  Turns out there's a big business in merchandising Elvis, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, and the most recognizable face of our time, Albert Einstein.

In a recent article in The Wall Street Journal, Karen Armstrong and Richard Dawkins respond to the question, "Where does evolution leave God?"   Not surprisingly, Armstrong answers in a way that respects religious belief, while Dawkins uses the opportunity to further disparage religion.

There's an interesting article this week in The Chronicle Review about the role of first person in writings in the Humanities.  It's primarily a review of Cynthia Franklin's Academic Lives: Memoir, Cultural Theory, and the University Today (University of Georgia Press) and a reiteration of her belief that scholars talking about their own experiences "may help to rehumanize the ailing humanities."

Last night at the Berks County (PA) Theology with a Twist, I spoke about "Violence and the Bible."  We had a good discussion, around tables and as a group.

I'm posting my talking points below.  Maybe they can generate conversation here as well.

(This post covers some of the same ground as my session on Jacob in Reading the Bible as an Adult but talks more about how the themes of the story resonate with me.)

It’s common to read the Jacob narrative (Genesis 25-36) as tracing the main character’s transformation.  According to a lot of folks, Jacob begins his life as trickster but several key events help him to change.  One is his experience of being on the receiving end of deception, when his uncle Laban manipulates him into taking not just one but two cousins and hatches one scheme after another to keep Jacob down on the sheep farm. The other episode seen as pivotal shows up in chs. 32 and 33: on the night before he is to face the brother he has wronged, Jacob wrestles with and prevails over a man whom he later perceives as God.  Not only Jacob’s name but his very character is altered by the experience, enabling him to reconcile with Esau.

That's one way of looking at this story.  But paying close attention to particular literary features of this narrative makes Jacob’s story look different-- less about change than about how themes established at the beginning of a life continue to weave throughout it.