I Am the Very Model of a Biblical Philologist

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It’s been a great while since I posted a blog entry. (I’ve noticed this is probably the most popular way of beginning a blog entry, so I’m leaning on convention.) I would like to post a photo essay about my trip to Israel last summer and my first archaeological dig. But until I have the leisure to make that happen, I am posting the following.

I love this semester. I love everything I am learning, and everything I am doing. I wake up full of excitement about the satisfying work God has put before me, and I have to force myself to go to bed because I can’t get enough of it.

There’s a lot going on... taking classes, teaching, writing, working with Gemma to try to further the fortunes of our musical. But if I could convey the feel of the upbeat, grateful mood I am in lately, I believe it would be encapsulated in the following parody.

My rendition of this number is here:

"I Am the Very Model of a Biblical Philologist" on YouTube. Buy the single on iTunes soon!

This recording is just about as pure an expression of silly, bubbly joy as I know how to produce.

I Am the Very Model of a Biblical Philologist

lyrics by Joshua Tyra

with deference due to William S. Gilbert

(PROFESSOR PHILOMATHES revealed at his desk surrounded by mountains of books)

PROFESSOR PHILOMATHES

I am the very model of a biblical philologist.

I’m quite the Semitician and a passing Hittitologist.

My articles are free from all grammatical iniquity.

I rank Semitic cognates in their order of propinquity.

I am very well acquainted, too, with matters exegetical.

I side with all the orthodox, and censure the heretical.

In print, I wrinkle brows of any liberal who wrinkles mine,

(bothered for a rhyme)

Wrinkles mine, wrinkles mine... got it!

And counter all the theses of that vigilante Finkelstein!

Then I can give a lecture on the logic of Leviticus

And tell you every symbol in the apparatus criticus.

In short, in matters lexical, semantic, and homologous,

I am the very model of a biblical philologist!

I know my St. Jerome and all his Vulgate Prolegomena.

I’ve memorized, in order, all the known hapax legomena!

Then I can tell the age of every patriarch in Genesis

And tell the daghesh fortés from the shureqs and the lenéses.

I dream in Aramaic and interpret it in Syriac.

I’ve posited that Esau was a possible porphyriac.

Then I can parse at sight a polal, hithpolal or hishtaphel

(bothered for a rhyme)

Hishtaphel, hishtaphel... oh, that’s a hard one... got it!

And topple any argument it happens that I wish to fell!

Then I can date a sample of Arabian calligraphy

And tell you what the scribe was wearing, based on the epigraphy!

In short, in matters lexical, semantic, and homologous,

I am the very model of a biblical philologist!

Then I can write a shopping list in classical Sumerian,

And tell you whether peoples were nomadic or agrarian.

I know the Jewish festivals, Purimic and Kippurian.

I mumble in Mandaic, I can hum a little Hurrian.

Then I can sing the alphabet in Hieroglyphic Luwian,

And catalogue the animals, both pre- and postdiluvian.

Then I can tell a surplice from a chasuble or maniple.

(bothered for a rhyme)

Maniple, maniple... got it!

And reconstruct the library of ancient Assurbanipal.

I wrote my dissertation in a flowery Akkadian

And proved the Philistines were almost certainly Canadian.

In short, in matters lexical, semantic, and homologous,

I am the very model of a biblical philologist!