Norah, Bible Stuff, Business.

We went to see a specialist yesterday about Norah's small vocabulary. Rachel and I weren't terribly concerned about it, and I don't think we are extremely worried now, but we did learn that she seems to be having some trouble. She should have a larger vocabulary right now, and she should be more closely mimicking our words, but she seems to be having trouble planning. Basically that means that she is vocalizing the sounds before she shapes her mouth to make the sound she wants to make. The result is saying "ah" instead of "ba" because she doesn't put her lips together first. It's not that she can't put her lips together, just that she's not thinking about it enough to do it. It's not a terribly alarming thing, and she'll probably catch on quickly, but we are now spending a lot of time hanging out sitting on the floor with her saying "Norah, can you get the ffffffffffffffffffffffffffone.?" It's a little wierd to be talking like that, but hey... if it's what she needs, then it's no trouble.

Other than that, I'm still working through my last quarter of the first year of my M.A. I'm really excited about the stuff I've been learning this quarter. I'm taking my Hebrew course, so I'm still learning the language. (We will actually finish the grammar next week.) On top of that I'm taking a class on the book of Genesis and another class on Ancient Near Eastern Myth and Magic. So right now I'm getting to study the stuff I want to study for the rest of my life. It's pretty much the best thing ever.

Right now, I'm working on a paper comparing the Myth of Atrahasis to the eleventh tablet of the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the flood account in Genesis. Right now, I'm basically focusing on the divine motivation to destroy the earth by flood. Both the Mesopotamian accounts and the Gensis account claim that the divine motivation is peturbance. But while the Genesis account claims that God was peturbed by sin, the mesopotamian accounts claim that the gods are peturbed with noise (and over-population.) I think there's something there that could inform us about the Biblical understanding of God compared to the Mesopotamian concept of god, and I'm working on looking into that.

So, most of what's going on in my life. Sorry I haven't posted in so long, but I assume that no one really cares about the stuff I'm studying, and right now, that's really all I have to talk about. Then I realized, the stuff I'm studying is probably the most interesting stuff in the world... so I figured I'd go ahead and say a word or two about it.

That's all for now. I'll post again when I can... thanks for sticking around through the sparse updates!!!

And as a special treat:

I'm pretty sure my labelling is correct here. I haven't done any in-depth study on these things yet, so I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm right here. The stylized tree and the solar [sun/shamash] disc is particularly interesting to me, because some people are equating the stylized tree with the Tree of Life in Genesis, and some have said that the Hebrews adopted the solar disc as a symbol to represent the Hebrew God. I'm not terribly persuaded by either position, but I haven't studied them a whole lot yet either so... take it or leave it.

So there you have it! I'm getting to the point where I can look at those ancient Sumerian/Babylonian/Assyrian cylinder seals, and know what I'm looking at! Just so long as I don't have to read the Sumerian or Akkadian... that comes next.