By: Alice,
on 7/6/2015
In the mid-twentieth century Dalit migration from the villages of southern princely State of Travancore to the villages in the Western Ghats hills in the north was reminiscent of Exodus, although we are yet to have substantial narratives of the difficult journeys they undertook.
The post Echoes of caste slavery in Dalit Christian practices appeared first on OUPblog.
By: [email protected],
on 4/13/2015
My standout literary fiction of the year so far is Dutch author Tommy Wieringa’s These Are the Names (Scribe) and Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant (Faber & Faber). Both these writers have been awarded for previous works and should have similar success with these books. The novels are masterfully written, with myth-like, nebulous settings and a […]
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By: Julia Callaway,
on 12/13/2014
Moses and Pharaoh are returning to the big screen in Ridley Scott’s seasonal blockbuster, Exodus: Gods and Kings. With a $200m budget and Christian Bale in the leading role, the British director will hope to replicate the success of Gladiator (where he resurrected the sword and sandals genre) and surpass the shock and awe of Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments. Even before its release, the movie sparked controversy. The casting of white actors as Egyptians provoked charges of racial discrimination; describing Moses as ‘barbaric’ and ‘schizophrenic’ did not endear the leading actor to traditional believers; and casting a truculent young boy as the voice of Yahweh was bound to raise eyebrows. In other respects, the storyline remains traditional. Indeed, the film follows a long tradition of interpretation by presenting the Exodus as a political saga of slavery and liberation. 600,000 slaves are delivered as an oppressive empire is overwhelmed by divine power.
This political reading of the biblical epic will be familiar to anyone who has studied its remarkable reception history. In Christian preaching, liturgy and hymnology, Exodus has been read as spiritual typology — Israel points forward to the Church, Pharaoh’s Egypt to enslavement by Satan, Moses to the Messiah, the Red Sea to salvation, the Wilderness Wanderings to earthly pilgrimage, the Promised Land to heavenly rest.
Yet there has been an almost equally potent tradition of reading Exodus politically. It originated with Eusebius of Caesarea in the fourth century, who hailed the Emperor Constantine as a Mosaic deliverer of the persecuted Church. It took on new intensity when the Protestant Reformation was promoted as liberation from ‘popish bondage’. As a vulnerable minority, European Calvinists identified with the oppressed children of Israel in Egypt and then celebrated national reformations in Britain and the Netherlands as a new exodus. The title page of the Geneva Bible (1560) pictured the Israelites pinned against the Red Sea by the chariots and horsemen of Pharaoh, the moment before their deliverance. Deliverance became a keyword in Anglophone political rhetoric, a term that fused Providence and Liberation.
Over the coming centuries, this Protestant reading of Exodus would go through some surprising twists. The Reformers had sought deliverance from the Papacy, but radical Puritans condemned intolerant Protestant clergy as ‘Egyptian taskmasters’. Rhetoric that had once been trained on ecclesiastical oppression was turned against ‘political slavery’, as revolutionaries in 1649, 1688 and 1776 co-opted biblical narrative. For Oliver Cromwell, Israel’s journey from Egypt through the Wilderness towards Canaan was ‘the only parallel’ to the course of English Revolution. For John Milton, tolerationist and republican, England’s Exodus led to ‘civil and religious liberty’, a phrase coined in Cromwellian England. The most startling development occurred during the American Revolution, when Patriots unleashed the language of slavery and deliverance against ‘the British Pharaoh’, George III. The contradiction between their libertarian rhetoric and American slaveholding galvanized the nascent anti-slavery movement on both sides of the Atlantic. Black Protestants now seized upon Exodus and the language of deliverance. ‘For the first time in history’, writes historian John Saillant, ‘slaves had a book on their side’.
African Americans inhabited the story like no other people before them. When they fled from slavery and segregation and migrated to the North, they consciously re-enacted the Exodus. In slave revolts and in the American Civil War they called on God for deliverance from Egyptian taskmasters. In the spiritual ‘Go Down Moses’, they re-imagined the United States as ‘Egyptland’, throwing into question the biblical construction of the nation as an ‘American Zion’. They sang of a deliverer who would tell old Pharaoh, ‘Let my People go’. They celebrated the abolition of the slave trade, West Indian emancipation, and Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation by recalling the song of Moses and Miriam at the Red Sea.
The black use of Exodus was not without its ironies. It owed more than has been recognized to the long tradition of Protestant Exodus politics, albeit reworked and subverted. African Americans took pride in the fact that Moses married an Ethiopian (Numbers 12:1), but they were embarrassed by the sanction given to slavery in the Mosaic Law, and by the Hebrews’ oppression at the hands of African Pharaohs. Yet Exodus spoke to African American experience like no other text. Like the Children of Israel, their Red Sea moment was followed by a long and bitter Wilderness experience. On the night before his assassination, Martin Luther King Jr assured his black audience that he had ‘seen the Promised Land’. Barack Obama talked of ‘the Joshua Generation’ completing the work of King’s ‘Moses Generation’, but the land of milk and honey can still seem like a distant prospect.
Heading image: Dura Europos Synagogue wall painting showing the Hebrews leaving Egypt. Adaptation by Gill/Gillerman slides collection, Yale. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
The post Moses the liberator: Exodus politics from Eusebius to Martin Luther King Jr. appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Paula Becker,
on 3/1/2011
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By: Writing for Children,
on 2/27/2008
If you have an upcoming writers’ event to announce to everyone join host, Suzanne Lieurance, for Book Bites for Kids, LIVE on blogtalkradio.com today at 2:00 central time.
Listeners are invited to call in and announce any upcoming writers’ conferences, workshops, or other events. The number to call is 1-646-716-9239.
Listen to the show at www.blogtalkradio.com/bookbitesforkids
Send your announcements ahead of time and Lieurance will present them on air for you. Send to [email protected]
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By: Writing for Children,
on 2/24/2008
If you have a new book, a new writers’ workshop you teach, or a writers’ conference you’d like to promote, you can do just that every Wednesday.
Each Wednesday is chat and promo day on Book Bites for Kids, LIVE on blogtalkradio.com at 2:00 central time.
Call 1-646-716-9239 during the LIVE show on Wednesdays to promote your children’s book, writers’ conference, or upcoming writing workshop.
If you can’t call or tune in during the live show, email your announcement ahead of time to [email protected] and Suzanne Lieurance, host of the show, will make the announcement on the air for you.
blogtalkradio, Book Bites for Kids, childrens book, promote your book
By: Writing for Children,
on 2/20/2008
Today’s topic on Book Bites for Kids is Great Workshops, Courses, and Conferences for Children’s Writers: Let’s Spread the Word!
If you will be presenting at an upcoming conference for children’s writers, or you teach an online workshop or course in writing for kids, or you even just KNOW about a super writers’ conference that children’s writers need to know about, join us at 2:00 central time today, LIVE on blogtalkradio.com and help spread the word.
Call this number 1-646-716-9239 at 2:00 to join the live chat. Listen to the show at www.blogtalkradio.com/bookbitesforkids
blogtalkradio, Book Bites for Kids, writers conferences, writing workshops
By: Writing for Children,
on 2/6/2008
Join the discussion today about Writing Biographies for Children on Book Bites for Kids, LIVE on blogtalkradio this afternoon at 2:00 central time.
Listen to the show at Book Bites for Kids.
Call in and join the talk at: 1-646-716-9239.
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By: Writing for Children,
on 12/8/2007
Every week we offer an exciting lineup of interviews with children’s book authors and/or illustrators on our afternoon talk show at blogtalkradio called Book Bites for Kids.
We hope you’ll listen to the show. When you do, please rate the episode you listen to. You can also leave comments for us to tell us who you’d like to hear interviewed on our show or if you’re a children’s book author/illustrator yourself and would like to be our guest on Book Bites for Kids.
To find out who will be our guest on Book Bites for Kids every week, go here.
author interviews, blogtalkradio, Book Bites for Kids, childrens books
By: Writing for Children,
on 11/27/2007
Kevin Scott Collier Drawing With Children at a Recent Book Signing
Listen to Book Bites for Kids, LIVE on blogtalkradio.com today at 2:00 central time when author/illustrator Kevin Scott Collier will be the guest.
Collier and his wife, Kristen, have a new book out called Joy, the Jellyfish.
Here’s just one of the colorful illustrations from this cute book:
Listen to Book Bites for Kids at Blogtalkradio.com and call in and ask a question or make a comment at 1-646-716-9239.
By: Writing for Children,
on 11/2/2007
Children’s author Kristen Collier is today’s guest on Book Bites for Kids, LIVE on blogtalkradio.com at 2:00 central. She’ll talk about her new book, Joy the Jellyfish.
Listen to Book Bites for Kids here and call in to ask a question or make a comment during the LIVE show at 1-646-716-9239.
author interview, blogtalkradio, Book Bites for Kids, childrens books, Joy the Jellyfish, Kristen Collier
By: Writing for Children,
on 10/25/2007
Last night, author Angela Durden presented an interesting and informative teleclass for members of the Children’s Writers’ Coaching Club.
While I was listening, I think I took at LEAST 3 pages of notes. Angela had some exciting ideas for published children’s book authors and for aspiring children’s book authors, as well. Members of the CWCC will receive a CD of this recorded event in their membership packets early next month.
This afternoon at 2:00 central time, Angela will be the guest author on Book Bites for Kids, LIVE on blogtalkradio.com. Listen to the show via your computer to find out about Angela’s exciting series of children’s books called Mike and His Grandpa.Call in during the show to ask a question or make a comment at 1-646-716-9239.
Angela Durden is not only a children’s writer, she is also a fulltime freelance writer. Tonight, she will be our guest speaker for this week’s Writers on Call teleclass for freelance writers. She’ll talk to us about marketing and promoting our writing and writing services.
Angela Durden, author interview, blogtalkradio, Book Bites for Kids, Childrens Writers Coaching Club, Cwcc, MIke and His Grandpa, teleclasses for writers, writers on call
By: Writing for Children,
on 10/24/2007
Want to learn the true story of Smokey the Bear?
Then listen to Book Bites for Kids, LIVE on blogtalkradio.com today at 2:00 Central time when my guest will be Sue Houser, author of Hot Foot Teddy - The True Story of Smokey Bear.
Listen to the show here and call in and ask a question or make a comment at 1-646-716-9239.
author interview, blogtalkradio, Book Bites for Kids, childrens picture book, Hot Foot Teddy, Sue Houser
By: Writing for Children,
on 10/23/2007
Parents aren’t the only imparters of wisdom. Children often teach us, if we pay attention.
Listen to Book Bites for Kids, LIVE on blogtalkradio.com today at 2:00 (central time) when Ettarose Lazaros will talk about her new book, Heaven Help Mom - and Maybe the Kids will Help.
Lazaros says, “My children taught me to pay attention to my world as if I was a child viewing it in awe and wonderment. These insights are captured in the book. Its message is that children open our eyes to see, our ears to hear and our hearts to feel when sophistication hinders our perception of the world.”
Call in during this LIVE show to ask a question or make a comment at 1-646-716-9239.
author interview, blogtalkradio, Book Bites for Kids, Ettarose Lazaros, Heaven Help Mom
By: Writing for Children,
on 10/21/2007
Listen to Book Bites for Kids, LIVE on blogtalkradio.com today at 2:00 (Central time), when guest author, Mary Alice Monroe talks about her new picture book, Turtle Summer.
Listen to the show via your computer and call in to make a comment or ask Mary Alice a question at 1-646-716-9239.
To learn more about the book, view this short video:
author interview, blogtalkradio, Book Bites for Kids, Mary Alice Monroe, picture book, Turtle Summer
By: Writing for Children,
on 10/19/2007
Listen to Book Bites for Kids, LIVE today on blogtalkradio.com, when my guest will be Lois V. Harris, author of a beautiful new children’s picture book, Mary Cassatt- Impressionist Painter.
Call in during the LIVE show and ask a question or make a comment - 1-646-716-9239.
author interviews, blogtalkradio, Book Bites for Kids, Lois V. Harris, Mary Cassatt
By: Writing for Children,
on 10/18/2007
Listen to Book Bites for Kids today, LIVE on blogtalkradio.com at 2:00 (Central time) when author Sheri Sinykin talks about her new book called Giving Up the Ghost.
Listen to Book Bites for Kids via your computer and call in and ask a question or make a comment at 1-646-716-9239.
blogtalkradio, Book Bites for Kids, Giving Up the Ghost, Sheri Sinykin
By: Writing for Children,
on 10/17/2007
Sheryl McFarlane is today’s guest on Book Bites for Kids, LIVE at blogtalkradio.com.
Listen to the show LIVE, or download the recorded show from the archives HERE.
Visit Sheryl’s website for more information about her books and other great resources for teachers, kids, and parents.
author interview, blogtalkradio, Book Bites for Kids, Sheryl McFarlane, The Smell of Paint, YA Fiction
By: Writing for Children,
on 10/16/2007
Join us today for Book Bites for Kids, LIVE on blogtalkradio.com.
Our guest will be Lorijo Metz, author of Floridius Bloom and the Planet of Gloom. Call in during the show and ask Metz a question or leave a comment at 1-646-716-9239.
blogtalkradio, Book Bites for Kids, Floridius Bloom and the Planet of Gloom, Lorijo Metz, Picture Books
By: Writing for Children,
on 10/15/2007
Listen to Book Bites for Kids every weekday afternoon at 2:00 CST on blogtalkradio.com.
We have an exciting lineup of guest authors this week.
Today, Monday, October 15th, Kari-Lynn Winters, author of a darling new picture book from Orca Publishing called Jeffrey and Sloth will be out guest.
On Tuesday, October 16th, Lorijo Metz will be our guest to talk about her new picture book, Floridus Bloom and the Planet of Gloom.
On Wednesday, October 17th, YA novelist Sheryl McFarlane will join us to discuss her new novel, The Smell of Paint.
Sheri Sinykin will guest on Thursday, October 18th, to talk about her new book, Giving Up the Ghost.
On Friday, tune in to listen to the creator of The Eye Patch Kids DVD and puppets.
Listen to the show online at blogtalkradio.com or call in and ask a question or make a comment at 1-646-716-9239.
author interviews, blogtalkradio, Book Bites for Kids, Floridus Bloom and the Planet of Gloom, Giving Up the Ghost, Jeffrey and Sloth, The Eye Patch Kids, The Smell of Paint
By: Writing for Children,
on 9/30/2007
We have an exciting lineup of guest authors this week on Book Bites for Kids, our LIVE radio show at blogtalkradio.com.
Monday, our guest will be YA novelist, Anne Gray, author of Rites of the Healer.
Sumach Press (Gray’s publisher) says, “Anne Gray creates a fascinating alternative world where the descendants of interplanetary colonists have built their society in a rich fusion of advanced technologies and ancient traditional ways of life. Sixteen-year-old Dovella is an engineering apprentice of great potential and talent, though her true vocation is for healing, for which she has a rare and extraordinary Gift. In four days, she is to go through the most important ceremony of her life, the Rites of the Healer, to join the ranks of the Healer’s Guild.”
On Tuesday’s show our guest will be Sally Rogow, author of They Must Not Be Forgotten (Heroic Priests and Nuns Who Saved People from the Holocaust), and Faces of Courage (Young Heroies of WWII).
On Wednesday, children’s author C.S. Larsen drops by to talk about his books and stories for children.
Stacey Kannenberg, coauthor (with Linda Desimowich) of the Let’s Get Ready series of books for young children and their parents is our guest for Thursday’s show.
On Friday, we’ll be talking with children’s author Rita Milios.
Listen to Book Bites for Kids LIVE every weekday afternoon at 2:00 (CST) or call in and ask questions or make comments by dialing 1-646-716-9239.
Anne Gray, author interview, blogtalkradio, Book Bites for Kids, C.S. Larsen, Rita Milios, Sally Rogow, Stacey Kannenberg
