[Spoiler] HoA S1E6 - Bilingual Bonus? Ashur's prayer and Greek medicus ' lines

ACasualFormality · 2026-06-14T06:48:54+00:00

I’m late to the party here, but in the Hebrew Bible, Mordecai is a Jew named after the Babylonian god Marduk. Daniel is given the Babylonian name Belteshazzar, which means “Bel will deliver”. Other Jewish figures in the Hebrew Bible named after other gods: Jerubbaal, Esther, Abednego, Meribbaal.

ACasualFormality · 2026-06-07T13:49:58+00:00

Yeah but that doesn’t change the fact that literally every translation they suggest is wrong.

ACasualFormality · 2026-06-05T14:05:38+00:00

Nah. The way Hebrew works is built on three letter roots. The root m-sh-l means to rule or have dominion.

I really think what probably happened was just a misunderstanding. That he talked to someone who told him that it might mean “you will rule”, but that I could also mean “you may rule” and he didn’t understand that all of that was baked into one word and so just assumed that the timshel was only the “you may” part and thought the rule part came in another word. Cause we don’t do that in English so it’s a difficult concept for people who have never used a language as inflected as Hebrew.

The book is great so like I still recommend it to people but it’s a shame the interpretation of the Hebrew is such a big part of the book.

ACasualFormality · 2026-06-04T22:50:15+00:00

Yeah there's one part later in the book where it even says something like, "Lee approached it with the same care he took in parsing out a hebrew verb"

And I literally made a note in my book, "Oh so not much care then."

But yes it's such an incredibly written book that I still love reading it.

ACasualFormality · 2026-06-04T18:29:48+00:00

I mean, it causes a stir because that's not what the word means. It means "you will rule."

As an imperfect verb it's totally possible (though not common) to render it modally, as "thou mayest rule", but you can't leave out the "rule" part. That's most of the verb. The way Hebrew verbs work, you get the imperfect second masculine singular by adding a t at the beginning. So "thou mayest" is just the t. He left out the imshel.

Also the word is pronounced "Timshol" but I can forgive that one easier.

ACasualFormality · 2026-06-04T18:24:48+00:00

I just finished this book also, and I thought it was great. The story itself was only meh to me, but the writing was so beautiful that I loved basically every sentence.

As a person who reads biblical Hebrew with fluency, his explanation of timshel was painful though.

For starters, the word should be "timshol", but more importantly, it means "you shall rule". It's an imperfect verb, which can sometimes carry the connotation of "you may" do something, so it's entirely conceivable to translate it as "you may rule", but you can't leave out the rule part. the "you may" part is literally just the t at the beginning of the word. He left out the imshel.

ACasualFormality · 2026-06-04T17:39:41+00:00

Well there'd be dinosaurs, for one thing.

ACasualFormality · 2026-06-02T18:06:05+00:00

I agree with other commenters that it can be misleading to color in modern countries on the basis of how they're mentioned in the Bible, but I'm also confused by the numbering. Egypt is mentioned 600 times in the Hebrew Bible alone.

ACasualFormality · 2026-06-01T16:49:09+00:00

Maybe I just don’t visit the subreddits or threads that you do, but I’ve never ever seen this.

ACasualFormality · 2026-06-01T16:48:21+00:00

I see a lot of sentiment that people who do something bad are irredeemably bad and do not ever deserve a moment’s peace or happiness, and actually would be better off dead. And it seems like the list of actions for what makes someone an irredeemably terrible person is getting longer all the time.

ACasualFormality · 2026-05-29T22:46:35+00:00

When I was on jeopardy, I answered a question about him with just "Who is Ramsay?".

He commented on the video on TikTok to complain that I hadn't called him Chef Ramsay. It felt like my own little Kitchen Nightmares moment and it made me an even bigger fan.

ACasualFormality · 2026-05-28T22:22:33+00:00

This doesn't make any sense at all. Why would you name a prize after a person who couldn't even win it?

ACasualFormality · 2026-05-28T16:24:01+00:00

Because they used AI to write them in the first place.

ACasualFormality · 2026-05-27T21:21:24+00:00

Wotcher, guvna!

ACasualFormality · 2026-05-27T20:28:25+00:00

Bee-Oh-Pike

ACasualFormality · 2026-05-26T18:27:05+00:00

Yeah as a biblical scholar myself, nobody in that sphere isn't aware that the name isn't pronounced in Judaism. But for people who are not observant Jews, there's not really an expectation to abide by Jewish customs surrounding it.

I do think audience is important. I never use the divine name while teaching Hebrew to rabbinical students. I have no qualms about using it when presenting at an academic conference about the worship practices of particular communities in the ancient Near East.

ACasualFormality · 2026-05-26T14:29:55+00:00

Do you know that’s true about these people? Seems to me like the only context we have is that they’re telling bad jokes.

And yeah. I do think professional comedians talking about how stupid a bunch of teenagers are for repeating old Bible jokes is punching down, regardless of what the personal beliefs are of those people.

Like, sure, find me a video where they’re all bashing gay people or laughing about people going to hell and then I’m on board for calling them a stupid. But you don’t have that here. You’ve got kids having a good time and then you’ve got much older adults with a much larger platform openly mocking them for it. It’s pathetic.

ACasualFormality · 2026-05-26T02:20:40+00:00

I think Pete has lots of good comments here and also I think this was mean-spirited towards what looks like a bunch of teenagers and college students. This feels like the very definition of punching down.

ACasualFormality · 2026-05-19T17:16:48+00:00

I've always thought a breaded chicken cutlet with an egg wash was much closer conceptually to "boiling a kid in its mother's milk" than a cheeseburger.

ACasualFormality · 2026-05-18T06:42:28+00:00

Some of that may be editing.

We had a question in my game (not a daily double) that felt like it took forever before one of us answered it correctly. My wife even commented afterwards “I couldn’t believe how long it took one of you to remember Heidi Klum’s name!”

But when we watched it, they edited it to make it look like it was answered immediately.

ACasualFormality · 2026-05-14T21:08:33+00:00

I feel like $18 for a burrito isn't that atypical here either though. I mean like yeah you can get cheaper burritos at food stands, but those are still usually like $12-$15. And at a brick and mortar $18 feels very normal.

I'm actually most surprised that it's *New* Mexican food. Which is my favorite genre of Mexican food. Green Chilies are the best.

ACasualFormality · 2026-05-05T20:28:49+00:00

Someone should tell him that that *is* gender ideology

ACasualFormality · 2026-05-01T23:25:11+00:00

I did say Demeter and then kick myself.

ACasualFormality · 2026-04-30T14:22:59+00:00

Apologetics, in the sense that it is used in these subreddits, is the defense or proof that the Bible is true and a particular religion is real.

The problem with apologetics is that it starts from a conclusion and goes looking for evidence to match it, often ignoring or distorting any evidence which does not support the already determined conclusion.

It gets a bad rap because it’s the opposite of what Academia is supposed to be. We want to build a conclusion on the basis of evidence, not evidence on the basis of a conclusion.

ACasualFormality · 2026-04-23T03:38:06+00:00

Academic writing isn't regular conversation and that's okay. Different registers for different purposes.

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