January
2015
By Douglas Kent 911
Irene Drive, Mesquite, TX 75149
Email: diplomacyworld@yahoo.com or dougray30@yahoo.com
On the web at http://www.whiningkentpigs.com
– or go directly to the Diplomacy section at http://www.whiningkentpigs.com/DW/. Also be sure to visit the official Diplomacy
World website which can be found at http://www.diplomacyworld.net.
All Eternal
Sunshine readers are encouraged to join the free
Eternal Sunshine Yahoo group at http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/eternal_sunshine_diplomacy/
to stay up-to-date on any subzine news or errata.
Check out my eBay store at http://stores.ebay.com/dougsrarebooksandmore
My book “It’s Their House; I’m Just a Guest” is
available in softcover and Kindle from Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1501090968/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
REMEMBER:
NO STANDBY PLAYERS WILL BE CALLED IN ANY GAMES.
CONSECUTIVE NMR’S = CD
Dr. Joel
Hoffman’s book “And God Said”
Reviewed by Paul Milewski
The
book (ISBN 978-0-312-56558-9) is a scholarly work on translation and deals
mostly on translation from Hebrew to English.
I thought his discussion of the Ten Commandments, and especially what he
asserts is a mistranslation of a Hebrew word into the English word “covet,” was
particularly interesting, but that’s just me.
The book is a rigorous treatment of various problems of translating from
one language to another that has general applicability outside of biblical
scholarship and there is some explanation of the complexities of ancient Hebrew.
Counting
to Ten
But then disagreement sets in. Exodus 20:2 reads, “I am the LORD your God,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the
house of slavery” (NRSV). Exodus 20:3
continues, “You shall have no other gods…”
(The end of the line is particularly difficult to translate, so we’re
leaving it out for now. It probably
means “…other than Me.”)
Because 20:2 looks like a statement, not
a commandment, most Protestants (but not most Lutherans) group 20:2 with the
introduction in 20:1, and call Exodus 20:3 the first commandment. So for most Protestants, the first
commandment is the entirety of Exodus 20:3: “You shall have no other gods…”
Catholics (and most Lutherans), on the
other hand, group 20:2 with 20:3 into one longer first commandment: “I am the
Lord your God, you shall have no other gods…”
The Catholic first commandment, then, is an abridgement of Exodus 20:2
and all of 20:3.
On the third hand, Jews see two
commandments, one in 20:2 and one in 20:3.
For Jews, the first commandment is the entirety of 20:2 (“I am the Lord
your God…”).
Two
Because Jews have completed the first
commandment by the end of 20:2, Exodus 20:3 in its entirety forms the second
commandment: “You shall have no other gods…”
The Jewish second commandment is thus the same as the Protestant first
commandment and the second half of the Catholic first commandment.
Exodus 20:4 deals with what are commonly
called “graven images.” There’s some
question as to what exactly the Hebrew means—the issue has been the source of
more than a little bloodshed, as when Calvin used his understanding of the line
to condemn Catholicism—and we’re not going to address the question here. The point of Exodus 20:4, though, is not to
make them. Depending on whom you ask,
the forbidden “them” may be idols, pictures, pictures, of people, carved
images, etc.
For Protestants, that’s the second
commandment: “You shall not make…any
graven images.”
Jews and Catholics, though, group Exodus
20:3 with 20:2 as an instance of how not to have other gods. That is, one way not to have any other gods
is not to create idols.
As we just saw, Jews have already used
Exodus 20:3 for the second commandment.
Catholics, however, jump ahead to Exodus 20:7 to find the second
commandment: “Do not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.”
Three
Through Ten
Jews and Protestants agree that “Do not
take the name of the Lord your God in vain” is one of the Ten Commandments,
but, unlike Catholics, the Jews and Protestants have already counted to two by
Exodus 20:7. So for both of those
groups, Exodus 20:7 is the third commandment.
From here to the tenth commandment, the
Jewish/Protestant numbering is ahead by one compared with the Catholic
numbering. The Jewish/Protestant fourth
commandment is about the Sabbath. For
Catholics, that’s the third commandment.
Similarly, the Jewish/Protestant fifth
commandment is about honoring parents.
For Catholics, that’s the fourth commandment.
At this rate, the Catholics will run out
of commandments, because the Jewish/Protestant tenth commandment, commonly
translated as “do not covet…” is the Catholic ninth commandment. (We’ll see below that it doesn’t really have
anything to do with coveting. It’s a
major mistranslation.) To get to ten,
Catholics have two commandments about “coveting.” The ninth commandment regards “your
neighbor’s wife,” and the tenth, “your neighbor’s goods.” [Pages 166-168]
Yet because the Ten Commandments are so
widespread, the one appearance of the word is enough to make “covet” much more
common than it otherwise might be, and most people have a sense that it means
“desire,” “want,” “crave,” “lust,” etc.
The English word “covet” does mean that,
but the original Hebrew does not.
The Hebrew word is chamad, and we know by now how to
figure out what it means. We look at how
it is used.
The root Ch.M.D
is a fairly common one in Hebrew, and, in addition to the simple verb form we
see in the Ten Commandments, the root appears in a variety of other words. But we know from Chapter 2 that using related
words might lead us astray.
The first time the verb chamad appears in
the Bible is in the Ten Commandments themselves. All we know from there is that chamad is
something not to be done. It could be
anything.
The next time we see the verb is in
Exodus 34:24, and here we get a very clear sense of what the word means—or at
least, what it does not mean. Exodus
34:23 sets the stage by referring to the pilgrimage holidays (the Feast of Matzot, Feast of Weeks, and Feast of Booths) during each of
which Jews—or, in Exodus 34:23, just the men—were to leave their homes and
ascend to Jerusalem. In that context,
Exodus 34:24 promises that “…no one will chamad your land
when you go up [to Jerusalem] three times a year.”
Clearly, the verse is meant to tell
people that it’s OK to leave their land, that nothing
bad will happen while they are gone. A
variety of meanings seem reasonable, but “covet” is not among them. Surely, when the people left their land
untended, they were not afraid that other people would simply desire it. Other people could desire the land whether
the landowners were around or not. There
is nothing about the temporary absence of the men that would make the land more
desirable from afar. [Pages 189-190]
But we do know that chamad basically means “take.”
The last commandment, therefore, should
read, “Do not take your neighbor’s wife.”
We don’t know if the point is to “take with the intent to return” or
“take and not plan to give back,” but either way the commandment is surely about
taking, not about wanting. Wanting may
or may not be OK, but the Ten Commandments don’t address the issue.
This also solves another potential
problem in the Ten Commandments and the way they are usually translated. The Ten Commandments seem to define which actions are right and wrong. Honoring parents is right. Murdering, stealing, and falsely testifying
are wrong. Finally, taking your
neighbor’s wife or his stuff is wrong.
With the usual translation, the Ten Commandments end with a quite
clearly out-of-place prohibition against feeling
a certain way. We now know that the Ten
Commandments take no position on how you feel, only on what you do. [Page 193-194]
Octopus’s Garden
Issue Eighty-Eight, 1st December 2014
Sub-editorial
HELLO, good evening and welcome to Octopus’s Garden, the subzeen with its very own 7 x 7 Gunboat Diplomacy
tournament. It is a subzeen to Jim Burgess’ The Abyssinian Prince, which is currently a subzeen to Douglas Kent's Eternal Sunshine. This may or may
not continue to be the case for the foreseeable future. It's produced by Peter
Sullivan, peter@burdonvale.co.uk.
It's also available on the web at: http://www.burdonvale.co.uk/octopus/.
___________________________________________________________________________________
THAT WAS THE
YEAR THAT WAS - 1902
The second of our an annual (in game years!) summary of the latest state
of play in the Octopus's Garden 7 x 7 Gunboat Diplomacy tournament.
Game 1 in the tournament is
called “SCHYLER COLFAX”. Games in Octopus's Garden are all named after
Vice Presidents of the United States. Colfax, as well as being one of the
highest-scoring Vice Presidents in Scrabble, was Ulysses S. Grant's Veep from 1869 to 1873, as part of the Republican takeover
after the discredited administration of Andrew Johnson. He started his
political career as a Whig, before becoming loosely associated with the
Know-Nothing Party (possibly the most honestly-named party in American
political history). He then joined the Republican Party when the Whigs finally
collapsed, in the run-up to the Civil War. He only served the one term as Vice
President, becoming embroiled in a financial scandal around the First
Transcontinental Railroad. Although he wanted to run for Vice President again,
the Republican Party went with a different, less compromised, candidate, whom
we'll talk about next time.
In the tournament as a whole,
1902 saw quite a lot of pain for various Austrias. I
know that, in Regular Diplomacy, the general rule of thumb is that Austria in
the early years usually has to diplome for their
life. In Gunboat, of course, even this isn't an option. The other noticeable
thing, for me as a British g.m, was the tendency for
England players to snaffle up StP
from Russia so quickly. Which is a comparative rarity; in the Diplomacy games
I've run, at any rate.
Current supply centre counts in each game are as follows:
|
Player |
Game 1 |
Game 2 |
Game 3 |
Game 4 |
Game 5 |
Game 6 |
Game 7 |
|
Player A |
Tur: 7 |
Ger: 5 |
Rus: 4 |
Eng: 4 |
Ita: 5 |
Aus: 1 |
Fra: 5 |
|
Player B |
Aus: 1 |
Tur: 5 |
Ger: 6 |
Rus: 6 |
Eng: 6 |
Fra: 6 |
Ita: 4 |
|
Player C |
Fra: 5 |
Aus: 5 |
Tur: 6 |
Ger: 6 |
Rus: 5 |
Ita: 6 |
Eng: 4 |
|
Player D |
Ita: 6 |
Fra: 5 |
Aus: 5 |
Tur: 5 |
Ger: 5 |
Eng: 4 |
Rus: 6 |
|
Player E |
Eng: 5 |
Ita: 4 |
Fra: 5 |
Aus: 4 |
Tur: 4 |
Rus: 7 |
Ger: 6 |
|
Player F |
Rus: 4 |
Eng: 6 |
Ita: 4 |
Fra: 4 |
Aus: 3 |
Ger: 5 |
Tur: 4 |
|
Player G |
Ger: 6 |
Rus: 4 |
Eng: 4 |
Ita: 4 |
Fra: 5 |
Tur: 4 |
Aus: 5 |
|
Neutrals |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 (Por) |
1 (Swe) |
1 (Swe) |
0 |
|
Total |
34 |
34 |
34 |
34 |
34 |
34 |
34 |
Full details of all seven
games, for those interested, are in the three issues of that wholly remarkable zeen, C'est Magnifique, which can be found at:
- Spring
1902 : CMag 147 http://www.burdonvale.co.uk/gunboat/CMag147.pdf
- Fall
1902: CMag 148 http://www.burdonvale.co.uk/gunboat/CMag148.pdf
- Winter
1902: CMag 149 http://www.burdonvale.co.uk/gunboat/CMag149.pdf
We had a slight hiatus over
the summer, due to one resignation and one near drop-out. However, my plea for
stand-bys had an excellent response, and we now have
a couple of stand-bys, er,
standing by in case of any further problems with the player roster. Which, I
hasten to add, I'm not expecting.
___________________________________________________________________________________
That was Octopus's Garden #88, Startling Press production 382.
Acquire Game #2 -
“Juliet” – Eternal Sunshine
Players: Tom Howell,
Mark Firth, Andy Bate, Richard Weiss, Hank Alme
Turn 8
Hank
plays 7-E.
Turn 9
Tom
plays 8-E, merging Luxor into Continental.
Tom gets a $6,000 bonus and Andy gets $3,000. Tom sells 2 Luxor and keeps 5. Andy keeps his share. Tom buys 3 Festival.
Mark
plays 5-B, merging Worldwide into Tower. Andy gets a $4,000 bonus and Mark gets
$2,000. Mark sells 2 Worldwide
and keeps 3. Andy trades his 6 Worldwide
for 3 Tower. Richard sells his 4 Worldwide. Tom keeps
his Worldwide share.
Mark buys 3 Festival.
Andy
plays 12-H and founds Luxor. He gets one
free Luxor, and buys 2 Festival and one Imperial.
Richard
plays 8-D. He buys 2 Imperial and 1
Luxor.
Hank
plays 8-I.
Diplomacy
“Jerusalem” 2012A, F 13
England (John Biehl – jerbil “of” shaw.ca): F Barents Sea Supports A St Petersburg,
A
Burgundy - Munich (*Fails*), A Finland Hold, F Gulf of Lyon Supports A
Tuscany – Piedmont,
F
Gulf of Bothnia - Baltic Sea (*Bounce*), A Kiel Hold, A Marseilles Supports
A Tuscany – Piedmont,
F
North Africa Supports F Western Mediterranean, F North Sea – Denmark, F
Norwegian Sea – Norway,
A
Ruhr Supports A Kiel, A St Petersburg Hold, A Tuscany – Piedmont,
F Western Mediterranean Supports F Gulf of Lyon.
Italy (Mark Firth – mark.r.firth “of” capita.co.uk): F Tunis Supports F Tyrrhenian Sea,
F Tyrrhenian Sea Supports F Tunis.
Russia (Richard
Weiss – richardweiss “of” higherquality.com): F Livonia - Baltic Sea
(*Bounce*),
A
Moscow Supports A Warsaw - Livonia (*Fails*), A Prussia – Berlin, A Ukraine Unordered,
A
Warsaw - Livonia (*Fails*).
Turkey (Geoff Kemp -
ggeoff510 “of” aol.com): F Aegean Sea –
Greece, A Bohemia Supports A Munich,
A
Bulgaria – Serbia, A Constantinople – Bulgaria, F
Ionian Sea Supports F Tunis, A Munich Hold,
F Naples
Supports F Tyrrhenian Sea, F Piedmont Hold (*Disbanded*), A Rome
Supports A Venice – Tuscany,
A
Silesia Supports A Munich, A Trieste – Venice, A Tyrolia
Supports F Piedmont, A Venice - Tuscany.
E/I/R/T Draw Fails. Now Proposed – E/I/R/T,
E/R/T, E/T, Concession to E.
Please vote. NVR=No.
F 13 Deadline is January 27th at 7:00am my time
Supply Center Chart
England:
Belgium, Brest, Denmark,
Edinburgh, Holland, Kiel, Liverpool,
London, Marseilles,
Norway, Paris, Portugal, St Petersburg, Sweden=14, Even
Italy:
Spain, Tunis=2, Even
Russia:
Berlin, Moscow, Rumania,
Sevastopol, Warsaw=5, Even
Turkey:
Ankara, Budapest, Bulgaria,
Constantinople, Greece, Munich, Naples,
Rome, Serbia, Smyrna,
Trieste, Venice, Vienna=13, Build 1
PRESS
Anon: Vote yes on something, Lord Whitehall of the tighty whighteys.
Praetor – GM: A misunderstanding… “Praetor” is me, up here,
talking to “Scrivener”, my ethereally inked quill pen down here. Every season I
tell it to call the game one thing and every season it writes ‘Jeruslaem’ [see?!].
Except this time I copied it, hah!
Italy – all: Happy New Year, everyone.
London (Oct 31, 1913): The British
Government has dispatched a Senior Civil Servant, Sir Ian Lost, to Moscow with
the expectation that the Russian Government might throw off the baleful and maliferous influence of the alledged
Monk 'Ricardo Belovich', a creature of dubious origin
but much heinous power over the Czarina. Sir Ian Lost declared, upon leaving
with the Northern Reserve fleet, "His Majesty has entrusted me with a
mission to the Czar to throw off the Yoke of the Heathen Turk from the heart of
Christian Europe."
London (Nov 1,1913): The Pagan Press announces the Germanic New Year today. May the
Eternal Sunshine shed its warming rays throughout the coming Fallow Time till
Dionysus and Persephone garb the world in new fucundity.
Comox (Dec 29, 2014): Just about
missed the Deadline here (Shades of Dip Games past). Yikes! Also, due to
Eternal Darkness (no illustration of the game positions) from the Gnome Dugald Kanticus, I had to open up
the old board of diplomacy to examine the few move options I presently have
(Shades of Dip Games present).
Had a chuckle doing that - thankx for that unexpected
Xmas gift Doug ( now, what to expect from Shades of
Dip Games future?).
Diplomacy
“Walkerdine” 2012D, W 08/S 09
France
(Jim Burgess – jfburgess “of” gmail.com): Plays 1 Short..F
Aegean Sea Convoys
A St
Petersburg – Constantinople, A Burgundy Hold, F Eastern Mediterranean – Smyrna,
A Edinburgh Hold,
F
English Channel Convoys A St Petersburg –
Constantinople, F Greece Hold,
F
Ionian Sea Convoys A St Petersburg – Constantinople, A
London Hold,
F
Mid-Atlantic Ocean Convoys A St Petersburg –
Constantinople,
F
North Atlantic Ocean Convoys A St Petersburg –
Constantinople,
F
Norwegian Sea Convoys A St Petersburg – Constantinople, A
Trieste Supports A Venice,
F
Tyrrhenian Sea Convoys A St Petersburg – Constantinople, A
Venice Supports A Trieste,
F
Western Mediterranean Convoys A St Petersburg - Constantinople.
Germany
(Steve Cooley – tmssteve “of” gmail.com): Build A Berlin..A
Ankara Supports
F
Eastern Mediterranean – Smyrna, F Barents Sea Convoys A St Petersburg –
Constantinople, A Berlin – Prussia,
A
Budapest Supports A Serbia, A Bulgaria Supports A St
Petersburg – Constantinople,
F
Denmark Supports F North Sea, A Kiel Supports A
Munich, A Munich Supports A Tyrolia,
F
North Sea Supports F English Channel, A Norway Hold, A Serbia Supports A
Bulgaria, A Sevastopol – Armenia,
A St
Petersburg – Constantinople, A Tyrolia Supports A
Vienna, A Vienna Supports A Tyrolia.
Turkey (Civil
Disorder): Remove A Armenia..F Constantinople U.
Deadline
for F 09 is January 27th at 7am my time
PRESS
FRENCH
BOOB SUCCESSFULLY WRITES CONVOY ORDERS: Hurray!
Black
Press Gunboat, “Fred Noonan”, 2013Arb32, W 10/S 11
France: F Barents Sea Unordered, A Burgundy Unordered, F Edinburgh Unordered,
F
English Channel Unordered (*Dislodged*, retreat to Brest or Wales or
Mid-Atlantic Ocean or OTB),
F
Irish Sea Unordered, F Norway Unordered, A Picardy Unordered, F Western
Mediterranean Unordered.
Germany:
Build A Kiel.. F
Belgium - English Channel, A Kiel – Ruhr, A London
Hold, A Munich – Tyrolia,
F
North Sea Supports F Belgium - English Channel, A Ruhr
– Belgium, A Silesia – Munich,
F
Sweden - Norway (*Fails*), A Venice - Trieste.
Italy:
Civil Disorder. F Apulia U, A Budapest U, A Vienna U.
Russia: A St Petersburg – Moscow, A Warsaw
Supports A St Petersburg - Moscow.
Turkey: Plays 1 Short.. F Bulgaria(ec) Unordered, A Galicia Unordered, A Greece Unordered,
F
Ionian Sea Unordered, A Moscow Unordered (*Dislodged*, retreat to Ukraine or
Livonia or OTB),
F
Rome Unordered, F Rumania Unordered, A Serbia Unordered,
A Sevastopol Unordered, F Tunis Unordered,
F
Tyrrhenian Sea Unordered.
All Draw
Proposals Fail
Now Proposed – G/T, F/G/T. Pleave vote,
NVR=No.
If either
France or Turkey fail to submit orders they will go
into CD.
Deadline
for F 11 Will Be January 27th at 7am My
Time
PRESS
Russia
- Germany: Thanks
for any support given.
Russia
- SWISS OBSERVER: Well
of course Press sucks, this game sucks!
Woolworth
II-D “Coney Island” 2013Bcb19, W 08/S 09
Balkans
(Secret): A
Pic-Bre, A Par S A Pic-Bre,
A Bur-Pic, A Swi-Bur, F Tri S A Alb,
A Ser S A Alb, A Alb S A Ser.
England
(Secret): Bld F Lon..F Lon S F Bre-Eng,
F Bre-Eng, F Nao S F Eng-Iri.
Italy (Secret): F Bas S F Mao-Bob,
F Mad S F Wms-Mao, A
Gas-Bre, A Tus-Pie, A Ven
S A Tus-Pie, F Wms-Mao,
F Tys-Gol.
Russia
(Jim Burgess - jfburgess
“of” gmail.com): Build F Stp(nc), A Mos..A Mos-Stp,
F Stp(NC)-Lap,
F Gob S A Den-Swe, A
Den-Swe, F Bal S A Den-Swe, A Kie-Den, F Nth-Edi,
F Hel-Nth, A Ruh-Hol,
A Bel S A Ruh-Hol, A Sev H.
Scandinavia
(Geoff Kemp - ggeoff510 “of” aol.com): Ret F
Nth-Edi..F Edi U, F Wao S F Nao, F Eng-Iri,
F
Swe H(Dis-ret Fin, Nwy, Ska, OTB).
Turkey
(Hugh Polley – hapolley
“of” yahoo.ca): F Ion S F Ems-Aeg, A Rum S A Bul, A Bul
S A Rum,
F Mao-Bob, F Hao S F Wms-Mao, F Ems-Aeg, A Mor
H.
Deadline
for F 09 is January 27th at 7am My Time
PRESS
BALKANS to RUSSIA: Go, men, go!
JIM-BOB to GEOFF: Glad to see you back in
action! Hope the recovery continues
apace!
