Jul 22 2008
Today is Mary Magdeline’s Feast Day
And in that spirit, evidentally, my history professor came up with the following:
”Mary Magdeline was from a wealthy family. Her uncle, Joseph of Arimethea, was wealthy enough to afford a very good tomb. He was also friendly with Pontius Pilate so…”
And that’s where my note-taking ends because it wasn’t even remotely funny anymore. I have absolutely no idea where he gets this crap from. He also lectured today (and previously) that “inferential reasoning” and “most Jewish scholars” say that Jesus definitely was married or the Saducees would have attacked him.
I give up. I’ve asked him about his sources, and he lent me a book written by a University of Michigan instructor in the ’50s with footnotes that wouldn’t pass muster in a high school student’s essay today. (For example, a comment that Buddhist missionaries obviously influenced the religious environment of Jesus’ time leads to this footnote: Gospel of John.) No chapter, no verse - and no explanation linking Buddhist thought with that in the Gospel. The book also treated Gnostic writings as equal to Book of Tobit and such.
I promised myself I wouldn’t even bother to ask him for sources anymore, especially since other students roll their eyes and today mutter “There she goes again.” But when he peppers his talks with dirty jokes and “On the History channel I saw…”, I want to scream.
I’m assuming he’s tenured?
He’s retired, but teaching this summer class. I’m thinking he’s going senile, actually. Sometimes he doesn’t seem to understand questions but kind of latches onto a general word or topic of the question. He also repeated most of his lecture from two days ago during his “review” of key points for the test next week. If he is in the early stages of dementia or another illness, his lack of decorum makes sense.
On the other hand, he obviously has some quirks. He wrote our thesis statement for the essay due Monday and literally gave us, point-by-point, what he wanted us to write. (I’m prefacing the nonsense with “According to Dr. XXX,….”)
Today he stopped me in the hall after the break and we had a good discussion about the way certain cultures destroy the artifacts of a culture they overrun and how others incorporate aspects and preserve art. He started to use a vulgar term about the destroyers of the Constantinople and immediately apologized.
So I’m kind of torn about how to approach the dean or whoever is in charge.
May I ask how large an institution this is?
It’s a community college yet rather large in terms of students and programs. (It’s the biggest part of my property taxes.)