WikiLeaks has released the following Career Narrative, submitted in support of the nomination of Michael V. Fox for Emeritus Status.

The story of Michael Fox is all the more stirring when we realize that his progress in elementary school was hindered by a Learning Disorder. This went untreated, although it was diagnosed, correctly, as laziness. He also had Attention Deficit Disorder, except for comic books, which he was skillful in reading in class undetected, mostly. He got through high school in part because of a passing grade from a French teacher who dreaded having him in her class for another semester. Then Fox somehow got into the University of Chicago, where, by the age of 18, he learned how to put on a pseudo-intellectual front. This talent that would prove useful in later decades in discussions of Literary Theory. But he also learned how to read, taking courses in the now much-derided Chicago Core Program.

In those years of unraised conscious, academicians actually believed that there are some things that every educated person should seriously study, or at least learn how to study. The program taught Great Books, shamefully oblivious to the fact that almost all were by DWMs on Dead Tree Media. Fox even learned enough math and science in college to be sorry that he hadn’t learned more math and science in high school. (Indeed, it is amazing that he learned anything in high school, since he spent most of the day looking at the girls.)

In his junior year he transferred to the University of Michigan where he joined his girlfriend. (Reader, he married her.) He received his BA and MA in Near Eastern Studies from the UM and went to Hebrew Union College, where he was ordained rabbi. (He never held a congregation—a demonstration of divine grace for both parties.)

He then returned to Israel to study at the Hebrew University, where he received his PhD in 1972. His dissertation was on “the Book of Qohelet and the Wisdom School” (Hebrew). This signalled an early interest in Wisdom Literature, which he pursued for some time. (Wisdom Literature is … I give up. Someone else will have to define it.)

In 1971-1972, when Fox was teaching at Haifa University, he accidentally began studying Egyptian. He had a free hour before the taxi returned to Jerusalem, and Egyptian was being offered. He got hooked on Egyptian. After two years of trying to memorize the chicken scratches called cuneiform he was grateful for the little pictures of hieroglyphics. He continued studying Egyptian at the Hebrew University after receiving his doctorate. The Hebrew University then sent him to Liverpool for a postdoc in Egyptology, where he spent more time in pubs than ever before or since.

He returned to a double appointment in Bible and Egyptology at the Hebrew University. Few Bible scholars know Egyptian, so this aspect of his studies gave him a special angle. He learned that a good way to get grants etc. was to be able to claim an unusual skill. Along the way, he published some items and half a book in Egyptology proper, but his main primary has always been the Bible[A1] .

His main contribution to Egyptology-and-the-Bible was to emerge some years later, when he was at the UW. He first wrote a slim Hebrew translation and commentary on the Egyptian love songs, then a hefty book called The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs. This was the first adequate comparative study of love songs from the two cultures. It provided a full transcription (from the devilishly difficult Hieratic [which he has since forgotten] to Hieroglyphic [the little pictures]) plus translation, philological commentary, and a literary study. This book (Fox’s, not the Frenchman’s) also undertakes a translation and commentary on the Song of Songs and moves into a literary comparison. This book (Fox’s) is to be commended for some really sexy parts (you’ll have to buy the book yourselves to find them). It also offers some insights into the language of love inspired by thinking of these two love song traditions in the light of each other.

In the 1980s, Fox returned to Ecclesiastes (Qohelet to friends) and repented of the ideas of his youth. (Hey, he was only 30 when he finished his dissertation.) Using his dissertation almost as a reverse template, he repudiated the widespread notion that the book of Qohelet is a polemic against the wisdom school and even repudiated the wisdom school, which shortly after closed its doors. His new approach produced, first, Qohelet and His Contradictions, a book noted for the alliteration of its title. This was further developed and given nuance in his A Time to Tear Down and a Time to Build Up: A Rereading of Qohelet. In a subsequent Jewish Publication Society commentary on Ecclesiastes he condensed his scholarly work and aimed it at a more popular audience. This book (Fox’s, not Qohelet’s) gave special attention to traditional Jewish interpretation, thus offering something beyond the recycling of earlier work. So far he (Fox, not Qohelet) has earned a few thousand dollars from this book. As far as is known, Qohelet earned no royalties, a fact that he would have immediately recognized as a hevel. The main thrust of Fox’s publications on Qohelet is that the book (Qohelet’s, Fox’s) is primarily concerned with the meaningfulness of life, a concern without precedent in early Biblical literature but perhaps prompted by a vague emerging acquantaince with Greek popular philosophy. Hence Qohelet is saying “Everything is absurd”(a violation of reason) not “Everything is vanity” (i.e. trivial or ephemeral).  Fox also produced a popular, though not very popular, commentary on Qohelet in Hebrew. Anyway, Fox has produced more verbiage on Qohelet than anyone else in history and has promised that, if awarded emeritus status, he won’t produce any more.

The following career survey does not proceed in chronological order, because Fox had little in the way of an integrated, programmatic research plan  (though he always asked job candidates for theirs). Instead, he went from subject to subject, as something caught his fancy. Hence he produced a few articles that don’t particular fit in the Big Picture, for example one on the Rhetoric of Ezekiel 37, one on the Identification of Unmarked Quotations in Biblical Literature, and one on Joseph and Wisdom. He also produced a few items for a non-academic audience and, as he likes to fancy, a couple of “popular commentaries.”

Sometime in the 80s, Fox grew irritated at the whiny post-modern, post-colonialist, feminist readings of the book of Esther that proliferated in those years, that featured anachronistic sensitivity to fashionable flaws alongside a blithe indifference to the book’s own concern, namely an attempted genocide of the Jews. Fox decided to have a go at Esther himself. This led to two books on Esther, one called Character and Ideology in the Book of Esther, the other The Redaction of the Books of Esther. (Sic for the plural. There are three very different versions of Esther, one in Hebrew and two in Greek, namely the LXX and the Alpha Text). In Redaction, Fox undertook a redaction-critical study (“redaction” as is done to books, not CIA documents) of the different versions of Esther, considering their formation and ideological motivations. In this book, Fox actually used some statistics, which should impress everyone, especially given his grades in high school math. Fox’s Redaction was well, or at least graciously received by the scholars who work on the Alpha Text, all five of whom bought his book. The Character book asks how the depiction of literary character develops and conveys an new ideology, one that teaches what it means to be a Jew in the Diaspora. The book of Esther is an effort at national self-definition in a setting without historical precedent.

Next, more or less, a contract was placed on him to write a two volume commentary on Proverbs for the Anchor Bible Series. This is a comprehensive literary/textual/philological/comparative study of a biblical book that often bores its readers, and even moreso those who don’t bother to read it, but which Fox loves, a love he hopes to help others share. If there is a central focus to this commentary[A2] , it is that of intellectual history. Fox tries to locate Proverbs in its ancient Near Eastern intellectual context, in particular the Egyptian, because Egypt is where Wisdom Literature originated (take that, Sumerologists) and flourished. Indeed, one reason that Fox received and undertook this commission was that he could put his knowledge of Egyptian to use. Fox’s is, incredibly, the first Proverbs commentary to make full use of the Egyptian sources in Egyptian, in spite of the fact that the Egyptian background of Proverbs has been recognized since 1924 (1872, actually, but no one knows this.) This commentary was dealt with by a review panel at the 2010 SBL meeting favorably, even by panel members who had been the targets of criticism in the commentary itself. (The only major criticism was by that Fox refused to locate the book in Solomon’s court. Fox explained that he couldn’t do that because he doesn’t know anything about Solomon’s court. (Aha!) Anyway, one may observe, Proverbs does say that Solomon wrote it, and would Solomon lie? The answer is, Yes. How else could he convince each of his 1000 wives that when he said “the most beautiful among women” he meant her?

Apparently under the delusion that the world was desperate for another volume on Proverbs, he is writing the Oxford Hebrew Bible Proverbs, which is an eclectic text of the Hebrew book together with a text-critical commentary, which is its main focus[A3] . The volume attempts to reconstruct the Urtext of the Hebrew Proverbs, which, as Fox emphasizes, could never have existed.

Now he’s writing a commentary on Job for the Old Testament Library. If he (Fox, not Job) still had his wits about him, he would not step into this bog. The due date is December 31, 2010 (the far future, when he signed the contract). He recently told his editor how things were going, which is to say, not going. He was hoping to be relieved of further duties, but instead received a ten year extension and now has to think up a new excuse. This is a daunting task. (Actually, two daunting tasks. Maybe someone can help with the excuses.) But Fox is not daunted. He is terrified.

Fox also has another couple of book offers. But the hope is that if he lives that until 2020 he’ll have enough sense to recognize his approaching senility and will finally shut up.

Fox’s teaching career began in 1971 and extended for forty years, like the years in the wilderness. Since forty is a typological number, this must be legendary exaggeration. (Fox doesn’t believe it either.) As a teacher, Fox was known for abetting grade inflation, but his motto always was, “At ease in Zion.” As for the teaching itself, he enjoyed it so much that he probably shouldn’t have gotten paid to do it, a principle that the next governor will probably extend to the entire faculty.

As for his dealings with committees and the administration, upon request Fox submitted the following report:

I was chairman, sorry, chair, of the Hebrew Department for two five-year stints long ago, plus a half-year this year. Thinking back, I realize that  ████████ . Every time I ██████, ████████. Anyway, I tried to ███████████ in September 1994, but Dean ████████ said ████████! The Divisional Committee ████████ and █████rejected, ██████ . I said, ████ you! and thought ███. The ██████  replied “██████ !!!” ██████ What, again? Bull ████!  ██████budgetary considerations? █████████ Ronald who?! ██████. Does he know what he’s getting into??

Respectfully submitted,

Anonymous

 [A1]Copy-editor to author: there can be only one focus.

 [A2]Ccopy-editor to author: a focus is by definition central.

 [A3]Copy-editor to author: I give up.