Mot and an Overreading of "Starship Mine"

Exegesis is a funny thing. To misquote the apostle Paul, exegesis infiltrates the mind like "a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough" (1 Cor 5:6). My life, and television-viewing for that matter, has never been the same since I've become a student of biblical exegesis. For the most part, as it pertains to TV, an interest in interpretation and narratology has been very fruitful, resulting in greater engagement with plots and character development.

Sometimes, however, I "find" things the writers didn't intend...

I was recently inspired by a friend to stroll again through the memorable seasons of Star Trek: the Next Generation. In the episode "Starship Mine" the Enterprise is taken over by a group of bandits who are after some of the ship's propulsion components, which they attempt to steal while the ship's crew is on "shore leave", on a starbase. Only Cpt. Picard remains on board, unnoticed by the bandits.

When Picard is discovered, they demand to know his name, and he answers, "Mot. My name is Mot. I'm the barber." It makes sense for Picard to give a false name, because it's fairly evident that, should the bandits learn he is the captain, they will kill him. But what comes next caused my exegetical ears to perk up.

As the episode proceeds, Picard kills most of the bandit crew. Picard uses an uncharacteristic amount of lethal force in this episode. Picard is a diplomat, usually relying on his ace negotiating skills to to diffuse a tense situation.

The combination of his stated name, "Mot," and the great amount of death Picard causes got me thinking, "Do the writers of Star Trek know Ancient Near Eastern mythology?!"

In ANE mythology (which includes the Old Testament), "death" or מות (mōt) is personified, and often functions in stories and poetry as a character. Since Picard took the name of "Mot", or "Death," I naturally became very intrigued with the writers' apparent mythological prowess. Since Star Trek: the Next Generation already makes frequent reference to Greek mythology, and since Picard is always telling Commander Riker, "You should really read more history," a further reference to Ancient Near Eastern mythology didn't seem like too far of a stretch.

Mot the Barber

That is... until I watched through several more episodes and found out that there actually is a barber on the Enterprise named Mot...

So, rather than expertly perceiving a subtle allusion to מות, I had rather unintentionally performed a classic case of 'eisegesis'; I had read an obscure mythological reference into the story. Sorry, Mr. Mot. I had you all wrong.

Reaching for the Stars: Star Trek and today's hand-held devices

I love techy innovation. I don't mind Facebook, though many like to hate it, because Facebook pushed us to think about online communication in new ways. I like Gmail because the folks at Google blew open our old (Microsoft-based) conceptions of what an email account can do. I like Apple because they might be the most innovative company around these days. I think the biggest reason I like Apple is because I like Star Trek, and it seems like Apple are the folks who are helping us catch up to Kirk and Picard.

"What in the world are you talking about?" you might ask? Well, consider how far our technology has come in the past few decades.

First of all, here is Cpt. Kirk, back in the sixties, using a flip device to communicate with the Enterprise. Does this look familiar? Back in those days, a flip-phone was pretty inventive. I remember even back in the mid-90's, my dad's cell phone was enormous -- bigger even than most wireless house phones today! But nowadays, flip-phones are not only common, but even being left behind by other devices, like smart phones.

The next great Star Trek innovation in communication was the "communicator", a little A-shaped device worn by everybody in Star Fleet. With a click of the device, a communication channel is opened to the ship orbiting above. But is this so futuristic anymore? We have ways to communicate with a little click of a wireless device: Bluetooth. It might be worn on the head rather than the chest, but the idea is basically the same. (Though the Star Trek communicator might have had better range... So far I haven't heard of Astronauts using Bluetooth to communicate with Houston...)




One more futuristic innovation: this is where Apple comes in. Each day, Commander Riker comes to Captain Picard's ready room with the daily report. He offers Picard a tablet device, upon which Picard uses his finger to navigate through the various reports. Back in the late-80's to mid-90's, this hand-held, slim computer was pretty amazing. After all, in 1984, only a few years before this scene with Picard was filmed, Apple had released its first ever Mac. Picard's tablet looks a little more advanced... But, now 27 years later, Apple has caught up to the good captain, and offers a pretty futuristic device that anybody (or perhaps everybody) can (or perhaps should) use: the iPad.

The first-ever Mac, 1984

So, in a few communicative ways, we've caught up to the Star Trek universe. But one key ingredient remains: warp-drive! According to Star Trek lore, it's the warp-drive signature left in space by the first warp-drive engine that attracts the attention of the Vulcans and prompts them to make first contact with the people of Earth, ushering our little planet into a bright future of intergalactic proportions. Much like Kip from Napoleon Dynamite, I must confess that "I love technology," and the innovations of people like Apple have raised my hopes that one day we'll find people with pointy ears and bumpy foreheads, and Soong-made androids, and neutral zones, and delta quadrants.

Alright, enough nerdiness for today.

Nebby the Vulcan (well, almost)

Perhaps it's all the Star Trek I've watched this past summer, but as I've been working through the Aramaic sections of Daniel, I have found that Nebuchadnezzar's benediction to the peoples of the earth makes him sound almost Vulcan:

First, upon witnessing how superior is the God of Shadrack, Meshak, and Abednigo in comparison to the gods of Babylon, he "made Shadrack, Meshak, and Abednigo prosper in the province of Babylon" (Dan 3:30).

In the next verse, Nebuchadnezzar declares to all the peoples, tribes, and tongues who dwell in all the world, "May your peace grow greatly" (Dan 3:31 MT; Dan 4:1).

These things together sound a little like Mr. Spock's, "Live long and prosper" (a line which Leonard Nimoy adapted from the kohanic blessing in Judaism).

Of course, Nebuchadnezzar's Vulcanhood is precluded by his unabashed display of emotion when he realized that the three men were not burning to death in the furnace, but were able to emerge unscathed. If Nebby were a true Vulcan, he would have taken one look at the scene, raised an eyebrow, and respond, "Fascinating."