While studios, actors and writers continue to wage their own epic battle, all parties would be wise to remember the rabbinic riffs on Og. Balancing consistency with creativity, ensuring a diverse set of influences, and emerging from the unexpendable fountain that is human feeling, his stories’ lessons remain timeless. Now if only there was a studio out there looking for a giant-sized pitch.This article is a fun recounting of the cycle of stories about Og the giant. The attempt to connect Og with the rapidly approaching demise of Hollywood acting in favor of ultra-realistic AI simulations seemes a little forced to me. But you can read it and decide for yourself.
Og is an old friend to PaleoJudaica. For many posts on him, start here and follow the links, notably here and here.
The suggestion that Og is found in an ancient Phoenician inscription was advanced by Wolfgang Rölling in the 1970s and retracted by him and rejected, as far as I know, by everyone who has commented on it. For discussion, see here and here.
Not mentioned in the article, but Og was also confused with the antediluvian giant Ohyah from the Book of Giants.
That gives me the opportunity again to promote Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, volume 2, edited by myself and Richard Bauckham, now in press with Eerdmans. It it includes translations of all surviving fragments of the Book of Giants. Og gets a mention or two as well.
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