James Barr

<idle musing>
There are posts all over the Internet about the death of James Barr. You won't find more of that here. I only met him once and didn't really talk to him, so I'll let others sing his praises who can do a better job. No, these are thoughts along a different track altogether.

I used to work for a producer of video tapes and among the things produced were documentaries of famous people. We had a double video cassette documentary of Frank Sinatra, among others, but this one sticks in my mind. For good reason, at the time Frank Sinatra was quite ill and was in and out of the hospital and appeared about to die. So, the marketing director (not I), ordered several thousand copies to be duplicated, anticipating the nostalgia impulse buy. Sure enough, Musicland ordered 2 pallets worth of them, as did Best Buy. Frank Sinatra died about 2 weeks later.

That's not the point, though. What was sad was that every day the marketing people were fixated on whether or not he was going to die that day. At first they were hoping he would hang on long enough for the shipments to get to the stores, then they were hoping he would die before people lost interest and the videos got shipped back to us without selling. Pretty sad, isn't it? The life and death of a person was reduced to a few extra dollars in the bank—well, quite a few extra dollars, but you get the point.

How does this relate to James Barr? Well, we publish one of his books, Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament. Now, do I run a sale on this book in honor of him? Or, will people think I am trying to cash in on the recent publicity and make a few dollars? In fact, I hesitated even linking to the book for fear that people would take it as a cheap plug.

When Erica Reiner died last summer, I decided not to run a sale or even mention it—and I actually knew her from my University of Chicago days at the Oriental Institute—for fear that it would be viewed as a cheap exploit.

The death of a person is not an opportunity to make money; it is a serious event, ushering them into their eternal destiny. For that reason, more than fear of misinterpretation, I have decided not to run a sale on the book.

What do you think? Am I creating a moral dilemna where none exists?
</idle musing>