Monday, June 11, 2012 Game Recap & Discussion [SPOILERS]

[Volante]

Do you have an example of this? I mean, if they cite the King James Bible, it's not like I can claim that a verse uses a certain word any more than I could claim that Moby Dick is, in fact, about an orangutan.

I personally don't know enough about religion to give an example.

But, aren't there sects of Christianity that don't use the King James Version of the Bible? Maybe some even include other Gospels, so to ask a question about Jesus' life without attribution to a particular gospel could raise serious questions.

I think the ISKCON adherents believe that Krishna is the most important god in the pantheon, but Hindus think he is the eighth avatar of Vishnu.

They never get that deep, though. Jesus was born here. Moses talked to this plant. Heck, most of the Bible knowledge you need could probably be handled by watching a Cecil B. DeMille marathon. (Although I'd recommend the talkie version of King of Kings...it's got a totally random John Wayne cameo, too!)

And even on a practical level, clues can only be so long and result in a single short answer (...ideally).

(Now, there was one case I remember where they relied on the KJV translation for a final, I'm sure everyone remembers c/leave, however there was more to that clue to give a hint to the wordplay. Make of that what you will...)

Oop, John Wayne cameo is in Greatest Story Ever Told.

[Magna]

But, aren't there sects of Christianity that don't use the King James Version of the Bible? Maybe some even include other Gospels, so to ask a question about Jesus' life without attribution to a particular gospel could raise serious questions.

There are all kinds of different beliefs and people use various different translations. J! never asks anyone to affirm that the KJV is the only, best, or most correct translation to use. Fwiw, the other translations are all quite similar in terms of the basic content J! would be asking about. For example, if the clue is "She heeded the serpent's temptation and ate the forbidden fruit," the correct response is always going to be Eve, no matter which translation someone uses. It will never be Sarah, Rebecca, or St. Ethel of Ravenna. If it's important that you know which book the material is from (such as an incident recorded in one gospel but not another), they'll specify the gospel.

If you go into a bookstore and buy a book called The Bible, whatever it is you buy will have all the information in it, no matter what translation or version it is. It may have the Apocrypha in it or not, or the books might have different names. But it will be basically the same for J!'s purposes.

[Paucle]

Oop, John Wayne cameo is in Greatest Story Ever Told.

It's only called that because he has a cameo in it!
If his cameo was in King of Kings, then that would've been called The Greatest Story Ever Told !

[Woppy T]

Isn't there another problem with religion, in that one person may adhere to an uncommon sect, in which a different answer would be correct, according to his interpretation of the scripture? Why should the Jeopardy writers be willing to go down that route, getting even more confrontational than I was suggesting? I would suggest getting out of the religion business altogether.

They tend to limit themselves to names, places, things and quotes.
It's basically the same knowledge set you need to handle categories on the works of Shakespeare.

Agreed. I suppose they might get into difficulty asking about doctrine or something like that. But I've never seen such a clue used. They aren't asking about disputed issues or things that are matters opinion, any more than they'd ask those in any other category. On the occasions where some kind of quotation is part of the response, they accept paraphrases, so it doesn't matter what translation of the Bible someone uses.

I think that the writers should give this clue: "this is the one true faith," accept as the correct response whichever one they decide, and watch all of our heads explode.

[dhkendall]

I think that Jeopardy needs to get rid of its religious-based questions. Religion is a personal choice, period. A secular-minded person should in no way be forced to learn any religion, to do otherwise is highly immoral in my opinion.

"A person who is incredibly out of shape should in no way be forced to learn about sports or exercise, to do so otherwise is highly immoral in my opinion."

"A person who only listens to country music and watches anime should in no way be forced to learn about Lady Gaga or Seinfeld."

Sorry, couldn't resist. Rest of your post was good, though.

[Volante]

Oop, John Wayne cameo is in Greatest Story Ever Told.

It's only called that because he has a cameo in it!
If his cameo was in King of Kings, then that would've been called The Greatest Story Ever Told !

Honestly, between BOTH of those films, that cameo's all I remember. They're not exactly memorable movies...

[alietr]

If you go into a bookstore and buy a book called The Bible, whatever it is you buy will have all the information in it, no matter what translation or version it is. It may have the Apocrypha in it or not, or the books might have different names. But it will be basically the same for J!'s purposes.

Well, if I walk into a bookstore and buy a book called The Bible, it wouldn't have a lot of the questions Jeopardy asks, and certainly wouldn't have covered this FJ.

[TenPoundHammer]

"A person who only listens to country music and watches anime should in no way be forced to learn about Lady Gaga or Seinfeld."

Sorry, couldn't resist. Rest of your post was good, though.

Except a.) I don't watch anime, and b.) I do know a thing or two about Lady Gaga. I've actually heard Poker Face and Edge of Glory, and neither was bad.

[dhkendall]

"A person who only listens to country music and watches anime should in no way be forced to learn about Lady Gaga or Seinfeld."

Sorry, couldn't resist. Rest of your post was good, though.

Except a.) I don't watch anime, and b.) I do know a thing or two about Lady Gaga. I've actually heard Poker Face and Edge of Glory, and neither was bad.

Hey, so I haven't learned everything about you. To me, in some ways, you remain a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in an Aaron Tippin lyric.

(And surprised "Edge of Glory" got a "[not] bad" out of you, as every time I hear it now I think of your post a while back about today's music being nothing but one phrase repeating over and over, "The Edge" (while I'll agree, is "not bad" and I like the melody) definitely falls into that.)

[Sherm]

"A person who is incredibly out of shape should in no way be forced to learn about sports or exercise, to do so otherwise is highly immoral in my opinion."

Yeah. I just don't get why people gripe about religious clues so much.

It's not like the J! writers are begging you to convert. It's not like they're saying you absolutely must learn who [insert Bible character here] is or you'll burn in Hell. And to say you're being "forced to learn" is absurd.

And even so, I don't see why the two should be mutually exclusive. Even if you choose not to believe in anything Christian, does it really harm you if you know a few big names in the Bible? I don't follow Hinduism, but I still recognize the names Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. I don't believe in them, but I still know who they are.

I'm not so sure it's absurd to say a person is forced to learn religion. Any jeopardy viewer can take note of the proliferation of biblical clues and note that there is good chance that a biblical category will show up in his game of Jeopardy! and his winning that game may therefore depend on his knowledge of {insert biblical reference here].


My moralistic gripe comes from the common bit of motherly advice, "don't talk about religion with strangers." Shouldn't that bit of wisdom factor into the writers' conscience and impose some kind of limit as to how much scripture they should ask contestants to know, and how much scripture is being broadcast to homes across the country?

Sure, religion is heavily tied to everything else on earth, I suppose, but isn't it sort of inappropriate to reference a passage of the bible directly?

Since some people could get offended by religious questions, why use them?

There is an answer to the question. Why is jeopardy on TV? Get ratings and make money. OK, why use something that someone might see as offensive? Since the goal is to get ratings and make money, the answer is, it must not be offending very many.

My guess is, you are not going to stop watching because they have religion questions, and neither is anyone else.

[MacGyver]

stevo4212 wrote:
Isn't there another problem with religion, in that one person may adhere to an uncommon sect, in which a different answer would be correct, according to his interpretation of the scripture? Why should the Jeopardy writers be willing to go down that route, getting even more confrontational than I was suggesting? I would suggest getting out of the religion business altogether.

Do you have an example of this? I mean, if they cite the King James Bible, it's not like I can claim that a verse uses a certain word any more than I could claim that Moby Dick is, in fact, about an orangutan.

Does anyone remember a few years ago when there was a question about the total number of legs of all the talking animals in the Old Testament? The two animals were a donkey (four) and the serpent in Eden (kinda hard to say!) There was a lot of debate over on the Sony forum about how many legs the serpent had, with the general consensus being that the writers were wrong to think it was zero.

A very common interpretation of that aspect of the Garden of Eden story is that it explains the origin of snakes. But since it's not explicitly stated in the Bible, it was a terrible question that, if I recall correctly, really screwed one guy out of a win.

Bible questions on Jeopardy are often contentious. Which is why they should probably be extra careful when they write them!

[Volante]

I don't usually notice the bad writing except when they pull what one writer called the Sheldon Cooper clues — i.e., an attempt at TOM that only obfuscates even worse than it clarifies.

But man, this one's a total WTF? from me. How did no one even catch this?

Too clever and too brief for the clue's good. I know I've gotten attached to some really tricky turns of a phrase that, to me, make crystal sense, only to be told by an outside observer, "Just...what the Sam Hell are you trying to say here?!" A few more words and a little jiggering could have made it cleaner

"Involving those mentioned in Acts 1:13, this earlier event also took place in "an upper room."" or
"One Biblical theory states the "upper room" in Acts 1:13 also held this earlier event."

But why mention Acts at all? Why not cite the verse in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John and be done with it? It just wasn't a good idea to incorporate the Acts verse as an indirect reference. Period.

Well, my first question is, Does it make the clues wrong in such a way that there's either an answer besides The Last Supper or no answer at all?

The second, why should FJs have any superfluous information then? Like clues we snidely go "KEYWORD blah blah" to. Should we just cut them off at 3 words?
If final's going to be an instant get to anyone who picks up on the trick ("upper room" in this case, apparently), might as well add something to make them go "hmm..." over.

[billy pilgrim]

What is the answer to life, the Universe, and everything?

Spoiler: show

As we all know 42!

[jeff6286]

I was thinking that the reason Acts was referenced was that the "upper room" is never actually named in any of the gospels. Am I correct about that? If so, then either of Volante's prior suggestions would have made sense:

"Involving those mentioned in Acts 1:13, this earlier event also took place in "an upper room."" or
"One Biblical theory states the "upper room" in Acts 1:13 also held this earlier event."

alietr asked "then why even mention Acts at all?", but the reason for that is that I'm guessing Acts is the only place where the "upper room" is ever named in any way, vague as it may be. Even if they had phrased the clue in one of these ways, to lead to their intended response of "Last Supper", that still leaves the problem that several other events are also believed to have takee place in this same room, so they would have had to put something else in the clue in order to "pin" the response to the Last Supper.

Then we get into some of the issues that steveo has been bringing up, in that there is apparently nothing in the Bible stating that the Last Supper took place in this room, but we're still going to refer to the Bible when asking you what took place in this room? That's a little confusing, in that even if you had read and memorized the Bible cover to cover, you still wouldn't know where the Last Supper took place unless you had done further research into christian history and/or looked it up on wikipedia. So why ask a Bible question that isn't even answered in the Bible?

[Volante]

I was thinking that the reason Acts was referenced was that the "upper room" is never actually named in any of the gospels. Am I correct about that? If so, then either of Volante's prior suggestions would have made sense:

"Involving those mentioned in Acts 1:13, this earlier event also took place in "an upper room."" or
"One Biblical theory states the "upper room" in Acts 1:13 also held this earlier event."

alietr asked "then why even mention Acts at all?", but the reason for that is that I'm guessing Acts is the only place where the "upper room" is ever named in any way, vague as it may be. Even if they had phrased the clue in one of these ways, to lead to their intended response of "Last Supper", that still leaves the problem that several other events are also believed to have takee place in this same room, so they would have had to put something else in the clue in order to "pin" the response to the Last Supper.

Then we get into some of the issues that steveo has been bringing up, in that there is apparently nothing in the Bible stating that the Last Supper took place in this room, but we're still going to refer to the Bible when asking you what took place in this room? That's a little confusing, in that even if you had read and memorized the Bible cover to cover, you still wouldn't know where the Last Supper took place unless you had done further research into christian history and/or looked it up on wikipedia. So why ask a Bible question that isn't even answered in the Bible?

Luke 22 of KJV: 12 And he shall shew you a large upper room furnished: there make ready. (Preparations for the Last Supper)
The impression I was getting is a good number picked it up, or at least considered it, based off "upper room" so it's not that rare a phrase either.

But I just can't find a way to be cute with 'upper room' and not explicitly reference the Supper directly anyway...more happened in there prior to Acts. Oh well, decent experiment at least.

[Johnblue]

They were attempting to ask a question about the Last Supper. Given how many times that event has been referenced in art -- everyone from da Vinci to Dali -- it's not unreasonable to expect even non-Christians to be aware of it.

In fact, the other contestant who answered with The Last Supper is Jewish! I know little about a few subjects (such as the Old Testament!) but I'd make sure to study it were I to get the call.

[Sherm]

The upper room is mentioned in Mark as well as Luke, so they had options if that is what they are going for.

JMO, someone looked up "upper room" a found it in Acts, and thought, this is great negbait to get the contestants away from the last supper (the correct answer), but they never went as far as to look at it usage in Acts, or they would have seen that it wasn't talking about the last supper. I did not have a clue as to the answer on Monday, only that I knew it was not the last supper, because Jesus is no longer living when account of Acts takes place. People who got the correct answer of "Last Supper" did so, because they don't have a thorough knowledge of bible history.

[Magna]

If you go into a bookstore and buy a book called The Bible, whatever it is you buy will have all the information in it, no matter what translation or version it is. It may have the Apocrypha in it or not, or the books might have different names. But it will be basically the same for J!'s purposes.

Well, if I walk into a bookstore and buy a book called The Bible, it wouldn't have a lot of the questions Jeopardy asks, and certainly wouldn't have covered this FJ.

I don't understand this post. Are you saying a lot of questions J! asks about the Bible can't be answered by looking at a Bible? Maybe the history of Biblical translation or something, but other than that, what have they asked? (Other than this one question, which they have acknowledged they completely messed up.)

Second point: A number of the posts seem to be finding fault with the question. On the episode I watched, Alex made a special announcement saying the FJ clue was wrong. But looking at several posts, it seems to me that a few people didn't see that announcement and are assuming the question asked what it was intended to ask. Did Alex's disclaimer not appear in all the broadcasts?

[bpmod]

I did not have a clue as to the answer on Monday, only that I knew it was not the last supper, because Jesus is no longer living when account of Acts takes place. People who got the correct answer of "Last Supper" did so, because they don't have a thorough knowledge of bible history.

I'm more than a little confused. Are you saying that you knew that bible verse cold and that there was no event mentioned that could have been the intended response? Then why did you rule out only the Last Supper? Or are you just using that as an example? But, if you have a thorough knowledge of bible history, which seems to be what you are saying, then why would you use the argument "because Jesus is no longer living"? Acts was after Jesus' resurrection and before Paul's Epistles. So Jesus was definitely living during that time period. And, as I mentioned a few posts upthread, it is possible quite common in the bible to make reference to events past (including the Last Supper).

Brian

[Austin Powers]

If you go into a bookstore and buy a book called The Bible, whatever it is you buy will have all the information in it, no matter what translation or version it is. It may have the Apocrypha in it or not, or the books might have different names. But it will be basically the same for J!'s purposes.

Well, if I walk into a bookstore and buy a book called The Bible, it wouldn't have a lot of the questions Jeopardy asks, and certainly wouldn't have covered this FJ.

I don't understand this post. Are you saying a lot of questions J! asks about the Bible can't be answered by looking at a Bible? Maybe the history of Biblical translation or something, but other than that, what have they asked? (Other than this one question, which they have acknowledged they completely messed up.)

Second point: A number of the posts seem to be finding fault with the question. On the episode I watched, Alex made a special announcement saying the FJ clue was wrong. But looking at several posts, it seems to me that a few people didn't see that announcement and are assuming the question asked what it was intended to ask. Did Alex's disclaimer not appear in all the broadcasts?

I, for one, turned off the TV as soon as "Last Supper" was ruled correct, and didn't even know there was an issue until about 15 posts in.