On his blog, my friend talked about what superpower he would pick of he had a choice for one. He went through the various arguments for and against the different possibilities (like how flying would be cool, but he might get sucked in by the intake valve of a low flying jet-liner). He decided on teleportation because of its ease of connecting with faraway friends. Then he offered the challenge to his readers: “What would you pick? Telepathy? Telekinesis? Tele-evangelism (please, no)?” While I was tempted by that last one (I hear the money’s pretty good), I surprised myself with a new idea: Super Scholar. This was my thought:

As long as I had the option of turning it on and off, I think I would want to just know what is in a book and really understand its contents by laying my hand on it. I wouldn’t want to take away the pleasure of reading novels or magazines, but as a graduate student, it would be awesome to not have to read all the required books. Think of it: on top of all the necessary nonfiction works of my field (including commentaries), I could use it with dictionaries and encyclopedias, lexicons, language textbooks (!), sacred works from all the known religions. I wonder if it could expand to nontraditional book formats, like ancient papyri or clay tablets discovered in archeological digs or cavewall writings. Taken to the next level, maybe it could even handle electronic resources somehow, like whole websites, blogs, ebooks, etc. Dude, I could be, like, super scholar.

Maybe it could even go the other way too…. It’d be great if I could have thoughts just appear in writing on my word processor program. All that time I spend trying to think of how to word thoughts… BAM, it’d be gone. Just transferred right there on the screen.Write a publishable article? Easy. Dissertation? No problem. Monumental scholarly book? Piece of cake. I tell you what, man, the more I think of the possibilities for Super Scholar, the more I can’t imagine wanting to trade it for any other power. Although, the whole teleportation thing would be right up there on the list.

What strikes me about this thought, after contemplating it, is just how self-serving it is. Where is my attention to Spiderman’s mantra that “with great power comes great responsibility”? No, this would just make my life easier. And maybe make me famous for my super scholarship. How could I serve the greater good of humankind with this vast knowledge and writing abilities? Well, there is the indirect benefit of income from book sales and speaking engagements. I could be like Rick Warren and do a “reverse tithe,” living on 10% of my income and giving away the rest. I figure if I could write enough books (a couple thousand, for instance), even if they weren’t bestsellers, I could bring in that kind of money.

Beyond that, I suppose I could try to use my intellect to try to foward the cause of Jesus discipleship with great new ways to conceptualize it. Maybe I could gain such a reputation for my scholarship that I could rub elbows with world leaders and show them where they are right and wrong. But these things are getting into apologetics and ethics. Remaining in biblical studies, maybe I would be able to figure out new ways of exposing how the Bible is misused by both conservatives and liberals alike. I would be able to do this in the classroom, in churches, public lectures, articles in popular media, appearing on talk shows, etc. I would have to work hard not to just use it for myself. With great power comes great responsibility. Maybe I should pray for this new superpower.