Well, that may be putting it a little strong… surely there’s no need to update your posts!

In that case, I want to give you credit for your unaided genius w.r.t. “smooth operator” and will rewrite the relevant posts accordingly.

As for “smooth operator”, I have since seen it used a few times in conjunction with the passage from Genesis 3 as well as with Jacob and Esau, but I believe that at the time the phrase came to me unaided after reading the selection about the pun from Kass’ book.

Thanks for this post. I respond on my blog.

On another note, perhaps you’ve already clarified, and I don’t remember, did you come up with “smooth operator” on your own for the Genesis passage, or hear it from someone else? I heard it from someone else in years past, but the memory is hazy to say the least. Anyway, I like it very much, and have used it in two separate posts now.