Ben Witherington

Oh Those Pesky 'Angels and Demons'

2009-05-17T05:32:00.000-07:00

At this point it is hard to believe all the ruckus that was caused by Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, which, when people calmed down, they realized it was closer to hysterical than historical fiction. The novel was a pot stirrer, but the movie fell to the ground like a led balloon, and the Chinese government, showing their commitment to good taste, banned that movie after only a very brief run because it was upsetting their Catholic citizens (weird, since it is a Communist government). Well Angels and Demons is in fact the pre-quel to The Da Vinci Code, the first real Robert Langdon adventure, and frankly it is a much better novel (still nothing great, but better). One only has to suspend one's disbelief in the helicopter scene in that one.

Ron Howard (aka Opie) undaunted by the failure of his first Robert Langdon flick, decided to boldly go where few have gone before, and turn a prequel into a sequel--- which is easier said than done. Yes, Tom Hanks is back, and yes the plot is still filled with historical hooey (to use Tom hanks' words), but this movie is not as deadly dull as its predecessor, in fact it has some interesting moments in it. This one is bound to offend less because :1 ) it doesn't suggest there was a Mrs. Mary; 2) it involves a guild of mad scientists called Illuminati who must have been cowboys as well as they kept carrying around branding irons, an interesting juxtaposition; and 3) it gives one an inside glimpse at the Vatican, even though the Vatican in actuality would not allow Opie to film there. Still Rome and its churches come alive in this film, and that's worth seeing.

This film is briskly paced and whilst it appears to set up a science and religion clash, actually the message of the film seems to be that the two can make nice, even if they aren't yet kissing cousins. The ratings on this film are only at 37% so it appears the critics are in a 'once bitten twice shy' mode after the Da Vinci Code bomb. The difference is that this movie quite literally bombs at the end, but lest I spoil the plot I will simply say this film is better than the usual summer drivel, but don't expect any Oscars coming the way of this two hour thrill ride. It even has a nice twist in the tale at the end, and Howard has been smart enough to eliminate some of the most implausible elements from the Brown novel and streamline things. Yet there remain some imponderables, not the least of which why there is even a Bond girl in this film since clearly Langdon isn't interested and doesn't need her. Oh well, romance in the Vatican would have been a bit of a hard sell anyhow.

If you want to go see an excellent film about now, go to Star Trek. If you are looking for historical or religious Illumination, this film about the Illuminati can in no way provide it. It just shows once more that: 1) Dan Brown is out of his depth; and 2) Ron Howard doesn't understand the history of the Catholic Church either

MOVING DAY

2009-05-12T13:32:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends:

This blog is moving to a new location at the end of this month on the Beliefnet website. Here is the proper address to save under favorites and connect you to this blog---http://blog.beliefnet.com/bibleandculture/. The archives of this blog will indeed be transferred to the new blog site, all 800 or so posts worth.

For the many of you who are friends of this blog, thanks for all the reading and commenting, and keep on keeping on. You will still be able to connect directly to my blog through my website--- www.benwitherington.com. Catch you on the new site when I return from Turkey.

Blessings,

BW3

MONDAY MORNING FOLKS

2009-05-11T08:24:00.000-07:00

There were many wonderful lesser known folk rock groups in the 70s, some of them Christian, some of them not. I can especially commend to you Batdorf and Rodney, Lazarus, Arrogance, and Aztec Two Step. What we have here in this post is four pretty decent live YouTube clips from Aztec Two Step (aka Rex Fowler and Neal Shulman) performing songs found on their absolutely classic first Aztec Two Step album which is great from start to finish, and recently re-released and remastered. If you liked Jackson Browne, Dan Fogelberg, James Taylor, Kenny Loggins early solo folk work, America, CSN, Poco and the like, you would love some of these fabulous old groups. I'm amazed that some of them can still perform at a pretty high level. Enjoy. BW3

A COOL DEAL FOR YOU-- SACRED AND MUNDANE

2009-05-10T10:39:00.001-07:00

Just this week my little book of sacred and mundane poems came out, thanks to the hard work of Leah Maines, and I have a deal for you long devoted readers! I will send you free a copy of this new book (you provide me with a self-addressed stamped mailer, sent to my seminary address- SPO Asbury Theo. Seminary, N. Lexington Ave, Wilmore, Ky. 40390). This offer goes out to the first twenty persons to buy the new novel, Roman Numerals which you can now order at deep discount at www.wipfandstock.com.

We will go on the honor system on this one, so if you tell me you ordered it, I will believe it :) Enjoy BW3

TIRED OF THE BLUES? YOU NEED PRETZEL LOGIC

2009-05-09T18:44:00.000-07:00

Without question, one of my favorite bands of the 70s was Steely Dan, particularly with Michael McDonald. They have of course recently rebooted themselves. Here you will find one selection from the NY Rock and Soul Review Shows in the 90s, and more recently from my home town of Charlotte in 2006. Enjoy BW3

THE BARBECUE CHRONICLES: RIGHT ON 'CUE

2009-05-09T07:49:00.000-07:00

I was talking to my friend Gordon who was cracking a joke he heard at the Rotary club, where all manner of humor is possible. He said that one of the fellow Rotarians had lost a bet over this last election. To be specific he had said that an African American would become President about the time that swine/pigs flew. Turns out he was a prophet without profit. President Obama had been in office less than 100 days and then we had swine flu, which as I reminded you all has nothing to do with 'eating pork products', though some of you have reacted as if you could catch that darn flu by eaten pulled pork, pork rinds,ribs and the like. IT AIN'T SO,.... I'm just saying...

Now I was over at the Old Kentucky Barbecue Restaurant in Lexington yesterday, and I thought I had tried all manner of barbecue before now, but I discovered something new--- barbecue smoked over apple wood. And it is good!!! Bought a couple of pounds with some cole slaw as a side. Yum!

Need I remind you again that barbecue is: 1) not a sauce you put on food; 2) not a grill in your backyard; 3) not composed of beef of any sort, but is rather 4) slowly smoked pork. I've seen it smoked with hickory (best choice), post oak, mesquite, pecan (I'm deeply conflicted about this one since its a horrible use of the tree if its still manufacturing the raw materials for pecan pies), and apple. Pecan produces the sweetest tasting barbecue, and mesquite the tangiest even without sauce. But this apple wood smoked barbecue is just fine.

Sometimes I find barbecue, and sometimes it finds me. For example, I woke up this morning and had a Google Alert waiting for me in my email box. I was sent notice that Kevin Witherington has opened a branch of the famous Moe's Barbecue Chain in Birmingham Ala. Moe's however originated in Vail, Eagle, and Denver Co.

I am now worried that my relative has been relatively unsmart and managed to surreptiously import Western (read beef) barbecue into the Ole South under the cover of darkness. Here's the link to the story in the Vail paper--http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20090508/BIZ/905089962/1078&ParentProfile=1062.

Folks in Birmingham can be forgiven for already being a bit confused about what real barbecue is, since theirs originally came from Georgia where they put this red, catsup based sauce on it. This in no way enhances the flavor of the hickory smoked pork, and once you start doing things like that to good barbecue its a slippery slope down the road to Western style Barbecue--- can you say beef brisket? Now brisket is not bad, but it ain't real barbecue either.

I have a theory about the Lost Colony in North Carolina. You remember Sir Walter Raleigh and his attempt to settle that fair state in the 17th century. Well, eastern N.C. is where barbecue began in the U.S. of A. and I'm thinking that when Raleigh went back to England for supplies, those colonists just got too darn hungry and when the Okracoke Indians (some think named after Okra and Coke-- two Southern products) started smokin a pig, that smoked the white folks right out of their fort, and they went off to a pig pickin with the Indians, never to be seen again. I wonder if their grill looked something like this???

Last time I saw something like that was in Hawaii, only they had the poor pig buried in the ground (the opposite of pigs flying) sitting on coals and covered with palm leaves. He looked like a refugee from a Palm Sunday procession. Even Hawaiians have enough sense to know that you want pork on your fork when you're eatin' barbecue, although you have to question their eating it along with SPAM!

Stay tuned for further adventures taken from the Barbecue Chronicles where I tell you that someone crazy up in Owensboro Kentucky has been smoking mutton--- yes I said mutton, while looking sheepish :)

BW3

AN ADVENTUROUS ENTERPRISE--- REBOOTING 'STAR TREK'

2009-05-08T15:52:00.000-07:00

Perhaps most bloggers are far too young to remember the dawn of a TV series created by Gene Roddenberry in 1966. Happily, I am not too young. Although there were other heady dramas that had a good run in that era (e.g. 'The Fugitive'), few were longer on plot, ideas, and characterization than the original Star Trek, starring William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, amongst others. More recently there have been various attempts to recreate the magic on the original show on TV, and by way of the movies, but frankly most of the movies were not that memorable and most of the TV shows were sadly completely forgettable. Could anyone and anything reboot the Starship Enterprise in an enterprising way? As it turns out, the answer is yes, J.J. Abrams, now famous as the director of another blockbuster TV series--- 'Lost'.

It is hard of course to do an hommage without it feeling like a rehash, and even harder to do a respectful reboot while still offering a fresh take on things. And yet it has happened, and full marks to Abrams and company for pulling off a near miracle. We have readily recognizable characters from the original show, who are not merely imitating the original characters but in fact developing those characters in fresh and interesting ways. Though you may not recognize any of the fresh faces, save of course Leonard Nimoy playing the older Spock, it matters not. The story and the characters carry the movie. Here too is a movie that is not so dependent on the technology that it requires a special effect a minute to keep the audience enthralled, although there are some special special effects. No is the characters and the dialogue and story line that have the zip in this movie, and they are able to play with the full emotional palette ranging from anger to arrogance to love to hate to humor and much more. This is a movie I would gladly watch many more times and grow weary of it. Indeed, with a PG 13 rating it is basically family friendly (except perhaps one scene)and in fact leaves you wanting more--- the two hours fairly zip by in this movie.

No its not the Klingons who are the bad guys in this reboot, its a rogue Romulan named Nero, which oddly is said to be Spock's first name as well (but then Kirk's middle name also comes from the Roman emperors-- Tiberius) Nero is ticked because he had to watch while his own planet was destroyed, an event for which he blames Spock, wrongly. And so he is bent on revenge, which leaves him bent out of shape, perpetually. The story develops largely as prequel telling us how this crew ended up on the Enterprise 'boldly going where no one has gone before'.

What does Abrams bring to this movie. Well, it definitely has a LOST feel not least because it involves time travel and at least one character meeting himself coming and going, so to speak. Furthermore the future keeps impinging on the past, and can be fixed by going to the past. And then there are the unexpected twists, like Spock as a lover of Uhuru. Who knew? He definitely knows how to get the most out of an ensemble cast. If you were a lover of some of the lesser characters like Chekov and Scotty, you will not be disappointed with their portrayal. In short, this movie has something for both old and new Star Trek fans. May this reboot "live long and prosper."

ROMAN NUMERALS-- THE SECOND ART WEST ADVENTURE COMING SOON!

2009-05-05T12:26:00.000-07:00

Back by popular demand and in more trouble than you can shake a stick at is Art West, intrepid explorer and Christian archaeologist. In this the second of his adventures Art explores things apocalyptic including Mr. 666 in Egypt Israel, and Turkey, gets himself in a hostage exchange, discovers evidence of the Imperial Cult in Israel, and learns of Grace Levine's impending marriage, and all this before the novel really revs up to high intensity. Who is El Tigre and why is he after Art West. Scheduled for release in early summer, this second in a series of seven archaeological thrillers promises to keep you on the edge of your seat. Here is one of the first reviews....

Stolen treasures, murderous adversaries, intellectual detectives uncovering truths of the deepest value amid middle eastern loves, hatreds, and rivalries -- these are just a few of the things that make this Witherington thriller gripping, fast paced, and philosophically stimulating. Roman Numerals is high stakes intrigue based in the best real world scholarship. It will grab you at the outset, and hold you hostage until the very end! --- Dr. Tom Morris, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy Notre Dame.

Special discounts on the first novel, The Lazarus Effect, will be available if you buy the new novel as well. Stay tuned for more info...... the adventure continues.

N.T. WRIGHT ON POST-MODERNITY AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT

2009-05-04T11:22:00.000-07:00

The following is an interesting recent discussion of Tom Wright about the importance of post-modernity and the need to get beyond modernity. See what you think BW3

THE INDELIBLE IMAGE: THE FIRST REVIEWS

2009-05-03T13:35:00.000-07:00

The pre-pub scholarly reviews of The Indelible Image are beginning to come in. Here is one of the first ones which will be used as a blurb for the book. BW3
-----------

"Ben Witherington is a skilled historical exegete who has, probably
uniquely in our generation, pursued his passion for the theological
and ethical message of the New Testament through commentaries on
every one of the New Testament books. Now he has given us a summation
that is even more unusual: a New Testament theology that allows to
every one of those books a voice that really counts. A magnificent
climax to Witherington's work."

Richard Bauckham,
Prof. of NT, Emeritus
St. Andrews University,
St. Andrews, Scotland

THE RETURN TO THE FOLD--- A.N. WILSON

2009-05-02T05:43:00.000-07:00

We are all familiar with the story of the prodigal son, though that is not a story about religious conversion. Still, one would think there was enough in the Bible to remind us that where there is life, there is hope, when it comes to a person becoming a Christian. And even if someone began in the faith, and then backslide or even repudiated it for a while, why should we assume that such a person is beyond hope, beyond help, beyond a return to the Lord? Now this sort of coming and going is understandable from a human point of view, but it would be hard to explain from a deterministic one (did God really pre-determine a person to be a Christian early in life, then commit apostasyand write books attacking Christianity, then return to the faith?). Whatever your view on such matters the story of A.N. Wilson is both an interesting and compelling one. Here is a link to his story. See what you think, and reflect.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1169145/Religion-hatred-Why-longer-cowed-secular-zealots.html

THE MANY FACES OF THE CHRIST

2009-04-29T09:43:00.000-07:00

What you see above is the visual equivalent to my book The Many Faces of the Christ which surveys the various images and titles of Jesus in all the NT witnesses.

THE SOURCE OF THE SWINE FLU EPIDEMIC

2009-04-29T09:12:00.000-07:00

Pigs are big in eastern N.C.. Shoot they are so big there are even pig parlors where they go to be beautified. But as we all know, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it will still be a pig.

Pigs of course are big in N.C. chiefly because of barbecue by which I mean hickory smoked pork (barbecue is not a verb, nor does it refer to cooking in general, nor are we talking about a sauce, nor does it involve any animal other than the divine swine). There has been a big pig scare lately due to swine flu, which is a serious matter but it has nothing to do with eating cooked pork chops, bacon, ham, or barbecue.

It has to do with kissin' a pig. So, our crack team of researchers, this time including Craig Beard, have spanned the globe (or at least spandexed the globe) to find ground Zero where this virus began, and this time we think we have found the culprit. It's not the little boy in Juarez Mexico. No, its Maybelle Alice Swope, age two and a half of Chittlin Switch N.C. (see below).

Let me explain what I have discovered. You see the Swope family are big fans of Sarah Palin. You will remember her Republican Convention speech about puttin' lipstick on a pig. Well, Maybelle took that to heart, and started do it with her favorite pig, Buster (yes he's a male pig, but he liked the orange-flavored lipstick). In fact Buster was so grateful for the lipstick that he began givin' Maybelle a kiss of thanks. The picture above is positive proof of the outcome.

I am happy to report that Maybelle, after a Tamiflu injection is doing fine, and the pig has gotten over his virus as well. However, we must be ever vigilant from now on about pig-kissin' babies.

Turns out as well that it is mostly older pigs that get this flu, so the eastern N.C. hog farmers may have to rethink their recent ad campaign which had as its slogan-- "We will serve no swine before its time".

Buster may soon however be expecting his date with destiny, and a one way trip to hog heaven.

And dat's all I got to say 'bout dat.

A BROWNIE INFILTRATES LIBERTY-- WITH JUSTICE FOR ALL

2009-04-28T08:18:00.000-07:00

Meet Kevin Roose. He looks like your average nice college dude, and he is sitting in the pews in the chapel at Brown University. You may not have known Brown has a chapel, what with it being a bastion of liberalism, but it does. There is an interesting news piece about this young man who is a student at Brown but decided to go "behind enemy lines" and spy on the domain of Jerry Falwell for a semester, and write a story about his experience. Here is the link you should paste into your browser.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090422/ap_on_re_us/us_rel_religion_today

Now Kevin has written a book about his discoveries, entitled The Unlikely Disciple, and it is an unexpectedly interesting read. He may have gone to do an expose piece, but what he discovered was mostly good things. Yes, there were students who gossiped, and yes there were students doing the Facebook thing (oh no, not that!), and what he did not find was God's commandos planning another raid, or at least protest, at an abortion clinic. Well, the thing is, Liberty University today is a wildly more liberal place than it was twenty years ago (I jest) when I visited the child of one of my parishioners there to see how she was faring. I mean dating and public displays of affection are even allowed these days on campus-- what's the world coming to? Shoot Kevin even ended up singing in the choir at Thomas Road Baptist Church. And this brings me to the point of this post.

Though Kevin went clandestinely to Liberty, his book is actually pretty fair, and it is clear that his semester there had more good effect on him, than this book could have negative effect on Liberty. He prays regularly now and is considering joining a church.

And this brings me to a key point--- without pre-conditions, and without pre-conceptions we need to be welcoming at our Christian schools. I remember very well a conversation I had with President Harold Ockenga about 1975. He had told the admissions committee at Gordon-Conwell to allow a Mormon and a Jehovah's witness to enroll. This created something of a furor amongst some students and trustees. Was the school going liberal? Ockenga's response was right on target-- "Look, we are supposed to be able to share our faith and convert folks. And where better to do so then in a truly Christian school? If a Mormon comes here and isn't at all changed when he leaves, you have to wonder about how good a witnesses we are." Amen to that.

We need to stop being so self-protective and stop making fear-based decisions in our churches and schools. After all, our Bible says "greater is He who is in us, than any of those worldly forces". If we really believed that, it would change the way we do Christian education and church.

FRACTURED FAIRY TALES FROM THE FARM NO. 4

2009-04-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

Meet the vermin, aka varmint, aka varmin. He is a fearsome critter, but his pelt is much in demand. And in fact, the fur industry has given this animal an extreme makeover, by taking away the first letter of his name. They call him the ermin. Don't be fooled by this P.R. move, they knew that the name vermin had negative connotations and would never sell. Their 'rebranding' is about as reliable as those labels inside of furs that say 100% pure mink or the like. The vermin has had an identity problem from the start because various people have used this term in a non-technical sense to refer to any creature that is a pest. For example, in Australia farmers call the wild rabbit a 'varmit'. No wonder the poor vermin is confused. Between misidentification and the rebranding of the fur industry anybody could be confused.

One of the great problems in nature is human interference. We are all the time taking species of animals outside their native habitats and placing them where they don't belong, where they have no natural enemies, and multiply too rapidly. Take for example the case of 'so-called' ermin wraps. One woman goes out to Needless Markup (my name for the store), and buys a shoulder wrap made of pure vermin fur. Next thing you know both her neighbors are envious and they want one too. Pretty soon they have proliferated prodigously all over the city, and there is no returning them to their native habitat, shoot you can even return them to Needless Markup. It becomes an epidemic. This explains the old southern expression 'a fur piece', as in they live a 'fur piece' from here. Contrary to what you think, this means 'living only the length of a fur wrap from me', and it is used as a unit of measurement because some folks measure themselves by how big a fur wrap they can afford to have. Imagine that, people measuring their worth by the expense of their possessions. What's the world coming to?

What is a vermin really? Its not a rabbit or a mouse, or an ordinary pest, its a long-tailed weasel. Need I tell you that the fur industry definitely couldn't sell weasel-wraps due to the negative connotation of the word weasel. So they weaseled out of that deal by calling it an ermin, or as the French prefer 'le ermine'. One place this weasel was introduced into is New Zealand, to control the rabbit population. But this had an unintended effect. The vermin took a likin' to kiwi fruit, and the whole country almost had to rename all their sports teams that they like to call the Kiwis. You can see what I mean about it being a mistake to take a critter out of its native habitat where it has natural predators after it.

In Europe in fact this critter has another name-- the stoat (no not the Stout, that's a beer, or at least a beer belly). One of the odd facts about this animal whose pelt is so widely loved, is that in fact it is a member of the SKUNK family. Yes, you heard me right, the skunk family. Can't you just hear someone saying "Don't you just love my new skunk-fur wrap?" To which the proper but impolite reply should be "No, it stinks if you ask me." The vermin/ermin/skunk is a noturnal creature, which explains the tendency to only wear the wrap to evening functions. But I must report to you a very alarming development. Now people are using the vermin for food.

Now I am not talking about the kind of folks who scrap up roadkill from the side of the highway and cook them. I have a tin of that I bought in Tennessee in my office, and I am not referring to that old Southern practice. No, I am referring to using weasel parts to make pasta! Yes, you read right--- pasta.

Perhaps you've heard of it--- vermincelli??? It's real thin, kind of like angel hair pasta, and I have been told that what it actually is is vermin whiskers that have been battered up and cooked into a hard yellowish consistency. Turns out the vermin can be both the meat and the noodles in your spaghetti if you so choose. Who knew? Meditate on these things, and take some action. Don't try and weasel out of your responsibility either. Just look at that picture at the top here and those fearsome teeth, and do the right thing, at night of course. Otherwise your spouse will notice when you snag her wrap out of her closet and take it to Goodwill.

Question from alert reader Kimberley from Vancouver B.C. Kimberley wants to know, where does the Easter bunny come from? Thanks for this question Kimberley, and I will resist telling you 'from the same place as Santa' because that would be a fib. In fact they come from Easter Island of course.

FRACTURED FAIRY TALES FROM THE FARM NO. 3

2009-04-26T04:55:00.000-07:00

Ours is an age of hybrids. Hybrid cars, hybrid economies, hybrid vitamins and foods in general. It is thus not unexpected that there might be hybrid holiday food, in this case for Thanksgiving. Enter the turducken, one part turkey, one part duck, and apparently some chicken as well. Scientists have had theories about the origins of these rare birds, even though no one seems to have seen them in the wild. Here below is one scientific hypothesis on the matter.

Even cartoonists have gotten into the act speculating about how this hybrid creature originated and propagated.

Still, no one has been able to catch one glimpse much less of a photo of this animal in the wild, but we have some theories. For one thing talk about this bird only comes up in the fall--- during football season (although now a days ESPN seems to think every season is football season, even broadcasting spring practice games, so desperate are they to satiate the hunger of football fans). For another thing, the most famous football announcer who has regularly talked about this bird is a man who refuses to fly, riding around the nation in a tricked-out RV of considerable girth. I am referring to John Madden.

Madden has just suddenly retired, and I think I know why. His secret about the turducken was about to be exposed, because you see, that RV is in fact a rolling scientific lab, where experimentation has long gone on, on innocent animals, producing the turducken! Madden would ride along between games gathering up ducks, chickens, and turkeys in the fall, and putting them through his animal synthesizer. Though we never saw the process, we certainly saw the product and proof these shenanegins had been going on. Here is a shot of a cross-section of a turducken.

You can see perfectly well how the dark and light meet have been sectioned together in zones, an amazing feat of alchemy, and making it almost impossible for the picky person to be able to avoid eating both dark and light meet. Whilst there are some theories that the turducken originated in the kitchens of Cajun chef Paul Prudhomme, I assure you it is not so. Madden, the mad scientist, is at the bottom of this. If you wonder where he got his favorite expression "then BOOM, the quarterback got sacked....", the boom of course comes from him regularly experiencing explosions in the back of his RV whilst combining animals, using a modified farm combine.

I have little hope now that Madden will ever be caught and charged, especially in the wake of his sudden retirement. In fact, he is now making enough dough (figuratively speaking) from his Madden NFL game to be able to retire. And I have heard rumors as well that he has cut a deal with the NFL commish as well. You thought all those footballs were really made of pigskin? Certainly not! The skin of a football is much too dark to have come from a pig. No, in fact over the last ten years it has been the hides of turduckens that have been used! This may explain why so many field goals have gone wide right, because when a turducken tries to fly with the will of a chicken, the mind of a duck, and the wings of a turkey, it flies in wobbly fashion for sure. But there is more. Look closely at the laces on the football. Notice they are no longer made of cloth or string, but rather of some kind of hide or leather. I'm think it is the turkey gobblet that hangs down that has been made the sacrificial source. Enough for now, next episode we must investigate that most famous of all sly creatures--- vermin, or as it is known in the South, the Varmint.

Question d'Jour from Bubba in Chittlin' Switch N.C. Does the turducken produces as much tryptophan, that sleep-inducing drug, as the turkey does? Answer: No, far less which is why Madden was trying to substitute it for the turkey at Thanskgiving, to improve the football ratings on the Thursday afternoon NFL games on Turkey Day. What would the Pilgrims say!!!

FRACTURED FAIRY TALES FROM THE FARM NO. 2

2009-04-25T06:38:00.000-07:00

Meet the spamster. He is native to small islands in the south Pacific, including Hawaii. The spamster is a cute little fellow who starts out without ears, and then grows little pointy ones, the better to hear the commands of his master when its time to stand up, roll over, play dead, or in general, look cute. When he is fully grown the spamster tends to be somewhat long and lanky, a sort of skinnier version of the chihuahua. The spamster is a carnivor who loves to eat chicken, ham, barbecue, but not beef. The cows in the Chick-Fil-A commercial think he's cool and are thinking of starring him in a future episode. Because the spamster only eats chicken and lean pork products, he is svelt and has very flexible muscle tissue produces a wonderfully flexible chewy meat product---- called SPAM. And you thought that spam was simply bad email. Wrong. Its a whole food group. Perhaps whilst perambulating through the grocery store you have come across a can of SPAM.

Little did you realize how many spamsters had to be slaughtered to produce just one can of bright pink, chewy spam. One estimate puts it at 13. Yikes. Now spam is a truly versatile food. So versatile that there are whole Spam cookbooks, and indeed Spam creation contests. For example, here below you will find an Ipod Shuffle created out of spam! Who knew!

Spam is especially popular in Hawaii, and anthropologists hypothesize this is because the natives hunted the spamster to near extinction for many centuries on the island of Molokai. Not surprisingly, the spamster jumped on some steamers heading west to the Orient, only to discover that their tasty meat was even more popular in places like Hong Kong where you can get Spam-musabi--- no lie, see below.

But that is hardly all. Spam has become not only the breakfast of champions, but the inspiration of poets in Japan, so it is no surprise at all that we have Spam Haiku. You think I jest??? Take a look.

It is hardly a surprise then that those latter day saints of comedy, the Monty Python troop picked up on the legendary potential of this food, and created a suitable epic to memorialize it--- SPAMALOT of course. I can hear them singing now-- "A law was made a distant moon ago here. July and August shall not be too hot, and there's a legal limit to the snow here... in SPAMALOT."

All of this attention of course has led to a comeback in America of SPAM after a brief lull. In hard economic times SPAM is very useful, as it has a shelf life of a millenium, even if the can is open :) And for harried housewives or househusbands, the answer to the call, what's for dinner, has increasingly been--- fried or pickled, or baked SPAM, or SPAM sandwiches. Notice the following ad.

But take a moment to have some pity on the poor spamster. These days their meat is in so much demand,especially the female meat which is chewier, that there are hardly any spamster spinsters in the known world. This is a sad irony, because the truth is-- there is no content to SPAM. Its filling because its all made of filler. The truth is that SPAM in a can contains only 10% actual spamster meat. The rest is unmentionable, undesirable, and unconsumable filler. Rather like the spam you get on your computer. So once more, please write Pres. Obama and ask him, not least since he is a native of Hawaii, to put the spamster on the endangered species list. Unfortunately I gather he is not all that sympathetic to this cause, judging from what was served at a recent White House lawn picnic for under-privileged children (see below).

Speaking of children, Suzie from Sagebrush Gulch in Wyoming has written asking for an explanation as to why sheep are so dumb. Well Suzie its a sad, and even sexist tale. It appears that female sheep are smarter than rams, so some smart scientists decided to take what little gray matter a sheep could spare and inject it into the brain of the ram, so he would have more ram memory, and would stop butting things he had just butted five seconds before. The goal was to create less senior moments in rams, but like all such messing with God's creation and creatures, this experiment went terribly awry. Unfortunately what happened is that it made the ram remember how much it enjoyed mating with sheep, whilst the sheep forgot what happened to her the last time this occured, and so there has become a bumper crop of dumb sheep being bred, and appearing now all over the world. Its gotten so bad that in the Lake District in England sheep won't get out of the road even if being bitten by the sheep dog. Sad, just sad.

In our next episode of Fractured Fairy Tales from the Farm, we must turn our attention a holiday creation--- John Madden's Turduckin.

FLYING SOLO WITH A FRIEND-- 'THE SOLOIST'

2009-04-24T14:00:00.000-07:00

The life of a mentally ill person is messy, and difficult, and often heart-rending. And what is interesting about such a person is that it is by no means simply a matter of some chemical imbalance in the brain, though that can be a large part of the problem. There is plenty of clinical evidence to support the view that a mentally ill person can live a much more normal life with plenty of love and friendship, indeed there is even evidence that such relationships can go some distance to change the chemical imbalances in the brain. Imagine that. We are fearfully and wonderfully made, and are at the end of the day, psycho-somatic wholes, who are often far from whole. And of course as a culture gets more ill, people get more ill as well, and the ones who most often go down for the count first are the sensitive souls--- musicians, poets, artists, the one's who live out of the life of the soul and express in words or musical sounds. When the world is sick and fallened and abnormal, what then counts as normal, any more?

One such person with largeness of soul is Mr. Nathaniel Anthony Ayers Jr. Yes, he is a real person, and the movie 'the Soloist' attempts to tell the story of some of his life, which to say the least is still a work in progress, but then that is true of all of us. Played by Jamie Foxx with empathy and sympathy and conviction (an Oscar worthy performance) this story, while hard to watch, is not hard to get emotional about. Most of us have had someone in our lives who at some juncture needed serious counseling, or medicine, or both because they were, or were becoming mentally unwell. What makes Mr. Ayers' story all the more remarkable is that he was and is a musician gifted by God with a rare talent for playing music--- in this case primarily stringed instruments. And Steve Lopez (played well by Robert Downey Jr.), exceptional columnist for the L.A. Times has chronicled his life first in columns and then in the form of a book. Here is a glimpse of the real Mr. Ayers...

The movie is as moving as such a disjointed and painful life can be, and indeed it gives glimmers of hope. I honestly don't understand those reviewers who don't get this movie simply because in form as well as continuity it seeks to tell the tale in a manner that suggests the incompleteness and messiness and troubling aspects of the story. This man has not led and is not leading a nice and tidy life, nor is it all happily ever after in the end. Authenticity rather than fantasy is what the director seems to be striving for and capturing. So, for about two hours one walks a mile with Mr. Ayers, and with his 'friend' Mr. Lopez. Mr. Lopez is not spared criticism in this movie, for indeed he did not originally set out to be a friend, he set out to write a remarkable story. And there is indeed a Christian under-current to the movie, ranging from the way the cello teacher is portrayed to the way Mr. Ayers prays the Lord's prayer, but in his less lucid moments thinks Mr. Lopez is either God or Neil Diamond (what a juxtaposition--- I can hear 'Brother Love's Salvation Show playing now in my head). There is also an interesting interview scene with an atheist where the atheist admits-- "its hard to build community around having something you don't believe in common." For sure.

Mr. Ayers has a profound and abiding love for Beethoven, and this movie shows over and over how, as Shakespeare once said, "music soothes the savage breast" even of a mentally ill person. Beauty, real beauty can do that. It can take you far from your troubles and even draw you close to God. And make no mistake, when you have become ill whilst becoming a world class cellist at Julliard, and then crashing and burning completely, you definitely need a little help from above. I must say I like Mr. Ayers taste in music. He goes for the best. But he had become a street person, a person of no fixed address, a person cast aside as the flotsam on the sea of life. This story is more about learning how to become less selfish and more loving and more friendly even towards those hard to love than it is about music however. This story reminded me of the story of a famous hymnist who lived early in the twentieth century and was incarcerated due to his mental illness. The story goes that he, Mr. F.M. Lehman, died in his confined cell, having written on the padded walls the following words...

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry.

If that verse is the mark of an unhinged mind, then we need more unhinged minds in this world.

Had Jesus lived in L.A. in my life time, Mr. Ayers is surely one of the people he would have spent time with. And so should we. Go see this movie, but take a box of kleenex with you. "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for..."

FRACTURED FAIRY TALES FROM THE FARM NO. 1

2009-04-23T08:01:00.000-07:00

Meet the Nauga, a species not of gerbil, hamster or guinea pig but of its own, and indigenous to America! The Nauga is known for its bug-eyes. The Nauga, unfortunately today, the day after Earth Day, has to be reported as an endangered species, oddly enough endangered by the Barca Lounger.

You see it takes an enormous amount of pelts to produces a naugahyde couch or reclining chair. In fact Sam van Pelt and Joe Hyde from PETA reckon that it takes over 1,000 Nauga's hides to produce such a product. The plight of the Nauga was recently brought to national attention by the Disney film 'Bedtime Stories', in which a genuine Nauga masqueraded as a guinea pig and family pet. It was an Oscar worthy performance but sadly there is no animal category at the Oscars.

Where do Nauga's come from? They appear to have originated in the northern peninsula of Michigan which explains why it is that so many loungers and recliners have historically been made in Michigan, including Lazy Boy Recliners.

The Nauga, interestingly enough is actually a carnivor, preferring cheese burgers to all other foods, which explains why the Nauga tends to be portly. Ranging in color from brown to white and splotchy versions in between, it is estimated that today there are less than 500 Nauga's still out there in their native habitat. This is of course why the latest PETA campaign to save the Nauga from being hunted to extinction involves printed bumper stickers which read in large black letters NAUGA! HIDE! Unfortunately Nauga are illiterate.

Sadly the Nauga has not yet been put on the endangered species list, but President Obama made a campaign promise whilst stopping to garner votes from environmentally conscious "Yoopers" (that's Upper Penisula folk for the unenlightened) to get right on having the Nauga listed.

Unlike the hamster or gerbil or domestic mice, the Nauga is not good on treadmills, which also helps explain its portly physique. In fact the Nauga likes nothing so much as to lie around all day, swilling beer and eating cheese burgerettes-- BK burger bites being a new favorite. Female Nauga's apparently are very turned on to male Naugas with BK Burger bites in their paws.

The Nauga has in fact become so domesticated that one can regularly find them dumpster-diving with the opossums behind a Wendy's or a Burger King. Their current favorite flick is 'Super-Size Me'. I suppose it is sort of poetic justice in the 'you become what you eat' category that Naugas who like to lounge around are being made into naugahyde loungers.

What is to be done to save the little Nauga? My suggestion would be to stop buying naugahyde chairs and loungers altogether. Go for the straight plastic ones like good and smart-shopping red necks usually buy. Plastic at least does not come from a harmless little animal, and as we all know, plastic, like cockroaches, endures forever, so its good value for money and can be passed down for generations.

In our next episode we intend to tackle another animal worry--- namely why are sheep so dumb! Hint: Someone, as of yet unidentified, is stealing their ram memory. Also, we will address where SPAM comes from, and why Hawaiians eat so much of it.

A MODEL OF HEROD'S TEMPLE

2009-04-22T16:37:00.000-07:00

Alec Garrard is a farmer, but he had a dream (not to be confused with a field of dreams). Alec has worked for more than 30 years to create a full and accurate model of Herod's Temple. His version of the Temple is so impressive that some of the world’s top archaeologists and experts from the British Museum have come to view it. The pictures speak for themselves. See what you think. BW3

All That Jazz--- in Daytona Beach

2009-04-20T16:19:00.000-07:00

My sister Laura and I are musicophiles. To say we are music lovers is to say too little its closer to music-aholics ('Hi my name is Ben, and its been 21 days since I bought my last CD'). We were raised on the piano bench (our mother is a pianist and piano teacher) and so we were always going to concerts-- mostly classical, until I finally convinced my mother that Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass were not leading us all down the prime rose path to musical destruction. Of course, I wasn't going to take her to a Rolling Stones concert :)

But I digress. Over the years, my sister and I have gone to many concerts, rock, classical, and in the last twenty or so years, mostly jazz, as rock has waned, and you have to be in a major city to see a really good symphony most of the time.

So this past Thursday I flew down to see my Sis in Jacksonville and we went to the Daytona Beach International Festival (whose motto is 'Face the Music') with a wide variety of acts, mostly classical and jazz. We had tickets to concerts on Thursday and Friday night to see first Chris Botti and his band, and then the Yellowjackets with a stellar guest guitar player, Mike Stern.

I have, and have listened to, various Chris Botti CDs, most of which are decidedly in the smooth jazz or even pop category, and so I was mildly amused at his comment during the concert in which he distinguished himself from Kenny G, the ultimate snooze time smooth jazz artists. But then something unexpected happened--- I went to what I expected to be a smooth/snooze jazz concert, and a real jazz concert broke out.

This was in part because Botti had an incredible back up band-- including the ever funky Mark Whitfield on guitar and the Grammy winning Billy Childs on piano, plus a wunderkind on drums and a better than average bass player. The result was much jazzier versions of the Botti repotoire.

And in addition there was another surprise--- Botti appears on his CDs, and when he plays with Sting as a quiet, cool, sophisticated dude. Who knew he was Mister Entertainment in concert? He was alternately funny, playful, self-deprecating, and warm. When a group of people sitting down front waltzed in 30 minutes late he called them out, and then proceeded to play tiny samples of what they missed. It was hilarious. Boy were they put in their place. I must confess I really hate it when people come in late to good concerts, almost as much as I hate people talking loudly either on their cell or in person, especially during a quiet number. Why don't they have bouncers at concerts for rude and crude people who have no respect for the music, the musicians, or those who actually came to hear the music? I'm just sayin'....

The concert Friday night was vintage Yellowjackets who are still on top of their game and have added a whole new wrinkle with Mike Stern. Now Mike Stern is a very impressive jazz guitarist, who often sounds very much like early Pat Metheny, and that's the best compliment anyone could give him. He's a fine ensemble player as well. The Yellowjackets played mostly their new CD which features Stern. Speaking of featuring, it is mighty hard not to focus on Jimmy Haslip, the astonishing bass player (six string bass strung backwards as he plays it left handed), who is always impressive. He made Botti's bass player look very ordinary indeed. One of the highlights of the evening was Mintzer's long tour de force exploration of a ballad on the ewi, a truly versatile electronic woodwind instrument of sorts.

One of the more interesting aspects of these two concerts is that while the Yellowjackets drew a smaller but more knowledgeable jazz crowd, Botti attracted a lot of middle aged and older women who came to swoon over Botti and his love tunes. Chris was gracious, but it was funny to see all these women swooning over a much younger man who obviously was not interested in anything but playing and having fun, and being a good entertainer.

Nevertheless, a good time was had by all, and I can certainly commend the new Yellowjackets CD with Mike Stern, called Life Cycle. Its mighty good straight ahead jazz in a Yellowjackets kind of style, and no, they did not pay me to say this.

Bart Interrupted--- A detailed Analysis of 'Jesus Interrupted'--- Coda

2009-04-20T07:37:00.001-07:00

In the first part of Chapter Six Bart Ehrman rehearses for us some of his major conclusions to his earlier work, Misquoting Jesus. Since I have responded to that elsewhere (see e.g. my Gospel Code book, and earlier blogs) I will not repeat myself here. The point Bart wants to stress, to which I do not object, is that some of the textual variants in our Greek NT manuscripts are theologically significant. Again, he cites 1 John 5. 7-8, which if deleted, deletes one discussion of the Trinity in the NT. He then goes on to add, that the response to his saying this is not in the original text is that the notion of the Trinity can be found elsewhere in the NT (see e.g. Mt 28). In my view, both the deity of Christ and the Trinity are notions that are clearly in various NT texts, but these ideas are equally clearly only more fully developed later in church history, at various ecumenical councils and elsewhere. Bart admits that “every single Christian doctrine” (p. 186) can be found in Scripture without appealing to textually debated or dubious ideas. If this is so, then it is of course right to ask the question--- What’s the big deal about textual variants if no essential Christian doctrine is at risk of being read out of the canon due to textual uncertainty? Well, in this book I think Bart makes clearer that the issue is that some textual variants are of theological significance, and as such we should not ignore this fact. I am fine with this point, but what this means is that the “sky is falling” approach to textual variants does no justice to the actual situation. I don’t lose any sleep over whether Lk. 22.43-44 is canonical or not, since of course the Passion of Christ can be found elsewhere in the Gospels. Bart is right that it matters to getting an accurate assessment of Luke’s portrayal of Christ as to whether these verses are original or not, but that is the only way it really matters.

The bigger issue that Bart wants to raise is of course how one could think the Bible as we have it is the inspired Word of God when, 1) this concept is limited to the original autographs of the Bible, and 2) we don’t have them any more, and anyway 3) the canon of Scripture was compiled by fallible human beings, not by God. For him, the deeper theological problem here is why God would allow us to lose the original manuscripts if it was so important to have the inspired Word of God. This is a perfectly appropriate question, and it deserves a fair answer. If we wanted to give a theological answer, we could immediately remind the reader of the problem with golden calves… namely in the hands of fallen human beings they tend to get worshipped. It is entirely believable to me that God allowed things to go as they did in regard to the original manuscripts of the Bible to prevent mistaking the means for the end, and even worshipping the means, by which I mean the original autographs of the Bible. In other words, bibliolatry, the worship of a perfect book, was and is a real possibility for fallen human beings. But in fact a more historical answer is possible. The Bible is not a book written by God (apart ostensibly e.g. from something like the ten commandments), it is a book written by human beings inspired by God, and there is a difference. More to the point the Bible, after the time of the original inspired authors, was transcribed by non-inspired and often not very inspiring scribes! They made numerous mistakes in copying, and sometimes they also made deliberate changes. Bart is right about this, but he is also right that no essential Christian doctrine hangs on these variants at all. There is a difference between a theologically significant textual variant, and a theologically crucial or world-changing one. And there aren’t really any of the latter out there to be worrying about. The Bible as we have it is an ever more close approximation of what was originally given. The good news is today, as Metzger says we know with a high degree of certainty what about 92% of the Greek NT originally said, and no crucial doctrine hangs on the other 8%. Indeed we have over 5,000 mss. of the Greek NT in whole or in part, and this is frankly far more and better evidence than we have for any other document of comparable antiquity. And we keep finding more such fragments and documents, which leads us closer and closer to the original text. It would be nearer to the truth to say that textual criticism actually helps confirm our faith and understanding in the original text and what it said, than deconstructs such a faith, because as it turns out in the vast majority of cases of importance, the scribes faithfully represented what was originally written.

So in the end, as it actually turns out, textual criticism is not in the main where I would disagree with Bart about most things. It is rather his reading of early Christian history that is fundamentally problematic. Consider for example the banner headline on p. 191—‘The Wild Diversity of the Early Christian Church’. Which church are we referring to? The church of the first century A.D. or thereafter? It doesn’t much matter to the discussion of the NT canon if there was considerably more diversity in the church in the second and subsequent centuries of Christian history, when in fact no books in the NT canon were written in or came from the period after A.D. 100. It is not really of much relevance to the discussion of the NT to talk about the Marcionites or the Gnostics when no such groups existed in the first century A.D. and we have no hard historical evidenced to suggest they did. Even in the case of the Ebionites, the NT itself bears witness to no such extant group, and no NT document refers to them or seeks to correct or rebut them. If they existed in the NT era, it would seem they were either so tiny or insignificant that they did not call for mention or rebuttal even by notably argumentative types like Paul who ran into all types of Christians in his travels. The problem for Bart is a fundamental historical assumption that he has by no means demonstrated, namely that the diversity one finds in the second century and subsequent centuries of the church already existed in the first century A.D. even when it comes to radical theological and ethical diversity. What we do find however in the NT documents is already a concept of heresy and its condemnation. This is not a surprise when all the NT documents were written by conservative Jews or their co-workers, such as Luke. So, again, it is not helpful nor is it convincing to chronicle heretical movements from the 2nd and subsequent centuries and either assume: 1) they already existed in the NT era, or 2) that the first century church must have been as diverse as that of subsequent eras. In fact, the evidence suggests this was not so, and Bart’s attempt to find dueling apostles and apostolic movements evidenced in the NT is weak at best, and I have dealt with it in previous posts in this series. So far as the first century church was concerned there was only two groups--- the proto-orthodox ones, and the heretics who had not yet become full-fledged movements like later Gnosticism. The proto-orthodox group does not begin in the second century with Irenaeus or Tertullian and the like, it begins with Paul, and Peter and Mark and others in the first century. Irenaeus and others are simply running with the ball the apostles and their co-workers handed them. They are certainly not the inventors of Biblical orthodoxy, and they would strongly protest any such suggestions were they here to do so.

Perhaps the most serious error in the discussion in Chapter Six is the assumption that ‘the proto-orthodox’ sat around and decided which books ought to be in their corpus of sacred texts and which not. The historical truth is quite otherwise. There was never a time when any Gnostic texts were ever included in a list of sacred texts, either a list like the Muratorian canon list in the second century A.D., or even the list of the heretic Marcion. The notion that the situation was open ended until the 4th century, or even that some heretical books were ‘in’ until they were excluded in the 4th century is historically false. There were indeed some extra books considered for inclusion amongst the sacred texts—books like the Shepherd of Hermas, or even the Apocalypse of Peter. What is notable about such books is that they were basically theologically and ethically consonant with the books from the NT period. No books from any Gnostic collection, or Ebionite collection were ever considered for inclusion in the NT, and with good reason. The criteria for being considered a sacred text, as already manifested in the Bishop Sarapion controversy in the second century over the Gospel of Peter were: 1) apostolicity (they had to be written by apostles) and/or; 2) eyewitnesses or co-workers of eyewitnesses. This in effect meant that the canon was closed of necessity by the end of the NT era, because no apostles or eyewitnesses survived beyond that period or wrote any documents beyond that period of time. I have dealt with this issue of canon and canon lists at great length in The Gospel Code, and in my forthcoming book What’s In a Word? (Baylor), so I will not belabor the point here. What happened in the 4th century was the recognition of the books which had already and indeed always been considered apostolic with very little debate ( 2-3 John and Revelation are partial exceptions, for there was some debate about them, especially about Revelation because Eusebius and others did not like its eschatology). One of the mistakes Bart makes when it comes to a manuscript like Codex Alexandrinus is the assumption that just because a book is included in a codex, it must be assumed to be considered canonical. Wrong. Such codexes are mini-libraries of collected and valuable books deemed to be orthodox. That 1 and 2 Clement is included in this codex merely means that someone thought it was valuable Christian literature that was not heretical. Codex Alexandrinus or Sinaiticus are not canon lists. They are approved reading samples. Already in the second century we see with Bishop Serapion a difference between what was approved for reading by Christians, and what would be read from the pulpit and preached on. The former corpus of books is larger than the latter. The notion of a 4th century power play, instigated in part by Constantine in order to determine the canon and what was orthodox Christianity is a very poor reading of what actually happened at the Council of Nicaea. The canon of 27 books was recognized later in the 4th century, not at Nicaea when Constantine was present, and I use the word recognized advisably. The church in Africa, Asia and in the West recognized these 27 books as our NT, which is pretty amazing since they disagreed on other important issues such as church polity. But they did so because they understood that the proper criteria for recognition was that these source books are either apostolic or eyewitness in origins. And as such they had to come from the very beginnings of Christianity, and could not include later fictions and forgeries. And in my view, the NT certainly does not include such books, nor were heterodox books ever considered for inclusion in the canon. And this rule thus applies—a book can not be said to be excluded from a canon that it was never included in, in the first place. You will look in vain for lists that include any Gnostic texts in early Christian canon lists.

At the end of the day, Bart Ehrman continues to do Christians a good service, as he makes them examine their unexamined assumptions about early Christianity, the origins of the Bible, and other related subjects. The fact that many of us would disagree with his historical analysis is not because we are reading the Bible devotionally and he is reading it as a historian. No, the difference is because we disagree about the history itself and what conclusions are warranted from a critical analysis of the history. My point would be that Bart Ehrman is entitled to his opinion but he does not speak for the majority of ancient historians when it comes to the New Testament, though he certainly speaks for a growing and ever-more vocal group amongst those historians. Bart Ehrman speaks for himself, and my concern would be to make clear that there are thousands of good and critical NT scholars of some faith or no faith who would disagree with his conclusions. The issue here is not faith vs. critical thinking, or devotional reading of the Bible vs. scholarly reading of the Bible. The issue is what sort of critical reading of early Christian history and its texts is warranted by the evidence, and indeed which view is more open minded about what counts as evidence, and what does not. In my view, Bart unnecessarily brackets out in advance too much of the data as ‘mythical’ or ‘miraculous’ which leads to skewed conclusions on various fronts. And this is sad, because Bart Ehrman is a fine writer, and lecturer and debater and an increasingly influential one. One can hope he will continue the conversation and his mind may change on some of these matters.

In the meantime, it is important to stress in conclusion that Bart Ehrman is not the voice of the critical consensus on the NT. He could be called the popular voice of one particular more liberal or radical interpretation of the data. BW3

Assessing the "State of Play"

2009-04-18T05:45:00.001-07:00

It has been a while since Russell Crowe had a real stellar performance in a movie, but this movie shows he is not losing his edge. Playing with an all star cast (especially the fabulous Helen Mirren) Crowe raises his game to the level of the story, and a very timely one as well. Here is a movie I can happily recommend which will actually make you think and pay attention (imagine that).

Remember Blackwater, the private defense subcontractor used by our previous administration to perform various tasks in Iraq? Well you should, because there was all sorts of bad stuff going down with those folks, and this movie in fact takes on the subject of mercenaries for hire, with the U.S. government as the employer. These folks make billions, meanwhile we barely pay our own soldiers a decent wage, and leave them in substandard hospitals when they come home--- shameful.

Anyway, this movie is not an ordinary thriller, not just because of the aforementioned theme, but also because of the timely discussion of the demise of hard news, both on TV and in the dying newspaper industry as well. Instead we have "MUFFY at 9 will discuss why she is mad as Hades about how little dog Froo Froo was stolen from a Hollywood car. What's the world coming to?" Or abrasive in your face shock commentator will foam at the mouth about how our country is being taken over by the "New World Order" (n.b. those words add up to 666 if you count in Roman numerals :). You get my point. Real journalism and hard news is dying--- and it is a story worth telling and complaining about, because real reporting is part of the life blood of democracy and the free spread of information. It has to do not merely with freedom of speech, but with the preservation of democracy, not to mention truth. Back to the movie.

This movie lasts 2 hours and 12 minutes, but you would never know it as it flies by there is so much suspense. Crowe plays an Irish American old school reporter, paired up with the new wave blogger (with a brain) played by Rachel McAdams. Mirren is the senior editor of the Washington Globe, a paper desperately trying to become profitable once more. Into the mix comes one Congressman Stephen Collins, a 'show horse' for his party who is tasked with being the lead on a Congressional hearing committee deciding whether a particular defense contractor company should be award billions in contracts to do our dirty work for us. Ben Affleck plays this role, and I have to say--- its the first time I've actually seen him do some acting of note, though he is completely outshone by Crowe and others in the film. The point is, he is better than adequate in this film, which is an improvement. There's some hope for him as an actor.

The story is set spinning in motion by the sudden death of Collins female aide, with who he was having an affair, suspicion is focused on Collins himself. But as it turns out, all is by no means as it seems, and the story plays out in some surprising ways, including an ending I certainly did not forsee, and you should go see.

Here is the summary of the plot from Universal---

Oscar® winner Russell Crowe leads an all-star cast in a blistering thriller about a rising congressman and an investigative journalist embroiled in a case of seemingly unrelated, brutal murders. Crowe plays D.C. reporter Cal McAffrey, whose street smarts lead him to untangle a mystery of murder and collusion among some of the nation’s most promising political and corporate figures in State of Play, from acclaimed director Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland).

Handsome, unflappable U.S. Congressman Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck) is the future of his political party: an honorable appointee who serves as the chairman of a committee overseeing defense spending. All eyes are upon the rising star to be his party’s contender for the upcoming presidential race. Until his research assistant/mistress is brutally murdered and buried secrets come tumbling out.

McAffrey has the dubious fortune of both an old friendship with Collins and a ruthless editor, Cameron (Oscar® winner Helen Mirren), who has assigned him to investigate. As he and partner Della (Rachel McAdams) try to uncover the killer’s identity, McAffrey steps into a cover-up that threatens to shake the nation’s power structures. And in a town of spin-doctors and wealthy politicos, he will discover one truth: when billions are at stake, no one’s integrity, love or life is ever safe. --© Universal Pictures

If you like thrillers at all, this is a good one to see. It is not a movie filled with sex and violence with a threadbare plot. Indeed, the challenge was to whittle the plot down to manageable size since it had been an eight part British mini-series. But the larger reason to go see this movie is because of the disturbing trends it points to in our culture--- the death of real journalism, and the disturbing rise of collusion between government and private contracts, in part coupled with the rise of the deleterious effect of lobbyists on our whole political process, including the assigning of lucrative defense contracts. I do not know what the answers are to these problems, but they are serious problems, and we need to care about them. Full merits to 'State of Play' for raising the right questions, even though it provides us with few answers, other than suggesting we should return to old school reporting and news.

Bart Interrupted--- A detailed Analysis of 'Jesus Interrupted' Part Five

2009-04-16T06:56:00.001-07:00

In chapter five of his book, Bart Ehrman sketches out a basic narrative of the historical process which led to the production of the Gospels. I do not really disagree much with him about either the dating of the Gospels, or the Synoptic problem (i.e. the relationship of Matthew, Mark and Luke), but where I would have serious disagreements is with his analysis of the historical process that led to the production of the Gospels. In essence the difference is this—he imagines a long chain of oral tradition, involving the telling of these narratives by many people who were not eyewitnesses, which eventually led to the writing down of these traditions by others who were neither eyewitnesses nor in touch with eyewitnesses. By this means he seeks to explain what he sees as the many discrepancies in the Gospels. Besides the fact that this analysis is based on some enormous unproven assumptions, it in fact goes flatly against both the internal and external evidence we have about the matter. Let me illustrate, starting with Lk. 1.1-4.

In Lk. 1.1-4, Luke tells us that he had observed, for a long time the “things which have happened amongst us” and more crucially he says that many had compiled a written account of things before he did. In addition, and most crucially he adds that he had consulted eyewitnesses and the original preachers of the Gospel message. On the prima facie showing of this preface to his Gospel what would it be reasonable to deduce about the gap between Luke and the original Gospel events? Was he writing at a time or a place so far removed from the original events that he could not consult those who were actually eyewitnesses of these things? Unless one wants to claim Luke is simply telling a lie, which few scholars would do, Luke is telling us that while he himself is not an eyewitness of the life of Jesus, nevertheless he knew and had consulted those who were, and used them as sources in his work. We must also conclude that he had written sources, which he calls ‘many’. I suspect he means Mark, perhaps a written collection of Jesus’ sayings (‘Q’), and perhaps Matthew as well, and there may have been other sources as well. Now it is the consensus of most scholars that Luke is the latest of the Synoptic writers, using Mark, and possibly knowing Matthew as well, but in any case later than Matthew. He probably wrote sometime in the 70s, or possibly even the 80s. This reminds us of an important point. There were still eyewitnesses around to be consulted until the very end of the first century, as Papias tells us, for he consulted a couple of them in the early second century.

Now if Luke indeed consulted eyewitnesses and written sources, then the myth of a long chain of oral tradition with many weak links cannot stand close scrutiny. But there is in addition external evidence as well on this matter from a reliable tradition in Papias. It says the following:

"And the presbyter said this. Mark having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatsoever he [i.e. Peter] remembered. It was not, however, in exact order that he related the sayings or deeds of Christ. For he [Mark] neither heard the Lord nor accompanied Him. But afterwards, as I said, he accompanied Peter, and formed his [Peter’s] instructions into chreiae, but with no intention of giving a complete narrative of the Lord's sayings. Wherefore Mark made no mistake in thus writing some things as he remembered them. For of one thing he took especial care, not to omit anything he had heard, and not to put anything fictitious into the statements."
Now the presbyter in this statement is the man Papias calls John the elder. This is not John Zebedee, whom Papias had not met, but rather John of Patmos, who himself had been in touch with the earlier eyewitnesses, including the Beloved Disciple. If you want this statement by Papias properly unpacked at length, read Richard Bauckham’s excellent treatment of it in Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, and if you want a lengthy critique of Ehrman’s myth about long and weak chains of oral tradition see my critique of James Dunn’s Jesus Remembered, forthcoming in my What’s in a Word?. Here it must be sufficient to say that Mark was the interpreter and translator of Peter. What the Greek text of this passage suggests is that Peter often spoke in Aramaic, and Mark translated for him, and this included translating various stories about Jesus and his words and deeds into Greek. This explains a good deal about the Gospel of Mark (not least its various parenthetical translations of Aramaic words). Jesus spoke in Aramaic and so did Peter. Mark was more skilled in Greek than Peter.

Now Papias tells us that Mark had no intention to give a full or completely chronological account of the life of Jesus, but simply to present some of the salient memoirs of Peter. He also tells us that Mark formed these narratives into chreiae, the rhetorical form for a persuasive short story that normally ended with a bang with either a notable saying of the hero, or a notable action of the hero. What this tradition tells us of course is that there is no long oral tradition gap between the events in the life of Jesus and Mark’s Gospel--- Peter himself is the missing link. And here it is worth adding that it is highly unlikely that the second century church, so enamoured with apostolic and eyewitness testimony, would have made up the notion that two of our earliest Gospels were written by non-apostles and non-eyewitnesses like Mark and Luke, who on the very showing of the NT itself were minor figures in early Christianity, not major ones. To this of course we could add the testimony about the Fourth Gospel from John 21 which says explicitly that the Beloved Disciple was an eyewitness of some of the events in Jesus’ life, that he wrote down his own memoirs, and that later the community collected them and composed what we call John’s Gospel. I would suggest the reason it is called that is because it was in fact John of Patmos who, having returned to Ephesus from exile, was the one who collected and edited the Beloved Disciple’s material. This is the same John who wrote Revelation and whom Papias had met.

There are other points in Chapter Five that need to be challenged: 1) the notion that Paul tells us nothing about Jesus or his words and deeds. In fact every Pauline scholar I know would say this is false. Not only because he can recite the tradition passed down to him about the last supper (1 Cor., 11), or the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus (1 Cor 15), but also because with some regularity he draws on the teaching of Jesus (see 1 Cor. 7, and Rom. 12 and Gal. 6 for example). Furthermore, in his earliest letter, Galatians, Paul tells us he went to Jerusalem more than once and consulted the three pillars of the Jerusalem church James, John, and Peter (Gal. 1-2). You may be sure that the subject of the many conversations included Jesus and his words and deeds. 2) Amazingly, Bart Ehrman serves up warmed over Albert Schweitzer and his largely discredited theories about Jesus, from over a century ago, not only in Bart’s own book on Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet, but again here in this book. Schweizter to his credit was right that Jesus’ message and mindset was eschatological and prophetic, but he was quite wrong that Jesus thought the world was definitely ending in his lifetime and completely wrong that Jesus predicted the world would end within a generation. We have already dealt with this in a previous post (see e.g. Mk. 13.32). The fact that Ehrman ignores the numerous critiques of Schweitzer’s theories in most other recent detailed scholarly works on Jesus (see e.g. Wright’s Jesus and the Victory of God, or Flusser’s Jesus as Sage, or my Jesus the Sage, and Jesus the Seer, or John Meir’s massive multi-volumes on Jesus a Marginal Jew, or A.J. Levine’s A Misunderstood Jew and there are many more), is frankly just not responsible scholarship. Of course the masses who read Ehrman’s book don’t realize that most Jesus scholars would disagree with him about this, because of course their works have not appeared in such popular form as this easy to read book. 3) on p. 174 we come to a statement which explains much, historians are unable to discuss miracles. He says this because he believes “there cannot be historical evidence for a miracle” (p. 175). This of course depends on what counts as evidence. I do not frankly see the evidence for ancient or modern miracles as any different than the evidence for other sorts of events. We should use the same criteria to evaluate all historical claims--- multiple attestation by reliable witnesses, and the like, which criteria Bart lists. A miracle, like any other historical event is a unique event. It does not differ from other historical events in this respect. This is of course why any historical event differs from a repeatable laboratory chemical experiment.

And this brings me to the issue of the study of history as opposed to the study of nature. The form is largely an analytical art, the latter is a science which involves empirical experimentation. It is a mistake to see the study of any ancient historical event as a “science”. It isn’t because historical events are by definition unrepeatable one time occurrences. It is equally a mistake, and this is where Bart’s definition of a historian goes sadly awry, to assume either that: 1) we know all the laws of nature, or 2) that they cannot be accelerated or transcended by the God of nature. At a minimum, even a skeptical historian must allow that remarkable and inexplicable things do happen in history, things not explicable by modern science. This is no knock on science, but like any discipline of knowledge it has its limitations. Just as I would not use my wife’s knowledge of botany to study Napoleon, so we should not apply the rules for chemical experiments or scientific testing of nature to study any historical event. Historians of course do seek to establish what probably happened in the past, and since miracles by the millions have been reported in all ages of history including the current one, it is quite impossible to say that miracles are the least probable historical occurrences. How in the world could we know that? Has anyone assessed all the occurrences of everything in all of human history and then weighed the probabilities? Certainly not. No one has that sort of exhaustive knowledge, and no historian should be so presumptious as to assume that he knows miracles have always been improbable. Rather, in humility, he should be open to whatever is the most plausible historical explanation of this, that or the other event, and then in addition admit, that sometimes we have to say ‘I don’t know or can’t explain that. Maybe it really happened and really was a miracle.’

Me personally, I am not merely open minded about this, I have been present when miracles of healing happened, that the doctors were unable to explain. This doesn’t mean it didn’t happen or a good historian should just ignore this kind of event in someone’s life, though he may be led to say ‘I don’t know how that happened, it doesn’t seem explicable in purely naturalistic terms’. But then there is no law that requires a good critical historian to be a naturalist in his assumptions about all life. None whatsoever. Let me leave you with a true story.

Some time ago I was pastoring in Coleridge N.C. and had gone to Charlotte with my wife for a few days to visit my folks. One of our most stalwart church members, Bertha Albright, suddenly and unexpectedly became ill on a Saturday and was dead by the time we returned. This was in an age before cell phones, and when I arrived back in Coleridge my neighbor was frantic and asking me to come to his house. He was worried his mother had gone bonkers. You see, Mrs Whitehead had been Bertha Albright’s best friend, and about 4 or so that afternoon she had received a phone call from Bertha, which her son Roger had overheard. The phone rang, they talked for a while, and then Mrs. Whitehead hung up. She had been talking to Bertha. The problem is, that Bertha was already dead some hours, and so a phone call of that sort was, on a naturalistic set of assumptions, quite out of the question.
When I came across the street and was told all of this, because of course now Mrs. Whitehead had learned Bertha was dead and was distraught, I tried to calm her down and ask her some questions. I asked her was she sure it was Bertha? Oh yes, she had known this person for many many years. How did Bertha sound? “She sounded far away.”

I remember saying “I guess so, it was truly a long distance call.” But when I asked her what Bertha said, one of her remarks struck home “She asked if Ben would be back to preach on Sunday, and to tell him not to be discouraged but to keep giving those good sermons and doing the ministerial work.” I was a pastor of four churches, and it was difficult. And indeed I was discouraged, and wondered whether I belonged in the pastoral ministry. And that message was precisely the word of hope and help I needed on that weekend.

I could tell many other stories like this from my life, but the bottom line is, anyone who rules out God and the miraculous and calls that good historiography has indeed left out a large amount of history from our purview. It is a sad, and stunted version of reality that is involved, and worst of all, it’s not really true to reality. Modern historians do not need to be theologians to do their work, but when they step on holy ground, they ought to have the good sense to realize that they don’t know enough to rule God ought of the equation. They would do better to simple say ‘something remarkable happened as the evidence we have suggests…. But I simply can’t explain it.”

Bart Interrupted: Part Four

2009-04-14T06:59:00.000-07:00

We live in a text bound age full of litigious people concerned about copyright, intellectual property, and authorship in the modern sense. I have a friend in fact who is in fact a intellectual property lawyer. You don’t want to know all the permutations and combinations of that law. By contrast, the first century world of the NT writers was a dramatically different world. For one thing, it was largely a world of oral cultures. Perhaps 10-15% of the populus was literate, could read and write, and even less actually owned ‘texts’ or manuscripts. Furthermore, the production of texts in antiquity was a tremendously laborious process, and expensive as well. Scribes did not come cheap, papyrus and ink was not cheap, and the codex, or notebook form compilation was just coming into existence in the first century A.D. Most documents were written on a single sheet of papyrus which would be rolled up and tagged, with what I like to call a toe tag—a small identifying marker. Scribes were not mere secretaries in antiquity, they were in fact the intellectuals and scholars of their age. It you want to learn about their various roles you can read several of the chapters in my forthcoming Baylor book What’s in a Word.

Not surprisingly, ancient views about ‘authorship’ are not quite the same as modern views which assume ‘individual’ authors for almost all documents that aren’t collections of essays by some group of scholars. However in ancient collectivistic cultures this was not the norm. Many, if not most ancient documents were anthological in character--- a compilation of traditions from various different persons and ages through time. This was true about collections of laws, proverbs, songs, religious rituals, and stories as well. We should not be surprised in the least in reading through the book of Proverbs that all of a sudden in a book ascribed to Solomon, we have in Prov. 30 the sayings of Agur, or in Prov. 31 the sayings of King Lemuel, whoever he may have been. Or again, the psalms are compilations from various different ages, some are probably songs of David, but some are songs for or dedicated to David, some are composed by others still. It is a mistake to evaluate ancient documents as if they were just like modern documents, and this applies to NT documents as well, in various regards.

For example, the vast majority of scholars are in agreement that the Gospels we call Matthew and Luke are compilations from a variety of sources, including Mark and a sayings collection, and some unique material not found in other Gospels. Of course, this becomes puzzling to modern readers of Matthew because they rightly ask the question--- why would an eyewitness apostle like Matthew need to use secondary sources for events he was present to view? Why indeed. Here is where I say to you that while we must properly answer this question, one also needs to not do what Bart Ehrman does in his chapter on who wrote the Bible when it comes to this issue—which is to suggest that these Gospels were originally anonymous, and labels were added to them later for apologetical purposes, and that when we read of who they are attributed to in an early source like Papias, we can with a wave of the hand simply dismiss such evidence. If you want to read what a historian of merit has to say indetail about the Papias’ traditions I would point you to Richard Bauckham’s book Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, which is mostly a close reading and explanation of Papias and what he says. It does not in any way agree with Ehrman’s analysis of these early traditions. Indeed, most scholars today think there was a collection of the four canonical Gospels together at some point early in the second century in codex form which is when we get the official labels—according to Matthew etc. based on earlier traditions about the sources of these documents (see e,g, the work of Graham Stanton).

When the Gospel documents were originally written, the audiences that received them knew who the authors were and had a relationship with them. This is especially clear from a text like John 21 which informs us that while the final compiler of the Fourth Gospel is not the Beloved Disciple, nevertheless, he is the source of the traditions in this Gospel, having written them down, and “we know that his testimony is true”. The compiler of the Fourth Gospel knows the man personally, and can vouch for his trustworthiness in telling the Gospel stories. So let’s deal now with some of the flimsy assumptions made which are the basis of Ehrman’s conclusions.

1) Assumption One: The canonical Gospels were probably originally anonymous. This is wrong on two counts. First, when these documents were written down, if there were not identifiers in the document, the papyrus would have been tagged by the scribe to be able to distinguish it from other documents, and these tags regularly had the names of the author or compiler and sometimes a short title as well or instead. Second, we should not imagine that the Gospels were written for general public consumption. Publishing in antiquity was almost always an in house, small audience thing, unless we are talking about Emperor’s publishing laws and propaganda. The circles for which these Gospels were written in all likelihood knew who wrote these documents. Papias is simply basing on to us the early traditions about Matthew, Mark, and John that he heard personally from John the elder, who had know various of the eyewitnesses.

2) Assumption Two: In the case of a Gospel like Matthew which includes some 95% of Mark within it, obviously this means that Matthew had nothing to do with the content of this Gospel since it relies on earlier and even secondary sources. This sort of reasoning ignores the anthological nature of most ancient documents. All it took for a document like Matthew to be labeled ‘Matthew’ is if he was the most famous source used in the document for some of its material. And of course if the three sources used in that document are: 1) material from Mark, not an eyewitness, 2) material from Q or a sayings collection; 3) material from some other unique source scholars usually call special M material, then if either 2) or 3) came from Matthew, his name would take precedent over Mark’s in the document, especially if there very first source material in this Gospel, the birth narratives, came from Matthew. What Papias says is that Matthew had compiled some of the largely sayings material of Jesus in Aramaic or Hebrew. This sounds more like 2) above, than 3), but Papias is general enough that it could be 3) since the Greek word logia need not mean just ‘sayings’. It could mean teachings, for example or even ‘words about the Lord’.

3) Assumption Three: Jesus’ disciples were “lower-class, illiterate, Aramaic speaking peasants from Galilee.” (p. 106). First of all fisherman are not peasants. They often made a good living from the sea of Galilee, as can be seen from the famous and large fisherman’s house excavated in Bethsaida. Secondly, fishermen were businessmen and they had to either have a scribe or be able to read and write a bit to deal with tax collectors, toll collectors, and other business persons. Thirdly, if indeed Jesus had a Matthew/ Levi and others who were tax collectors as disciples, they were indeed literate, and again were not peasants. As the story of Zaccheus makes perfectly clear, they could indeed have considerable wealth, sometimes from bilking people out of their money. In other words, it is a caricature to suggest that all Jesus’ disciples were illiterate peasants. And Bart is absolutely wrong that Acts 4.13 says otherwise--- what Acts 4.13 says is that the council is shocked at the theological capacity of Peter and John because they are ‘unlettered’. This is not the ancient word for illiterate, it is the word for not being learned, not having done formal school training, say in a synagogue.

We need to move on now and consider what Bart says about forgeries and intellectual property in antiquity, and yes indeed there was a concern about such matters in the first century A.D. though certainly not to the same degree as we find today. Bart is also right that there were also not only forgeries in antiquity, there were also pseudepigrapha of various sorts. Now the latter has to be evaluated on a genre by genre basis. By this I mean that while there was a literary convention when it came to apocalyptic works to ascribe those works to ancient luminaries or worthies (e.g. the Testament of Abraham is not by Abraham, the Parables of Enoch are not written by Enoch and so on), it was not an approved literary practice to write letters in the name of other persons without their approval or dictation. This issue has to be evaluated according to the literary type of document we are talking about. The parables of Enoch are not a forgery, they are a pseudepigraphic apocalyptic document and the conventions were well known in early Judaism about such documents.

Pseudonymous letters, sermons or speeches are a whole different ballgame. These, if they are genuine letters or sermons, can be called forgeries if there is no connection between the putative author and the actual author of a given document. Bart is absolutely right when he says “Ancient sources took forgery seriously. They almost universally condemn it, often in strong terms.” (p. 115). He is also quite right that forgeries had the intent to deceive. And he is also equally right that various of these sorts of documents were penned in the second century A.D. to add to the corpus of Christian writings for various purpose. A good example of this would be the so-called Acts of Paul and Thecla, or the Epistle to the Laodiceans. Our concern is not however with such documents, but with those from the first century A.D. (and it is only first century documents in the NT) that made it into the canon of the New Testament. Are their forgeries in the NT?

First of all, we need to bear in mind that anonymous documents are not pseudonymous documents. Hebrews for example, has no attribution of authorship internally or externally, it is an anonymous sermon. Perhaps Apollos wrote it, but in any case, the author of the document is not trying to pass it off as written by some luminary. Secondly, there are documents which are internally anonymous but had an external attribution. For example 1 John, in the content of the document says nothing about the author at all. It is a sermon, and it appears that early Christian sermons, like Hebrews, were frequently produced without internal attribution. And exception to this is James. Bart wants to argue that this is by some otherwise unknown James. The problem with this suggestion is shown by the many commentators on the book of James, and also by the content of the book, which draws on no less than 20 sayings of James’ brother Jesus. As Bauckham has shown at length, there is no reason to doubt James is by the famous James the brother of Jesus, any more than there is reason to doubt Jude, who identifies himself as James brother is by Jude, the brother of Jesus. On the other hand, Bart is right that Revelation is by one John of Patmos, who is probably not John Zebedee, nor is he the Beloved Disciple. This man was a apocalyptic prophet whose Greek and theologizing is different from that found in the other Johannine documents (see my Revelation commentary).

The real issue when it comes to pseudeigrapha in the canon is whether documents like 2 Thessalonians, Colossians, Ephesians, the Pastoral Epistles, 2 Peter are pseudepigrapha. Bart thinks they are, and I think they are not. For the record, the commentators are about evenly divided on most of these books with the exception of 2 Peter, which most take to be a pseudepigrapha. In fact 2 Peter is a compilation document which draws on Jude in its second chapter, and on a testimony of Peter in the first chapter, and perhaps some Pauline material as well in 2 Pet. 3. As a compilation document it is attributed to its first and most famous source Peter. There is a Petrine testimony about the Transfiguration in 2 Pet. 1, that likely goes back to Peter himself. The compiler of the document does not see or present himself as an author. He follows the ancient tradition of attributing the compilation to its most famous contributor, as we saw was true for Proverbs, Psalms, Matthew as well.

But what about those Pauline letters? Let me remind the readers that Paul certainly used scribes. We see this in various of the ways Paul ends documents. For example, in Gal. 6 he says he is now taking up the pen and writing a bit in his own hand, which clearly implies he has been using a scribe to compose the letter. Or in Rom. 16 we have a greeting from the scribe Tertius whom Paul used for that document. In the Pastoral Epistles Paul tells us “Luke alone is with me” which explains why the Pastorals reflect so much Lukan vocabulary and style. ‘Authorship’ in the ancient world was a term that basically meant ‘a document which comes from the mind of X and faithfully reflects his views/message, whoever actually composed the document’. If an author had a faithful scribe who knew his mind on an issue, he could simply tell the scribe—compose a document on X on wax, I will review it, then you may copy it out on a papyrus, with possible changes. There was a sliding scale between on the one end using a new or hired scribe to simply take dictation for most of the document and on the other end of the spectrum using a trusted colleague who knew one’s mind to compose a document. Paul and Peter (using Silas, see 1 Pet. 1) used such scribes to convey their thoughts for them. When one examines these NT letters carefully, and takes into account the ancient conventions about composing such letters, I see no reason to conclude any of these documents are forgeries, particularly on the basis of style, which is a function of personality and personal preference if one is a skillful writer, and it depends on the type of letter one is writing as well. Rhetorical style was chosen according to the situation. Furthermore, a skillful scribe could choose to write in verbose Asiatic Greek rather than Attic Greek if he chose (cf. e.g formal English English to American slang). When we take these things into consideration, as we should there is no reason to come to the conclusions Bart does about forgeries in the NT.

The early church, as we begin to see already in Papias, was confident that their ultimate source documents went back to apostles, prophets, eyewitnesses and their co-workers, which is why these 27 documents are in the NT. They were composed by Paul (with help of scribes and co-workers), Peter (1 Peter with help of Silas probably), Mark, Luke (both co-workers of both Peter and Paul), the 4th Evangelist (drawing on Beloved Disciple written sources. The Beloved Disciple composed 1-3 John himself), the compiler of Matthew, James, Jude, perhaps Apollos in the case of Hebrews, John of Patmos, and at the very end of the NT period, the compiler of 2 Peter, drawing on Petrine and other materials.

In short, the NT can be traced back to about 8 people, either eyewitness apostles, or co-workers of such eyewitnesses and apostles. Early Christianity's leaders were largely literate, and some of them, like Paul and the author of Hebrews, were first rate rhetoricians as well (see my little primer NT Rhetoric).

Bart Interrupted--- A detailed Analysis of 'Jesus Interrupted' Part Three

2009-04-13T17:52:00.000-07:00

One of the valid points made by Bart Ehrman at various junctures in this study is that each Gospel needs to be allowed to have its own say. He is guarding against the tendencies to blend all the accounts together, and I understand this. What we have in the NT is not the Diatesseron, the account later created blending four Gospels into one. His concern is especially with a sort of false harmonizing that vitiates some individual point a particular Gospel wants to make. Fair enough.

But Bart himself is well aware that any historical reconstruction of the life of Jesus does indeed involve comparing and compiling data from a variety of sources, after allowing each one to have its say. The so-called historical Jesus that Bart presents us with in his book Jesus. Apocalyptic Prophet involves precisely this sort of synthetic project. The trick is to do the combining without undermining. When it comes to the issue of the virginal conception vs. the incarnation it seems to me that something vital is missing in Bart’s discussion—namely the recognition that these two ideas are not rivals, nor do they contradict one another, for they speak really of two different things. Incarnation tells us that a pre-existent person showed up in the flesh, without telling us anything about how. The virginal conception tells us something about how the human being Jesus came into this world. Thus while it is true that Luke, at least, is silent on the issue of pre-existence, when he talks about the virginal conception (Matthew probably is not, since he tells us that Jesus is Immanel, God with us), this does not make the virginal conception and the notion of incarnation in any way incompatible. They are concepts which address two different, though related issues—how, and what, when it comes to the origins of Jesus.

On p. 77 Bart makes a surprising statement--- “Jewish apocalypticism was a worldview that came into existence about a century and a half before Jesus’ birth…” Now perhaps Bart is thinking solely of Daniel, and is really late dating the book, but even if so experts in apocalyptic literature are clear enough that we see the beginning of this way of thinking much earlier--- in the exilic period with Ezekiel and in Zechariah for example which certainly are not books that date to the second century B.C. Why quibble over this point? Well because of course historically it matters, and it calls into question Bart’s historical judgment. For my part, I don’t think, once one has read the gamut of scholarship and commentaries on Daniel, that one can conclude that even Daniel can safely be dated no earlier than the second century B.C. as a book.

In his succinct presentation of the teaching of Jesus in Mark, Bart is right that this Evangelist takes an apocalyptic approach to presenting Jesus. This is quite true (see my Gospel of Mark commentary), and he agrees that Jesus is presented as the Son of Man in Mark. He says nothing however about the connection between these two facts, namely that Jesus presents himself as the figure referred to in the apocalyptic vision in Dan. 7—the one ‘like a son of man’ who descends on a cloud from heaven, and is given a throne by the Ancient of Days and will judge the world, and rule in a kingdom forever. This text—Dan. 7.13ff. is in fact echoed and alluded to in various ways throughout this Gospel, and sometimes it is explicit (see e.g. Mk. 14.62). Now this son of man concept is crucial to understanding Jesus’ own self-presentation, and scholars of all stripes, and many of no faith persuasion, agree on that point. So what should we make of Dan. 7.13ff. ? In the first place I would suggest we compare that text to 2 Sam. 7—the famous promise to David to give him a kingdom for him and his offspring in perpetuity (with some provisos). What stands out about 2 Sam. 7 is the promise is to David and his descendants, but the promise to the Son of Man figure in Daniel 7 is that he himself will reign, judge, rule forever--- by himself. You have to ask what kind of human and more than human figure could do that, and the answer is--- a person who is both human and divine, which is exactly how the Son of Man figure is portrayed in that chapter. This is why the same text says the Son of Man figure is to be worshipped, again something reserved for God in the OT!

Now it is precisely this sort of analysis of Dan. 7 as a background to the Son of Man material in Mark that is totally and absolutely missing from Bart’s presentation, and it allows him to make a dramatic contrast between the presentation of Jesus in Mark as a human, messianic, but non-divine figure, and the presentation of Jesus in John. Unfortunately by making this contrast: 1) Bart has overplayed his hand, and 2) under-read the data from Mark with its apocalyptic background; and 3) as a result he has not done justice to a proper comparison and contrast between Mark and John and their respective portraits of Jesus. Bart is of course right that John presents the humanity and divinity of Jesus very differently than in Mark. The crucial point however is that both Evangelists present Jesus as both human and much more than human as a fair reading of both texts will show.

Besides this remarkable oversight, there are some other blunders along the way as well. Consider for example the suggestion that the coming Kingdom of God is not part of Jesus’ teaching and preaching in the Fourth Gospel (see p. 80). This frankly is not true. There are seven Kingdom of God sayings in John’s Gospel, and the Johannine Jesus certainly does make this a topic of conversation--- for example in John 3 Jesus tells Nicodemus that unless he’s born again, he shall not enter or see the future Kingdom of God. Now it is true, that this subject is by no means as emphasized in John as it is in Mark, but it is quite impossible to say you don’t find the subject in John. But there is more. Bart insists that what ‘kingdom of God’ does mean in John is “life in heaven above”--- really??? This makes no sense of even John 3.3 which speaks about “seeing” the Kingdom of God. Jesus says nothing here about seeing or going to heaven. The discussion is about the Kingdom come on earth, and the key to seeing that kingdom is being born again here on earth.

One of the real caricatures of Johannine eschatology, is that there is no future eschatology in John. I agree that the focus in John is not on future events on earth at the End, but they are indeed mentioned in this Gospel. For example in John 5.28 Jesus says “a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his (i.e. Jesus’=the Son of Man’s) voice and come out—those who have done good will rise to life, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.” There is no good reason for denying that this reveals some of how Jesus views the coming kingdom of God in this Gospel. It involves future resurrection and final judgment on earth and notice both are connected to the Son of Man language from Daniel 7.

But another caricature is involved in this analysis and contrast between Mark and John. On p. 81 Ehrman says “In Mark, Jesus predicts that the end will come right away, during his own generation, while his disciples are still alive (Mk. 9.1; 13.30)” Really?? Actually that would be a bad misrepresentation of what Jesus says in Mark. He says clearly enough at Mk. 13.32 that not even the Son knows the timing of the second coming! Mk. 9.1 is not about the second coming it is about seeing the Kingdom come with power which can refer to either the Transfiguration or the Resurrection (take your pick), both of which events happen whilst the original disciples are alive, but in any case this is not how Jesus in Mark refers to his return. Jesus is not the kingdom, he is the Son of Man, and his coming with power on the clouds is referred to differently (contrast Mk. 9.1 to Mk. 14.62).

But equally amazing is how Bart has simply amalgamated all the varied material in Mark 13 together to reach his conclusion. Mark says clearly enough that the events leading up to the destruction of the temple, which involve various signs and events on earth, will take place within a generation (= 40 years in the Bible). And sure enough, Jesus predicted this correctly in A.D. 30, for the Temple fell in A.D. 70. But what Mk. 13 also goes on to say is that after those days (i.e. when the temple is already destroyed), then we can talk about cosmic signs and the return of Christ at some unknown time.

In other words, Mk. 13 is perfectly clear that we don’t know how long after the destruction of the temple Jesus’ return will be, and there will be no signs on earth presaging it. Rather he will come like a thief in the night, at a surprising time.

In short, Jesus in Mk. 13 tells us that preliminary eschatological events leading to the destruction of the Temple will happen in a generation. He also tells us that the second coming will happen after that at an unknown time and without preliminary signs on the earth. You have to really do a demolition job on Mk. 13 and ignore the full context to come to the conclusion that Jesus said he was coming back within a generation in that chapter.

As always, much more can be said, but this is enough to show that Ehrman: 1) does not do justice to what Mark actually says or John actually says, which allows him to 2) over play the contrast between these two Gospels on various important matters. I am not suggesting that there are not some important differences between these Gospels on various matters in the way they present Jesus and the Gospel message. There are. But Bart has not adequately or accurately represented what these differences are, or their significance either. More later.

Christos Aneste-- The Emmaus Road Story

2009-04-12T08:03:00.000-07:00

A Companion Along the Way: Easter Sunday on the Emmaus Road
by Dr. Ralph F. Wilson

The gleaming cloud tops and fragrant spring air would have
invigorated most travelers leaving Jerusalem that Sunday
afternoon. But these two began their trek to Emmaus staring grimly
at the trail, forcing leaden feet up the steep path to the ridge,
where they would follow the road down the Judean slopes.

Cleopas and his friend were going over and over the events of the
weekend that had climaxed with their Leader hanging limp, pale,
lifeless on a stained wooden cross. Then a hurried burial -- and
despair.

Hearing the crunch of footsteps behind them, Cleopas glanced back.
A traveler was rapidly climbing the grade, as if to join them. But
he had caught only fragments of their conversation. "What are you
talking about?" he asked, as he caught up to them.

Cleopas stopped. "Where have you been?" he asked. "Everybody in
Jerusalem has been talking about Jesus of Nazareth." He told of
their excitement. Of the arrest and crucifixion. Of the women's
tale of a stolen body and of angels. "We had hoped that he was the
Messiah," Cleopas said, "but now...." His words drifted off in
sadness as he resumed the journey.

They were at the summit, and as the road began its downward
incline, the traveler shot a strange challenge: "Don't you know
what the Scriptures say?" Cleopas just shrugged and gestured with
his hands as if to say, "We don't know."

So for the next several miles, the traveler began to talk,
patiently explaining each of the Scripture passages that spoke
about how the Christ, the Messiah, would have to suffer. Then he
explained about Messiah's glory to come.

Cleopas and his friend walked with amazement. It was as if
Scriptures that they had heard, but never understood before, began
to click into place. Their steps quickened. Their hearts were
pounding, but they didn't notice.

The miles seemed to melt away. Then suddenly, just around the bend
was their village, Emmaus. They were home. The traveler thanked
them for their company and turned again to the path, but they
didn't want to let him go. Not someone who could bring them such
hope, such understanding from the Scriptures.

"Won't you stay overnight?" Cleopas called. "It'll be dark soon.
You must! Please!"

He did stay. As they reclined around the table, Cleopas handed a
fresh round loaf to the traveler. "Would you honor us by offering
the blessing tonight?"

The traveler lifted up the bread and repeated the familiar the
Jewish blessing:

"Blessed are you, O God, King of the Universe,
Who brings forth bread from the earth."

And then he began break it, handing a piece to each of them in
turn. Cleopas caught his breath. His eyes met the man's. Suddenly,
in that moment, he knew! Who knows how? -- but he knew. It was the
Lord! He saw the faintest glimmer of a smile on his face, and then
Jesus simply vanished.

All they could do was stare at each other for a moment in stunned
amazement.

Then Cleopas jumped up. "It's true! The women were right. Jesus
is alive! He has risen!"

Their food and drink lay untouched on the table, but both men were
bounding out the door and away, running. "No wonder our hearts
burned within us while he was talking to us on the road," his
companion said later, as they paused briefly. They ended up
running, then walking, then running again nearly the whole way
back to the city.

Cleopas pounded on the upper room door. "We have seen him! We have
seen Jesus!" Peter opened the door a crack, but Cleopas couldn't
contain himself and pushed his way in. Then their story tumbled
out. "He's alive!" Cleopas concluded. "The moment he broke bread
with us, all of a sudden, we knew him."

Like these two men on their way to Emmaus, many have come to the
same startling conclusion. Unrecognized, Jesus begins to walk the
road with us, to talk to us. And if we think to, if we care enough
to ask Him in, we come to realize who He really is -- the Christ,
the Son of God, the Risen One.

This story has been adapted from Luke 24:13-35.

COLBERT INTERRUPTS EHRMAN

2009-04-10T16:59:00.000-07:00

The Colbert Report

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Bart Ehrman

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Bart Interrupted--- A detailed Analysis of 'Jesus Interrupted' Part Two

2009-04-08T14:51:00.000-07:00

Bart D. Ehrman, Jesus, Interrupted, (San Francisco: Harper One, 2009), xii +212 pages. Part Two ( pp. 61-75).

In his first rate analysis of Edward Gibbon’s classic 18th century study, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, a work which set the pattern or paradigm for modern historiography with its basic skepticism or agnosticism about all things non-empirical, Jaroslav Pelikan in his The Excellent Empire brings to light some of the fundamental problems with Gibbon’s way of approaching history, which leads to flaws in his analysis of Constantine and the decline of the Roman Empire. It will be worthwhile to listen to a few things that Pelikan points out.

Gibbon in explaining why he treated ‘ecclesiastical history’ in the very same manner he treated all history writing says the following “The theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing Religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her native purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed on the historian. He must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption which she contracted in a long residence upon the earth, among a weak and degenerate race of beings.” (cited by Pelikan p.36).

It is indeed the job of the historian to analyze history as it was, not as we might like it to be. And it is fair to say that the NT does not shy away from displaying its own dirty laundry. Luke, in Acts is perfectly candid about various of the problems the early church had (see e.g. the story of Ananias and Sapphira), and Paul in his letters is constantly recounting the troubles he had with his churches. These writers were not people likely to guild the lily or make things up out of whole cloth, unless you believe that people are regularly prepared to be martyred for things they know are lies.

The earliest Christians writers were, almost without exception, educated Jews, who passed on early Christian traditions in a thoroughly Jewish manner and had a high regard for the truth of things. As much as we might enjoy today a Dan Brown novel suggesting gigantic conspiracies and cover-ups as an explanation for early Christian history, these sort of explanations do not do justice to the actual historical data that we have, whether we are discussing the data within the NT itself, or the story of the copying of its manuscripts and its later ecumenical councils and canon. And justice is what must be done with historical data, otherwise what is written is a travesty or a tragedy or both.

Evelyn Waugh, the novelist once commented on why Gibbon’s history made such an impact on subsequent treatments of the same subject of ancient Rome and early Christianity. He stressed that it was Gibbon’s style, his eloquence, memorable phrases, wry sense of humor, clarity that led to his work having the impact it did—“that is what style does—it has the Egyptian secret of the embalmers”. A person who has that gift of communication but is skeptical about the content he is writing about “might make it his business to write down the martyrs and excuse the persecutors.” (Pelikan, p. 40). In other words, he might well be guilty of revisionist history writing, something we’ve seen a lot of in recent years with the rising tide of Gnostic gospel discussions.

There are then three dangers we learn of when reading and critically analyzing Gibbon’s classic work: 1) history writing that either dismisses or is dismissive of the role of God in human history, claiming that that is not a part of the historian’s task, even if there is considerable evidence to the contrary, and 2) because of its skeptical bent, history writing that is prone to revisionism of a sort that distorts rather than dissects and correctly analyzes what happened back then and back there; 3) history writing that conveys 1) and 2) in a clear and eloquent and understandable fashion such that the clarity of the explanation makes it appear that the conclusions are obvious and should go without challenge. This of course is the power of good rhetoric—it persuades without necessarily providing the detailed evidence and analysis necessary to prove one’s point.

It is of course true that any historian knows that one is dealing with probabilities and possibilities. But it serves no good purpose to rule out some possibilities in advance of actually doing the historical analysis. In other words, it is narrow-minded rather than open-minded to start with a skepticism about the role of the divine in human history, and write one’s history guided by that skepticism. That, as it turns out, is bad historiography, not good critical historiography.

On the other hand, it is equally a mistake to do historical analysis in a gullible manner, ascribing all manner of things to the divine, when a sufficient human cause can be detected and described. Writing the story of early Christian history should neither be an exercise that could be called ‘Gullible’s Travels’ nor an exercise that could be called ‘the Skeptic’s Revisionist Speculations’.

There needs to be an openness to all the data as we have it, and a willingness to give the ancient writers the benefit of the doubt in the same way one would do with an admired contemporary colleague or friend in one’s field. Without sufficient native sympathy for the material or its author, the tendency to bend or distort is considerable, and the results unfortunate. The acid of skepticism has a corrosive effect. It leads one to find contradictions and faults at every turn, even when they aren’t there. It leads to atomizing and vivisecting a group of texts in a manner that prevents one from seeing the whole and its interconnectivity because one has divided it into so many discrete parts.

This methodology leads to result rather like the familiar parable of the five blind me all feeling different parts of the elephant. The first says “an elephant is like a horn” for he felt the tusk of the elephant. The second says “an elephant is like a rope” for he felt the tail of the elephant. The third says “the elephant is like a hose” for he felt the trunk of the elephant. The fourth says “the elephant is like a giant leaf” for he felt the ear of the elephant. The fifth said “you’re all wrong, the elephant is like a wrinkled old man” for he felt the knee of the elephant. One needs to see the parts in relationship to the whole in order to be able to assess the whole. The point is, while there is some truth in what each person said in this case, without a vision of the whole, one cannot properly analyze the significance of the parts and the differences in data and interpretation.

As we turn to Ehrman’s chapter entitled “A Mass of Variant Views” let is start with a statement on p. 63--- “Paul wrote letters..he did not think he was writing the Bible….Only later did someone put these letters together and consider them inspired.” Here we are dealing with a half truth appended to which is a false conclusion. It is quite right to say Paul did not think he was writing canonical books. He did however think that both his oral proclamation and his writing were inspired by God’s Spirit, and he says so repeatedly in these letters. The notion of inspiration is not something that came later and after the fact. Indeed, Paul was convinced from the outset that his preaching was the living word of God, and his writings likewise inspired. I have dealt with this subject at length in my book The Living Word of God, but what will have to suffice here is a simple quotation from one of Paul’s earliest undisputed letters, 1 Thessalonians--- 1 Thess. 2.13 reads as follows: “And we also thank God continually because when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe.”

Early Christianity, from Pentecost on (see Acts 2), was a pneumatic movement, a movement of prophets and Spirit inspired teachers and preachers and apostles. It was a movement profoundly convinced that it had a new and late word from God that the world needed to hear. The leaders of this movement believed not only that the OT was inspired by God and so God-breathed (see 2 Tim. 3.16), they believed that their own words and writings were likewise inspired by God. This is precisely why in a text like 1 Cor. 7, Paul can quote the very words of Jesus on divorce, and then put his own words right beside them as equally authoritative and inspired and true. Now of course a secular historian can be skeptical about whether what Paul says is true or not, but what is absolutely not historically true is the notion that only later someone put these documents together and considered them inspired. That would be a false analysis of the historical data.

Bart pleads in this chapter that each Biblical author be allowed to speak for himself. I quite agree with this up to a point, But these Biblical authors did not think they were operating in a social vacuum. They believed they were part of a movement, and they relied on traditions, oral and written, from those who had come before or were their contemporaries. Bart’s modern and individualistic approach to each Gospel ignores the collective nature not merely of ancient culture, but also the tight-knit nature of the early sectarian split off movement from Judaism, called Christianity.

So when Bart says of Mark “he certainly did not think that his book should be interpreted in light of what some other Christian would write thirty years later in a different country and a different context” (p. 64), he is in fact going against the historical evidence we have which suggests the earliest Christian leaders knew each other, and sought, despite difficulties, to consult with one another, and work together. They wrote their documents as tools for evangelism and discipleship with one eye on their source material and one eye on their audience. Consider for example the preface to Luke’s Gospel, Lk. 1.1-4---

“Inasmuch as many have undertaken to write an account of the things that have happened among us [notice the ‘us’], just as they were handed down to us by those who were from the beginning eyewitnesses and servants of the Word (notice the sense of inspired speaking and writing), I too, having carefully investigated everything from the beginning, decided to write an orderly account for you noble Theophilus, so that you might know the certainty of the things you have been taught”

This is the spirit, and character of the way Luke approaches his source material, recognizing he is dealing with historical sources, and many have come before him compiling the eyewitness data. Considering how similar Luke’s Gospel is to Mark’s and Matthew’s in terms of the big picture, it is hard to doubt that Mark had a similar approach to sacred tradition and the writing of his Gospel. This is what we would expect from early Jews who had a reverence for their sacred traditions oral and written.

Let us mention a point of congruence with Bart’s analysis. Bart is right that the modern synthetic approach to the Gospels, which blends all the accounts together in one’s mental blender leads to distortions or neglect of the particular perspectives this or that Evangelist is highlighting. I quite agree with this point.

Each Gospel portrait of Jesus should be allowed to have its own flavor and character. The question is whether these four portraits are compatible, or whether they provide us with such divergent views of Jesus that we need to speak of one portrait contradicting or correcting the other. Bart thinks we do need to speak in that way, and I disagree.

And again the problem is Bart is atomistically analyzing these accounts as if they were meant to be photographs, not portraits and interpretive works of art. So for example Bart rightly points out that the portrait of the death of Jesus in Mark is stark and dark. Jesus says nothing on the cross except “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me”. We are dealing with theological history writing here. Not theology written up as history, but theological interpretation of a history that itself is inherently theological, involving the divine.

Does this account somehow contradict, say the Lukan account where Jesus speaks to his fellow crucifixion victims? Well no, it does not. Why not? Two reasons. None of the Gospel writers is pretending to present an exhaustive account of what happened. And all of the Gospel writers are writing from a particular angle of incidence, a particular point of view. They have their own themes and theses they wish to highlight and like other ancient biographers and historians they assume a certain amount of literary license and freedom in editing and arranging their material. In other words, they are not pretending to be neutral or ‘objective’ in the modern sense of those words. They are committed believers. The question then becomes do their ‘points of view’ and faith commitments lead to a distortion of the historical evidence, or to the contrary do they lead to a profound and sympathetic understanding and interpretation of the evidence? I would suggest the latter.

One of the key assumptions guiding the comparison of the Markan and Lukan crucifixion accounts is revealed by Bart on p. 68—he assumes that the Gospel writers are portraying Jesus at the exact same moment on the cross, or that each of them are portraying the whole crucifixion experience. Frankly, neither of these assumptions are warranted. In each Gospel, only a precious few verses is devoted to what happened and what was said when Jesus was on the cross. But in fact these same accounts also tell us that Jesus was on the cross for three or more hours!

It is a classic error to mistake the part for the whole, or to assume that two different angled interpretations are meant to represent the same instance. Neither of these assumptions are warranted. Luke gives us more of what Jesus said on the cross, Mark, considerably less. It is perfectly possible that Jesus went through a gamut of emotions on the cross, moving from God-forsakenness to acceptance, to forgiving others etc. Any one who has done some counseling and pastoral work with the dying knows that a dying person does indeed often go through a variety of responses to his demise, even in a short period of time. None of these sort of dynamics are taken into account in Bart’s analysis. The Gospel writers are not suggesting Jesus was “all these things at once”. They are presenting different portions or aspects of the crucifixion experience, and nothing more.

If Bart had wanted to discuss the degree of freedom exercised with historical source materials, he would have done better in comparing the differing words of the centurion at the cross. Did he say “Surely this is the Son of God” (or perhaps ‘a son of the gods’), or did he say “Surely this was a righteous man” as in Luke? Conservative Christians most definitely need to come to grips with these sorts of real differences in the account, and avoid explaining them by explaining them away.

I take it that Luke’s modification of his source is intended to convey the same thing as Mark’s original—namely that Jesus was a righteous person who died a noble death and did not deserve to be crucified, unlike the bandit who was busy cursing his fate. The phrase ‘son of God’ on the lips of an actual centurion was a way of saying that someone had ‘pietas’, piety, righteousness, and probably did not deserve his fate. Crucifixion was considered the most shameful way to die, and the centurion is suggesting that Jesus did not deserve to be shamed in this way. His noble character was reflected in the way he died. In other words Luke, with his concern to show to Theophilus that Jesus’ crucifixion was a travesty of Roman justice (and that Christianity was not at odds with Roman jurisprudence) has rephrased the original words of the centurion in a way that makes plain Jesus’ pietas and righteousness. These two ways of presenting the centurion’s utterance are compatible once one realizes that the centurion is probably not a Christian before his time, nor is he doing a Christian theological analysis of Christ on the cross.

The art of historical analysis involves a judicious assessment not only of differences in an account (and an explanation for those differences can be offered), but a judicious assessment of the important similarities in the accounts. Only so is a balanced assessment possible. Bart, in reacting to the homogenizing tendencies of conservative Christians dramatically over emphasizes, and over interprets the differences in the accounts. The end result is not a fair assessment of either the Gospels as individual iterations of the story of the crucifixion, nor does it lead to a detailed enough assessment of the history behind the Gospel accounts. It is for example, not enough to say—they all agree Jesus died on the cross. No, in fact they all agree he died as a ‘king of the Jews’ on the cross as the titulus says, and that is already a theological matter, not merely a political or historical one. My point is this--- you cannot nicely separate or parse out the history from the theology, precisely because the history is inherently theological in character, and is not merely theological interpreted by the Evangelists.

He goes on to point out what he deems irreconcilable difference between the Easter morning stories about the visit by the women to the tomb. For example he points out that Mark says the women saw “a man” at the tomb, whereas the other accounts say that one or more angels were seen. He takes the reference to “a man” to be a contradiction to the references to angels.

This conclusion I find very odd, since he ought to know that with regularity in the OT and in Intertestamental literature, angels are called and described as men (see e.g. Dan. 9.21; 10.5; 12.6-7). This sort of descriptor is particularly common in Jewish apocalyptic texts like Daniel and like Mark’s Gospel itself. And again, one has to ask the question—when Matthew or Luke read the Markan account, are we really to suppose that they thought they were significantly changing the account by calling those figures angels? I doubt it. Again we are dealing with a wooden sort of literalism on Bart’s part that does not take into account the larger context of such ‘angelic’ material in early Judaism.

With regularity in this book, Bart continues to ask the question--- why have pastors trained in seminary in the historical critical method regularly deprived their congregations of such information as he presents in this book? He suggest perhaps a failure of nerve or a “when in doubt chicken out approach”. I cannot speak for all such pastors, but since I do a myriad of church events all over the country every year in United Methodist and other sorts of churches which have pastors trained in such things, I must say the reason they are not telling their congregations the sort of things Bart is saying in Jesus, Interrupted is precisely because for the most part they do not believe in his radical interpretation of the data. Even those who are very keen on the historical critical method, would not agree with many things Bart says in this book.

No, there is not a conspiracy to suppress the actual truth about the NT in the contemporary church. Rather, there is an exercising of good and balanced judgment to allow the more radical interpretations of the data to go in one ear and out the other, because it is not true to the character of the data as a whole. In fact, I cannot tell you how many pastors who have gone to more liberal seminaries have told me this very thing. They don’t intend to convey conclusions they either disagree with, or have serious doubts about. Good for them. This does not make them cowards or uncritical thinkers.

One of Bart’s larger points is that there are theological incompatibilities between the Gospel accounts. The virginal conception and the incarnation ideas are not reconcilable, and anyway no Gospel, or other NT sources seeks to reconcile them, in Bart’s view. He insists (p. 74): “for the writers of the Gospels, the idea of the virgin birth and the idea of an incarnation were very different indeed.” Really?

The idea of a virginal conception has to do with how Jesus came into this world, by what means, and the answer is by means of a miracle that took place in Mary’s womb without the involvement of a man. This idea says nothing for or against the idea of a pre-existent son of God, and that in any case is not its purpose. John 1 on the other hand does speak of a pre-existent logos, one later called only begotten son of God in this same chapter, who “took on flesh and tabernacled amongst us”. Aha! The account of the incarnation does indeed speak about taking on flesh. This is indeed what the virginal conception story is about—explaining the human and also divine origins of Jesus.

Should we assume that a situation existed where a particular group of Christians knew only the Gospel stories told in one particular Gospel? This is how Bart dogmatically puts it--- “If your only Gospel was Mark--- and in the early church for some Christians it was the only Gospel—you would have no idea that Jesus’ birth was unusual in any way”. (p. 74). Really? Now when a writer makes a dramatic claim like this it is always appropriate to ask- “How do you know this, and if you don’t have evidence to support the idea, why would you assume it is so?”

First of all, the evidence we have suggests that this assumption is simply false. Remember again the preface to Luke’s Gospel. He knows of many other such accounts. He also knows of eyewitnesses and early preachers of the word and he has consulted him. I doubt it is in any way a wise thing to assume that Mark was writing to a group of Christians hermetically sealed off from the other Christians in the Roman Empire and without access to other Christian documents and traditions. Secondly, the very solution to the Synoptic problem that both Bart and I agree is likely, namely that Matthew and Luke used Mark, in itself gives the lie to the assumption that this Christian community only had this one Gospel, and that one only had that one, and so on. This is a myth, not good historical analysis.

But even leaving the Gospel out of account for a moment. Is it really true that only the Gospel of John tells us about a pre-existent one who takes on flesh and dwells amongst us? Well no. In fact we find this idea in some of our earliest Christian documents--- Paul’s letters. Compare for example 1 Cor. 8.4-6 to Phil. 2.5-11. Already in the 50s and 60s Christian writers believed that there was a divine pre-existent son of God who came to earth and took on human form.

It is of course true that Paul does not directly mention ‘the virginal conception’, but what he says is not only compatible with the idea (see Gal 4.4—God sent his son, born of woman, born under the law. Notice Paul does not say, born of a good Jewish man with proper paternity), Rom. 8.3 suggest knows of the virginal conception idea for he says that God sent his son “in the likeness of sinful flesh”. Now what is the point of the word ‘likeness’ in this verse? I would suggest Paul is saying that Jesus really had flesh but it was not tainted with human fallenness the way all other human flesh was (see Rom. 5.12-21). In other words, Paul already knows about the idea of Jesus being conceived in a pure and sinless manner. The attempt to treat the NT writers as if they were ignorant or ignored or were polemicizing against one another or lived in splendid isolation from one another does not work.

The early Christian movement was a tiny sectarian movement dedicated to world evangelism, and working together towards that end. Paul knew Peter and James and John, and others. He knew Mark and Luke and Apollos and others. He is the bridge figure between the various local Christian communities, and as he tells us in Galatians, he even went to Jerusalem to present his own Gospel to the pillar apostles so they would all be in theological accord about the message--- and indeed they were, if by ‘they’ we mean those who ended up writing the NT and apostolic documents.

In fact all of the NT documents can be traced back to apostolic sources or were written by apostles—all of them can be traced to about 9-10 persons who were eyewitnesses or apostles or both. These persons include the Beloved Disciple, Mark, Luke, John of Patmos, Paul, probably Apollos, Peter, James and Jude. 2 Peter is a later composite document made up of material from Peter, Jude, and with a knowledge of the Pauline corpus, but you will notice it does not appear to draw on non- apostolic source material. The claims that we do not know who wrote these books, or that some of them are forged are greatly exaggerated claims, that many historians like myself do not find convincing or compelling on the basis of the actual historical evidence itself.

We have no documents in the NT by the Judaizers, or by the super-apostles Paul combated. We have no documents in the NT then by Paul’s opponents, or James’ opponents or the like. Were there such people in early Christian communities--- yes there were, and their legacy was not preserved except indirectly because it did not comport with the message of the apostles, about which Peter, James, John, and Paul all shook hands on.

The attempt to present the NT writers as examples of dueling banjos does not pass muster when one really analyzes early Christianity in its first century period. There was not the sort of radical diversity amongst these earliest Jewish Christians, unlike some of what we find when the church became largely dominated by Gentiles in the second and succeeding centuries, and major heretics arose like Marcion and the Gnostics.

The attempt to trace radical diversity back into the NT period is doomed to failure, because it is not grounded in a fair historical reading of the original source documents. Equally unfair and historically inaccurate is the notion that high Christology or Trinitarian orthodoxy was something only cooked up in centuries subsequent to the NT era, particularly in the 4th and 5th centuries. To the contrary, we already see a proto-orthodox theology in the NT itself in Paul, in John, in Hebrews, in Revelation. Christ is already view as deity by Paul and other NT writers, and already in various places we hear about Father, Son and Spirit all being called God in the NT. That this high Christology and Trinitarian theology is further developed after the NT era is beyond dispute. But those developments were founded on and grounded in the orthodoxy that already existed in the apostolic era.

Let me be clear. If you do not like these Christian ideas, that is fine. But what you cannot do is say that the earliest Christians did not believe things like the deity of Christ or the virginal conceptions. The attempt to make 4th century Christians the inventors of high Christology imposes a myth of origins on Christianity that amounts to a rewriting of history in a false way. Distaste for this or that theological idea should not be allowed to lead to a truly biased and unhelpful interpretation of the historical facts about what the earliest Christian believed. The transcript of their faith is found in the NT itself, a collection of apostolic and sub-apostolic documents. One is free to disagree with their theological perspectives, but one is not free to say they didn’t hold such views or to suggest that there were widely divergent and contradictory beliefs about such subjects amongst early orthodox Christians. This is simply not true. More soon.

You Know the Economy is Bad when.......

2009-04-08T07:30:00.001-07:00

I must confess to being partial to the cat in this picture--- he's so dramatic :)

BW3

AL MOHLER ON POST-CHRISTIAN AMERICA AND EASTER WEEK

2009-04-08T07:23:00.000-07:00

There is an interesting and detailed article in Newsweek this week about the decline of Christianity in America over the last ten years, which includes an interview with my near neighbor and fellow seminary colleague Al Mohler of Louisville Southern Baptist. Here is the link, see what you think.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/192583?GT1=43002

Bart Interrupted--- A detailed Analysis of 'Jesus Interrupted' Part One

2009-04-07T18:06:00.000-07:00

Bart D. Ehrman, Jesus, Interrupted, (San Francisco: Harper One, 2009), xii +292 pages. Part One ( the first 60 pages)

Bart Ehrman is both a gifted writer and a gifted lecturer. Perhaps his best gift is the ability to distill difficult and complex material down to a level that undergraduates and ordinary lay folk can understand. It is thus understandable that his popular level books on the New Testament and cognate subjects have been well and widely read, and in age disposed to ‘dis’ the Bible anyway, which is to say, in a generally Biblically illiterate age, Bart’s work has been seen as confirming suspicions already long held by the skeptical or those prone to be skeptical about the Bible and Christianity.

One of the problems however with some of Bart’s popular work, including this book, is that it does not follow the age old adage--- “before you boil down, you need to have first boiled it up”. By this I mean Bart Ehrman, so far as I can see, and I would be glad to be proved wrong about this fact, has never done the necessary laboring in the scholarly vineyard to be in a position to write a book like Jesus, Interrupted from a position of long study and knowledge of New Testament Studies. He has never written a scholarly monograph on NT theology or exegesis. He has never written a scholarly commentary on any New Testament book whatsoever! His area of expertise is in textual criticism, and he has certainly written works like The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, which have been variously reviewed, not to mention severely critiqued by other textual critics such as Gordon D. Fee, and his own mentor Bruce Metzger (whom I also did some study with). He is thus, in the guild of the Society of Biblical Literature a specialist in text criticism, but even in this realm he does not represent what might be called a majority view on such matters.
It is understandable how a textual critic might write a book like Misquoting Jesus, on the basis of long study of the underpinnings of textual criticism and its history and praxis. It is mystifying however why he would attempt to write a book like Jesus, Interrupted which frankly reflect no in-depth interaction at all with exegetes, theologians, and even most historians of the NT period of whatever faith or no faith at all. A quick perusal of the footnotes to this book, reveal mostly cross-references to Ehrman’s earlier popular works, with a few exceptions sprinkled in—for example Raymond Brown and E.P Sanders, the former long dead, the latter long retired. What is especially telling and odd about this is Bart does not much reflect a knowledge of the exegetical or historical study of the text in the last thirty years. It’s as if he is basing his judgments on things he read whilst in Princeton Seminary. And that was a long time ago frankly.

It is not sufficient to reply that Bart is writing for a popular audience and thus we would not expect much scholarly discussion even in the footnotes. Even in a work of this sort, we would expect some good up to date bibliography for those disposed to do further study, not merely copious cross-references to one’s other popular level books. Contrast for example, my last Harper book What Have They Done with Jesus? The impression is left, even if untrue, that Ehrman’s actual knowledge of and interaction with NT historians, exegetes, and theologians has been and is superficial and this has led to overly tendentious and superficial analysis. Again, I would be glad to be proved wrong about this, but it would certainly appear I am not. This book could have been written by an intelligent skeptical person who had no more than a seminary level acquaintance and expertise in the field of NT studies itself. And I do not say this lightly, for this book manifests problems in all areas, if one critiques it on the basis of NT scholarship of the last thirty or so years. There are methodological problems, historical problems, exegetical problems, theological problems, and epistemological problems with this book, to mention but a few areas.

My grandmother used to say, “if you can’t say anything nice about a person, then don’t say anything at all.” So let me start the more detailed part of this discussion by saying something positive--- I believe Bart Ehrman is an honest person, who really has been a truth seeker when it comes to the Bible and Christianity. His preface to this latest volume reflects that, and I applaud his honesty and forthrightness, while at the same time pointing out that I was a person who went through the same process of deep study and inquiry whilst in college and seminary and came to very different conclusions than Bart, and it wasn’t because I checked my brain at the door or ceased being a critical thinker on these subjects along the way. Bart and I are different in that I did not come out of a fundamentalist past at all, but we do share not only UNC and Bruce Metzger in common, we also both did English literature degrees in college, which explains to some degree the ability to write and the tendency to do it frequently.

Let me start then with a general criticism about Bart’s entire approach. He begins in his first chapter by bemoaning the fact that the general populus including the church, has been left in the dark about what “scholars have been saying” for lo these many years (over a hundred actually) about the Bible. He puts it this way “the perspectives that I present in the following chapters are not my own idiosyncratic views of the Bible. They are the views that have held sway for many, many years among the majority of serious critical scholars teaching in universities and seminaries of North America and Europe”(p.2).

Now it is always a danger to over generalize when we are dealing with as important a matter as the ‘truth about the Bible’. And frankly it is simply untrue to say that most scholars or the majority of Bible scholars or the majority of serious critical scholars would agree with Bart Ehrman in his conclusions about this or that NT matter. NT scholarship is a many splintered thing, and Ehrman’s position certainly does not represent a majority view, or the critical consensus about such matters. At best, one has to say yes and no repeatedly to what Bart takes as the critical consensus about such matters. Bart Ehrman, like the more radical members of the Jesus Seminar (e.g. Robert Funk cf. Robert Price) represents a minority position which has indeed been very vocal in proselytizing for their point of view. So this book should have come with a caveat emptor--- “Buyer Beware: Hyperbolic claims about what most or the majority of critical scholars of the NT think will be frequent in this tome”. The appeal to authority or expertise in any case does not really settle much. The issue is—what is the evidence and why should we draw this or that conclusion? The other issue is--- why mislead the general public about what “the majority of serious critical scholars” have been saying? Perhaps an end run has been done from the outset--- you define a small circle of scholars as the serious ones, the critical ones, the real scholarly thinkers, the real historians, and then having defined your own group narrowly enough, you then say—“the majority of such people think…” Evangelicals are sometimes just as guilty of this ploy as others, but in any case, it does not help when one misrepresents the actual state of play of things among scholars to the general public.

Bart reminds us early on that the method of studying the Bible taught in most mainline seminaries is “the historical critical method”. It is also, in fact perhaps the main method of teaching the Bible in evangelical seminaries today as well. And two of the major things one is taught, quite correctly in the study of this method are: 1) ancient historical texts must be studied in their original historical contexts to be properly understood; and 2) modern post-Enlightenment historiography is at odds with the historiography of most ancients, particularly when it comes to the issue of God’s involvement in human history.

There is a further corollary—in order to understand the Gospels or Acts, or Paul’s letters, or Revelation, one needs to understand the features and characteristics of such ancient literature—in short their respective genres. The Gospels are written like ancient biographies, not modern ones, or in the case of Luke-Acts like an ancient work of Hellenistic (and Septuagintal) historiography. Unless one knows the conventions and limitations that apply to such literature, one is in no position at all to evaluate whether there are “inconsistencies” “errors” or other problematic features of such literature. Error can only be assessed on the basis of what an author is attempting to do and what literary conventions he is following. Let us take an example Bart uses from p. 7 of his book—the fact that in John the cleansing of the temple comes early in the Gospel account, whereas in the Synoptics it is found in the Passion narrative. He is right of course that some modern conservative Christians have attempted to reconcile these differences by suggesting Jesus did the deed twice--- once at the beginning and once at the end of the ministry. The problem is, that this conclusion is just as anachronistic (and genre ignoring) as the conclusion that the Gospels contradict each other on this point. What do I mean?

If you actually bother to read ancient biographies (see e.g. Tacitus’s Life of Agricola, or Plutarch’s famous parallel lives) you will discover that the ancients were not pedants when it comes to the issue of strict chronology as we are today. The ancient biographical or historiographical work operated with the freedom to arrange there material in several different ways, including topically, geographically, chronologically, to mention but three. Yes they had a secondary interest in chronology in broad strokes, but only a secondary interest in that.
If one studies the Fourth Gospel in detail and closely in the Greek, comparing it to other ancient biographies what one learns is that it is a highly schematized and edited product, and the sign narratives are arranged theologically not primarily chronologically. And whilst this might cause a modern person some consternation, it is not a reason to say that John contradicts the Synoptics on this Temple cleansing matter. The Fourth Gospel begins by showing that Jesus replaces the institutions of Judaism with himself—a theological message (he is the Passover lamb, he is the Temple where God’s presence dwells etc.). The Synoptic writers are likely presenting a more chronologically apt picture of when this event actually happened. But strict chronology was not the major purpose of the Fourth Evangelist, we should not fault him for not giving us information we might want to have, or for focusing on the theological import of the event, rather than its timing. Such was the freedom, within limits, of ancient biographies and histories. I must disagree with the conclusion then when Bart says “Historically speaking, then, the accounts are not reconcilable.” (p. 7). False. This is only so if one insists on a flat modern anachronistic reading of the text which pays no attention to what the authors are attempting.

The Gospel of John probably tells us nothing about this chronological issue, the Synoptics probably do, and judged on their own terms and on the basis of their ancient genre, one cannot draw the conclusion Bart does. Period. And unfortunately, this is a mistake Bart makes over, and over again, judging ancient texts on the basis of modern presuppositions about history writing, and what counts as truth or error. In fact, it is not entirely erroneous to say that Bart reads the Bible with the same sort of flat literalistic hermeneutic that he would have used before he did his scholarly study of the text. And I find this passing strange.
Let’s take his next pet example--- the three denials of Christ by Peter, and the cock crows. I quite agree with his critique of those who come up with six denials of Christ by Peter. No Gospel says that, any more than any Gospel mentions two cleansing of the Temple. Bart points to the difference between Matthew and Mark, the latter saying Peter will deny Christ before the cock crows twice, whilst in Matthew it says ‘before the cock crows”. He then asks--- “which is it?” The assumption is: 1) these Gospel writers were trying to be very precise; and 2) these two options are mutually contradictory; and 3) we should ask these sorts of detail questions of ancient historical documents because we have a right to assume that modern historical ways of analyzing this material will help us to get to the bottom of such matters and find the historical truth.

In the first place let’s consider point 2). In fact, if Peter denied Christ three times before the cock crowed at all, then he certainly denied Christ three times before the cock crowed twice!!! But suppose the Gospels writer were not much concerned to give us precise information about the intricate relationship and intercalation between denials and cock crows. Suppose, in terms of historical information they just wanted to make clear that there were three denials and there were cock crows? Of course this is maddening to those who think that we must have precision on such matters, but in fact if an author wants to be general let him be general, and if he wants to be more specific, let him be more specific. Mark may simply have wanted to be more general in his account. And since I think, with most scholars that the First Evangelist is using Mark’s account, he probably knew far more about the Markan intent than we do, and decided to be more specific. He edits his Markan account according to his own presentation of things. I could go through Bart’s examples one by one explaining how insufficient attention has been paid by him to the ancient conventions of such genre of literature, but I agree with him that over-harmonizing on the basis of modern anachronistic considerations is wrong, just as wrong as claiming there are obvious contradictions based on a modern literalist reading of the same texts. And herein lies a very fundamental problem with the ex-fundamentalist readings of Bart Ehrman.

The Gospels are not, and never were intended to be inspected as if they were ancient photographs of Jesus taken with a high resolution, all seeing lens. On the contrary these documents are much more like portraits, and portraits always are selective, tendentious, perspectival. Let me illustrate this point.
One of my favorite Impressionist painters is Claude Monet, and I really love his series of painting done of Rouen Cathedral. These paintings were done in the late 1890s and they depict the front face of the Cathedral from slightly different angles of incidence, and in different lighting. But in each case it is recognizably the same cathedral with the same basic shape, from the same basic frame of reference. Let us suppose for a minute then that the Gospels are like these paintings. Now it would be totally pedantic to have an argument that went as follows: “In this painting Monet depicts the color of the front façade of the cathedral as being gray, but in this picture he paints it as being a yellowish shade, and in this picture a pinkish shade.” Which is it? Surely one must be right and the other depictions wrong.” Of course the proper response to this silly discourse is that they are all right, because they attempt to depict the appearance of the building at different times of day from slightly different angles. And no art critic in their right mind would think of suggesting that one painting was in error compared to the other. My point is simple. The Gospels are not works of modern biography or historiography and they should not be evaluated by such canons.

Nor for that matter are we much helped by evaluating the Gospel traditions on the basis of the canons of modern German form criticism which is grounded in notions about the passing on of oral traditions which simply do not apply to the first century A.D. and in the Jewish setting of the Gospels and Acts (on this point see Richard Bauckham’s fine study Jesus and the Eyewitnesses). Various of Bart’s comments presuppose that most NT exegetes and historians assume that the Bultmannian conclusions about oral history and oral tradition are correct. This is certainly not true now in the way it might have been said to be true specifically in mainline schools in the 70s. On the contrary, there is now a lively discussion about oral history that makes clear that the notion that there was likely a long gap between the events and their being written down, or between eyewitness testimony and their being written down is probably false.

Equally pedantic and unhelpful is Bart’s analysis of Genesis 1 and 2(pp. 9-10), which are generally agreed to be two different ways of telling the story of creation, one more general, and one more focused on the creation of humankind. Besides the fact that Genesis 1 falls into the category of poetry or poetic prose and should not be analyzed on the basis of it being some sort of scientific account of creation, it is frankly not fair game to compare and contrast these two chapters as if they were attempting to say the same thing in the same way writing like modern historians. They are not. Ancient narratological conventions come into play (see now Bill Arnold’s fine commentary on Genesis in the Cambridge series I edit). And now we begin to see why Biblically illiterate folk who are skeptical about the Bible are drawn to the Ehrman analysis. It appears to take the text at face value, and evaluate it by comparison and contrast, without taking into consideration at all issues of literary context or conventions. In other words, it approaches the matter as if one could simply read the English translation of the text without any knowledge of ancient writing conventions and come to important conclusions about historical truth and error. But in fact, this is not only not proper, in most cases it is not possible. The real truth seeker knows that a text without a context is just a pretext for whatever you would like it to mean.

Let’s take another example--- Bart’s treatment on pp. 10-11 of Psalm 137. In the first place this is a song, and so should not be treated like a theological or ethical treatise. In the second place, what this song is a revelation of is what is on the heart of the psalmist. In the psalms, human beings speak to, pray to, implore their God in various ways. It is a very truthful and accurate reflection of various things on and in the human heart, including the desire for vengeance. What the psalms are generally not is a revelation of what is in God’s heart or character. But Bart seems oblivious to this point which is commonly enough recognized by commentators on the Psalms. More in depth study of the psalms could have led to the avoidance of this sort of error.

Let’s take now an example from the second chapter (pp. 24ff). Here Bart is comparing and contrasting the relationship between the events that lead up to Jesus’ death as told in Mark and as told in John, and trying to synch that up with the Jewish liturgical calendar in regard to the celebration of Passover, and the Day of Preparation.

A few historical remarks are in order. 1) despite what Bart says, no Gospel suggests Jesus was crucified on Passover, which is to say between sundown Friday and sundown Saturday on April 7 A.D. 30 (or less possibly in A.D. 33); 2) the meal described in John 13 is definitely not the same meal as that described in Mark 14 and the other Synoptics. John 13 is very clear about this--- John 13.1 reads literally “But before the festival of the Passover…” The text does not say how long before. This could easily be a meal at the beginning of the week when the feast of Passover transpired, rather than near its end. And nothing whatsoever is said in John’s story about sharing the Passover elements. This is a striking difference from the accounts in the Synoptics, and I would say the differences are great enough that we must take them to indicate we are dealing with different stories here. 3) Most scholars who have written commentaries on the Synoptics do indeed think that Jesus celebrated his last supper with his disciples on Thursday night, which is to say, on the beginning of the Day of Preparation rather than on Passover day. There was precedent for this in early Judaism in some cases, and some scholars have even argued that Jesus was following the Galilean rather than the Judean liturgical calendar, which is certainly possible and believable. Whether this is so or not, it is notable that there is no mention at all about Jesus and his disciples eating lamb….in any of the accounts. This has led some to conclude, wrongly in my judgment, that even the Thursday night meal was not a Passover meal. 4) one of the major issues in determining when Jesus actually died is the question of which clock an Evangelist is running on--- is it the Roman way of keeping time, or a Jewish and Oriental one? Which hour is the third, sixth and ninth hours, according to the respective Evangelists? Mark’s seems to be based on the Roman way of time keeping, but this may not be the case in John. In any case, all the Gospels in fact are in agreement that Jesus died before sundown on Friday, which is to say, before Passover actually begun, which is to say on the Day of Preparation. 5) in A.D. 30 the day of preparation for the Sabbath was in fact the day of preparation for Passover. It was one and the same day. Therefore, Mk. 15.42 does not in any way disagree with John when it says that Jesus died on the day of Preparation. Correct— and this was Friday before sundown when both Passover and Sabbath began that year. John did not need to change a historical datum to make a theological point that Jesus was the Passover lamb. The point is inherent in a theological interpretation of the actual day Jesus died. In this case, Bart is busily finding contradictions in the text which are a chimera. They are not really in evidence.

Bart carries on in much the same vein in his analysis of the birth narratives. What is of concern to us is not where he sees differences in Matthew and Luke’s accounts, but rather where he finds what he deems to be actual discrepancies. The first of these is that Bart claims that what Luke says in Lk.2.1-3 is clearly historically in error (pp. 34-35). What however does the Greek text of Lk.2.2 actually say--- “this registration happened first/prior to the governing of Syria by Quirinius.” The issue here is the function of the word prote. What it seems to indicate is that the census in question took place prior to when Quirinius was governor of Syria. There was indeed a famous and indeed notorious census which led to the rebellion of Judas the Galilean in A.D. 6, and so Luke would be distinguishing that census from the earlier one when Mary and Joseph were enrolled. Bart also deems the notion of such enrollments as historically improbable, at least in the way Luke tells the story. There are however very clear examples from the province of Egypt of such census taking done for the purpose of taxation. And in fact, the evidence suggests a link with one’s ancestral home. I see no reason why the Romans would do it any differently with the province of Judea. Furthermore, when Augustus decide to go for the full blown Empire deal, he needed much more money for many more troops and armaments.

While Luke may be using rhetorical hyperbole when he says all the oikomene was being enrolled, a rhetorical usage common in Hellenistic historiography influenced by rhetoric, what Luke is referring to is the inhabited Roman empire, outside of Rome itself. In other words, his audience would likely have understood the reference quite easily and naturally. Bart also takes exception to the story of the wise men following the star. He says nothing of the fact that ancients often thought stars were living beings, the heavenly hosts, and it is more than likely that what Matthew is describing is the leading of the heavenly host or angels, of these persons to the birth place. Here again however some latitude must be allowed for ancient story tellers to present their narrative in ways that their audience would understand. While Matthew’s account does not tell us that Nazareth was Mary and Joseph’s hometown, his account is compatible with this fact, which Luke does tell us. The absence of an explanation does not a discrepancy make nor should it lead one to conclude the author thought something different, especially when Matthew tells us that eventually the holy family did go to Nazareth, and why would they pick that wide place in the road out of the blue if they had no prior associations with it? No good reason. The scripture fulfillment text in Matthew is a midrashic attempt to explain the fact that Nazareth was their home. It did not generate such an idea.
Lastly, Bart wants to argue that both Matthew and Luke made up the notion of a trip to Bethlehem independently of one another based on Micah’s prophecy, in order to indicate Jesus’ messianic origins, rather than suggesting he was born in a one horse town in Galilee. The problem with this is that Bethlehem itself was also a one horse town in Jesus’ day, and among other things, the slaughter of the innocents is perfectly in character with Herod’s paranoia as described in Josephus. It was hardly necessary for a messianic figure to come from Bethlehem unless one wanted to insist he was a descendant of David, but as we know from Qumran, there were other Jewish traditions that did not associate messiah with the Davidic line. In regard to the oft parodied story of the slaughter of the innocents, we are only talking about a handful of infants at most in such a tiny village anyway, perhaps 6-8. There is nothing improbable about a birth in Bethlehem at all or a slaughter of a few infants. Jesus was called Jesus of Nazareth because he grew up there from infancy.

Differences there are indeed in the accounts of the birth of Jesus in Matthew and Luke. And they are not explained by denying their existence, or resorting to false harmonizing tactics and exegetical gymnastics. We are not however talking about direct contradictions at all here. These narratives are quite compatible in all their essential details, and it is remarkable that two such independent accounts would in fact emphasize the same crucial points--- a virginal conception and a birth in Bethlehem. This did not happen because they were both creative exegetes. It happened because they both relied on historical sources of information about these events. Ehrman’s conclusion that “there are historical implausibilities and discrepancies that can scarcely be reconciled” (p. 34) is saying far more than he knows or the evidence suggests. Had Luke said Jesus was born in Nazareth and Matthew said no he was born in Bethlehem, then we would have a contradiction. But we find nothing like a contradiction in these two accounts—differences do not necessarily equal discrepancies much less equal disagreements. One has to come up with much better examples than this if one wants to claim the accounts can’t be explained or reconciled.

It is the task of a historian, which Bart Ehrman says he is, to get his facts straight. When he takes on the differences in the genealogies there are a few crucial facts he either ignores or is ignorant of. The first of these crucial points is that in Jewish law, if a man adopted a son, that son was entitled to be considered a descendant of his adoptive father, including being a descendant of his step-father’s ancestors. The genealogies in both Matthew and Luke are strange in part precisely because of this legal issue, and more to the point they are strange because both writers want to include the notion of the virginal conception in their accounts, indeed Matthew includes it right in his geneaology, and this may be the only known genealogy where the wife is included in the husband’s geneaology like this!

Bart is right about various of the differences in these genealogies. But he does not correctly explain some of the reasons for the differences. In the first place ancient royal genealogies often were prone to leaving the skeletons out of the list, and so offering an edited version of the ancestry. Something like this is happening in Matthew who wants to suggest Jesus is the seventh son of a seventh son of David, namely the perfect descendant of David. In other words, the form of the genealogy reflects not just historical but also theological interests. The same can be said for Luke’s genealogy and his concern to show that Jesus is not merely son of David son of Abraham, but also son of Adam, and more crucially, son of God. The issues here are not purely historical and it is a form of reductionism to treat them in a purely historical manner. But they were not intended to answer purely historical questions. One needs to read them in light of the conventions of such ancient genealogies, not in the light of modern historical conventions.

Scholars have long debated why these two genealogies differ, and Bart may be right that they both are genealogies connected to Joseph, rather than Luke’s being connected to Mary’s family. But even if this is true, one of them could offer some part of Joseph’s paternal ancestry and the other some part of Joseph’s maternal ancestry. We honestly cannot say. What we can say is there is no basis for the confidence that Bart shows that we have clear contradictions here. More would need to be known about ancient genealogy composition to come to that conclusion. We could carry on with this sort of dialogue with Bart’s list of complaints but we have already dealt with what he takes to be some of the more famous parade examples of clear contradictions. Some of his other examples are much weaker, and can be explained on the basis of the differing editorial tendencies different Gospel writers had, or in Luke’s Acts accounts on the basis of what were the conventions of rhetorical history writing in the first place. About such things Bart says little or nothing, because he seeks to read the text on the basis of modern historiographical conventions, a signal mistake. Ancient texts must be evaluated on their own terms and without demanding of them a precision they never were intended to have.

It is interesting that as the book moves along, Bart stresses here (and later in this study) that he does not think that historical critical study of the Bible should necessarily or will necessarily lead to a loss of Christian faith. I quite agree with this. In fact, I would say in my case that it is precisely the historical, contextual study of the Bible that has strengthened my faith in its truth telling on various subjects of import, not the least of which is the need for and possibility of human salvation. I also quite agree with Bart that teaching students to think and do critical thinking about life and the Bible is a good thing. On these two conclusions we would simply agree. What is interesting is that the more I studied the Bible the less I was prone to accuse the Bible of obvious historical errors and stupid mistakes, including theological errors about a matter as profound as human suffering and evil. To the contrary, I found the Bible rich, complex, varied, and helpful and truthful in dealing with precisely such life and death matters. It would be appropriate then to ask---why exactly did studying the Bible in the same way at seminary and during doctoral work lead Bart Ehrman and myself to such different conclusions? In my case, my faith in the Bible was strengthened, but the opposite seems to have been the case with Bart. “This is a mystery and it calls for profound reflection”. Some of this clearly has to do with presuppositions. Let’s take a theological one that seems to be at the root of some of the differences.

Bart seems to assume that a God who is both almighty and a God of love, would not allow the hideous amount of suffering that goes on in this world. Now this is by no means an uncommon objection to Biblical revelation, but what it seems to assume is a particular sort or deterministic or even extreme Calvinistic view of God, God’s sovereignty, and human life. I can see how extreme suffering and evil is a major problem for such a view of God. It would seem to make God the author of suffering and evil, or at least an uncaring deity in too many cases. Suppose however that God has not pre-determined all things? Suppose God chose to create us in his image with a measure of freedom of choice, the power of contrary choice? Suppose God relates to us relationally and not on the basis of divine decrees? Suppose the vast majority of suffering in the world is a result of human misbehavior or stupidity or sin? Suppose in addition that God does repeatedly intervene in human history to aid and rescue us, without taking away our ability to make viable choices that have moral consequences? It seems to me that part of the issue here is that Bart and I have very different views of the Biblical God and how God actually operates.
Here’s another quandary and quagmire. It appears to me that Bart and I disagree profoundly about the import of textual variants. As Bruce Metzger who taught us both once said--- we know what about 92% of the NT said in its original manuscripts with a rather high degree of certainty. As for the other 8%, very little of theological or ethical consequence is at stake. For example, the Trinity is not at stake if 1 John 5 did not mention it. The deity of Christ is not at stake just because some NT documents do not mention it directly, and some unscrupulous scribes added some clarity to this matter in other manuscripts in ways that distorted some NT manuscripts.

We also disagree rather strongly on the degree of flux in belief and in the handling of NT documents early on. It is simply not true to say that many of the primary Christian doctrines were not affirmed widely until centuries after the time of Christ. It is also not true that any such doctrines hang on only late copies of this or that NT book. When it comes to the issue of textual variants, the development of the textual tradition, and the theological import of such variants, Bart simply over-reads the evidence, or as the British say, over-eggs the pudding.

Now I think I understand why he does this. He rightly gets peeved with those fundamentalists who want to stick their heads in the sand and say, there are no such issues or problems even in the least. But an over-reaction is just that--- an over-reaction. Throughout this book, the real boogeyman that Bart is trying to refute is fundamentalists who hold to a certain wooden and very literal view of inerrancy which hardly takes ancient historical considerations into account at all. I would actually have as many problems with the same people as I have with Bart’s views.

He also does not do justice to a reading of these texts in light of ancient genre, conventions, purposes, history writing and the like, but for very different reasons. The reasons seem to include that he is a ardent convert from fundamentalism to a very narrow and all too modern form of historical critical analysis of these texts-- a form that starts with an inherent skepticism about the supernatural among other things, and assumes that critical thinking equals the ability to doubt this, that or the other ancient datum. I call this justification by doubt. It is no more a valid starting point for evaluating the NT than blind fideism is. Indeed, I would argue that to actually understand an ancient author you must start by giving them the benefit of the doubt and hear them out, doing one’s best to enter creatively into their own world and thought processes before understanding can come to pass. To approach the text with a hermeneutic of suspicion is to poison the well of inquiry before one even samples the water in the old well.

Bart and I furthermore disagree on the issue of pseudonymity in the canon. It is one thing to say there are anonymous documents in the NT, which there are. Hebrews would be a good example. It is another thing to say that there are pseudonymous documents in the NT, forgeries. I and many other critical scholars think this is not so, but Bart is right that many scholars think otherwise. My point is simply this--- there is a healthy debate about that issue amongst scholars. It is not a “well assured result of the historical critical method” on analyzing the NT. I have pointed out at length in my Letters and Homilies of the NT, series the problems that pseudonymity raised in the first century A.D. for both Greek and Latin writers, never mind writers of documents supposed to convey God’s truth. The Gospels as we have them are formally anonymous in terms of their internal evidence, though the Fourth Gospel tells is that the Beloved Disciple (not specifically identified) is the source of the material in that Gospel. We can discuss the merits of the attributes later appended to these Gospels (Mark, Matthew, Luke, John), but in my view the testimony of Papias is important, and makes evident these attributions already existed in the first century, and in some cases during the time when there were still eyewitnesses. They cannot be dismissed with a wave of a hand, but at the same time one needs to ask--- what were the conventions when it came to appending names to composite documents? This deserves more discussion. In the second part of this post, we will pick up the discussion with Chapter Three. Stay tuned.

TAR HEELS MO'BETTER IN MOTOWN

2009-04-07T06:32:00.001-07:00

MY MOM AND DAD IN THEIR GOLDEN YEARS

I was walking down Franklin Street in Chapel Hill last fall where I was there to do a church and Intervarsity event, and literally ran into Tyler Hansbrough. I took a moment to shake his hand and thank him for coming back to school, and doing things the right way, the real Carolina way. Carolina is the only Division One school I know of that has a 92% graduation rate of its basketball players. They not only get to play great basketball, they get a good education as well which serves them well in life. In addition, the program is squeeky clean--- we have never been on probation for anything. But UNC has always been a remarkable place. It is the oldest State University in the country to open its doors (1790s), with one of its first students, Hinton James walking all the way from Wilmington just to get an education. I was never more proud of my University than last year when they announced the Carolina covenant--- a program which allows anyone who has the grades to come to Carolina, and if their family is too poor to pay the way, the covenant fund will completely cover the cost of their education. Now that's really no child left behind.

My father was a Carolina cheerleader and track man, and one of the most enduring things I will always remember about my Dad, who passed away last November, is about the last thing he asked me before he went to be with the Lord was---"Who won?" He was almost as passionate about his basketball team, as about his family and his faith--- almost. We spent hours together listening to the Tar Heel sports network (in the last 30 plus years that meant Woody Durham, and we loved his colorful commentary. When the Tar Heels would go on a run, he'd say--- "Go to war Miss Agnes!!"). I vaguely remember listening on the radio to Carolina's 1957 undefeated championship run with Dad. We not only beat Michigan State in 3 overtimes in the semi-finals in Kansas. We then turned around and beat Kansas on their own turf, and they had Wilt Chamberlain!!! This also was a three overtime game as well. People can talk all they want about the best Final Four ever, but in terms of drama, nothing could have beaten those two games. Our coach had a 6'5" guy jump center against Chamberlain to psyche him out! You could tell it would be interesting from the outset, with many a mind game played. Dad and I even turned off the TV commentating which was often banal to listen to good ole Woody while watching the game together. That's the sign of a real Tar Heel fan, you know.

Five national championships later, all of which I lost years off my life cheering and screaming at(1957,1982, 1993, 2005, and now 2009), I now think there is full warrant for the bumper sticker that still graces my old guitar case--- "If God is not a Tar Heel, why is the sky Carolina Blue?" In an age of rampant cheating, dirty play, and politics,and the recruiting of thugs who are not interested in a college education, Carolina still wins the old fashioned way-- honestly by hard work and good play with student-athletes. Tyler Hansbrough, by no means the most talented Tar Heel ever (that would be Michael Jordan) epitomizes this. I was so proud of him last night. His year began with injury, but it ended in triumph. And what a victory it was.

I have never seen Carolina play a more dominating half of basketball against a good tenacious well-coached team than last night's first half. They were on a mission to prove the nay-sayers (like Duke grad and Carolina hater Seth Davis of CBS)all wrong. They not only shut up their critics. They shut up the largest partisan crowd ever to see a basketball game in human history. One estimate said there were 60,000 Spartan fans there in the Detroit arena out of 72,000. I doubt it was that many, but it was a huge majority. As Tom Izzo himself said, the better team definitely won.

Somewhere up there in heaven, my father is eating some good ole N.C. barbecue, drinking some sweet tea and singing "Roll em down you Tar Heel warriors" complete with cheerleading motions. This one's for you Dad--- I wish we could have watched and listened to it together.

BW3

SATAN'S FACEBOOK PAGE

2009-04-06T10:17:00.000-07:00

It has been said that you can meet almost anybody on Facebook. Well, imagine my surprise when I discovered that the Prince of Darkness himself has a Facebook page. Here is the link----http://www.pcworld.com/zoom?id=162166&page=1&zoomIdx=5

I must say that there is very little surprising about his friends and supporters network, nor it's proverbial mottos-- "fight fire with fire" and "you can't put out a fire with flames".

The fact that Mephistopheles is now advertising on Facebook must surely be taken as a sign of the end times, because it is a ploy of desperation, of last ditch marketing before one's enterprise goes belly up in the current economy. I found especially interesting that the Devil is trying to raise support for Bernie Madoff (with the cash). Perhaps they had been working together for a while. My suggestion whilst you are perusing Satan's Facebook page is to put on that old Rolling Stone's classic "Sympathy for the Devil" and hum along. In the end the thing that surprised me the most is that none of Gary Larson's Far Side comics about Satan and Hell appear on this site. It confirms what I have long suspected--- Satan has almost as much of a sense of humor when criticized as some TV preachers.

BW3

A FACEBOOK PASSION OF THE CHRIST

2009-04-04T09:35:00.000-07:00

I am not a particular fan of Facebook, but recently one of my former students sent me the following link---

http://canter.s437.sureserver.com/fbp/facebookpassion.pdf

In a surprising end run manuever, apparently Jesus interrupts Bart Ehrman during Passion week, knocking on his office door (check out his most recent title). BW3

MONSTER VS. ALIENS-- AND PRESIDENT COLBERT

2009-04-03T11:14:00.000-07:00

Perhaps you are too young to remember the Blob. 50s horror movies featured him/it, along with a host of unpleasant aliens (think the original and far better version of 'The Day the Earth Stood Still'). Shucks, someone in the 50s or 60s even dreamed up creating harmless green or blue goo which you could buy in plastic eggs replicating the consistency of the blob. Well that blob had no blog back then, and had generally faded from our collective consciousness until of course along came yet another Dreamworks movie for children, this one in snappy 3D, which features Bob, the blob. He's a loveable combination of the Wizard of Oz's tin man, a hulking but friendly middle linebacker, and a generally clueless brainless California surfer dude. Oh yeah, he has but one eye, and he falls in love with a quivering mass of green jello--- how appropriate. But I digress.

One of the keys to movie success in recent years is the making of clever or even smart kids movies that the children's parents will actually enjoy watching as well. Pixar and Dreamworks have made a bunch of and a bundle from such films, and they are still at it, quite successfully. All the homages to 50s aliens or monsters movies in Monsters vs. Aliens will of course be lost on the children, but will draw a knowing smile from their parents if they watch this PG rated flick stacked to the gills with familiar voices (e.g. Reese Witherspoon as Susan, and Stephen Colbert hilariously as the President of the U.S.A.).

There is even clever satire of how silly the American military always looked in those old B movies when combating the aliens or monsters or both. For example we have a General, who is generally a decent chap, even if he has a "shoot first" attitude and hair trigger, who is named W.R. Monger. But I digress again, rather like the plot of this movie, which is one big digression, err distraction.

The story is boy with massive ego meets girl, plans to marry girl but wedding is interrupted when bride is irradiated by falling meteor, which in turn makes her (rather than her beau) too big for her britches, which in turn leads to her capture and incarceration by said U.S. military where she befriends various monsters captured on previous military search and seizure forays... and said monster turn out to be the good guys when the aliens show up and try to take over. The mad scientist who is the leader of the monster pack turns out to be a combo of a cockroach and Errol Flynn..... but I digress..... again.

The technology is of course 'spot on' and a treat, though I have to say that the 3D effect was not as dramatic as when I saw U2 in 3D at the IMAX theater in dear ole Texas. The Edge gets the edge over Bob the blob by a smidgin. There are of course fun chase scenes, and rescue scenes, and imprisonment scenes, and giant bug scenes, and the military actually helps out in the end. But like a Marvel comic with twist, Miss Susan, seeking to be all she could be (whilst her former boyfriend was not desperately seeking Susan) decides she would rather be 'ginormous' and make a difference in the world than be married to Mister narcissistic newscaster. Whew... thank goodness. Eat your heart out Ron Burgundy.

This film is already well rated by many reviewers, but the truth is, while it is enjoyable enough, it doesn't have either the pizazz or poignancy of the Incredibles or Toy Story, or various other such flicks.

But Bob the blob..... he's worth oozing over to and getting to know. He's not a "one-eyed, one-horned flying purple people eater", but he sure does know how to slime people affectionately. If you are looking for about two hours of diversion with your children.... this one fits the bill and should settle in your cerebral cortex like a gelatinous mass :) BW3

JAMES OSSUARY TRIAL WINDS DOWN

2009-04-02T14:36:00.000-07:00

In the 'its about time department' the following is from the Biblical Archaeology Society website today. I'm thinking its about time to print up the bumper stickers saying "Free the Ossuary".

BW3

*Special Report* James Ossuary Trial Continues to Unravel
April 01, 2009
A recent development in the James Ossuary trial taking place in Jerusalem has highlighted the weakness of the prosecution’s case, reports the Jerusalem Post. One of the two defendants in the case, Robert Deutch, took the stand this week for the first time since the trial began three years ago, stating that the accusations against him were “lies and hallucinations.”

Deutch and his co-defendant, antiquities collector Oded Golan, were both indicted in December 2004 for allegedly forging ancient artifacts and then publishing scholarly papers on them in order to enhance their value before selling them to collectors.

Deutch, who is an antiquities dealer and one of the world’s leading experts on Semitic inscriptions, pointed out that the prosecution failed to produce a single e-mail between him and his alleged co-conspirator Golan, and that the entire case was a “witch hunt” conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority for the purpose of shutting down the licensed antiquities trade in Israel.

During the course of his testimony, Deutch produced evidence that refuted several of the prosecution’s charges against him, as well as evidence that the artifacts in question are indeed genuine.

The case against Deutch and Golan has been steadily unraveling since last October, when the presiding judge advised the prosecution to consider dropping the case, pointing out that they have thus far failed to prove that the artifacts in question are fakes.

Matthew Kalman reports on the latest development in the forgery trial for the Jerusalem Post.

FAMOUS QUOTES FROM SPORTS STARS

2009-04-02T13:11:00.000-07:00

America's continued idolizing of major sports figures goes on apace, and unabated, even with the recent steroids scandals and the like, with athletes and even coaches now commanding enormous salaries. In economic times like these, it might be wise to recognize that such sports figures are in fact seldom role models, except perhaps for how they perform certain athletic tasks or skills.

If you ever need to be brought down to earth in regard to sports figures, the following quotes will serve you in good stead. Check it out. If it weren't so sad, it would be funny. These quotes make Yogi-isms look like classic lines from Shakespeare.

1. Chicago Cubs outfielder Andre Dawson on being a role model: "I wan' all dem kids to do what I do, to look up to me. I wan' all the kids to copulate me."

2. New Orleans Saint RB George Rogers when asked about the upcoming season: "I want to rush for 1,000 or 1,500 yards, whichever comes first."

3. And, upon hearing Joe Jacobi of the 'Skins say: "I'd run over my own mother to win the Super Bowl," Matt Millen of the Raiders said: "To win, I'd run over Joe's Mom, too.

4. Torrin Polk, University of Houston receiver, on his coach, John Jenkins: "He treats us like men. He lets us wear earrings."

5. Football commentator and former player Joe Theismann, 1996: "Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein."

6. Senior basketball player at the University of Pittsburgh : "I'm going to graduate on time, no matter how long it takes."

7. Bill Peterson, a Florida State football coach: "You guys line up alphabetically by height." And, "You guys pair up in groups of three, and then line up in a circle."

8. Boxing promoter Dan Duva on Mike Tyson going to prison: "Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton ."

9. Stu Grimson, Chicago Blackhawks left wing, explaining why he keeps a color photo of himself above his locker: "That's so when I forget how to spell my name, I can still find my clothes."

10. Lou Duva, veteran boxing trainer, on the Spartan training regime of heavyweight Andrew Golota: "He's a guy who gets up at six o'clock in the morning, regardless of what time it is."

11. Chuck Nevitt, North Carolina State basketball player, explaining to Coach Jim Valvano why he appeared nervous at practice: "My sister's expecting a baby, and I don't know if I'm going to be an uncle or an aunt."

12. Frank Layden, Utah Jazz president, on a former player: "I told him, 'Son, what is it with you? Is it ignorance or apathy?' He said, 'Coach, I don't know and I don't care.'"

13. Shelby Metcalf, basketball coach at Texas A&M, recounting what he told a player who received four F's and one D: "Son, looks to me like you're spending too much time on one subject."

14. Amarillo High School and Oiler coach Bum Phillips when asked by Bob Costas why he takes his wife on all the road trips, Phillips responded: "Because she is too damn ugly to kiss good-bye."

SEEING IS BELIEVING? THE EYE IS QUICKER THAN THE HAND

2009-04-02T09:46:00.000-07:00

Since I was a child I have always enjoyed illusionists (not to be confused with magicians who practice the black arts), because they remind us that our empirical senses are not totally reliable. They can be deceived. Certainly one of my favorite illusionists of recent memory is David Copperfield, who has made all kinds of things little and large disappear. Check out the following, and then answer the question--- "How'd he do dat?" BW3

ADVENTURES AT LAITY LODGE

2009-04-01T08:37:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I had the pleasure of going and speaking, preaching, singing at Laity Lodge near Kerrville Texas. As the pictures will show, this lodge hangs over the Frio River Gorge, and is, in a word-- gorgeous. Indeed, the whole place is a spectacular retreat center for Christians, including various free camps for Christian kids. My task was to teach on Johannine Literature at the adult lodge, and some 70 plus Methodists, mainly from Houston's St. Luke UMC, showed up. A good time was had by all, and kudos to Mark, Tim, and Jessica for making my retreat there such a treat. The vituals weren't bad either, though we could have used some good ole Texas brisket and sausage on the site. As you can see,you get to this lodge by driving your vehicle up the Frio to the lodge entrance-- and I saw motorcycles, cars, SUVS, trucks, undaunted and riding along in the shallow water. If you like isolated and cut off retreats (as in no cellphone or internet reception) this is the place for you! And that is mostly a good thing, as you are forced to focus on other things... and not on your technological umbilical chord. As you can also see, climbing out of the gorge can be almost as daunting as getting into it :) BW3

The Humanness of the Unborn

2009-03-31T14:42:00.000-07:00

My mother sent me the following, which ultimately comes from a Nashville newspaper, and the hospital where various of my friends have had surgery, so I believe this story is reliable. I would suggest you read Psalm 139.13-14 and then read the following and view the picture above.

A picture began circulating in November. It should be 'The Picture of the Year,' or perhaps, 'Picture of the Decade.' It won't be. In fact,unless you obtained a copy of the US paper which published it, you probably would never have seen it.

The picture is that of a 21-week-old unborn baby named Samuel Alexander Armas, who is being operated on by surgeon named Joseph Bruner.

The baby was diagnosed with spina bifida and would not survive if removed from his mother's womb. Little Samuel's mother, Julie Armas, is an obstetrics nurse in Atlanta . She knew of Dr. Bruner's remarkable
surgical procedure. Practicing at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville , he performs these special operations while the baby is still in the womb.

During the procedure, the doctor removes the uterus via C-section and makes a small incision to operate on the baby. As Dr.Bruner completed the surgery on Samuel, the little guy reached his tiny, but fully developed hand through the incision and firmly grasped the surgeon's finger. DrBruner was reported as saying that when his finger was grasped, it was the most emotional moment of his life, and that for an instant during the procedure he was just frozen, totally immobile

The photograph captures this amazing event with perfect clarity. The editors titled the picture, 'Hand of Hope.' The text explaining the picture begins, 'The tiny hand of 21-week- old fetus Samuel Alexander Armas emerges from the mother's uterus to grasp the finger of Dr. Joseph Bruner as if thanking the doctor for the gift of life.'

Little Samuel's mother said they 'wept for days' when they saw the picture. She said, 'The photo reminds us pregnancy isn't about disability or an illness, it's about a little person.'Samuel was born in perfect health, the operation 100 percent successful.

TALES OF CHRISTIAN TAILGATERS

2009-03-30T16:58:00.000-07:00

A man was being tailgated by a stressed out woman on a busy street.
Suddenly, just in front of him, the light turned yellow. He did the right
thing, stopping at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red
light by accelerating through the intersection.

The tailgating woman was furious and repeatedly honked her horn,
screaming in frustration, as she missed her chance to get through
the intersection, while also, dropping her cell phone and makeup.

As she was still in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up
into the face of a very stern looking police officer. The officer ordered
her to exit her car with her hands up.

He took her to the police station where she was searched, fingerprinted,
photographed and placed in a holding cell. After a couple of hours, a
policeman approached the cell and opened the door. She was escorted back
to the booking desk where the arresting officer was waiting with her
personal effects.
He said, 'I'm very sorry for this mistake. You see, I pulled up behind
your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping off the guy in front
of you and cussing a blue streak at him. 'I noticed the 'What Would Jesus
Do' window sticker, the 'Choose Life' license plate holder, the 'Follow Me
to Sunday-School' bumper sticker and the chrome-plated Christian fish
emblem on the trunk; naturally... I assumed you had stolen the car.'

Animal House Part Three-- The 12 Apostles (plus 1) of the Animal World

2009-03-26T08:27:00.000-07:00

Identify the following apostles of the animal world with one of the 12. I've left a few hints below. BW3

Clearly this one should be called Rocky (aka Peter/Cephas)

Aha, the Boanerges, James and John

This must be Judas Iscariot

Mona Greasa-- The Real Da Vinci Code Secret

2009-03-26T08:09:00.000-07:00

In order to truly appreciate the following video (and kudos to Craig Beard for finding it), you need to put on the old Bee Gees song 'Grease', as done by Franki Valli... and sing along, "Grease is the word, that you heard....." You catch my drift. Just imagine what could have been accomplished with ten thick burgers.... I'm thinking the whole last supper painting, complete with entrees :) BW3

THE SAD STATE OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP--Spirit-Filled Singing

2009-03-25T09:23:00.000-07:00

Christian worship is of course a human activity, and thus involves the same sort of flaws other human activities involve. What is amazing to me is that so little thought is actually put into what a theology of worship should look like--- what is the purpose of worship? How does it differ from say, going to a concert and watching a Christian artist perform? Who is the subject and object of worship? What roles should the congregation or clergy or both play in worship?

Because so little meaningful discourse is available on this subject, I have recently written a little primer on a theology of Christian worship on the basis of what the NT has to say, and it will be forthcoming from Eerdmans under the title Doxa: Worship in the Light of the Kingdom. Here below is a draft sample of the discussion on one of my favorite subjects---- the role of music and in particular singing in worship. See what you think. Note that I have left out the footnotes here. BW3

Christians today are used to addressing God in shockingly familiar and even casual ways. Some even talk to and about God as if God were a long lost pal. What always strikes me about the stark contrast between what happens so often today, especially in prayer, and what we find in the NT is that the NT writers were looking for the most exalted language they could possibly find to pray and praise and proclaim God’s goodness and grace in a bolder way. There was not prose or even poetry elevated enough to do the subject of Christ and redemption he wrought justice. Looking for help, the earliest Christians turned to the Psalter and other such musical resources.

Ephes. 5.18-20 provides an entry into the heart of early Christian worship, which surprisingly enough the NT writers do not say enough about. Paul, in a circular homily meant for a variety of his churches says this in instructing them about worship—“and don’t become intoxicated with wine, in which is recklessness, but rather continue being filled in Spirit, singing to one another psalms, and hymns and spiritual songs and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to (our) God and Father.” It will pay us to look closely at this.

In vs. 18 we have a clear contrast– do not get drunk with wine (Paul does not say do not drink wine, but rather don’t engage in dissipation), but rather be filled in Spirit. This contrast is also found in the Pentecost story in Acts 2 and suggest that early Christian worship was often ecstatic and jubilant, involving loud singing. The outsider might have a hard time telling the difference between exuberant praising (especially if it involved singing in tongues) and a drunk person singing and carousing.

It is not impossible that Paul is contrasting Christian worship with Bacchic rites which involved drunkenness and frenzy and orgiastic behavior. In any case, it should be noted that Paul says to Christians who already have the Spirit “be filled” and the verb is in the present continual tense—keep on being filled up by and in the Spirit. The phrase whole-hearted or even exuberant singing doesn’t do justice to what is being described here. A person is wide open to the internal workings of the Spirit and the result is, both internally and externally exuberant song.

Here Paul is likely referring to the sort of repeated fillings that happen to Christians who already have the full measure of the Spirit, but are inspired in spiritually high moments to speak and sing. In such cases it is a matter of the indwelling Spirit inspiring and lifting up the individual, not a matter of the individual getting more of the Spirit. The Spirit after all is a person, not a substance one can get more of. You can no more have a little bit of the Spirit in you than you can be a little bit pregnant. Here the singers are caught up in love and wonder and praise and adoration of God by the Spirit that moves them.

John Chrysostom is right in suggesting that Paul is contrasting intoxication that leads to one sort of singing and inspiration which leads to another. Paul is not talking about some second work of grace or of sanctification here, as the contrast makes clear. “For they who sing psalms are filled with the Holy Spirit, as they who sing satanic songs are filled with an unclean spirit. What is meant by ‘with your hearts to the Lord’? It means with close attention and understanding. For those who do not attend closely, merely sing, uttering the words, while their heart is roaming elsewhere.” (Hom. Ephes XIX). Paul means singing from the bottom of one’s heart, and so this is an exhortation to heartfelt and sincere praise and singing, with cognizance of the lyrics’ meaning.

There is a difference between mere ecstatic uttering of nonsensical things, and heartfelt praise which is an act of adoration. Perhaps Paul knew about the Dionysiac rituals in which getting drunk was seen as the means of achieving religious ecstasy or frenzy or spiritual exaltation (cf. Is. 28.7; Philo, Ebr. 147-48; Vita Cont. 85,89; Macrobius, Sat. I.18.1; Hippolytus, Ref. 5.8.6-7). Since early Christian worship took place not only in the context of a home, but also often in the context of a fellowship meal, the issue of drunkenness and worship were not unrelated issues for Pauline Christians as also 1 Cor. 11 demonstrates.

As Gordon Fee points out, what often gets overlooked in the discussion of Ephes. 5.18-21 is that we have a series of participles that modify the exhortation to be filled by/with the Spirit– speaking, singing, giving thanks, and also submitting-- in this case mutual submission of all believers to each other. The Spirit inspires all these activities. Fee also rightly notes that the emphasis here is not on the ecstasy producing potential of the Spirit, but on being filled, or having the fullness of the Spirit’s presence. Nor is the emphasis on being ‘high’ or drunk on the Spirit as opposed to being drunk from wine. Rather the picture is of individuals and a community together being totally given over to the Spirit and the Spirit’s presence and leading.

Philo seems to describe something of the life situation Paul has in mind here: “Now when grace fills the soul, that soul thereby rejoices and smiles and dances, for it is possessed and inspired, so that to many of the unenlightened it may seem to be drunken, crazy, and beside itself....For with those possessed by God not only is the soul wont to be stirred and goaded as it were into ecstasy but the body is also flushed and fiery... and thus many of the foolish are deceived and suppose that the sober are drunk” (De Ebr. 146-48).

Far from being filled with the Spirit leading to dissipation or drunkenness, Paul affirms it leads to wisdom and to the spirit of a sound mind and to the proper adoration and singing that all of God’s creatures should render back to God. In other words, it is the key to living the Christian life in a manner pleasing to God and edifying to others as well as one’s self.

The Spirit is both the means and the substance of the filling, and vs. 19 tells what sort of response the Spirit prompts in the believer. Christians sing hymns to Christ and also give thanks to God through the impulse and empowering of the Spirit. Note the implicitly Trinitarian nature of this discussion. The life of the Spirit-filled community is to be characterized by joyful singing, thanksgiving, and submitting to one another. “If believers were only filled with wisdom, the influence would be impersonal; however the filling by the Spirit adds God’s personal presence, influence, and enablement to walk wisely, all of which are beneficial to believers and pleasing to God. With the indwelling each Christian has all of the Spirit, but the command to be filled by the Spirit enables the Spirit to have all of the believer.” (Fee).

It is possible that the three sorts of songs mentioned in vs. 19 had differing forms. Psalmos probably means the psalms, usually praise songs with accompaniment, since the term originally meant ‘to pluck a string’. Hymnois may be more hymn-like liturgical and acappella pieces which were pre-written, and spiritual songs may mean spontaneous songs from the heart prompted by the Spirit, but we can’t be certain about any of this (cf. Col.3.16).

What these verses suggest is both old and new elements in Christian worship when it came to music. Paul says these songs are to be addressed, surprisingly enough, to each other, rather than just to God! They are to speak to one another in songs of praise. This makes clear that worship is not just a matter of adoration, but also involves edification. Vs. 19c probably does not mean ‘only in your hearts’, but rather ‘in a heartfelt way’ understanding that it is ultimately to the Lord. Perhaps what is meant is that the internal praise is to the Lord, but the external praise is to each other. We are always to do this in the spirit of thanksgiving (cf. 1 Thess. 5.18), and we are to do it, submitting ourselves to one another. It is not to be a protracted display of ego, and as 1 Cor. 14 suggests believers are to defer to each other, taking turns.

Notice too that here, as in 1 Cor. 14 nothing suggests a clergy dominated worship service. Everyone is allowed to join in and participate as the Spirit leads them. However we would be wrong to think this was leaderless worship, for Paul has just listed for us in Ephes. 4 the various leaders of these sorts of congregations when an apostle was not around—- prophets, evangelists, and pastors who are also teachers (Ephes. 4.11). Their job is the equipping of the saints unto the building up of the body of Christ, and certainly worship is one of the activities which accomplishes that building up and unifying of a group of Christians. Can we say more about the music itself? I believe we can.

The parallel passage in Col. 3.16-17 bears close scrutiny. Vs. 16 indicates that the basis of sound and wise teaching and admonition is the word of Christ dwelling in the midst of the community richly. Notice that this exhortation is given to everyone, and the assumption is that this is as appropriate when predicated of all as when these terms are used in 1.28 to describe Paul’s ministry. This exhortation is not directed, for instance, just to the men of the audience, any more than the next exhortation about singing is. Once again, three types of songs seem to be referred to– psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.

Psalms would presumably refer primarily to the OT songs we find in the Psalter, hymns could be said to refer to the kind of Christological material we find in Col. 1 (it certainly refers to something sung to a deity), and spiritual songs would refer to songs prompted by the Holy Spirit, perhaps spontaneously. The grammar allows the conclusion that singing is viewed as one form of teaching and admonishing each other, and certainly Ephes. 5.19 mentions speaking the songs to one another. Col. 1 revealed Paul using a hymn for just such an instructional purpose. According to vs. 17 the Christian life is also to be characterized by being and showing oneself thankful for all God has done, and by doing and saying all that one does and says in the name and according to the nature of Christ.

When we see singing as under the heading of instruction and exhortation, it becomes clear once more that worship is seen to be an ethical act, and one aspect of this is that as God is glorified properly, the people are edified. What Paul is stress here is that these songs express the Word of God which is to dwell in the speaker and singer richly. Singing is quite specifically connected here with admonitions. But the end of vs. 16 makes clear that the ultimate aim of this singing is “singing in your heart to God”, or perhaps better said, singing whole-heartedly unto God. Vs. 17 punctuates this even further when Paul insists that whatever we say or do, and especially so in worship it should be done in the name and according to the nature of Christ, giving thanks to the Father through Christ. Christ is seen as the mediator of our relationship with the Father, but here and in Ephes. 5 the implication is as well that Christ is the object of worship and adoration.

Psychologists tell us that music reaches us in places and ways that mere words cannot do. It engages and arouses the affective and right brained side of who we are, and so it is crucial in worship, for in worship the whole person should be engaged, the whole self presenting itself as a living sacrifice to God, consciously, intentionally, purposefully. Worship is not an activity where you should expect to come and lose yourself, but rather to find your true self in the shadow of the Almighty, who comes down to inhabit our praise.

DUPLICITY-- OH WHAT A SUBTLE WEB WE WEAVE...

2009-03-24T13:46:00.000-07:00

In a world of mindless entertainment, sometimes one wonders if there is still a place for a brainy romantic spy yarn, and apparently, thank goodness, the answer is still yes. Such a movie is Julie Robert's return as a leading lady to the big screen, having turned the big 4-0 a while back. Yes she has played cameo roles or large cast roles in Charlie Wilson's War, and the Ocean's 11 etc. sagas, but in this movie, with the help of Clive Owen, she returns to form, on center stage, as a leading lady. She looks a bit gaunt and a bit more curvy than in the past, but its still the same sassy Julia with the angular face and the gigantic smile and laugh.

And Clive Owen is still the sophisticated handsome Brit, who provides the perfect foil for Julia's character. The screen writer involved was also involved with Michael Clayton and the Bourne sagas, and so one would expect some interesting plot twists and turns, and one is not disappointed. Here is a movie one actually has to pay attention in, to keep up. It will remind you some of the Oceans movies in terms of cinematography, music, and pizazz, and not of spy thrillers that involve lots of action. You do however get to jet set around the world to various venues previously visited by James Bond. In the post-modern sense this is not an 'action' flick, for in this movie the action is mostly in the heat generated between the two lead characters. But clearly there is more here than meets the eye, as the flashbacks increasingly reveal as the movie progresses. Here is the studio's own summary of the plot....

"Synopsis: Oscar® winner Julia Roberts and Clive Owen reunite for Duplicity, from writer/director Tony Gilroy (seven-time Oscar®-nominated Michael Clayton). In the film, they star as spies-turned-corporate... Oscar® winner Julia Roberts and Clive Owen reunite for Duplicity, from writer/director Tony Gilroy (seven-time Oscar®-nominated Michael Clayton). In the film, they star as spies-turned-corporate operatives in the midst of a clandestine love affair. When they find themselves embroiled in a high-stakes espionage game, they discover the toughest part of the job is deciding how much to trust the one you love.

CIA officer Claire Stenwick (Roberts) and MI6 agent Ray Koval (Owen) have left the world of government intelligence to cash in on the highly profitable cold war raging between two rival multinational corporations. Their mission? Secure the formula for a product that will bring a fortune to the company that patents it first.

For their employers--industry titan Howard Tully (Tom Wilkinson) and buccaneer CEO Dick Garsik (Paul Giamatti)-- nothing is out of bounds. But as the stakes rise, the mystery deepens and the tactics get dirtier, the trickiest secret for Claire and Ray is their growing attraction. And as they each try to stay one double-cross ahead, two career loners find their schemes endangered by the only thing they can't cheat their way out of: love. --© Universal Pictures"

This is a 2 hours + movie I can happily recommend to adults and teens, as it eschews violence altogether, and is none too revealing in the amorous scenes. And in fact it is something of a morality play. Sometimes the player gets played, and in a world of duplicity and corporate espionage, who exactly can you trust?

What this movie very nicely demonstrates is that once a person starts telling large quantities of lies, it becomes increasingly difficult to remain consistent to the web one is weaving. It's just the opposite with truth. Truth telling allows you to sleep well at night, know who you are, and who you can trust and not have to be constantly looking over your shoulder or reviewing your previous words to see if you are being consistent.

This movie is a classic revelation of the fact that God set the world up to be run on the basis of truth, and when an individual, or a company, or a country doesn't live that way, it not merely loses its way, it loses its identity. As Claire and Ray find out to their cost, you cannot unconditionally love someone you cannot fundamentally trust, for love and its vulnerabilities are based on trusting one another.

There is a very revealing scene between the two stars near the end of the movie, where they say that they long to start over from scratch and live a life that is true, truthful, honest, open, and loving. What it reveals is that love and truth and trust and faith always were intertwined, and were meant to be so. Alas, this leaves the duplicitous in a world without love and in a world of hurt. As Jesus put it "you shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free..." free to love.

If you go to see this movie, and I would certainly commend it, see if you can figure out the major hole in the plot which should have been fixed. But since this movie is all about secrets, I will say no more.... nod, nod, wink, wink.

WHERE'S WALDO.... ERR.... WITHERINGTON??

2009-03-23T17:38:00.000-07:00

Ah those college years..... here are two pictures from a UNC college retreat trip to the beach in N.C. Kudos to you if you can pick BW3 out in these pictures. Also in these pictures--- Tom Morris a future teacher of the year at Notre Dame, Don Tyndall (no not the coach of Morehead State) a future professor of Dentistry at UNC, and two future Presbyterian ministers....

BW3

DISCUSSION ON GOD AND THE RESURRECTION--- GARY HABERMAS, ANTHONY FLEW, AND N.T.WRIGHT AT WESTMINSTER, CAMBRIDGE, AND ELSEWHERE

2009-03-18T11:04:00.001-07:00

http://www.garyhabermas.com/video/video.html

Here is a discussion worthy of your attention. Kudos to James Foster for the link. There are in fact many links on this page. Some to the discussion held at Westminster in London between the three figures mentioned, some to the debates Gary Habermas has had in Cambridge and elsewhere with atheists of various sorts.

BW3

FALLIN' IN LOVE WITH JESUS

2009-03-16T11:54:00.000-07:00

Kirk Whalum is one of my very favorite Christian jazz artists, not to mention he does a lot of jazz Gospel and so I have some samples here, and you will see he brings the heavy hitters with him--- see which version of this song you like the best, involving Jonathan Butler, Natalie Cole, Stevie Wonder, as the singers. Wow. Jonathan Butler not only wrote this song, I have watched him walk the walk for 30 years. He is a Christian from South Africa. I would highly recommend to you the Gospel according to Jazz I,II, III which is Kirk Whalum's response to being dropped by Columbia Records-- he decided to praise the Lord in a bolder strain. BW3

YAHWEH WILL BE THERE

2009-03-15T20:01:00.001-07:00

Michael McDonald is one of my favorite soulful singers of all time, and he has done a lot of work backing up others and helping them make hit records. James Ingram, from Ohio was a Gospel singer who had some soul hits as well, and here is one of them under the title "Yo Mo Be There". This is taken from a 1992 all star concert in Japan, and yes that's Nathan East and Lee Ritenour in the band. This is the best quality video I could find of this rare concert. I should just add that Michael has long since confessed his faith in the Lord.

When Theology is Claimed as Intellectual Property

2009-03-15T09:15:00.000-07:00

In our world where human beings seem to think they have 'entitlement' to all things which can be claimed we now can wondrously behold the miracle of the 'theological patent' or copyright of theological ideas--- like say the theory of double imputation. Kudos to Craig Beard for finding this out---

Consider http://www.wikipatents.com/US6974327.html

PRESIDENT OBAMA'S PRAYER PARTNERS

2009-03-15T03:53:00.000-07:00

There is an interesting new article in the Sunday NY Times on Barack Obama's prayer partners. Here is the link, see what you think.....

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/us/politics/15pastor.html?th&emc=th

THE HOUSTON MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS

2009-03-14T17:39:00.000-07:00

href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_MCBNSn1DlAU/SbxQybjhnYI/AAAAAAAACGo/51AFHOV9vsc/s1600-h/GC+426.jpg">

These picture were all from the recent ministry trip to Houston. The top picture is the beautiful dome in St. Mary's Seminary where I lectured. The rest of the pictures are from the very fine exhibits at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. There was a special exhibit on Bactria, Alexander the Great's kingdom in Afghanistan (yes that Afghanistan). These finds comes from tombs of the descendants of Alexander's rulers in the northern part of the country. The incredibly fine glass work and gold objects are in themselves worth the price of admission, and you can begin to sense the sweep and scope of the effect of Hellenism all the way to the steppes of Asia and India. The gold bowl is especially beautiful, and believe it or not it was for putting the head of the deceased in (no its not a really expensive jello mold).

I have also included some shots from the collection of Impressionist Art, and a couple of Biblical paintings. Enjoy BW3

THE GOOD BISHOP WEIGHS IN-- TOM WRIGHT ON 'SURPRISED BY HOPE'

2009-03-13T05:44:00.000-07:00

------------

N.T. Wright's "Surprised by Hope" has been called an instant classic, and now with two years of positive reviews under its belt, it was time to sit down with the Bishop and ask some follow up questions which arise from some of the things he has said in the book and some of the responses he has gotten.

I caught up with Tom in Prague, but he delayed answering for a day until he could get home to Bishop Auckland Palace, where you find him safely ensconced in the picture above (coupled with a picture of Durham Cathedral at dawn, looking over the Wear river bridge).

QUESTION ONE

Since both Europe and America are rapidly becoming more multi-cultural and emphasizing the goodness of religious diversity, it is natural to expect an increasing diversity of afterlife views even in the West. In light of this fact, how would you approach taking your message of hope to the streets, how would you do evangelism on this important topic in this post-modern post-Christian setting and era?

ANSWER
1. Diversity of afterlife views. Yes, indeed, we are becoming more diverse (though not hugely so I think in the UK -- there tends to be an assumption that Christians believe in heaven and hell, some other religions believe in reincarnation, and most people are either agnostic or think death is final). There aren't actually too many options, really, in either the ancient or the modern world; just variations on well-known themes.

I don't see the full Christian eschatology as the primary thing to talk about in evangelism. The primary thing is Jesus himself, and the vision of the loving, rescuing creator God we get when we focus on him. However, the vision of new heavens and new earth, and of God's project, already begun in Jesus, to flood the whole creation with his restorative justice, does indeed generate a powerful evangelistic message: not just 'you're sinful, here's how to escape the consequences', but 'your sinful life means you're failing to be a genuine human being, contributing to God's project of justice and beauty -- here's how the project got back on track, and here's how you can be part of it, both in your own life being set right and made 'something beautiful for God' and in what you do THROUGH your life, bringing justice, hope, joy and beauty to God's world as we look forward to the final day'... I'd better not go further or you'll get the whole sermon?

QUESTION TWO

Question 2--- There seem to have been at least two persons who saw the risen Jesus on or after Easter who were not amongst his disciples at the time---- James his brother and Saul on Damascus Road. One of these surely took place during the initial period of appearances, the other after those 40 or so days, which is to say after the Ascension. Yet they both claimed equally to have seen the risen Lord.

In your view was either of these appearances to non-disciples visionary in character, and does it make any difference to your case that resurrection always meant something that happened to a body after death and the initial afterlife?

ANSWER
2. James, Paul and 'visions'. The difficulty here is that in our culture a 'vision' is thought of as a 'purely subjective' thing, so that when people say 'so-and-so had a vision' they assume there is no correlated phenomena in our own space-time-matter world. The whole NT is predicated on a different view: that heaven and earth are twin parts of God's good creation, and that they overlap and interlock in a variety of surprising ways, so that sometimes people really do see right into God's dimension and sometimes aspects of God's dimension -- in this case, the risen body of Jesus -- are visible from within our dimension.

That is of course what I think was happening when Paul saw Jesus, as I have explained in the relevant chapter of The Resurrection of the Son of God. Such moments are genuine anticipations of the final day when heaven and earth will come together as one glorious reality, when 'the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea'. Our culture is built on the denial that such a thing is possible, let alone desirable, so things fall apart into either 'ordinary seeing' or 'vision', the first being 'objective' and the latter 'subjective'. To unravel this further would need a few paragraphs on epistemology...

QUESTION THREE

Question 3--- About half way through your book you make clear that Purgatory is not a Biblical doctrine, and that of course salvation is not a reward earned by good works.

There does however seem to be both in early Jewish traditions and the teachings of Jesus and Paul a connection between good works and some sort of reward when the Kingdom comes on earth (not, it would appear, rewards of varying status in heaven, or years off of purgatory).

What do you make of this, and passages like 2 Cor. 5.10 which speak of all Christians being accountable at the bema seat judgment of Christ for the deeds done in the body, whether good or bad?

If salvation is by grace through faith, what do these rewards amount to? And is there no correlation between behavior in this life and getting into the eschatological Kingdom on earth later, as Gal. 5 would seem to suggest?

ANSWER

3. Rewards etc. As C. S. Lewis pointed out a long time ago, there is a big difference between a child (a) passing a French exam and being given a bicycle as a 'reward' and the same child (b) being given, instead, a month in Paris now that she is able to enjoy and profit from it.

Not a totally accurate example but it helps: if the final state to which we look forward is that of complete humanness, fully reflecting God's image into the world, and if our faith, hope, love, fruits of the Spirit, meekness, patience, etc etc in the present are genuine anticipations of that, then the final state will be from that point of view the reward (b) will be ontologically connected with the preceding activity.

Both Jesus' basic ethics and Paul's are eschatological, that is, they are based on the fact that the kingdom is already inaugurated as an act of sheer grace and looking forward to the fact that the kingdom will one day be consummated, also as an act of sheer grace, and celebrating the fact that what grace does is to enable failed, sinful human beings to be caught up in God's restorative justice so that, by that same grace active through the Spirit in their lives, and by their Spirit-enabled thinking through of what it's all about (Romans 12.2, etc etc), they are anticipating in the present some aspects at least of the full humanity which will be theirs at the last. Again, much more could be said, not least on how to retrieve the notion of 'virtue' from a fully biblical point of view.

QUESTION FOUR

Joel Green and other NT scholars have been conferencing with neuroscientists and writing a good deal about how the mind is simply the software of the brain, and without the physical body, the whole person simply ceases to exist. In other words, they are advocates of some sort of monism in the form of the equation 'no body=no person'.

I take it from many things you say in 'Surprised by Hope' that you believe in a limited dualism between body and soul, or body and personality, such that the person survives death and goes to be with the Lord, but that ultimately that dualism will be resolved when the resurrection of the body happens, and those in Christ are made like him once and for all.

How would you answer the monists, who insist they have mind/brain science on their side?

ANSWER

4. I do think -- and at this point Aquinas, and the Greek Orthodox theologians, and the early fathers, agree with me -- that humans are incomplete without a body.

However, I agree with theologians Jewish and Christian, ancient and modern, that if there is to be a resurrection that presupposes some kind of continuity between the embodied person now and the embodied person then. One way of 'solving' this might be to suggest that at death we are 'fast-tracked' straight to the eschaton; I don't buy that because the new world will be made out of the old one, not created de novo, and that clearly hasn't happened yet.

Another way of 'solving' it is to say that God 'remembers' us, not just with a kind of nostalgic looking back at the person we once were but are no longer, but that he somehow holds us in life (as the Psalmist says) within his own being. Hence Polkinghorne's image: God will download our software onto his hardware until the time when he gives us new hardware to run the software again for ourselves. For me the telling points are Jesus' words to the brigand: TODAY you will be with me in Paradise -- though Jesus won't be raised for another three days; and Paul's in Philippians, 'My desire is to depart and be with Christ which is far better'. I don't think Paul could have said that if he'd believed it would be a non-existent state prior to the resurrection. Wisdom 3 of course uses the language of 'souls in the hand of God', which may be a way of saying pretty much the same thing.

I don't like thinking of this as 'dualism', but rather as a temporary duality, a kind of half-existence with God obviously taking the complete initiative to hold in being the true identity etc of persons who once had full bodily identity and will again...

QUESTION FIVE

In a recent book on a Christian view of work, David Jensen says that we are not co-laborers with God, building the Kingdom on earth, but merely engaging in grateful responsive labor to the purely divine work. This seems to be an attempt to avoid suggesting that our deeds have something to do with our own salvation whether present or future or the coming of the Kingdom whether present or future.

From the last section of your book Surprised by Hope, it seems clear that you think Jensen is saying too little, and indeed is wrong. Help us connect the dots between our future hope in Kingdom come, and our present work. Is it a mere foreshadowing of Kingdom come, or an actual foretaste, and so part of that work? Does what we do now, get perfected when Jesus and the Kingdom come in full? What does it mean to be co-laborers with Christ and why should that give us hope in the present as well as for the future?

ANSWER

5. We are not building the kingdom by our own efforts, no. The Kingdom remains God's gift, new creation, sheer grace. But, as part of that grace already poured out in Jesus Christ and by the Spirit, we are building FOR the kingdom. I use the image of the eleventh-century stonemason, probably illiterate, working away on one or two blocks of stone according to the orders given to him. He isn't building the Cathedral; he is building FOR the Cathedral. When the master mason/architect gathers up all the small pieces of stone at which people have been working away, he will put them into the great edifice which he's had in mind all along and which he alone can build -- but FOR WHICH we can and must build in the present time. Note 1 Corinthians 3, the Temple-building picture, and the way it relates directly to 1 Cor 15.58: what you do in the Lord is NOT IN VAIN, because of the resurrection.

I have absolutely no idea how it might be that a great symphony or painting, or the small act of love and gentleness shown to an elderly patient dying in hospital, or Wilberforce campaigning to end the slave trade, or the sudden generosity which makes a street beggar happy all day -- how any or all of those find a place in God's eventual kingdom. He's the architect, not me. He has given us instructions on the little bits of stone we are meant to be carving. How he puts them together is his business.

---------

THE MOMENT OF TRUTH

2009-03-11T06:40:00.001-07:00

It sneaks up on you unawares
While you are preoccupied
It catches you quite unprepared
Enthralled as you are in your pride.

Blindsided, you flinch instinctively
When suddenly you are accosted
You realize in an instance ‘it’s now…’
Or else you’ve totally lost it.

All those years of pure preparation
All those long times of careful thought
Have arrived at this destination
So why do you feel you are caught?

Shocked by the sudden challenge
Your defensive reflex, a surprise
Call up the ‘the hope that’s within you’
And look them right in the eyes.

Like fumbling with keys in the doorway,
You find you’re at a loss for words,
Why suddenly this ineptitude
Your nervousness seems absurd.

And there is no graceful exit,
No quiet bowing out
No way to delay the inevitable
You’re in the ring, no doubt.

‘Speak now, or else forever
Forever hold your peace’,
The questioner is insistent
She seeks some sort of release.

When the moment of truth is upon you
And you have no time to prepare
Will you know what to say in that instant
Will you find out how much you care?

Will you call on the Spirit for guidance
Will you ask that the cup might pass
Will you be alarmed by your feeling
That the moment is here at last?

Will you feel like a total coward
A child without his homework
Will the force of the question flatten you
Will you turn your head with a jerk.

Will you say ‘I don’t know him’
Will you deny him multiple times,
Will you say ‘I must be leaving’
When recognized, turn on a dime?

When all your learning fails you
And all your bravado too,
When you have no cup of courage
And you don’t know what to do,

Will the moment of truth unmask you
And reveal the imposter inside,
Are you really his true disciple,
Or are you just along for the ride?

In the moment of truth you find out
Just exactly where you are,
Either someone whole-heartedly committed
Or someone who hasn’t gone that far.

Are you flirting with being his follower
Without fully embracing his grace
And when the road gets bumpy
Are you wanting out of the race?

The moment of truth reveals all,
It gives you a progress report
As to whether the truth is within you
Or is it still something you court?

But the moment of truth need not define you
It’s not a final exam,
Even Peter’s denials didn’t end things,
“It need not decide who I am”

And when you see another failing
Fumbling, falling down,
Don’t turn away in scorn,
It could be you on the ground.

But for the grace of God,
We all would come up short
When the moment of truth comes calling,
Christian faith is no spectator sport.

March 10, 2009

BW3

THE NEW TESTAMENT IN ANTIQUITY-- A TEXTBOOK

2009-03-10T20:29:00.000-07:00

THE NEW TESTAMENT IN ANTIQUITY--- G.M. Burge, L.H. Cohick, G. L. Green (Zondervan 2009).

‘Of the making of Introductions to the New Testament, there is no end, and much reading is a weariness of the flesh’ but not all Introductions are created equal. This particular Introduction seeks to thoroughly place the New Testament within its Jewish and Greco-Roman cultural contexts, and this, it must be said, is a big improvement over most Evangelical Introductory texts, especially those of an earlier era. Thus, the authors are to be commended for putting a lot of work into this resource, which is visually alluring, quite readable and could be used either at the college or introductory seminary level. The authors, Gary Burge, Lynn Cohick, and Gene Green, all teach at Wheaton College in the Department of Biblical and Theological Studies.

All such Introductions have their pluses and minuses and this volume is no exception. Let us first mention the pluses: 1) the volume is well written and readable, avoiding a lot of technical terms and scholarly jargon; 2) the authors stick to areas with which they are most familiar and on which they have done research and writing. This brings some strengths to this volume that a single authored volume could not have, as no single person is an expert in all the New Testament; 3) the numerous pictures, maps, charts, and excursi are helpful, as are the two tiered bibliographies; 4) the quality of the production of this volume is high, with excellent binding and durable pages. This book is intended to be a reference volume and textbook for the long haul. 5) the book is of a manageable size (less than 500 pages of text), making it serviceable for a one semester course.
Now for some problems with this volume. Without question, most scholars, including many Evangelical scholars, will see this volume as reflecting either a pre-critical or overly conservative approach to the New Testament data when it comes to issues of authorship, date, audience, sources and the like. For example, the traditional view on the authorship of all the NT books is generally advocated (even when documents, such as the Gospels, are formally anonymous), though objections to these views are noted, and efforts are made to mitigate their force. Or again, the approach to the Synoptic Problem does not grasp the nettle and really wrestle with why 95% of Mark’s Gospel reappears in Matthew’s Gospels with over 50% exact verbal correspondence. As I tell my students, if I get two term papers and one of them contains 95% of the other one with over a 50% verbatim rate, I’m going to know there is some sort of literary relationship between these documents. In other words, this is a book for Evangelical Christian colleges, and will be less serviceable in other contexts where a better representation of the spectrum of opinion on such issues will be desired. Perhaps if one sees this as an Introductory text for Evangelical college students only some of this is understandable.

Secondly, there is a difference between looking at cultural data as ‘background’ material, and recognizing that one needs to wrestle with the interface between the context and the content of the New Testament. The text of the NT is an artifact, just as much as any other ancient archaeological object and it reflects the culture and conventions of its age. It is not just that the context illuminates the text, it is that the text emerges from, addresses, and reflects that context in its style, its rhetoric, its social conventions, and in a myriad of other ways. Helping the student come to grips with the need to learn about all of these ancient contexts, literary, social, rhetorical, philosophical, religious, theological is crucial. Here, a few more introductory and orienting essays would not have gone amiss to help with the integration. As it is, most of the integration is left to the students themselves.

Thirdly, I appreciate very much the fact that this text does indeed at least begin to expose the reader to the importance of Greco-Roman rhetoric for interpreting the New Testament, but unfortunately it doesn’t much treat the diverse use of rhetoric in the New Testament. Furthermore, the usual mistake is made on p. 104 in reading 1 Cor. 2.4 and 2 Cor. 10.10 as if Paul is disavowing the use of rhetoric or rhetorical skill, with the conclusion “Paul did not come to the city (in this case Corinth) as a rhetor to the city, but as a herald who proclaimed the message of Christ….” This is simply a misreading of the evidence, which fails to take into account that what Paul is disavowing is sophistic rhetoric, the rhetoric of the super-apostles, not the use of rhetoric in general (see the work of Bruce Winter on this point). The issue in 2 Cor.10.10 is not whether Paul used rhetoric or not, but his having an ethos problem--- there was some kind of physical impediment that caused Paul’s presentation in person in Corinth to be less persuasive and powerful than his letters. Galatians suggests he had an eye problem, not a surprise after the description of what happened to him on Damascus road. I could also have wished for more of the sort of primary source social data one finds in Craig Keener’s excellent Bible Background Commentary, but then one Introduction cannot be all things to all people, and it is a considerable achievement to be able to deal with both contextual material and the usual Prolegomena issues in the same textbook.

Despite some deficiencies and missteps this Introduction should become the Introduction of choice in Evangelical college circles. It has a wonderful visual component lacking in Keener’s volume, and while it is not as thorough as David de Silva’s fine Intro on Prolegomena issues, the visual component, in an age of visual learners, is now essential to reaching students and getting them into the text. The computer generation of students requires such stimuli.

These three fine scholars are to be commended for their hard work on this volume. I wish it a long and useful life reminding students that a Biblical text without a context is just a pretext for whatever one wants it to mean.

COLBERT TAKES ON ANTI-GUN LOBBY

2009-03-10T16:48:00.000-07:00

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Last Chance to see Last Chance Harvey

2009-03-10T11:41:00.000-07:00

Sometimes Christmas movies do better in the spring, and this is one such movie. Released on Christmas day, but still playing in some theaters (having taken in a modest $14 million), this movie keeps on percolating along, pleasing one audience after another. In a season of bad, mad, and sad movies, this one will bring a smile to your face, and perhaps as well a tear to your eyes.

Harvey Shine very believably played by Dustin Hoffman is a dying breed--- he is a jingle writer (think Barry Manilow before he had his first big hit-- 'Mandy'), and his boss (Richard Schiff, late of West Wing fame) is trying to tell him his career is over. Harvey is going to London for his daughter's wedding, and its going to be awkward, as Harvey's wife has remarried, and Harvey has hardly kept in proper touch with his daughter, never mind his ex-wife. He's been too busy writing jingles (though he longs to have been a good jazz pianist).

Enter fetching, though middle-aged, Kate Walker (Emma Thompson), who lives with her Mum, and has a job at Heathrow trying to interview people about their traveling experiences and why they are coming to London. This is no easy job, getting people to stop for such an interview. I would know. One time when I was twiddling my thumbs in the Sydney airport Down Under, I was sequestered by a relentless lady who needed to make her quota for the day. She was more than a little persistent.

Kate Walker is a woman tired of being disappointed by men, and a woman who finds it easy just settling for less than life's best for her, though she longs for love. Enter Harvey Shine who: 1) just learned he was fired; 2) went to his daughter's wedding and felt like a total fifth wheel, as his daughter asked her new step father to walk her down the aisle; and 3) he missed his flight back to New York to try and argue his way back into a job. That's a truly bad day, and as luck would have it, Kate is in the same bar at the airport, having a bad day of her own.

The romance that buds over the conversations they begin having in this bar progresses slowly, steadily, and you do not have the ridiculous scenario of them hopping right into bed before they know each other well. In other words, they do not become 'barely' acquainted whilst they are still barely acquainted, which is a good rule for one and all. In fact, we never get to the bedroom in this movie, and it is all the more touching, believable, and enjoyable for it. Hooray-- a movie that doesn't need to come on like a cheap date, too desperate to please.

I love the acting craft that both Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman (has he ever played a romantic lead before?) bring to films, and if there was nothing more to this brief (92 minutes) film, it would be well worth seeing for that reason alone. It is hard to find good romantic films for those over 30, but this is a fine one and well worth seeing. Skip Watchmen as far too violent, sadistic, nihilistic, and sexually explicit, and go see "Last Chance Harvey" instead of "Super Heroes who aren't and the Refugee from the Blue Man group".

This movie is actually about having a second or at least a last chance in life for romance. It does deal with the serious issue of broken families and the havoc divorce, abortion, and other such grave severings cause for the children of divorce. This is a low budget movie which will move you in various good ways, and if you love London like I do, you'll enjoy the scenery as well. Imagine that--- a movie that doesn't require car chases, bedroom scenes, action, action, action to entertain a person. Like Harvey, it may be a dying breed, but is worth a jingle if you have the time.

RESTORING HOPE IN A CRASHING ECONOMY

2009-03-10T07:18:00.000-07:00

I had originally planned to entitle this little series of essays ‘restoring hope during a crashing economy’, but in the end I decided the double entendre was worth keeping in these ambiguous times. With a profound grasp of the obvious, I am here to say today that America, and indeed the world economy that is dependent on the American economy, is in deep financial trouble, trouble which Christians have contributed to in various ways.

How so? Well, in the first place, most American Christians simply mirror the values of the larger culture or a significant subsection there of, when it comes to economics. They are full partakers of the consumer society, and believe in ’free market capitalism’ as opposed to ‘bad socialism’ and ‘protectionism’, at least until it gets them into financial hot water, and they begin to read the fine print.

As it turns out, even free market capitalism isn’t free and in various ways, it certainly isn’t democratic--- the means of production, the type of production and all related facets of business are controlled from the top down by owners, CEOS, boards and the like, rather than there being shared decision making between employers and employees, which would be a democratic method of producing goods. There is hardly anything democratic about the enormously hierarchial, dictatorial, and ruthless top down way big business is run in the United States. And there is no point in complaining about CEOs taking million dollar bonuses when a company is tanking if you have approved of the corporate structure and philosophy of business that undergirds paying top executives this sort of money in the first place. This is like crying wolf, when in fact you agreed for the wolf to be paid handsomely to guard the hen house in the first place!

Free market capitalism of course is a many splintered thing, which favors a survival of the fittest approach to economics. Not merely a supply and demand approach, a survival of the fittest approach. What do I mean? The so-called law of supply and demand is only one economic factor which controls the economy. This was perfectly obvious when what mainly precipitated last fall's crashing of the stock market (still in progress), was not ‘supply and demand’, but rather the lack of regulation allowing predator banks and loan agencies the chance of offering sub-prime mortgages to people who could not afford them, and whom the banks knew could not afford them, thus perpetuating America’s new status as a debtor nation.

And Christians have simply been complicit in this whole system of doing things--- buying the rhetoric that regulation and protectionism is all bad, and free market capitalism all good, when in fact this is far from true. They have also bought the rhetoric that they have a moral and patriotic obligation to consume, and so support the American economy. This, as we shall see is a yes and no proposition. No Christian should commit herself to live well beyond their means, just for the sake of helping prop up an ailing economy. There is no Christian basis for living a life of conspicuous consumption, much less of greed.

Sorry prosperity preachers, your well just dried up. This bulletin just in--- believing God for a financial miracle after you have lived in a financially irresponsible way is treating God as if he were an overly indulgent parent who would continue spoiling an already spoiled brat. And God is not going to honor that sort of flawed belief system, especially not when he has a compelling concern for the genuinely least, last, and lost in this world. So, let’s see if we can’t do a rewind here and begin to rethink things economic from a Christian point of view, rather than just baptizing the financial rhetoric of the political right or left, and calling it good.

PRINCIPLE ONE: THE EARTH IS THE LORD’S AND ALL THAT IS THEREIN

Christians ought to know that human beings ‘own’ nothing in this world, if we are talking about the ultimate owner of things. This is God’s world, and it belongs to God. He has given it to us to be good stewards of, not owners. We brought nothing with us into this world, and we shall not be able to take any of it with us. If you know your history of economics, in the last 2,000 Christians have lived through all sorts of economic trials and tribulations and systems, no one of which was ‘specifically’ Christian, though it is clear enough that some systems are less Christian than others (e.g. totalitarian dictatorial systems, including totalitarian communism seems much more at odds with Christianity and its values than some other economic systems).

Since Christians are merely stewards of God’s property, they are always ultimately accountable to God for what they do with it (see the parable of the talents). God expects responsible stewardship out of us, in fact God expects “a good return on his investment in us”. The recognition that the earth is the Lord’s must cut against either godless capitalism’s or godless communism’s basic assumptions— there is no such thing as purely private property from a Christian point of view, any more than there is any such thing as governmentally owned and controlled property either. It all belongs to God!

PRINCIPLE TWO: DAILY BREAD IS NOT DAILY BLING

The Lord’s prayer is very basic, and as part of the Sermon on the Mount it reinforces the values of sticking to the basics. If you have decent food, shelter, and clothing, you should not be longing for more, and more and more, nor should you be worrying about such things. It is noteworthy that in the Lord’s prayer we are encouraged to pray for daily bread. ‘Godliness with contentment is great gain’ says the Scriptures. Christians are called in this culture to de-enculturate themselves and live a life of unfettered simplicity. In most cases, it is precisely because so many Christians have bought the lie that it is o.k. to live well beyond their means, participating in ‘debtor nation’, that they find themselves in so much economic trouble now. Tear up most all your credit cards, pay off your bills, and start living frugally. God is not a venture capitalist who rewards Christians behaving badly.

PRINCIPLE THREE: A WORKMAN IS WORTHY OF HIS HIRE AND LET HIM WHO WILL NOT WORK, NOT EAT

Both of these principles are fundamental to what the Lord is calling us to when it comes to ‘making a living’--- a very odd phrase indeed, which seems to usually mean in this country ‘making a killing’. There is an integrity to good hard work, and a worker should be paid a living wage to do it. The basic definition of a living wage is providing basic food, shelter, clothing, and health coverage at a minimum.

Christians who hire people and then pay them less than the minimum wage for full time work are not merely breaking the law, they are breaking their covenant with God to follow his principles of treating workers fairly, indeed treating them with respect and kindness (see the parable of the day laborers and how the vineyard owner gave even those who worked an hour a full day’s wage because their families needed it to survive).

The other side of employer ethics is employee ethics. There is plenty in the Bible that heavily criticizes the sloth, the sluggard, the slacker, and in general the lazy person. Paul puts it this way, each one should carry his own load, to the degree he can, and when he cannot we should all pitch in and bear one another's burdens. Work, is not the curse, toilsomeness in work is the curse according to the Genesis story.

PRINCIPLE FOUR: THE PURPOSE OF HARD WORK IS TO SAVE ALL WE CAN, SO WE CAN ALSO GIVE ALL WE CAN

The reason Christians should work hard is not merely so they can ‘get ahead’ or ‘pay off their debts’, though these are good reasons, but so they can save some money for an uncertain future, and so they can be generous in helping others in the future--- living self-sacrificially.

As John Wesley once stresses “the person who makes all they can, without both saving and giving all they can may be a living person, but they are a dead Christian”. By this he meant, that we are called to follow the self-sacrificial example of Christ, not the self-indulgent example of Donald Trump, Bernie Madoff (with the loot), prosperity preachers, and in general all those consumed with consumption. We live in a self-centered culture and so it requires conscious effort and activity to swim against the cultural flow.

Paul sets a good example when he says “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and all situations, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or want. I can endure all things through Him who strengthens me.” (Phil. 4.11-12—noting the proper translation of the ‘superman verse’ vs. 12 which literally reads “I am able…. all things”. The context suggests we must fill in the blank with the word ‘endure’ not ‘do’).

If one will begin to live on the basis of these principles one can begin to find one’s way out of the economic wasteland we find ourselves in. We must live within our means, and having said that, we need to drastically downscale our expectations about our lifestyles. We are not called to lifestyles of conspicuous consumption or lifestyles of the rich and famous. Those lifestyles are not Christian, they are just fallen people behaving badly.

In the second part of this post we will talk about how trust and hope are in fact the basis of any sound Christian approach to economics---but those in whom we invest our trust must be truly trustworthy……Do you know who is and isn’t trustworthy these days?

ART AS WORK, WORKS OF ART

2009-03-07T12:40:00.000-08:00

[THE FOLLOWING IS A SMALL EXCERPT FROM MY LITTLE BOOK ON WORK IN THE LIGHT OF KINGDOM COME] BW3

I would like to conclude this discussion about what God calls, gifts, and inspires us to do by talking briefly about a particular profession that Christians need to think better of--- the vocation of artist or artisan. Here is not the place to present a theology of art and its value and place in the Christian tradition, but rather I want to present a brief case for being an artist as a proper way to glorify God and edify others.

But perhaps a word is in order first about God as an artist. We can see this just by looking at the stunning beauty of creation, but as it turns out God is not just a ‘visual’ artist, God is both an inspirer of, but also a composer, of music, as Robert Banks points out. So for instance God tells the Israelite leaders in Deut. 31.19 “write down this song and teach it to the Israelites, and have them sing it.” In fact there is a direct connection made between God giving verbal wisdom to someone and God inspiring song in 1 Kngs. 4. 32—“God gave Solomon wisdom…he spoke 3,000 proverbs and his songs numbered 1,005.” The precise number of the latter suggests someone took a specific count of the number of times the King was inspired and given lyrics this way.

God however is not just heavenly source of inspiration. God is a blues singer. Thus in Jeremiah we hear ‘Therefore I wail over Moab…my heart laments for Moab like a flute…” (Jerm. 48.31-36), but he also sings joyful anthems and ballads “The Lord your God is with you…he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.’ (Zephan.3.14,17). God doesn’t just sing morning music however, he also sings night music—“By the day the Lord directs his love, and at night his song is with me…” (Ps. 42.8). No wonder the natural response to God, is music of all sorts, for God is not merely the inspirer of all sorts of music, God embodies and shares all sorts of music.

Robert Banks puts it this way:

Just as love is not only directed to or expressed by God, since God, as the apostle John says, is love, so is God not only the one who inspires and enjoys music, but also is music and song. This makes God the supreme exemplar, as well as the supreme author and audience, of music. This makes God music’s chief patron, which is why making music ‘to the glory of God’ is so fitting. It is only giving back to what God has given in the first place. It is only recognizing that the musical dimension of life, like the orderly character of the universe, ultimately stems from the musical character of God. In the end we make music not simply because God gives us the capacity to do so or appreciates our making it, but because God is inherently musical.

The problem is America is a very pragmatic culture. Many Americans believe that if something doesn’t serve some obvious utilitarian purpose, or is practical, then it should be seen as superfluous at a minimum, and certainly optional. That sort of practical bent can be seen in some of our famous American quotations. Thomas Edison is credited with once saying that ‘genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration’. Or consider the words of Colleen C. Barrett who argues ‘when it comes to getting things done, we need fewer architects and more bricklayers.’ Without disparaging either of these persons, or the profession of bricklaying, I would suggest that some of the most important work anyone could do is work that moves one to be a better person, inspires one to think about the relationship of truth and beauty and goodness, motivates one to do a better job of glorifying God. And art fills the bill in all of those categories.

It is an old Latin aphorism--- ‘art is long, life short’ ('ars longa, vita brevis'). Rembrandt may be long since gathering dust in his grave, but his enormous painting of the Prodigal Son is alive and well on a gigantic wall in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. I know because I have spent some hours sitting in front of this gigantic painting contemplating its meaning, point of view, nuances. Rembrandt’s art lives on and continues to speak for him and to us. Great art, like great architecture, continues to inspire and motivate us to be creative, which, after all, was part of the prime mandate God gave Adam in the first place.

Unfortunately in a workaholic culture that places an inordinate stress on math and the sciences to the considerable neglect of the arts, art is seen as an added extra, it is seen as not having a practical function. Painting for example is not seen as a real profession, unless one is painting the walls of one’s house! Colleen Barrett in the quote above expresses something of this attitude, as does Thomas Edison. They fail to notice that without vision the people perish, their souls shrivel up.

Human beings created in the image of God were called to be creators, makers, artisans, not merely doers of just any task that someone is prepared to remunerate. I would remind you that the so-called oldest paid profession on earth which has always made lots of money is prostitution! It does not follow from that, that in the pursuit of the Almighty dollar it would be a wise thing to prostitute ourselves, or sell our birthrights for a bowl of soup. We are created in the image of God the ultimately creative one. The question is--- what should we do about it?
It was not always the case in America that arts and languages (the vehicles to other cultures) were treated as non-essential when it comes to basic education. I began playing in an orchestra in the third grade, took Spanish in elementary school and Latin in junior high, and we all learned the arts along the way. Not so much any more. We now have schools called math and science high schools, as if other subjects were so clearly of less importance! And indeed the whole attitude of the culture has been changed from our being truth seekers to being job seekers. In interview after interview college freshman explain that they are taking this or that course, this or that major so “I can get a good paying job when I get out”. The cost of such pragmatism is that one is in danger of gaining the whole world and losing one’s soul in the process.

I love to go to the Lands of the Bible and look at some of the magnificent creations wrought in earlier ages. Some of the immaculately wrought sculptures of Praxiteles for example always move me. I ask myself—how have we lost so many of these incredible skills in the arts over the ages? Who could produce Michelangelo’s Pietas today?

Sometimes when I worry about the lose of artisan skills and artistic contributions to our world, I take comfort when I read the story of Bezalel and Oholiab If you’ve never heard these names before it is perhaps because no one has pointed out to you that being an artist or artisan is a Biblical calling or vocation. Consider then Exodus 31.1-5:

1 Then the LORD said to Moses, 2 "See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, 3 and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts- 4 to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, 5 to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of craftsmanship. 6 Moreover, I have appointed Oholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, to help him. Also I have given skill to all the craftsmen to make everything I have commanded you: 7 the Tent of Meeting, the ark of the Testimony with the atonement cover on it, and all the other furnishings of the tent- 8 the table and its articles, the pure gold lampstand and all its accessories, the altar of incense, 9 the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils, the basin with its stand- 10 and also the woven garments, both the sacred garments for Aaron the priest and the garments for his sons when they serve as priests, 11 and the anointing oil and fragrant incense for the Holy Place. They are to make them just as I commanded you."

Bezalel was called to the vocation of being an artist and an artisan, and notice how God equipped him. He filled him with his spirit, which gave him not just ability but intelligence and not just intelligence but the knowledge he needed, and not just knowledge but “all craftsmanship”. His vocation is described as follows--- “to device artistic designs, working in gold, silver, and bronze as well as in precious stones, and in carving wood, and if that were not enough, “to work in every craft”. This is one multi-talented artist and artisan, a Michelangelo of his day. But Bezalel was not called to use his craft and knowledge for just any task, he was assigned to make the tent of meeting, the ark of Testimony including the mercy seat or atonement cover, and all other furnishing of the tent of meeting—the gold lampstand, the incense altar, the basin, all the utensils, not to mention the woven garments to be worn by the priests, including Aaron and his sons. Oh yes, he was also to produce the anointing oil and fragrant incense for the tent as well. After this last work order I am imagining Bezalel saying “holy smokes!”. His was the honor of constructing and furnishing the dwelling place of God, and notice that he was not encouraged to use cheap materials, or to go out and buy a trailer made out of pressboard and use it as a tabernacle. No, he was called to use the most precious metals and materials, in order to honor God.

It is interesting, as Gene Veith points out that Bezalel is the very first person in the Bible to be said to be filled with God’s Spirit. We are being told that he is inspired, enlightened, enabled to be an artist! This brings up an important point. Sometimes Christians, especially frugal ones, think that the creating of elaborate, beautiful works of art, worth lots of money, is itself either a waste of money, or at least not good stewardship, if it is not simply sinful altogether. What this story suggests is just the opposite. The believer should give their very best to God, and indeed it is not a sin to construct beautiful art objects or a beautiful building to the glory of God, which is precisely what is going on in this story. The story of work begins with a gardener named Adam, but the first ‘inspired’ worker in the Bible is an artist and artisan, and we would do well to ponder the implications of that fact. Perhaps creativity, including the arts is the quintessential way the image of God can mirror the Creator God himself?

Friedrich Schiller, the great German poet, once said that the path to freedom lies through beauty. It must be said that there is some connection between beauty and freedom. I was in the Norman Rockwell museum recently in Rutland Vermont and one of his most famous paintings was hanging on the left hand wall. It is a painting of the entrance way of a large Gothic cathedral in some major American city, perhaps Rockwell’s home town, New York. One of the workers in the cathedral is standing on a ladder and changing the sign that hovers over the entrance way doors, announcing this week’s sermon. The sermon title is “Lift up your Eyes”. But on the street below, are the commuters, all heads down, scurrying towards their morning jobs.
What a great parable of a workaholic culture, without the time or sense to look up, and see the beauty of things that God and his creatures have made. I cannot speak for others, but good art does raise my vision of what the world is and can be. It gives me hope that human beings can live by the better angels of their natures, and not by the demons that drive them, if they will but be transformed by grace.

Perhaps by catching a glimpse in art of something better, something bigger than they had yet contemplated aesthetics can have an ethical effect on us. And in at least one sense Schiller was right--- by being transfixed by the beauty of Christ, we are transfigured, and set free. Paul puts it this way--- “And we all, who with unveiled face contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with every increasing glory” (2 Cor. 3.18). When we lift up our eyes, and behold true beauty, then in some sense we become what we admire, we become works of the great artisan, the great sculptor of human personality—Christ. And if the Son has set you free to be a work of art, to be your best self, you are free indeed.

BISHOPS CALLS FOR HI TECH FAST FROM CHIPS AND BYTES

2009-03-07T05:19:00.000-08:00

Cardinal explaining to Pope where he can hook up his Ipod in the Pope Mobile

In a move bound to cause controversy with the young, Italian Catholic bishops have called for a high-tech fast during Lent, calling the faithful to abstain from Ipods, MP3 players, surfing the Net, and yes, gulp, fast Italian cars. The Diocese of Modena has in addition called for a ban on text messaging every Friday (but how will your friends know where to meet you for your fish dinner). The Modena diocese released a brief statement saying that the point of all this is "its a small way to remember the importance of concrete rather than virtual relationships". I guess the point is moot if you have no relationships with concrete :)

The Turin diocese has called for the faithful to fast from TV during Lent, and in Trento the diocese has called for the faithful to ride a bike, take the bus, and turn off the Ipods, enjoying the silence. And you may ask--- where can you find these appeals to abstain from the Net and Ipods and the like. Well, I am glad you asked--- on the Diocesan websites of course! Meanwhile in January the Vatican launched its own YouTube channel with Pope Benedict welcoming everyone to this "great family without borders". Benedict XVI in fact praised social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace in helping people forge friendships.

After these mixed messages, the faihtful including some clergy have reacted cautiously to these Lenten requests. Stay tuned for the Easter message which will urge the faithful to rise up and text everyone you know that "Christos aneste!"

MUSICAL NIRVANA

2009-03-06T06:10:00.000-08:00

So I get back from Houston, and don't even change clothes, 'cause me and the Missus are heading to Danville Kentucky (not to be confused with Danville, Va.) to see The New York Philharmonic at Centre College. This is probably the only time since the time of Dan'l Boone, which is to say, the only time, they have ever played in the Bluegrass of central Kentucky. And they were MAGNIFICENT (to borrow a title to a new U2 song)! They played standard classics-- Berlioz's Roman Carnival, Schumann's moving 4th Symphony, and the piece d'resistance--- Mussorsky's fabulous Pictures at an Exhibition (which contrary to popular belief was not written and first performed by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer). Then there were two encores... and the Norton Center was rockin'--- all standing ovations. The sound was crystal clear, and we sat 15 feet from the stage....... WOW. Everytime I hear a symphony like this it reminds me that we need to reflect a lot more on the relationship of the following things--- beauty, truth, passion, love. There have been those who have said beauty is truth-- unfortunately we know this is not true. We've all seen visually beautiful things and persons that were far from true. But on the other hand truth is not always pretty either (e.g. the cross). But most of all a symphony reminds me of the incredible harmony amidst diversity we find not only in the universe but also in the New Testament. More on this, in the first volume of my The Indelible Image.

And just when I thought it couldn't get any better, then I turn on GMA this morning, and there are the 4 last men standing from the original rock revolution--- U2 playing live on the quad at Fordham, while some nervous Catholic Fathers were looking on. And they also, in their own way were Magnificent, though in terms of musical ability and complexity they couldn't hold a candle to the NYP. In a sense, I realized I was watching the end of an era in both cases. Loren Mazael (see above)is retiring as director and conductor of the NYP, and is on his victory lap tour now. Whilst we don't know how long U2 will go on, it is clear that the future of rock n' roll is very much in doubt if we are talking about rock n' roll having mass appeal. So this morning at Fordham we had mass appeal, after which the Fathers had a Mass Appeal. Fitting.

I'm hoping for a day kind of like this last one when Jesus decides its time for me to check out..... sing and play me into the pearly gates. Of course, for my sins St. Peter may put me in the Polka time out part of heaven for a while when I get there instead of letting me straight into the heavenly choir. :)

Oh yes, and one more thing I forgot to mention-- God as it turns out is a musician. Here is a little passage from my forthcoming book on Work....

"Perhaps a word is in order first about God as an artist. Of course we can see this just by looking at the stunning beauty of creation, but as it turns out God is not just a ‘visual’ artist,

God is both an inspirer of, but also a composer, of music, as Robert Banks points out.

So for instance God tells the Israelite leaders in Deut. 31.19 “write down this song and teach it to the Israelites, and have them sing it.” In fact there is a direct connection made between God giving verbal wisdom to someone and God inspiring song in 1 Kngs. 4. 32—“God gave Solomon wisdom…he spoke 3,000 proverbs and his songs numbered 1,005.” The precise number of the latter suggests someone took a specific count of the number of times the King was inspired and given lyrics this way.

God however is not just heavenly source of inspiration. God is a blues singer. Thus in Jeremiah we hear ‘Therefore I wail over Moab…my heart laments for Moab like a flute…” (Jerm. 48.31-36), but he also sings joyful anthems and ballads “The Lord your God is with you…he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.’ (Zephan.3.14,17). God doesn’t just sing morning music however, he also sings night music—“By the day the Lord directs his love, and at night his song is with me…” (Ps. 42.8). No wonder the natural response to God, is music of all sorts, for God is not merely the inspirer of all sorts of music, God embodies and shares all sorts of music.

Robert Banks puts it this way:

"Just as love is not only directed to or expressed by God, since God, as the apostle John says, is love, so is God not only the one who inspires and enjoys music, but also is music and song. This makes God the supreme exemplar, as well as the supreme author and audience, of music. This makes God music’s chief patron, which is why making music ‘to the glory of God’ is so fitting. It is only giving back to what God has given in the first place. It is only recognizing that the musical dimension of life, like the orderly character of the universe, ultimately stems from the musical character of God. In the end we make music not simply because God gives us the capacity to do so or appreciates our making it, but because God is inherently musical."

WORD TO THE TONE DEAF: ARE YOU TUNING UP FOR ETERNITY?

HUMAN BEHAVIOR FINALLY EXPLAINED

2009-03-05T13:15:00.001-08:00

THE STORY OF LIFE

On the first day, God created the dog and said:

'Sit all day by the door of your house and bark at anyone who comes in
or walks past. For this, I will give you a life span of twenty years.'

The dog said: 'That's a long time to be barking. How about only ten
years and I'll give you back the other ten?'
So God agreed.

On the second day, God created the monkey and said:
'Entertain people, do tricks, and make them laugh. For this, I'll give
you a twenty-year life span.'

The monkey said: 'Monkey tricks for twenty years? That's a pretty long time
to perform. How about I give you back ten like the Dog did?'
And God agreed.

On the third day, God created the cow and said:
'You must go into the field with the farmer all day long and suffer
under the sun, have calves and give milk to support the farmer's family. For
this, I will give you a life span of sixty years.'

The cow said: 'That's kind of a tough life you want me to live for
sixty years. How about twenty and I'll give back the other forty?'
And God agreed again.

On the fourth day, God created man and said:
'Eat, sleep, play, marry and enjoy your life. For this, I'll give you
twenty years.'

But man said: 'Only twenty years? Could you possibly give me my
twenty, the forty the cow gave back, the ten the monkey gave back, and the ten
the dog gave back; that makes eighty, okay?'
'Okay,' said God, 'You asked for it.'

So that is why... for our first twenty years we eat, sleep, play and enjoy
ourselves. For the next forty years we slave in the sun to support our
family. For the next ten years we do monkey tricks to entertain the
grandchildren. And for the last ten years we sit on the front porch and
bark at everyone.

Kudos to Jim Horn for this celestial wisdom :) BW3

HOUSTON-- WE HAVE A LECTURE

2009-03-03T09:18:00.000-08:00

I will be lecturing Wednesday Night at 7 p.m. at St. Thomas University in Houston, and all ya'll who are in range are welcome to come. This lecture is the first in the series in honor of the year of St. Paul, and will be on "Paul-- Oral Texts and Rhetorical Contexts"

BW3

When Things Get Squirrelly at Church or Synagogue

2009-03-02T14:43:00.000-08:00

There were four country churches and a synagogue in a small TEXAS town:

The Presbyterian Church, the Baptist Church, the Methodist Church , the Catholic Church and the Jewish Synagogue.

Each Church and Synagogue was overrun with pesky squirrels.

One day, the Presbyterian Church called a meeting to decide what to do about the squirrels.

After much prayer and consideration they determined that the squirrels were predestined to be there and the church shouldn't interfere with God's divine will.

In the BAPTIST CHURCH, the squirrels had taken up habitation in the baptistery. The deacons met and decided to put a cover on the baptistry and drown the squirrels in it. The squirrels escaped somehow, and there were twice as many there the next week.

The Methodist Church got together and decided that they were not in a position to harm any of God's creation. So, they humanely trapped the Squirrels and set them free a few miles outside of town. Three days later, the squirrels were back.

But, the Catholic CHURCH came up with the best, and most effective, solution.

They baptized the squirrels and registered them as members of the Church.

Now they only see them on Christmas and Easter

Not much was heard about the Jewish Synagogue,
but they took one squirrel and had a short service with him called circumcision, and they haven't seen a squirrel on the property since.

P.S. Can you identify the South Florida squirrel in one of the three pictures above?

A shout out to my sister in Jacksonville for this one. BW3

GUITAR HERO 'RIFF OFFS'-- YOU GET TO VOTE

2009-03-01T16:39:00.001-08:00

It is not often you get to compare great guitarists shredding the very same song, but here is one that may make you give up your guitar playing forever, or inspire it, one or the other.

What we have here is three great guitarists-- Larry Carlton (Steely Dan, Foreplay, Joni Mitchell among many other venues), Lee Ritenour (Captain Fingers himself, also in Foreplay among other venues), and Steve Lukather (Toto of course). Lukather of course is strictly a rock guitarist, and it shows, where as the other two have done both jazz and rock and pop, and you name it. The other interesting thing is that both Lukather and Carlton are Christians, and Lukather looks to Carlton as a mentor, not merely in guitar playing it would appear. You can vote for your favorite version of this Carlton classic--- Room 335. Enjoy BW3

LIFESTYLES OF THE AMERICAN OBESE-- ITS PAST TIME TO THINK ABOUT OUR PASTIMES

2009-02-28T12:14:00.000-08:00

It’s Lent and time to think about the things we should be repenting of. Of course too often we think in the narrow terms of sins with a capital S that we ought to abstain from, but in this post I am thinking about ordinary things which are not sins in themselves which nonetheless require some serious Christian critiquing as they become sins when done to excess. I am currently writing a book on work from a Christian perspective and it has been sobering and depressing doing the research on work and pastimes in America.

When we are not busy working, guess what our two favorite national pastimes are to pass the time--- TV watching and shopping, and of course the one feeds the other. The average American adult spends two years of their life watching commercials!!! No wonder we do so much shopping. For those born after 1980 however a slightly different form of pastime seems to have emerged--- spending time on the computer or cell phone… and shopping. With TV watching one can be completely passive, but texting or calling or doing things on the computer of course require a modicum of activity, but it is only a modicum. It is not a surprise that Americans are increasingly obese.

We do not generally spend our leisure time in something that could actually be called physical activity, much less exercise. And then there is the problem of the food we eat, in response to the stimulus of advertising--- fast food or junk food which only reinforces the disastrous cycle of passivity, inactivity, binge eating of bad food, followed by a spate of work. Of course the medical industry and the insurance industry has had an increase in business as a result of this disastrous turning away from good food and good exercise as well as good work. But I would hardly call that a good thing. America has the worst infant mortality rate of any developed nation, and the lowest average life expectancy, even though we have probably the best doctors, medicines and hospitals in the world. And it is all our own fault.

One of the most depressing things I have done in recent years is attend the Southern Baptist Convention in Greensboro N.C. It was not depressing because it was the Southern Baptist Convention as those folks were gracious enough hosts and good Christian people. No, it was depressing because I got to see up close and personal the devastation of what obesity has done to southern ministers, their spouses and also leading southern lay persons. Though I certainly did not take a head count or do a scientific survey it was clear from scanning the audience on repeated occasion that at least 70% of the audience was overweight, and at least 50% was considerably overweight, with perhaps 30% of that group being to the point of morbid obesity. It was simply depressing. Very depressing. And before you remind me that some of obesity is hereditary, which is true in a distinct minority of cases, I would suggest you go spend time in an African country other than South Africa and see how many obese people you run into--- its only a tiny percentage of the population. This is not because they have better heredity! Heredity is not an excuse in the vast majority of cases.

Obesity is a horrible Christian witness to a culture already known for its conspicuous consumption, and its TV shows like ‘The Biggest Loser’ where we actually watch the death struggle of grossly overweight people as they try to get down to a manageable size. It is clear that here in the South we have entirely forgotten that gluttony is a sin, not to mention it is a further sin when we throw away enough food every day to feed various whole small countries. America consumes over 70% of the world’s consumable goods, but it amounts to only 310 million out of six billion people in the world! Sometimes the numbers do tell a story, so here are some U.S. numbers worth pondering as we head for the 2010 census—

Total population-- 303,824,640 (July 2008 est.)
Age structure:

0-14 years: 20.1% (male 31,257,108/female 29,889,645)
15-64 years: 67.1% (male 101,825,901/female 102,161,823)
65 years and over: 12.7% (male 16,263,255/female 22,426,914) (2008 est.)
Median age:

total: 36.7 years
male: 35.4 years
female: 38.1 years (2008 est.)
Population growth rate:

0.883% (2008 est.)
Birth rate:

14.18 births/1,000 population (2008 est.)
Death rate:

8.27 deaths/1,000 population (2008 est.)
Net migration rate:

2.92 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2008 est.)
Sex ratio:

at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.05 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 1 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.72 male(s)/female
total population: 0.97 male(s)/female (2008 est.)
Infant mortality rate:

total: 6.3 deaths/1,000 live births
male: 6.95 deaths/1,000 live births
female: 5.62 deaths/1,000 live births (2008 est.)
Life expectancy at birth:

total population: 78.14 years
male: 75.29 years
female: 81.13 years (2008 est.)
Total fertility rate:

2.1 children born/woman (2008 est.)
HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate:

0.6% (2003 est.)
HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS:

950,000 (2003 est.)
HIV/AIDS - deaths:

17,011 (2005 est.)
Nationality:

noun: American(s)
adjective: American
Ethnic groups:

white 79.96%, black 12.85%, Asian 4.43%, Amerindian and Alaska native 0.97%, native Hawaiian and other Pacific islander 0.18%, two or more races 1.61% (July 2007 estimate)
note: a separate listing for Hispanic is not included because the US Census Bureau considers Hispanic to mean a person of Latin American descent (including persons of Cuban, Mexican, or Puerto Rican origin) living in the US who may be of any race or ethnic group (white, black, Asian, etc.); about 15.1% of the total US population is Hispanic
Religions:

Protestant 51.3%, Roman Catholic 23.9%, Mormon 1.7%, other Christian 1.6%, Jewish 1.7%, Buddhist 0.7%, Muslim 0.6%, other or unspecified 2.5%, unaffiliated 12.1%, none 4% (2007 est.)
Languages:

English 82.1%, Spanish 10.7%, other Indo-European 3.8%, Asian and Pacific island 2.7%, other 0.7% (2000 census)
note: Hawaiian is an official language in the state of Hawaii
Literacy:

definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 99%
male: 99%
female: 99% (2003 est.)
School life expectancy (primary to tertiary education):

total: 16 years
male: 15 years
female: 16 years (2006)
Education expenditures:

5.3% of GDP (2005)
Two things stand out to me from these numbers: 1) we spend less on education than any other industrialized nation; 2) we spend more on health care than any other industrialized nation, and yet our life expectancy and infant mortality rate is poor compared to other developed nations, and even compared to some third world nations.

In my view Christians could do something about this, if they cared to, by bearing witness to their culture by living a healthier lifestyle. Diet, exercise, and meaningful work that glorifies God and edifies other human beings is what we should strive for.

Maybe its time to stop eating so much of the Gospel bird at our church potluck dinners—by which I mean Southern Fried Chicken ya’ll. Too many of us are living to eat, rather than eating to live, and while what we consume may not make us ‘unclean’ (see Mk. 7 and what Jesus says), it can certainly make us unhealthy, unhelpful, and unproductive.

Let’s not be like the famous story about Oscar Wilde, who was noted for his lethargy and lavish lifestyle. When he was asked if he would like a bon bon at a London party with the words “Can I tempt you with a bon bon, Mr. Wilde?” His response was “Madam, I can resist anything but temptation.” On another occasion he was asked by a reporter—“Sir what do you do when the temptation to exercise comes upon you?” His retort was “I lie down until the temptation passes.” Oscar Wilde is not a role model for Christians in America, and its time we realized it.

'CITY LIGHTS'-- A LITTLE FRIDAY NIGHT MUSIC PLEASE!

2009-02-27T18:35:00.000-08:00

Nelson Rangell is without question one of the most talented of all the so-called smooth jazz reed players, in addition to which he is a world-class flute and piccolo player as well. His sax playing is straight out of the David Sanborn school of smooth as this little night time number will attest--- enjoy. BW3