Circular reasoning

Tolerance and diversity, that is, can never of themselves produce tolerance and diversity or work as centrally organizing conceptions or principles precisely because they cannot of their own conceptual resources answer the questions, what will we not tolerate? what kind of diversity is unacceptable? Answering these questions invariably requires recourse to a more comprehensive pattern of thought, one in which tolerance and diversity receive meaning and explication.—World Upside Down, page 166

Praxis counts

Disciples benefit from the servant-Jesus’ death as cleansing from sin and imitate it as loving care for others. Both Jesus and John see these two aspects of his death as inherently inseparable. The gift is also demand. There is no cleansing without discipleship, no vertical relationship without horizontal relationships, no atonement without ethics..— The Death of the Messiah and the Birth of the New Covenant, page 46 (emphasis original)

A high calling

So the gate is not just a mild association with Jesus or some kind of general affiliation, but a radical commitment to Jesus as the one who is King and Lord who shapes all of life for us.— Sermon on the Mount, page 261

How did you get there?

I firmly believe that if you are where you are now because of your ingenuity and maneuvering, you are probably not where God wants you to be. The call of God is a divine moment that is impossible to replicate.—A.W. Tozer, Voice of a Prophet, page 111

Inconsistent

It is one of the peculiarities of biblical text criticism that we will emend the ancient level of the text while holding the medieval level sacrosanct.—HBCE Proverbs, page 21

<idle musing>
I dunno; it struck me as funny...
</idle musing>

Final proofs!

I received the final proofs last night for HBCE Proverbs! I have 4 days to turn them around and get them back...

That means it should be published in the next month or so.

She's having babies!

Although the number of the first two verb forms are somewhat lost behind the dab (ṣabātu) and us2 (redû) logograms, it is clear that the noun māmūt is singular. She is the active agent. She seizes and pursues. In the next line however one verb is written syllabically, ušaḫḫaḫū, a D durative from šaḫāḫu, a masculine plural verb. The tense of the second verb GUB- zu, izuzzu, is more difficult to place. It could be a G preterite or durative, although the latter is most likely. Even so, the syllabic complement -zu clearly indicates that it too is a plural, izzazzū. Here, māmītu has become “pluralized,” so to speak; she is now the leader of a pack of beings that consume flesh and stand ready to “cut off” life. Once released, māmītu multiplies and spreads. She readily expands into a variety of ills so that, by the time she reaches the victim, she has become a collective. At this point, māmītu and her nameless minions have become nothing other than the harbingers of death itself.— Cursed Are You!, pages 180-181

<idle musing>
That's part of the scariness of curses; they multiply and have babies! Faster than mice or rabbits! They become a screaming mob that brings death and disaster to their victims—and yes, grammar matters!

Are you beginning to understand why those who could afford it had professionals watching out for them? The kings had legions of scribes reading the entrails (guts) of the sacrificial animals, watching the skies, listening for strange portents. All in an attempt to turn away curses and keep the gods happy.

The common person couldn't afford that, so they hoped they could keep their personal god (lamassu) happy and avoid the attention of the greater gods.

Totally different world from a benevolent God, isn't it? (And understand the significance of the singular—God, not gods...)
</idle musing>

A word to the wise

In practice—and in principle—ancient polytheism cannot be read as religiously systemic tolerance; to do so is to engage in political fantasy.—World Upside Down, page 165

<idle musing>
He isn't afraid to step on toes, is he? But he's correct...that's why Christianity couldn't be tolerated. It tore the fabric of polytheism apart at the foundations...
</idle musing>

Renewed covenant

The forgiveness of sins is certainly important; it is an integral sign of the new exodus and new covenant. But forgiveness is only part of the larger purpose of God in the Messiah’s suffering and death; the larger purpose is to create a new people who will both be and bear universal witness to the new covenant—which is really a (re)new(ed) covenant—that means salvation for all.— The Death of the Messiah and the Birth of the New Covenant, page 39

<idle musing>
I'm still trying to digest the ramifications of what he is saying...probably a life-long process!
</idle musing>

The law of double love

Jesus himself was law observant, but what distinguished his praxis was that he did so through the law of double love. To do the Torah through love is to do all the Torah says and more.— Sermon on the Mount, page 249

<idle musing>
I like that. The "law of double love."
</idle musing>

The wind blows where it wishes

God takes that which is nothing and makes it something. People who always know where they are going are not following the Lord, because He cannot be predicted quite so perfectly as that.—A.W. Tozer, Voice of a Prophet, page 106

A radical call

The call to cruciform discipleship is, in fact, a call to covenant faithfulness, a summons to embody, simultaneously, the two tables of the Law. we see this clearly in the story of the encounter of Jesus with the man who wanted to know what he had to do to “inherit eternal life” (10:17–22, shortly before the third passion prediction). After Jesus replies with a recitation of the requirements of the second table of the Law and the man claims his compliance with them from his youth (10:19–20), Jesus informs him that he lacks one thing, and that to fulfill that one thing the man must sell his possessions, give the proceeds to the poor, and follow Jesus (10:21). The promise that the man would thereafter “have treasure in heaven” suggests that the thing he lacks, and will now gain, has something to do with his relationship with heaven, with God, and therefore with the first table of the Law. The fulfillment of that table takes place by following Jesus, as if Jesus functions in the role of God, the proper focus of life’s commitments and direction. At the same time, this radical love for God is not separated from love for others; in fact, the two are inextricably interconnected, as giving to the poor and having treasure in heaven are here two sides of the same coin of discipleship. In fact, we could say that following Jesus is the way to simultaneously fulfill—really fulfill—both tables of the Law: love of neighbor, especially the poor, and love of God.— The Death of the Messiah and the Birth of the New Covenant, page 34

It's complicated

The polytheistic world of Mesopotamia and Anatolia put its inhabitants at a great disadvantage when it came to managing curses. With so many deities to prevail on, any means of circumventing and/or undoing a malediction would have been arduous. With this in mind, we might consider the possibility that the development of elaborate ceremonies such as the Akkadian ritual series Šurpu arose in response to such situations. Because the victim of an activated malediction may not know the precise circumstances surrounding the violation of a conditional curse (māmītu), the Šurpu ritual coped with the predicament by naming every possible divine agent, situation, and method associated with a māmītu. Without the identity of the initiating divine agent, undoing the effects of a māmītu or any curse could only be onerous and extremely complicated.— Cursed Are You!, page 173

<idle musing>
Indeed! If you ever read some of the Greek prayers, it is enlightening. They invoke the various names of the deity, the various locations the deity is known to frequent, finally ending with a catchall "or whatever else you wish to call yourself wherever you may be..."

As Christians, we don't need to labor under all of that. Of course, we are generally so atheistic in our outlook that we don't even acknowledge the supernatural at all—except that we call on "chance," "luck," "fortune," and associated concepts. And we go through little rituals to guarantee the safety of our loved ones (and sometimes the misfortune of our enemies—real and imagined). Oh, you know you do it, you just either don't realize it consciously or you don't want to acknowledge the ramifications of it...

Lord, make us truly Christian!
</idle musing>

We need a better perspective

Despite common interpretive tendencies in contemporary American Christianity, salvation is not, according to Acts, oriented solely toward the internal aspects of the human being (soul, heart, etc.). Against all spiritualizing tendencies, Luke narrates the salvation that attends the Christian mission as something that entails necessarily the formation of a community, a public pattern of life that witnesses to the present dominion of the resurrected Lord of all. If, after the unavoidable impact of the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and our contemporary consumerist culture, we have trouble grasping this point, we would do well to remember that the ancient pagans did not.—World Upside Down, page 155

Really?

I am convinced that many of us, while we affirm that God is good and that God listens, do not act as if God cares and listens. In other words, we wouldn’t be caught dead not affirming God’s care for our every moment, but we act as if God is up there not all that bothered with us and our world, let alone something so small as our next putt on the golf course or our next answer on a test, or our next conversation with the one we love.— Sermon on the Mount, page 247

<idle musing>
In other words, practicing atheists...
</idle musing>

Thought for the day

I never could figure out why ministers feel they have to pat and paw over everybody to get them in, why they have to dilute and edit and modify and amend and trim down the gospel. It does not work this way. A trimmed-down, diluted, edited religion is not the religion Christ died to establish.—A.W. Tozer, Voice of a Prophet, pages 90–91

That sums it up

I'm in the process of reading How Words Mean right now. I must admit that it is a tough go. I thought maybe it was because I wasn't overly familiar with Cognitive Linguistics. But, just in case, I decided to check out what others were saying...

Although the book is not an introduction to cognitive linguistics (which E has published in another book), many chapters are devoted to reviewing and explaining, often repetitively, the principles, major figures, and, in excruciating detail, the theoretical terms and apparatus of cognitive linguistics. This is unfortunate, because I believe the readers most interested in the novel content of the book would be cognitive linguists who need no such review and might not get to the final chapters where the author's view of word meaning and interpretation is finally explained. For other cognitive scientists (another target group), the book is too detailed and ponderous in the early going for them to get through. Furthermore, it does not provide an overview of the phenomenon it is attempting to explain, although such an overview could have been of great interest to cognitive scientists. Finally, I suspect that the general linguist would be able to get through the book well enough but would find the amount of linguistic insight to be small compared to the time and effort of reading it. In sum, I think that there is a shorter, more focused potential book—or perhaps multiple potential books—inside the present one, trying to get out. Instead, the author seems to have been afraid of omitting anything important, thereby making the book less useful for most audiences.—George Murphy in Language 87 (2011), 393

Yep. That's pretty much what the other reviews were saying, too. And I concur...but I'll finish it anyway. But I sure am glad I got it via interlibrary loan and didn't buy it ($55.00 for the paperback, $145 for the cloth)!

New creation

To become more Christlike will be simultaneously to become more Godlike and more human. The new covenant will therefore mean a new humanity and a new creation; the image of God will be restored, not just in individuals, but in a people.— The Death of the Messiah and the Birth of the New Covenant, page 31

They linger on and on...

The freedom to utter maledictions was open to all human beings. Ordinary people could curse, people such as Jotham, Job, and Enkidu. And certainly it was not a liberty restricted to ritual specialists such as Baalam or the cultic priesthood. But the efficaciousness of curses uttered by mortals was another matter. According to Judges 9, unregulated human maledictions lingered in a dormant state for an extended period of time, three years or beyond. Apparently, during that interval curses enjoyed a weak form of existence. They remained available to the divine world to strengthen should the deities ever wish to do so. In a polytheistic context, this type of situation is alarming. It means that any deity of high or low rank, benevolent or malevolent, could energize any such latent curse whenever the moment suited. This is what made all curses so dangerous.— Cursed Are You!, page 168

<idle musing>
This is the key section: "They remained available to the divine world to strengthen should the deities ever wish to do so. In a polytheistic context, this type of situation is alarming. It means that any deity of high or low rank, benevolent or malevolent, could energize any such latent curse whenever the moment suited."

Praise God that YHWH is the only one who can activate such things! And Praise God that he is benevolent! Otherwise we'd all be wearing good luck charms and checking the astrology charts and having our palms read and going through certain rituals that seemed to work the last time and...hmmm...doesn't that sound familiar? Or have I gone to meddling now?

Just an
</idle musing>

A higher allegiance

Where the narrative of Acts clearly rejects any hint of the notion that Jesus is a rival for Caesar’s throne—that he competes with the emperor for the title κύριος πἀντων [Lord of all]—it does so on the basis of a more startling claim: Jesus, the bringer of peace, simply is the Lord of all, the mode of being that is Caesar’s represents a violent refusal of this universal Lordship. Differently said, Caesar is the challenger, not of course because Jesus wants to rule the empire, but in the sense that the self-exaltation necessary to sustain Caesar’s political project is inevitably idolatrous. Dominus et deus noster [our lord and god] pays the imperial bill, but for the Christians it claims an allegiance—a form of devotion—that belongs only to another: the true Lord of all.—World Upside Down, page 152

<idle musing>
Nothing like turning things on their head, is there? That's probably why the apostles were accused of "turning the world upside down!" Would that Christians today were accused of that! Even so, Lord Jesus, may it come to be!
</idle musing>