Language and culture

"When people want to study the Bible seriously, one of he steps they take is to learn the language. As I teach language students, I am still always faced with the challenge of persuading them that they will not succeed simply by learning enough of the language to engage in translation. Truly learning the language requires leaving English behind, entering the world of the text and understanding the language in its Hebrew context without creating English words in their minds. They mus understand the Hebrew as Hebrew text. This is the same with culture. We must make every attempt to set our English categories aside, to leave our cultural ideas behind, and try our best (as limited as the attempt might be) to understand the material in its cultural context without translating it."—John Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One, page 11

<idle musing>
Yes! Language learning that stops at decoding is not language learning; the same is true of culture. We cannot simply bring our presuppositions into our reading of the biblical text; we must accept the biblical text on its own terms, as difficult as that is.
</idle musing>

Tea

I love tea—all different kinds of it. Recently, Jim West was discussing a new tea that he had gotten, vanilla jasmine. I especially love jasmine tea, so I asked him if he would bring some to SBL in November. Being the kind soul that he is (and a fellow tea-drinker), he generously sent me a couple of bags—along with a selection of other teas. It arrived yesterday.

This morning, as part of my normal ritual, I made a cup of tea, using the vanilla jasmine. The tea bag had a faint vanilla smell, so I was looking forward to the aroma of the cup of tea. Disappointing! There was no aroma. I wondered if the taste would also be flat... No, there was a nice, faint vanilla flavor to the jasmine. Very nice, just what I would have expected from Jim. He and I have a long standing dispute about how strong a flavor a cup of tea should have. I prefer mine to shout at me; he prefers his "minimalist," as he calls it. But, I must admit that the minimalist flavor fits this tea very nicely. I think I will have another cup...

The "Word of God"

Great post over at Jesus Creed about the Bible. Here's a snippet to whet your appetite:

We err when we make scripture the foundation of our faith.  Our foundation is God alone, the rock on which we stand is God alone - and his work in this world, including the atoning work of Christ. The authority of scripture is a shorthand for the authority of God - revealed by the Spirit. Scripture illuminates God, his nature and his interaction with his creation - it tells his story, and it does so reliably. But it does so in a fashion that may tell important theological truths in mythic form.

<idle musing>
The early church fathers were always careful to make sure that when they said “word of God” you knew they meant Jesus. Earlier in the post the statement is made that John 1:1 doesn't say the word was written down, but that it became flesh! That, my friends, is an important, but oft forgotten, point. Our God is a relational God.
</idle musing>

What does it matter?

"You have wearied the LORD with your words.
'How have we wearied him?' you ask.
By saying, 'All who do evil are good in the eyes of the LORD, and he is pleased with them' or 'Where is the God of justice?'"—Malachi 2:17 TNIV

<idle musing>
Hmmm...sounds suspiciously like some theology I have heard; even Paul had to fight against it, "Should we sin that grace may increase?" MH GENOITO! μη γενοιτο!

But, we hear it all the time. It is almost like God is pissed at everyone who sins, until they become Christians. Then they can sin all they want! What? "How can we who are dead to sin live any longer therein?" (Petra, but straight from Paul in Romans)

Am I preaching works righteousness now? MH GENOITO! μη γενοιτο! Of course not! It is only by God's empowering presence in the form of the Holy Spirit that can make it possible. And we sell that presence way short of what can happen. I John 3:9 goes so far as to say "No one born of God commits sin; for God's nature abides in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God." (RSV) Pretty strong language, scary in fact. But, if we are to take it seriously, our lives might have to change. Now that is a truly scary thought! I might have to take up my cross and die to myself—can't have that, now can we?
</idle musing>

Thought for today

"When I was young I admired clever people. Now that I am old I admire kind people."—Abraham Joshua Heschel

Flow

...it's possible to spend years trying to achieve perfect stability without moving to higher levels of flow and pull. Experience suggest that this will lead to cycles of stability: dropping back to instability, reattaining stability, and on and on. The reason is that there is no motivation to sustain the higher levels of capability because the system is not tightened to require the improved level. In a large batch operation without flow, a high level of stability is actually not needed and thus the only motivation to continue using disciplined processes is to keep 'lean managers' off your back.—The Toyota Way Fieldbook, page 59

<idle musing>
I'm reading this book for work, but the parallels jumped out at me. It sounds like some people's Christianity, doesn't it? Just substitute spirituality for stability and you describe where they are; they jump on the treadmill and work like crazy to attain “spiritual maturity,” only to fall off again.

Now substitute Holy Spirit for flow, and we see why this happens. With the Holy Spirit in charge of one's life, high levels of spirituality are automatic; there is no falling of the spiritual wagon—he keeps you there. It is no longer work, but a natural out-flowing of God himself living in and through you. No works, just a new life—no longer I that lives, but Christ who lives in me (Galatians 2:20)
</idle musing>

You gotta watch that fertility rate...

in Late Bronze age women, that is; it might just have skyrocketed.

Huh? OK, here's the deal:

Until someone can demonstrate that Canaanite women in the Late Bronze/Iron Age transition experienced increased fertility or that the infant morality rate shifted drastically, we must still credit Iron Age I population increases to migration.&mdash: Steven Ortiz in Critical Issues in Early Israelite History, page 201

<idle musing>
Yep; you gotta watch that fertility rate, it could just skyrocket for no reason. That has to be it; to credit the biblical explanation takes far too much faith! After all, if the Exodus happened, then God might actually be the cause of something; if that is true, then he might have a claim on your life. Can't have that now, can we?
</idle musing>

Garden shots

As promised some time ago, pictures of the garden.

Looking west, from the road. The herb garden is in front, with wire mesh over the dill, basil, and parsley until they get tall enough to discourage cat-rolling. The bushes are raspberries; you can see where the garden used to end on the left and right ends of the rows.



The main garden; the rhubarb is in the two boxes in front.



The plot on the left is the watermelon patch. Originally it wasn't fenced, but a dog decided it made a nice toilet one day, so we fenced it in. Notice the asparagus patch attached to the main garden and covered with wire mesh:



A bonus picture. Looking toward the creek, with the firepit in the foreground:

Final from Why Priests

This is the final extract from Why Priests. I hope you have enjoyed the little snippets.

How does the apostolic ideal image of a Church leader look, as lived by Paul? Paul enjoyed an amazing authority and influence in his churches, which stemmed from his human abilities, but above all from the apostolic mandate given him. He never hesitated to bring his authority powerfully into play. But it is characteristic of the Spirit of Christ which moved Paul that the apostle does not expand or develop his authority or give it the form of a sacral juridical relationship. On the contrary, he repeatedly limited his authority voluntarily because he was convinced that his churches do not belong to him but to the Lord and are therefore free in the Spirit: called to freedom and not slaves to men. Paul sees very clearly that his churches are immature in many ways and that they make mistakes. In spite of this, he never behaves toward them as if he, the prudent teacher, must first educate them to freedom. On the contrary, he takes this freedom for granted as a given; he respects it, fights for it, so that his congregations will follow him not out of compulsion but in freedom. Of course, where there is question of abandoning Christ and his gospel for another gospel, he must threaten to curse and excommunicate. He actually carried this out in the case of an individual—a temporary exclusion from the congregation aimed at achieving an improvement—but never did it to a congregation, even when the infidelities were very serious. He is as restrained as possible in the use of his authority: instead of a command a personal appeal, instead of a prohibition an appeal to one's own good judgment and sense of responsibility, instead of compulsion an effort to win over, instead of the imperative the hortative, instead of the you form the we form, instead of punishment the word of forgiveness, instead of suppressing freedom the invitation to freedom.

And so Paul never misused his power to establish the domination of men over men. On the contrary, in matters of Church discipline he refrains from making an authoritative decision where he could very well have done so. In moral questions too, where the Lord and his word are not at stake, he prefers to leave his congregations their freedom and not put any pressure on them. And even in cases where the decision is obvious to him, he avoids unilateral measures and gets the congregation involved. He holds back even where he clearly has received authority to intervene vigorously; he expressly begs his congregation that he not have to make use of it. Even where he has a right, he does not want to exercise it.

Paul thus never confronts his congregations as lord, nor as priest. It is not the apostle who is the lord. Jesus is the Lord, and this Lord sets the norm for his churches and for Paul himself. He can never treat his Christians simply as children but always as “brothers,” whom he serves in patience, frankness and love. His desire to be faithful to the Lord in his ministry—and not a mere concern with etiquette or human civility—is the reason why he is always ready to refrain from using his authority. It is precisely in this way that he uses it not to tear down but to build up.

Nor did Paul want to be a superman. He was well aware of his humanity and fragility and made no claim to infallibility. It is equally important that his counterpart in the New Testament too, Peter, is always described as on who errs, makes mistakes, fails. And it looks almost scandalous the way each of the three classical texts for the preeminence of Peter is accompanied by an extraordinarily sharp counterpoint: to the three lofty promises correspond three profound lapses. All of this served as both warning and encouragement alike to today's Church leader.—Why Priests?, pages 110-111

And then there were four :(

We have lost all but one of the kittens. One died about 2 weeks ago; it couldn't adjust to solid food. But, yesterday two of the remaining three were killed by a tomcat who managed to get into the barn while the mother cat was outside. He cornered two of them on opposite sides of the barn and dispatched them by breaking their necks.

So, the mortality rate for kittens is 80% for this litter, down from 100% from the first litter. The other female, Cally (for Calico), has a better rate—only 66%. On the whole, it seems safer to be a human than a cat around here...

Activism

The responsibility of the congregation leader is thus also a responsibility for society in general. This is not to say that in the spirit of clericalism he interferes in everything, even where he is not at all competent; but that he does involve himself and his community in those important questions of society where the Christian message itself, not partisanship of any kind, unambiguously requires it. This is less frequently the case than those people think who, following their (right or left) party line, want to bring the Church into the debate on the day's social and political questions, turn the Church itself into a political party and offer a specifically Christian “answer” to everything that comes up. But it is the case much more often than is supposed by those who would prefer to see the Church and its leaders once again confined to the sacristy, cult, private devotion and the realm of the subjective. The Church then, for all its inward unity, is not an encapsulated cult organization, screened off from the world. It is an open Church, aware of its obligations to the public at large and the other Christian churches—but also to the unchurched Christians, to the church of those who profess no church, to mankind generally. And it is the congregational leader who has the public responsibility—although it is shared by all especially in this matter—for seeing that the Church is and remains such a community of committed love.—Why Priests?, pages 106-107

Thought for today

"Let us treat men and women well: treat them as if they were real: perhaps they are."--Ralph Waldo Emerson, Experience

Church leader as bureaucrat? No way!

On the basis of the constants which, according to the New Testament message, must be preserved amid all the variables, the Church's ministry of leadership can be described as follows. No matter what kind of congregation he has, the congregational leader must, in virtue of a personal vocation—which, however, is subject to examination—permanently lead the Christian congregation (which always shares in the responsibility for this) in the spirit of the Christian message. He does this by stimulating, coordinating and integrating the manifold gifts and activities of his congregation in various ways according to time and place, exercising his own ministry as one ministry in the midst of others.

...Nothing would be more mistaken than to regard the Church leader as a kind of functionary, a bureaucrat and manager of the Church, however much office work and management may be linked with Church leadership in modern society and the Church. These can only be auxiliary functions...—Why Priests?, page 102

<idle musing>
If you can get past all the modifiers, this is an excellent observation. Unfortunately, many pastors end up as CEOs instead of "stimulating, coordinating and integrating the manifold gifts and activities of his congregation." Of course, I would quibble with "his" congregation—it had better be God's! And, I still think it is a bit too hierarchical (not heretical!).
</idle musing>

The Sermon

A while back I posted a series of quotes from To Preach or Not to Preach. His basic premise was/is that preaching to the saved is a waste of time.

Over the weekend (I'm way behind) I read Ben Myers blog from April 30, when he ran a guest post entitled On sermons: a rant. Here's a nice little excerpt:

...I’ve heard the sermon in nearly all its forms: a 15 minute homily is far too long, while a 45 minute “message” is plainly unanointed. A lifetime pulpit pounding and sanctified lecturing has led me to one obvious conclusion:

There should be a moratorium on the sermon. Let’s go straight from the Gospel to the Creed and cut the drivel in between. I may have heard fourteen sermons a week in Bible college, but I don’t remember the one I heard last week.

Preaching puts me to sleep which, by my definition, is the last thing preaching should do. The sermon should be revelatory – generating ambiguity, disrupting expectation. (Okay, so I stole this from Rowan “Ray-of-Darkness” Williams, but since this rant is about sermons, stealing someone else’s ideas is acceptable.) But, in fact, we already know exactly what to expect – fifteen minutes of nothing. Edward Schillebeeckx says the service of the word should be like the “roaring of the lion” – it is more like the yawning of a sloth.

Amen!

Ironically, most preachers genuinely believe they are above-average public speakers. (They can’t all be right, can they?) And as Gabriel Moran notes, most preachers also believe that all theology is homiletically-centered. Demurring, he says: “Probably only a clergyman could believe that preaching is a good model, let alone the best model, for understanding the religious life of mankind. It would be a near impossibility to find any non-clergymen who think of preaching and sermonizing as significant at all. Most people who give a thought to it conclude that preaching is an anachronism which is allowed existence because it bothers no one. However, if one’s professional life is centered on any activity, it is possible to view the whole world in light of that endeavor.”

Definitely read the whole thing...

Frost!

We planted our garden on Saturday, once the rain stopped. It was a cold weekend, with a strong wind from the north both days. But, that didn't stop us from planting. We also put out the flowers in the window boxes.

This year we expanded the garden; it is now 43 x 24, plus an 8 x 8 herb garden and an 8 x 8 annex for the watermelon. I also added a 2 x 4 section of asparagus and 2-2 x 4 sections for rhubarb on the outside of the fence. We had already planted lettuce and onions a few weeks ago; they can withstand a frost well. So, this weekend we planted the rest: beets, carrots, spinach, wax beans, green beans, roma tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, beefsteak tomatoes, plum tomatoes, cucumbers, chili peppers, and green peppers—and the watermelon.

Sunday afternoon I added a fence around the watermelon; a dog had decided to use it as a latrine :( Oh, and I added a mess screen over the top of the dill, parsley, and basil until it gets taller; one of the cats decided it made a good dust wallow. As long as I was doing that, I put one over the asparagus as well. Maybe I can remember to take pictures and post them.

Of course, doing all that was the surest way possible to guarantee a frost :( I'm not sure if it affected the plants or not. When I left for work this morning, it appeared that they were fine, but I will find out when I get home tonight. It only got to about 31, so we should be ok.

Blind obedience?

The supreme norm for the exercise of authority in Christ's Church must be the New Testament message against the horizon of each new individual and social situation. If a particular minster in a particular case quite clearly does not serve according to this norm, then he cannot expect submission on this occasion, but instead needs criticism and in serious cases, resistance. Blind obedience is incompatible with the dignity and freedom of a rational man and a Christian. Blind obedience can, as the recent past ha made drastically evident, lead to crime. God alone can expect absolute obedience, ecclesiastical authority never more than conditional obedience—and even that only when it corresponds in its precepts to the will of God expressed in the Christian message.—Why Priests?, pages 97-98

<idle musing>
"God alone can expect absolute obedience"—Amen!
</idle musing>

A Calling is the requirement

Any ministry of leadership in Christ's Church, ordained or not, thus presupposes at the deepest level a calling by the Spirit of God and of Jesus Christ, who breathes where he will and calls whom he will and whose willing instruments both senders and sent are permitted to be.—Why Priests?, page 86

...it must be said that charism in the strict sense, i.e., a calling from God in the Spirit of Jesus Christ, stands by itself and does not flow from the institution. It is a free calling to a free ministry in the Church, which the Church leadership can suppress or even worse extinguish only at its own expense. A thoroughgoing direct or indirect “bureaucratizing” of a charism contradicts the New Testament. As the New Testament shows, a charism has no need at all of prior legitimation by a Church institution. On the contrary, there are in fact institutions and representations of institutions who have nothing charismatic about them: for instance, ordained Church functionaries who carry out their ministry mechanically and show no sign of a genuine calling of of the Spirit of Christ.—Why Priests?, page 87

<idle musing>
The sad part is that he is correct about the last part; too many are doing things they are not called to do—and not just in the "ordained" ministry. Have you ever been guilted into doing something "for the Lord"? If so, you are probably a victim of what he is talking about.
</idle musing>

The purpose of leadership

The Church's ministry of leadership is meant essentially not to be an autocratic authority absorbing all other functions, but one ministry in the midst of a multiplicity of other charisms and functions: a stimulating, coordinating and integrating ministry to the congregation and the other ministries, whether these are permanent (catechists, administrators, social welfare workers, various auxiliary ministries, theologians) or not (groups for making visits, various acts of individual initiative, etc.).

An approach of this kind avoids an accumulation of competencies, which is irresponsible in this age of specialization, and allows for a fresh differentiation of functions. The head or leader of the Church does not need to be a professional theologian, trained psychological counselor, financial expert and educationist as well, since these functions are not linked with priestly or episcopal ordination. (For instance, the theologians in the Eastern churches, now as in the early Church, are mostly laymen). However good it may be, no academic training can prepare a person adequately for all these functions; even talents that are well above average cannot meet simultaneously all the increasingly specialized demands.—Why Priests?, page 83

The Church's ministry of leadership is meant essentially not to be a ministry under the arbitrary control of men, but one which can be understood as putting into effect a mandate fro the Lord of the congregation and as a free gift of the Spirit: a ministry arising out of a calling from God in the Spirit of Jesus Christ, a calling which must be examined by the community, a calling which finds expression in an inner compulsion, an inner awareness of competence and of being impelled toward practical ministry. There is a part that men—the congregation and the existing congregational leadership (the latter perhaps to be regionally superordinated)—can and should play in the concrete calling of a person to ministry in the Church; but not even the Church leadership can give a vocation to someone who does not already have one.—Why Priests?, page 85

National Bike to Work day

Tomorrow is national bike to work day. I encourage everyone to pull out their bikes and ride to work, if possible. If your commute is less than 5 miles (statistically most are), it should only take you about 30 minutes. The average person rides about 10 miles per hour—don't ask what my average is...

You will probably find that you get to work more awake and feeling energetic. Of course, if you haven't ridden for a while you might feel exhausted and ready to die, but I hope not.

Wednesday's thought

Full participation of women in the Church's life, on the basis of equal rights, is something that belongs to a suitably renewed Church today. this means not only including women as coresponsible in the different advisory and decision-making bodies, but also the admission of women to all the Church's special ministries and to ordination. (But we should no more speak of a priesthood of women [priestesses] than of a priesthood of men). Sociocultural reason have been advanced against the ordination of women for a territorial and perhaps even more for a non-territorial ministry of leadership, but no decisive theological reason have been presented.—Why Priests?, page 81

Living Sacrifice

Because of this sacrifice of Christ [on the cross], the congregation too is invited to sacrifice. Not merely exterior offerings, but the dedication of the person himself is expected of the congregation; not material sacrifice but spiritual sacrifices of praise, thanks, faith, obedience, love: a praise and thank offering of dedication which does not remain limited to the liturgical assembly but must be a daily sacrifice in secular everyday life.

The congregation therefore does not offer a second sacrifice of reconciliation over and above that of Jesus; but it does offer praise and thanks for the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus Christ in which it has been given a share through the Eucharistic celebration. For this reason the one who presides at the Eucharistic celebration must not be considered a sacrificial priest. Such a view contradicts the New Testament in general and the Letter to the Hebrews in particular.—Why Priests?, pages 68-69

<idle musing>
This is vitally important. We must live a daily sacrifice of praise; it cannot be limited to liturgical gatherings. It must be a part of who we are; our very core of being must be given over as a living sacrifice of praise.

The second paragraph explains why Küng isn't well liked by the Vatican! But, it is an important point to remember—yes, even by Protestants.
</idle musing>

I want to be a pencil

"I don't claim anything of the work. It is his work. 1 am like a little pencil in his hand. That's all. He does the thinking. He does the writing. The pencil has nothing to do with it. The pencil has only to be allowed to be used."—Mother Theresa

Augustine's problem becomes dogma

Interesting observation in Why Priests as Küng traces the development of the priesthood in church history:

Augustine is the one who "invented" the indelible sacramental character out of embarrassment over the Donatists, to whom he had to prove that baptism (and ordination) could not be repeated and that baptism by heretics was valid. He was the first to use the word "character" to mean a certain something that was different from the Holy Spirit, different from baptism (and ordination), and also different from the "grace" which was given ("created grace"), without being able to justify this something from scripture or previous tradition...

...Thus what had begun as an unpretentious idea and the emergency solution to an eminent theologian's problem became more than a thousand years later a dogma of the Church, protected by the threat of excommunication. Since then the sacramental character has been interpreted to be a real accidental entity adhering to the soul, more exactly as a supernatural quality physically inhering in the soul; but no one has succeeded in proving from Scripture or ancient tradition so much as the existence of such a character, different from the Spirit, baptism or ordination and from the "grace" communicated.—Why Priests, pages 64-65

<idle musing>
Isn't that about right? Traditions harden into dogmas that no one dares to question. I'm not singling out the Roman tradition here; it happens in all traditions. This is Calvin's 500th year; think about the Reformed tradition and how it has become dogma—if you doubt me, ask Peter Enns :(

Sometimes it takes longer than others, but tradition always manages to supplant God. I believe that is why God starts something new every generation or two. Not that the previous moves are wrong; they just get too fossilized to move freely with the Spirit of God.
</idle musing>

Canonical hierarchy?

We continue our way through Why Priests again today. Küng goes through an exegetical study of the New Testament, looking at the passages related to church governance. Here is his conclusion:

The decline into an institutional ministry cannot be said to be normative; nor can the change with respect to the origin, as such, be called apostasy. The New Testament data shows [sic] that there are various models of congregational order and leadership in the New Testament which cannot be reduced to one another, even though they were combined with one another in the course of time. The New Testament therefore does not allow us to canonize one congregational structure alone. This does not mean simply one more difficulty for the Church. On the contrary, it gives it the freedom to move with the times and to be capable of new developments and modifications of Church ministry for the good of men and the congregations. The individual New Testament models need not be imitated, but the crucial New Testament elements must be preserved and put to the test under completely different conditions, so long as we still want to claim to be Christian.—Why Priests, pages 49-50

<idle musing>
I would probably argue more strongly for a New Testament style organization, but the fact that he doesn't want to canonize the traditions that have since developed is encouraging. I suspect my main disagreement is over what is considered crucial :)
</idle musing>

Leadership, not priesthood

More from Why Priests:

But it is even more striking that the New Testament not only makes no use of expressions appropriate to office, but that in connection with congregational functions it also avoids the word "priest" in the sense of sacrificial priest (hiereus, sacerdos), which is the meaning the term has in the history of religions, and avoids all sacral-cultic titles, preferring to describe functions by using terms from the profane area. No doubt this is connected with the fact that Jesus, himself a layman, had only once in all his parables introduced the figure of the priest (Lk. 10:31), and there it is a warning example. The word priest is used for Jewish and pagan dignitaries but never for people with ministries in the Church. Only in a later New Testament period is Jesus himself, the risen and exalted one, understood as priest, but in a way that completely overthrows the Old Testament priesthood. Jesus is the only remaining high priest (deputy, mediator); through the sacrifice of his life, which occurred once and for all, the entire Old Testament priesthood is fulfilled and abolished (Hebrews). From the dissolution of the special priesthood by the priesthood of the one, new and eternal priest there follows—as a further reflection by the congregation (1 Peter, Revelations [sic!])—the universal priesthood of all believers, which has as its concrete content the immediate access of everyone to God, spiritual sacrifices, the proclamation of the word, the carrying out of baptism, the Eucharist, and the forgiveness of sins, and mutual intercession for one another. From a New Testament point of view, therefore, the term "priest" should be dropped as a specific and exclusive term to identify people who have ministries in the Church, since, according to the New Testament view, all believers are "priests."—Why Priests, pages 41-42.

<idle musing>
No wonder Küng is not a favorite at the Vatican! This is a liberating statement for all beleivers, though, whether they are Roman, Protestant, or Orthodox. We all have instant access to God, through the blood of our high priest, Jesus Christ. Praise God for that!
</idle musing>

When does grace become cheap grace?

I received a link to a book excerpt today. This section jumped out at me:

Fred Craddock tells about teaching a class on the parables some years ago. His students gravitated heavily toward these reversal parables where the offer of grace is extended to the wayward son, the publican, the servant who took big risks, and the eleventh-hour workers. The students frowned on punishing lazy stewards or slamming the door in the faces of the poor girls who forgot to fill their lamps with oil. These seminarians, says Craddock, had come to expect grace, and hence it was no longer grace, or if it was, it was cheap grace.

Craddock told them a story. There was a certain seminary professor who was strict about due dates for papers. Due dates were announced at the beginning of the semester, and failure to meet them resulted in an F for the class. In one class, three students did not meet the deadline. The first one explained, “Professor, unexpected guests from out of state came the evening before the paper was due, and I was unable to finish it.” “Then you receive an F,” said the professor. The second student explained, “On the day before the paper was due, I became ill with influenza and was unable to complete it.” “Then you receive an F,” said the professor.

The third student, visibly shaken by the news about the fate of the other two students, cautiously approached the professor’s desk. Slowly he began, “Professor, our first baby was due the same day the paper was due. The evening before, my wife began having pains, and so I rushed her to the hospital and shortly after midnight she gave birth to a boy. So I couldn’t complete the paper.” The professor listened with interest and after a long pause said, “Then you receive an F for the course.”

The news spread rapidly throughout the seminary. A large delegation of students came to the professor to protest. “Why have you been so cruel and harsh?” they asked. The professor replied, “At the beginning of the semester I gave my word concerning papers. If the word of a teacher in a Christian seminary cannot be trusted, whose word can you trust?” The students were then dismissed.

After telling the story, Craddock asked his students if they thought it was a parable. He says most of them were angry not only with the professor in the story but with Craddock for telling it. They insisted it was not a parable. What do you think? Maybe when grace is expected or presumed or taken for granted, it ceases to be grace.

<idle musing>
I think he is onto something there. If we expect or presume on grace, it is no longer considered a gift, but an obligation. Something to ponder on for a bit...
</idle musing>

New online journal

I received this via e-mail today:

Methodist Review: A Journal of Wesleyan and Methodist Studies a new open access, peer-reviewed electronic academic journal, begins publication.

Atlanta, GA – 1 May 2009 – The board of directors and the sponsors of The Methodist Review, Inc., are pleased to announce the launch of Methodist Review: A Journal of Wesleyan and Methodist Studies. As an open access, peer-reviewed electronic academic journal, Methodist Review (MR) publishes scholarly articles in all areas and eras of Wesleyan and Methodist studies, including biblical, theological, ethical, philosophical, practical, historical, biographical, and social-scientific topics and methodologies. The journal’s URL is: www.methodistreview.org.

Methodist Review is sponsored by Candler School of Theology, Emory University; Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University; the Association of United Methodist Theological Schools (AUMTS); and the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry of The United Methodist Church (GBHEM). The corporate office of The Methodist Review, Inc., is located at GBHEM in Nashville; the MR editorial office is located at Candler School of Theology in Atlanta. Technical support is provided by the Digital Systems division of the Emory University Libraries, where MR is hosted.

Methodist Review will not be published on the regular schedule of a print journal. Instead, articles will be published on the MR Web site when they are ready, and registered users will be notified of their publication by e-mail. Matthews noted that the electronic format was purposely chosen for the journal to best serve an increasingly global Methodist/Wesleyan academic audience by allowing for more timely delivery of articles and lower production costs. The financial support provided by its sponsors enables MR to provide immediate access to its content at no cost to its readers. A one-time, free user registration is required to access the articles published in the journal.

So, if you are interested in such things, hop on over and feast on the offerings :)

Ministry, not office

"Although various functions are mentioned in the New Testament, the problem of a Church office is never explicitly dealt with. Church 'office' is not a biblical concept. It came later after reflection and is not without its own difficulties. Evidently the secular words for 'office' were deliberately and consistently avoided in the New Testament in connection with Church functions. They express a relation of domination...

"Of course there is authority in the Church. But authority is only legitimate when it is based on service and not on power, prior rights and privileges from which the obligation of service is then considered to flow. We would therefore do better, if we want to speak in a precise theological fashion, to speak about Church ministry rather than about Church office. To be sure, it is not the word that counts but the way it is understood; talk about Church 'ministry' can also be misused to hide the realities if the exercise of domination in the Church is not abandoned at the same time...

"Power can be used well or badly. Even in the Church power cannot simply be abolished. But it can be used, when effectively channeled, to carry out functions that serve the common welfare. The unavoidable use of power is one thing; the use of it by individuals or groups to dominate is quite another. In the latter case it is a matter of retaining a privileged position or increasing one's own power. Power can be used responsibly in the Church only in terms of service and is to be evaluated according to its quality as service; such power which comes from service is genuine (and primarily inner) authority. The opposition is therefore not between power and service but between the use of power to dominate and its use to serve."—Why Priests, pages 39-40

New baby!

I'm a grandpa again! Ryan and Emily had a baby girl last evening. Here are the details:
Evelyn Madeline
7 lbs 11 ozs
20 3/4 inches
6:08 PM Sunday, May 3

I'll post pictures once I have them.

Updated, 4:19 PM. Here's a picture:

Fraternity

"As advocate of Jesus Christ, the Church can never have a patriarchal authority structure as its government. Here only one is the holy Father, God himself; all members of the Church are his adult sons and daughters and they must not be reduced to the status of minors. In this society men may set up only truly fraternal and not paternalistic authority. Only one is lord and master, Jesus Christ himself; all members of the Church are brothers and sisters. In this community the supreme norm is therefore not the patriarch, but the will of God, which, according to the message of Jesus Christ, is directed to men's welfare—indeed, the welfare of all men...No one in the Church has the right to substitute for this brotherhood a clerical system's paternalism and cult of persons and thus continue strenghthening the rule of men over men."—Why Priests, pages 32-33.
<idle musing>
Would that this were the way the church actually functioned! Lord, make it so!
</idle musing>

Google books

ZDNet has a very good article about Google books and their proposed copyright settlement. Here's a relevant quote:

The evil-doers never see themselves as evil: they seem themselves as heroes. The worst men in history saw themselves as so important, so great, that they could not be and should not be restrained by the laws that apply to others. Isn’t that how Google sees itself?

Did you know they dropped their motto "Don't be evil" recently? Neither had I until today. Don't get me wrong. I have always been a great fan of Google, all the way back in beta days. They were the best thing to happen to search since Alta Vista (ok, I know I'm dating myself there!). I especially loved the fact that they ran Linux back when very few did. But, of late I have been concerned about certain trends. A quote from the article says it better than I could:

The company has become a true believer in its own goodness, a belief which justifies its own set of rules regarding corporate ethics, anti-competiton, customer service and its place in society. Tellingly, Google has set aside its “Don’t Be Evil” motto at the very time in which its actions increasingly look evil — all the more so for it protestations that it needs the dominance it claims for the good of the public, the good of the Internet, the good of the world.

<idle musing>
There is a ton of interesting theology here, isn't there? No one wants to believe they are depraved—after all, they are doing so much good! Yet, at the bottom, the core philosophy is always, "we know better than -----" (fill in the blank however you wish). Humanity still wants to be its own God. The fall of Google into evil shouldn't surprise us, anymore than the fall of any other human institution or individual; it is hard-wired into our existence ever since the Fall (Genesis 3).
</idle musing>

Equality

"On the basis of this freedom which it has received and made concrete, the Church may and should be a community of fundamentally equal people. To be sure, we do not mean by this an egalitarianism that would put the multiplicity of gifts and ministries all on the same level; we mean rather that all members, whatever their differences among themselves, have the same fundamental rights. As advocate of Jesus Christ, it can never be the Church of a class, race, caste or officials. It is through a free decision that individuals have joined the community of faith or remain in it. Those who are unequal should be brought together here in a solidarity of love: rich and poor, high and low, educated and uneducated, white and non-white, men and women."—Why Priests, pages 30-31

Spring!

We have a flowering tree outside the office. I've posted a picture of it before, but it is so nice it deserves to be posted again:



Here's a picture of the barn at our place, complete with redbud. The redbud is out more today; this picture was taken on Monday morning.

Freedom!

“Liberty is both a gift and a task for the Church. The Church may and should be a community of free people: as advocate of Jesus Christ it can never be an institution for domination or, still less, a Grand Inquisition. Its members are freed for freedom: liberated from slavery to the letter of the law, from the burden of guilt, from dread of death; liberated for life, for service, for love—people who are subject to God alone and therefore neither to anonymous powers not to other men. To be sure, faith in the crucified Christ cannot and is not meant to abolish law and power in society; the kingdom of complete freedom is yet to come. But this faith effectively subsumes law and power and completely relativizes them. Faith in the crucified Christ makes man become so free within the scheme of law that he is capable of renouncing a right for the sake of another person without recompense, and even of going two miles with someone who has made him go one. It lets him become so free in society's power struggle that he is capable of using power to his own disadvantage for the sake of another person, and so to give not only his coat but also his cloak. The Christian message, for instance, the words of the Sermon on the Mount, supported by Jesus' life and death, are not meant to set up any new law, to create any new juridical order. The are meant to free men from the law.”—Why Priests, page 29

<idle musing>
Yes! I like that, “It lets him become so free in society's power struggle that he is capable of using power to his own disadvantage for the sake of another person.” Nothing like turning power on its head! Power is for service, freedom is for service. But not out of obligation, out of love.
</idle musing>

The body of Christ

“Unlike the pagan or Jewish cult, the Christian needs no priest as mediator at the innermost part of the temple, with God himself. Rather , he is granted an ultimate immediacy to God which no ecclesiastical authority can destroy or even take away from him. No one has the power to judge, control or command decisions which fall within this innermost realm. To be sure, the Christian faith does not fall directly from heaven; it is passed on in the Church. But 'Church' means the whole believing community which, through the proclamation of the gospel—often done more by the humbler folk than by the hierarchs and theologians, more by deeds than by words—awakens faith in Jesus Christ, invites commitment in his Spirit, makes the Church present in the world through the Christian witness of daily life and thus carries on the cause of Jess Christ. It is after all everyone, not just a chosen few, to whom the proclamation of the Christian message in all the different kinds of congregation is entrusted; an individual and social life according to the gospel is required of all, and to all are entrusted baptism on [sic] the name of Jesus, the memorial, thanksgiving and covenant meal and the word of forgiveness of sins; the ministry of daily life and responsibility for their fellow men, for the congregation and for the world is given over to everyone—in all these basic functions a community of liberty, equality, fraternity.”—Why Priests, page 28

Equal opportunity employer

"...a Church which bears the name of Jesus Christ, hears his word and is sustained by his Spirit can never be identified with a particular class, caste, clique or authority. Like Jesus himself, his Church too addresses itself to the whole people and particularly to the underprivileged. The Church, then, is the whole community of believers in Christ, in which all may regard themselves as people of God, body of Christ, structure of the Spirit. The decisive criterion of this community is not a privilege of birth, state, race, or office. What is decisive is not whether someone has an 'office' in the Church or what office he has, but whether and to what extent he is purely and simply a 'believer': that is, one who believes, obeys, serves, loves, hopes."—Why Priests?, pages 27-28

The Church

The other day, Alan Knox gave an intriguing quote from Why Priests by Hans Küng. I immediately looked it up in WorldCat and saw that it was available close by. Guess what you get the privilege of reading excerpts from for the next few days? Yep. Here's the first one:

The Church and its credibility and effectiveness in society stand and fall according to whether it is the place where Jesus and the remembrance of him are to be found, whether it steps forward privately and publicly for the cause of Jesus Christ, whether is remains the advocate of Jesus Christ in the modern world and society despite failure in both word and deed.—Why Priests, page 18

Quote for today

"Sometimes theology has dealt with abstract disquisitions more related to human rationality than to God's plan of salvation for humanity; but even more often, theology has become trapped in practical forms of idolatry. Theology has too often been an instrument for the king or the powers that be, in ancient and modern times. Some theologians are providing intellectual support for global capitalism, the new empire, or simply the current unjust status quo. In that task they come close to certain currents of secular thought that take God (and God's poor) out of the public discourse."—Rooted in Jesus Christ, page 4

<idle musing>
Wow, them's fighting words! Alas, they are also only too true. May God forgive us our myopic following of social trends instead of the cross of Christ. May He open our eyes to see where we have fallen for the latest social trend and jumped on the latest bandwagon. May we only follow in the steps of Christ, not culture!
</idle musing>

Rooted and grounded...

I have been trying to digest a Hebrew linguistic grammar the last few weeks. Eisenbrauns is going to be publishing it sometime, but it isn't far enough along to be on the web. They wanted someone who knows Hebrew fairly well, but isn't a linguist, to read it. That would be I. I waded through it and learned a lot—I think! But, linguistics and I are barely on talking terms. I enjoy reading grammars (I know; go ahead and say it, "I'm crazy!"), but linguistics is another story. Maybe as I read more of it, the dread will pass...

Meanwhile, I just received a copy of Rooted in Jesus Christ last Friday and started it over the weekend. This time of year, I don't have a lot of time for reading, so don't look for a huge mass of quotes...but this one jumped out at me:

To be fully developed, both persons and societies must overcome an insubstantial level of reality by deepening their roots. In the particular case of Christian life and theology, those roots are actually a Root, Jesus Christ. I offer my proposal, with humbleness and conviction, in the midst of a plural and fragmented world. The body of Christ is the real foundation of the world, which I offer in this book at least as another voice in the pluralistic conversation.—Rooted in Jesus Christ, pages xi-xii

Garden, part 2

Over the weekend, I tilled the garden. This turned out to be quite the task, given that we expanded it about 50%. Three hours later, using a friend's Troybilt, and we have a 24 x 43 foot garden, with an 8 x 8 annex for the watermelon.

After I finished tilling, I needed to put the fence back up. The deer tend to not come into that area of the yard, preferring to stay closer to the creek, but I don't want to take any chances. So, 131 feet of fencing and 13 6'6" fenceposts later, we have a fenced in garden. Add the 3 foot door, and all kinds of varmints are kept out—at least that is the plan :) It worked last year and should work again this year.

The next step was to add landscape timbers. We like landscape timbers; they give a nice finished look to things. The problem always is leveling them out. The ground in that part of the yard is sloped in odd ways, making this an exciting job. Just to add to the fun, it started to rain while I was doing it. I'm not done yet...maybe tonight, if it stops raining. The plan was to go two high, but some sections ended up having 4 timbers.

I'm still hoping to get some pictures to post. Maybe tonight...

Regional differences

"...regional differences should be investigated. For example, the square structure of the Amman Airport temple and the Umm ad-Dananir temple may be an indication of a distinct local Transjordanian cult variation, which in turn challenges the simplistic dichotomy of 'Canaanite Religion' versus 'Israelite religion.' the tribal character of Israel during the settlement period actually suggests strong regional variations, as well as the fact that the Hebrew Bible itself refers to the inhabitants of Canaan not as a cohesive ethnc group but as the conglomerate of different, often squabbling but definitely not interconnected or organized groups."—Gerald Klingbeil in Critical Issues in Early Israelite History, page 143

<idle musing>
Hmmm...he is probably correct, although I had always just thought of it as Canaanite religion. That's probably because I was working in Ugaritic, which is well attested and the rest of the Canaanite stuff isn't—at least not until much later. Ah, the paradigms that accidental discoveries engender. Quick, somebody, uncover another Ugarit with a tablet cache! Destroy our current paradigms! :)
</idle musing>

Gardening

For the last two weekends I have been getting compost from the city of Warsaw and spreading it on our garden. For 5 Saturdays every Spring and Fall, Warsaw offers free compost from the leaves that they collect in the Fall; I got 3 pickups full each Saturday and spread it on the garden (6 total). I hope to till it this weekend.

We are expanding the garden by about 50% this year and adding more crops. Last year was just an experiment to see what the soil was like—rocky, very rocky, hence the compost. We live along a creek and the soil reflects it in being mainly rocks with some topsoil. In fact, one of the previous owners, back about 40 years, used to sell gravel to the county!

I'm growing the tomatoes (roma, cherry, and beefsteak), peppers (chili and bell), cucumbers, and watermelon from seed in the basement. Yes, there is a grow-light over them; I know you can't grow plants in the basement without light :) If everything grows as hoped, we will have plenty to give away.

Meantime, I also got two loads of wood chips and spread them around the lilac bushes and the house. We took the black plastic edging out and replaced it with landscape timers. I think it looks better; it sure will be easier to mow. We also cut down the bushes in front. If we had trimmed them, all that would have been left was branches without any green. Maybe, if I remember, I will take some pictures...

Kitten update

The kittens are about 2 weeks old now. Their eyes are mostly open, but I'm not sure how much they can see yet. One did hiss at Debbie last night, so I guess they are seeing something :)

We did lose one, though; the tabby died after only 3 days. Here's some pictures from yesterday:

Your tax dollars at work

Yesterday, the long awaited shipment from Carta, Jerusalem arrived from Israel. The order was 8 pallets, so a few books were involved :)

Normally a shipment from Israel via surface takes about 2-3 months, depending on circumstances. For example, the last shipment got caught in two different dockworkers strikes: one in Haifa, and the other one in Italy. Shipment time: 4 months. This time, the ship made good time and was in New York in about a month. But, for some reason it took longer than normal to clear customs. And, when it did arrive, 3 of the 8 skids had Homeland Security tape on the outside of the wrap (the skids normally have heavy cardboard around the outside to protect the boxes of books). Fine, that happens. But, one of those skids also had forklift forks through some of the boxes. The damage wasn't on the packing cardboard around the outside, so it had to happen after the wrap had been removed for inspection.

I know you want to see your tax dollars at work, so here you go:

Nice fork damage in the side of the box:






Here's what a book looks like after a fork goes through it:



By the way, I think I know why it got inspected, whereas most Israeli shipments don't: Eshel's Masada book was in the shipment and it arrived right around Passover.

Tabbernee Prophets and Gravestones

Not too long ago, I received a review copy of Tabbernee's Prophets and Gravestones from Bobby at Hendrickson. The title doesn't make it terribly obvious, but the book is about Montanism, or as they called it themselves, the New Prophecy. Tabbernee is uniquely qualified to write the book; he is the one who has done the archaeological digs at Pepouza, Montanus' home base.

As he explains in the introduction, the book started out as a series of stories for the workers on the dig. The book continues that format, consisting of short little 1-3 page vignettes about various people either involved in the New Prophecy or fighting against it. He uses fragments from the writings of New Prophecy members, their opponents, and archaeological discoveries to weave together a very engaging book. The footnotes are extensive, allowing you to see where he allows his storytelling abilities to go beyond the evidence. Even when he does go beyond the evidence, the information conveyed is valuable and enlightening; there is no doubt he knows his early church history.

Tabbernee suggests the book as a textbook for those studying Montanism, or even early church history. While the information conveyed is accurate, and the book entertaining, I would hesitate to agree with that; there is just something in me that rebels at the thought of having what is basically a series of historical novel type stories as a textbook! But, it might not be so bad; he clearly documents his sources and the bibliography at the back is 8 pages long. In addition, he includes an index of ancient sources plus a general index. In many ways this is better documentation than some textbooks give, but still...

That aside, students interested in the New Prophecy and early church history stand to learn much from his delightful little yarns. Just remember that it is a dramatization, and you will be fine.

Update:
Bobby tells me that Hendrickson has posted a study guide for the book. Scroll down to the bottom of the page; it is a PDF with a series of good questions for discussion.

Thought for a Tuesday

“Many remain content when they think they have done their best to serve God and obtain rest in this duty. With living faith this is not so. It will not merely set the wood in order and say the sacrifice, but it will also crave the fire from heaven to consume the sacrifice.”—Andrew Murray

Maturity

“We have in our hands power and possibilities for mature people, but the people who handle those powers are immature. Here is a man who is supposedly the head of a home, in a situation demanding maturity, but he is emotionally immature. He creates havoc. The same thing happens in larger situations—the school, the church, business, the state, international relationships. Each time the area of possible havoc grows larger. Deficiency in our moral and spiritual growth means devastation around us. Our immaturity is costly—increasingly so. For larger and larger powers are put more and more into the hands of people morally and spiritually too immature to handle them for the collective good.”—E. Stanley Jones in Growing Spiritually, pages v-vi, copyright 1953!

<idle musing>
Not much has changed in 56 years, has it?
</idle musing>

And then there were eight

Busy week, with the April 1 special, the real monthly sale, the new Publisher Focus, and 5 new kittens.

That's right, we now have eight cats, five of them kittens that were born on Tuesday morning. Here's some pictures that were taken less than 12 hours after they were born.





Yes, this is a part of a diabolical plan to populate the earth with cats :)

Eisenbrauns April sale

New month, new sale—and this one is real, unlike yesterday's :)

Here's the official blurb:

Eisenbrauns is offering the Mesopotamian Civilizations series on sale for the month of April. Save from 30-50% off retail on the books in this highly respected and widely used series.

Here's the link to the sale.

This is a very good series. If you are into the ancient Near East, I recommend you take advantage of some of these books—and I'm not saying that just because I work at Eisenbrauns!

April 1 at Aisanbrauns

Learn about the shortage of letters affecting publishers! Marvel at the Babylon Battle of the Bands! Drool over the latest Nuzi and the Hurrians CD! All this, plus more at the Eisenbrauns Spring Sale (?) page

Or, try the Battle of the Bands song available here

Power?

“There are Sunday school teachers, Christian elders, and friends whose teaching has no power! They never see the fulfillment of the hope: Sinners shall be converted unto thee. It is not from lack of teaching the truth, but from failing to speak about a living experience of this grace. They teach from a knowledge of the truths of Scripture or refer to an earlier spiritual experience. But this is not enough. If you want to see teaching and conversion of sinners, you must have a living effective experience of the grace of God.”—Andrew Murray

<idle musing>
That's right; trying to live on an experience that is 20 years old, or 2 days old, won't do it. If your experience with God is not a moment-by-moment reliance on him, you have nothing to offer.
</idle musing>

Monday's thought

“To a person who has had his heart filled with grace, it is a joy and pleasure to make others acquainted with Jesus. The reason it is so difficult to speak about Jesus is that we are content with so little of the grace of God. We do not yield ourselves to be completely filled wit hit. Let the fear you feel convince you that you do not yet have as much grace as God is prepared to give. God will gladly give every soul so much blessing that his mouth will overflow because his heart is full. He will not be able to remain silent. Love for Jesus and for others will force him to speak”—Andrew Murray

Where have all the bees gone

One of the things I am interested in is honey bees. I never have had a hive, but I hope that someday I may; meantime I watch from afar. Anyway, the last few years there has been a spreading problem among beekeepers called CCD—Colony Collapse Disorder—which simply means that the bees disappear from their hives, usually through death. Many have suspected that it is the result of the use of pesticides, but only recently has proof begun to emerge. I quote from Catch the Buzz, a bee industry newsletter:

Imidacloprid, a systemic insecticide, moves through the treated plant to the nectar and pollen. The chemical remains persistent in soils for several years, can be taken up by subsequent plantings and weeds, and expressed in their pollen and nectar. No mechanism exists to protect honeybees from this exposure. Due to the vitally important nature of pollinators we recommend that imidacloprid be removed from use in the United States. Simply stated there is just no way to protect bees from this danger.

There is a good deal of evidence to back up this request at the cited URL. Please read it.

How, you ask, did we allow this to happen? Let me quote again:

The reader may ask how did we find ourselves at the point where an extremely dangerous chemical compound has come into such widespread use, threatening the very existence and viability of the pollination framework of the country. The answer is simple. Deregulation, the same concept which precipitated our financial collapse, has precipitated an environmental collapse no less serious. At the same time that financial institutions were being given a free reign to regulate themselves on the naive assumption that industry knew best, pesticide regulation was being turned over from EPA to industry on the same assumption.

US EPA used to do pesticide screening in honeybees, do pesticide toxicity study themselves, but today industry directs and funds the critical toxicity studies to determine product safety themselves. The studies are shown to EPA for registration purposes, then filed away as “proprietary information” far from the scrutiny of the public eye. Enforcement actions are not taken by EPA; instead these critically important functions are delegated to individual state departments of agriculture, under an arrangement ironically called a “primacy agreement.”

The problems faced by the beekeeping industry are not limited to one single chemical compound. They are in fact linked to a pervasive regulatory failure. When the EPA was first set up, it was in response to environmental challenges of an unprecedented nature. At that time the country was using 200,000,000 pounds of active ingredient chemical pesticides. Today that number is over 5,000,000,000 pounds of active ingredient. Simply put, the country is drowning in chemicals. These very “economic poisons” are doing their job too well, and because of the deregulation process we are faced with a perfect storm today capable of destroying our countries[sic] pollinator base which will carry with it agricultural and environmental catastrophe.

The fundamental change which is necessary is to return to a system at EPA which independently tests chemical compounds before they are released for widespread use. Precaution and prevention are words which need to return to environmental protection. Massive field experiments, such as what has occurred with the neonicotinoid class of systemic insecticides is just too high risk of a behavior.

<idle musing>
If you let industry police itself, what do you expect? We have seen what happened in the banking industry, with the resulting recession/depression. Can we afford to wait for the bees to disappear?

You say you don't eat honey? That's not the issue! Bees are pollinators; a huge percentage of our crops depend on their pollination. No bees, a lot less food. Less food, higher prices and the genuine possibility of real food shortages.

I have hesitated to post on this issue for a long time, for fear of being seen as a "wolf-crier," but this is getting too serious. But, there is hope; the White House is now keeping honey bees! See here for the details.
</idle musing>

What's in a name, anyway?

Yesterday, I posted about name calling in academia. Jim West took issue with name-calling being bad. He was clear that he is not attacking me, and I don't feel attacked. But, in the interest of clarifying what Efraín Velázquez was getting at, here is a later snippet:

The current debate and so-called crisis in historiographical studies has served to mature both disciplines. As long as the debate does not degenerate into isolation and fragmentation, one must continue listening to provocative proposals and maturing solid arguments. On the other hand, accusations such as “myth holders” or “mythographers” do not serve to advance our disciplines.—Efraín Velázquez in Critical Issues in Early Israelite History, page 75

<idle musing>
It seems clear that the name calling is not what he was concerned about as much as whether or not people are really listening...
</idle musing>

New sale

I just put up a new sale at Eisenbrauns. Have fun!

For the next 10 days, Eisenbrauns is offering you a chance to save 30-60% on some of our newer Festschriften. Whether your interests are the ancient Near East, archaeology, languages, or biblical studies, there is one on sale for you.

"Essays on Ancient Israel in Its Near Eastern Context:
A Tribute to Nadav Na'aman"
Edited by Yairah Amit, et al.
Eisenbrauns, 2006. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 9781575061283
List Price: $59.50 Your Price: $35.70

"David and Zion: Biblical Studies in Honor of J. J. M. Roberts"
Edited by Bernard F. Batto and Kathryn Roberts
Eisenbrauns, 2004. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 1575060922
List Price: $55.00 Your Price: $27.50

"Hittite Studies in Honor of Harry A. Hoffner Jr.
on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday"
Edited by Gary M. Beckman, Richard Beal, and Gregory McMahon
Eisenbrauns, 2003. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 1575060795
List Price: $65.00 Your Price: $32.50

"Sefer Moshe: The Moshe Weinfeld Jubilee Volume:
Studies in the Bible and the Ancient Near East,
Qumran, and Post-Biblical Judaism"
Edited by Chaim Cohen, Avi Hurvitz, and Shalom M. Paul
Eisenbrauns, 2004. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 1575060744
List Price: $59.50 Your Price: $29.75

"Le-David Maskil : A Birthday Tribute for David Noel Freedman"
Edited by Richard Elliott Friedman and William H. Propp
Biblical and Judaic Studies from the
University of California, San Diego - BJSUCSD 9
Eisenbrauns, 2004. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 1575060841
List Price: $32.50 Your Price: $16.25

"Confronting the Past: Archaeological and Historical
Essays on Ancient Israel in Honor of William G. Dever"
Edited by Seymour Gitin, J. Edward Wright, and J. P. Dessel
Eisenbrauns, 2006. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 1575061171
List Price: $69.50 Your Price: $34.75

"Bringing the Hidden to Light: The Process of Interpretation:
Studies in Honor of Stephen A. Geller"
Edited by Kathryn F. Kravitz and Diane M. Sharon
Eisenbrauns, 2007. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 9781575061245
List Price: $49.50 Your Price: $29.70

""I Will Speak the Riddles of Ancient Times": Archaeological
and Historical Studies in Honor of Amihai Mazar on the
Occasion of His Sixtieth Birthday"
Edited by Aren M. Maeir and Pierre de Miroschedji
Eisenbrauns, 2006. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 1575061031
List Price: $97.50 Your Price: $68.25

"Milk and Honey: Essays on Ancient Israel and the Bible
in Appreciation of the Judaic Studies Program at the
University of California, San Diego"
Edited by Sarah Malena and David Miano
Eisenbrauns, 2007. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 1575061279
List Price: $47.50 Your Price: $19.00

"From the Banks of the Euphrates: Studies in
Honor of Alice Louise Slotsky"
Edited by Micah Ross
Eisenbrauns, 2008. Cloth. English.
ISBN: 9781575061443
List Price: $49.50 Your Price: $34.65

Name calling

"Thompson (1992a) and Barstad (1996) argue that scholars who support an early date for the origin of Israel (the so-called maximalists) are perpetuating a “myth of Israel” and the “mythical past” of the Hebrew Bible. On the other hand, Oded (2003: 55–56) calls the so-called minimalists “mythographers,” because they propose that the origin of Israel should be dated to late periods (that is, Persian or Hellenistic periods). I do not wish to engage in a diatribe that would not advance the study on the origins of Israel. Name-calling and rhetorical outbursts have done much harm and do not promote progress in this discussion. Much of today’s literature is reactionary and does not advance our understanding. However, the dynamics of engaging a subject from different perspectives can be fruitful and the colorful language of these discussions generates interest."—Efraín Velázquez in Critical Issues in Early Israelite History, page 62

Consumption

Just ran across this in an e-mail from Smyth & Helwys, plugging the book 17 Roadblocks on the Highway of Life:

As the old quip puts it, “We spend money we don’t have to buy things we don’t need based on advertising we don’t believe to please people we don’t even like.”

Author Juliet B. Schor describes the problem in terms of today’s consumer society. She locates the problem in what she calls the process of consumption: see, want, borrow, and buy. Our inner desires are prompted by exposure to a plethora of things. Seeing leads to wanting, as our inner desires spur us to action. And often we do not wait until we have the money we need before we purchase something. We simply charge it. Then, after having bought something—often on credit—we are driven to make more money to cover what we have already purchased, all the time driven toward more possessions by the process of consumption. [Juliet B. Schor, The Overspent American (New York: Basic Books, 1998), 68-74.]

<idle musings>
And we wonder why the economy collapsed? This, my friends, is the ultimate end of the person wrapped up in him/herself. Consumption can never fill the hole in the soul.
</idle musings>

Why is it

that we are surprised when people act depraved?

As Christians, we claim to believe in original sin, but then are surprised when people act in a sinful manner...one of those things that makes you go, "hmmm."

A song is given birth in the spring

Joel posted this song to their blog yesterday. It is a reflection on how Emily's passing last June helps him understand the crucifixion a bit better. Click on the widget to hear it. The words are below.

Resurrection Morn
by Joel Pike
Now that I've held death in my arms.
Now that my own flesh and blood has grown cold.
Now that I've seen a soul move on,
leaving behind a little body and a little less of me.

Now that I've seen the heavenly slip away....
Nothings left when the heavenly slips away.
Now that I've seen...
What would've it been like to be there on a hill outside of Jerusalem?
When the earth shuddered and the sky rolled and on the cross hung the one who made it all?
He made the hands that beat him.
He made the tongues that cursed him over and over.
He made the nails that pierced his wrists.
He made the thorns that crowned His bloody head.

The Author of Life wrote His death. He wrote in His own blood.
And the Light of the world was extinguished.
And what is a world without the One by whom it is made?
No there's nothing left when the heavenly slips away.

Oh for the resurrection morn!
Oh for the first light of dawn!

All would be lost it that'd been all;
if death could keep a hold on God
Enter the tomb. Pass the stone rolled away.
He is not here. He is risen from the dead!

Oh for the resurrection morn! (Where would we be?)
Oh for the first light of dawn! (Come Lord Jesus come)

Hmmm

There has been a good bit of discussion about Jon's post about church, but it has all been on Facebook. As expected, it wasn't long before someone trotted out the old Hebrews 10:24-25 verse. I suspect they are using the version that Alan Knox published on June 1, 2008, because it certainly couldn't be the actual one in anybody's Bible:

The fourth installment of "Scripture... As We Live It":

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting don't forget to meet together in the church building every Sunday morning, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another let your leaders encourage you, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (Hebrews 10:24-25 remix)

<idle musing>
I would only add one thing to his modifications; I would put this at the end: "and all the more as you see Sunday drawing near."

Seriously, why do we think that Sunday sitting in a pew is "considering how to stir one another up?" Maybe because otherwise we would fall asleep? :)
</idle musing>

What do you do with these?

Seriously, what do you do with these verses:

1 Corinthians 7:12 "To the rest I say, not the Lord..." and
1 Corinthians 7:25 "Now concerning the unmarried, I have no command of the Lord, but I give my opinion as one who by the Lord's mercy is trustworthy." (RSV)

What do you do with these? Do you run through some hermeneutical hoops to make it so that Paul is inspired? Do you basically re-read it to mean that he knows of no saying of Jesus addressing this? Or, do you take it at face value? Are they binding?

I'm being serious here. I honestly don't know (and never have) how to read these two texts. If you take them as binding, then what does that say about your hermeneutic of scripture? If you take them as Paul's opinion, what does that say about your view of inspiration? And, are you comfortable with these decisions?

Church, but not as most view it

There is a thought provoking post by Jon over at The Theos Project on being outside the pale of institutional Christianity. After recalling a recent, awkward, conversation with a neighbor, he talks about why, and what it means, to be outside the pale:

But what if we embraced the void? What if we gave up our foundationalist instinct to find a center and just let be?

I think that if we could do so, then we would be forced to live faith without being able to fall back on an institution/organization/membership for security. We could then allow sacred spaces to open up naturally and organically as the spirit moves.

Most importantly, without a center or foundation, the us-versus-them exclusivistic attitude becomes more difficult to maintain. "Having a home church" means that one is "in," right? And those who don't are out. What if we were all out? What if we were all in? What if that didn't matter so much, anymore?

NOT having a church makes one live faith each moment for the moment, it does not allow for a psychological religious stabilizer.

<idle musing>
Please read the whole thing; he doesn't paint a rosy picture of being outside, nor does he condemn those inside. He simply evaluates what church is supposed to be, where it really is, and how he is responding to that. Personally, I think his response is very well thought out and has a scriptural foundation.

He isn't the only one who thinks this way; according to Barna, this is the fastest growing segment of the church. It used to be the nominal christians who left the institutional church; now it is the ones who really want to live out their faith moment-by-moment. The church doesn't know what to do with these kinds of people. I guess that is one reason that a friend of mine has started saying that he is "unchurched," although he gets together with other Christians throughout the week. He just doesn't want to be associated with the baggage that comes with the current definition of "church;" he would rather it were defined by the New Testament.
</idle musing>

Spring!

Yes, I know it isn't officially here yet, but yesterday sure was beautiful!

I love the season changes; I love winter, but am glad that things are turning green again. I looked at the lilac bushes yesterday night. They have begun to put out little leaves, about 1/2 long right now. The fruit trees have buds that are about to burst open; the maples are getting ready to flower.

I walked over to the garden, trying to see signs of raspberries coming up. Not yet. Then I went over to the herb garden and looked for signs of mint, parley, oregano, but in vain. The chives, though, have 2 inch sprouts. I plucked one off and bit it. The stalks are nice and thick and juicy this time of year and a burst of onion filled my mouth. I plucked a second one to intensify the flavor. Wow, sure did taste good. But, the flavor stuck in my mouth the rest of the night; after a while it does get old :)

I started riding my road bike again this week. Talk about fast! With the mountain bike, it takes me about 25 minutes to get to work. With the road bike, I can do it in 15. The mountain bike I have is heavy and a bit too small for me, but it serves its purpose well. I wouldn't want to be riding my road bike with its skinny tires and expensive components in the salt and snow!

Enjoy the season! I know I am, even though the garden won't get planted for a while yet :)

Making the rounds again

A few good posts from relatively recenlty...

What is worship? asks Alan Knox the other day:

How do we "worship" God? We worship God in the way that we serve, submit to, love, and accept one another. When do we worship? Well, we worship when we serve, submit to, love, and accept one another. What if we're not doing these things? Then we're not worshiping.

What if we're singing and listening to preaching, but we not demonstrating love to those around us? Then we're not worshiping. What if we're demonstrating God's love to those around us, but we're not singing nor listening to preaching. Then, we're worshiping.

And, from Ted Gossard, some thoughts on relationships:

I don't care that much about what I know or what you know, not for itself. Yes, knowledge by faith is important. But the goal is relationship and communion with God and with each other. Of course only in Christ can people come to their senses and repent and thus find themselves found by God. The central need for relationship is inherent in us as humans made in God's image.

And, from Joel B. about living in a box:

What ends up happening is a lot of faking. A lot of acting. A lot of trying to keep up with others who seem to have it together, while those who seem to have it together know that they don't really have it together, but can't let anyone know! And there is a lot of living inside a box. A box of must's and should's, rather than trust and get to's. A box of performance, trying to get it right, trying to be good Christian boys and girls, but never seeming able to arrive, and therefore never being able to get out of the box. Often not even knowing there's a whole world outside of the box!

</idle musing>
All excellent thoughts. Be sure to read the whole of each of them.
<idle musing>