This kid for the win.
Mar 12th
Upset kids tell off Neil deGrasse Tyson for declassifying Pluto as a planet in an exhibit he is in charge of. Here are some of them. Read more about it here.
An Early Christian Hymn – The Johannine Prologue ?
Mar 12th
Almost everyone recognizes the highly stylized format of the introduction to the Gospel according to John. There are those that suggest that this is an insertion of an early Xian hymn. There are detractors to be sure, but in a recent article in the Journal of Biblical Literature[1] Gordley suggests that John 1:1-17 is one hymn with seven stanzas, with the insertion of an aside about John the Baptist as a way of honoring the Baptist by “showing his important role in the redemptive history of the Logos, while at the same time making a distinction between the two figures.”[2]
For the most part, Gordley is convincing. The material looks and acts like a hymn and the didactic hymnody does seem to mesh well with the instructional strategies of the hymn. While it does not seem liturgical, but instructional, the discoveries of instructional hymns at Qumran, such as the Hodayot, are convincing.
One of the best features of the article is its treatment of John the Baptist. Few people realize the problem John the Baptist posed for the early Christian community and this is evidenced by the fact that the Gospels work hard to bring John in line with and supportive of Jesus (and yet, no where do they become of the same movement).
If you have access to the Journal of Biblical Literature, I highly suggest checking out the article.
Notes:
Art
Mar 12th
When the specter of a permanent dwelling surfaces, new questions arise. Questions like
- What do I want this space to look like?
- What do I want this space to say?
Accordingly, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about art. More specifically, what art I would like to hang in my office. There are two pieces I am thinking about, one comical, the other religious.
Comical
First, I’d like to get a set of decoupages[1] of images from comics. After looking around, I settled on the JLA covers to Final Crisis:
Each piece, aside from being beautiful and striking, showcases particular virtues and activates particular stories, stories which I value and allow to shape my identity.
Then there is Darkseid. In a lot of ways, he it the antithesis of those virtues. I think I’d like to keep him in there for purposes of juxtaposition.[2]
Religious?
The second thing I’d like to have on my wall is a telescopic view from the Holy of Holies from the 2nd Temple through each of the walls/divisions of creation and out past the borders of the city, of Samaria, through the wilderness, and finally on to Rome. It might even be neat to place biblical scenes in each location, such as Eden in the Holy of Holies, or replace Rome with Babylon and move it into the 1st Temple Period. Perhaps you’d have a sea past the wilderness or something.
I’ve had such a vision for such a painting ever since I read a book my first year of grad school which emphasized this sacred view of space, division, and order within Judaism.[3]
It would emphasize the ordered-ness of God’s creation and move toward the lack of order – the chaos of the wilderness, and ending finally the rebelling ordering of the world by humans. I’d even want the fabled sign on the edge of the court of gentiles that said that any gentile passing this gate would be killed.
Shalom-Chaos-Empire.
Not only would it be an awesome painting, but it would be such a conversation piece, such a reminder, and even such a thing to use for lecture points. You’d be able to see how Israel saw the world, you’d see the juxtaposition between the ways of God and the ways of humans and how they are set against each other.
And it would not be a Christian piece, per se, it would be a 2nd Temple piece and would therefore invite discussion and pondering about the relationship between 2nd Temple Judaism and Xianity / Rabbinic Judaism / other religions / Rome / other empires / politics / and God.
Do you have any thoughts on great wall pieces?
Notes:
- this is where one takes a picture of a painting and paints clear painty stuff over it as if one was painting the actual picture – the next effect is the illusion of a painting. [↩]
- I totally have not talked about virtue ethics in three of my classes [↩]
- The name of the book escapes me – I’ll have to look it up when I get home. [↩]
Christian Charity in the 4th Century
Mar 11th
 |
| Julian the Apostate, apparently after he had fallen from a horse and injured his arm. |
Here are some words from Julian the Apostate, my favorite Roman Emperor on Christian and Jewish charity. Julian hated Christians and sought to undermine their cultural advances. This quote comes from his justification to use temples as social justice distribution centers.
For it is disgraceful that, when no Jew ever has to beg, and the impious Galileans[1] support not only their own poor, but ours as well, all men see that our people lack aid from us.
We see that Christians and Jews gave, and gave heavily, not only to their own poor, but to the poor outside of their communities.
Can you imagine what our witness would be if no Christian ever went hungry and we even gave outside of our communities?
Julian’s plan ultimately failed because “there was no doctrinal bases or traditional practices to build upon.”[2]
Roman’s practiced charity, but it was the prevue of the state and of loyalty to it, not because of religious obligation. Christians, on the other hand, saw service to the poor as one of the primary markers of one’s spiritual status.[3]
Notes:
Our Canon is the Protestant Canon.
Mar 9th
Someone asked me why I hold the Protestant Canon to be my Scripture and not the Apocrypha or the Quran. This is the best I can come up with, from my statement of faith.
We have no scriptural basis, no manuscript basis, and no scientific basis for this claim. It rests solely upon our faith in the Spirit guiding our historical spiritual community. It was not delivered to us on plates of gold; it came into being through much struggle, trepidation, and time. We listen to other Christian works such as the Catholic Apocrypha, popular Christian devotional and academic works, and even ancient Christian non-canonical texts (such as the Acts of Mar Andrew and Mar Matthias) for human and divine wisdom, but hold the Canon over and above all these as the only set of works co-opted by God as his instrument of communication.
PETA and the Angels
Mar 8th
Go and read JR’s second post concerning PETA’s latest ad campaign. PETA’s Sexy Beasts Pt 2 (of 4): Like a Virgin…
Here is a taste:
Because we do not have access to any sort of transcendent religious reality, these ads are free to reinterpret ‘spiritual’ to mean whatever they want, using whatever religious symbols they choose. Whether intentionally or not (and I think PETA’s way too smart to do anything unintentionally), these ads appropriate cherished Christian symbols and subvert their meaning, thereby communicating a message that is consistent not with the Gospel, but with a modernist worldview.
Take up and eat 
.
Sometimes we are forced to slow down
Mar 8th
Meredith and I, because of the nature of our beings and our situation, go go go go go.
Last night I tweeted that it was going to be a long day. I had two lecture to give, a hour and a half to drive, a test to compose, two other lectures to write, a study guide to finish, a test to take, and cursed Hebrew homework to slug through, yadda, yadda, yadda.
Then, at about 11pm, Reed threw up. We spend much of the night tending to his needs, trying to get him to keep formula and pedialyte down to no avail.
My “important” tasks fell by the wayside, swept aside by the humanity and suffering of our son.
I’ll get those other things done later.
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Do we have a duty to die?
Mar 7th
Even more so than sex, Death in the West is taboo.
We don’t talk about death.
We don’t discuss death.
We have convinced ourselves that we must stay alive at all costs.
(no matter the quality of life or thought to the effects upon others)
Death disjoints us. Scares us. Kills us.
Should it?
In a very humble and humanizing article, John Hardwig asks a very pointed, but necessary question: “Do we have a duty to die?” He says that our individualistic fantasy and our ridiculous wealth and medical technology have somehow tricked us into thinking we are exempt from a duty to die. (Or even an acceptance and embrace of death – though that is a post for another day)
But have wealth and technology really exempted us? Or are they, on the contrary, about to make a duty to die common again? We like to think of modern medicine as all triumph with no dark side.
Our medicine saves many lives and enables most of us to live longer. That is wonderful, indeed. We are all glad to have access to this medicine. But our medicine also delivers most of us over to chronic illnesses and it enables many of us to survive longer than we can take care of ourselves, longer than we know what to do with ourselves, longer than we even are ourselves.
Give the article a once-over. For you Christians, ask yourself what place life and death have in the Kingdom of God. Should we continue to climb technology’s Tower of Babel without regard to God or others?
John Hardwig – Do We have a Duty to Die?
If you want, click the “read more” link for a set of reading/discussion questions.
Something is a Batmobile if…
Mar 3rd
I got a little geeky today in class. First, I asked if we would all say something (I forget what). When the class was quiet, I said “So say we all?” They relied in unison “so say we all.” I then chuckled and offered bonus points for identifying the reference to “so say we all.”
No points were awarded.
Second, I talked about Aristotle’s idea of function. For my example, I asked “What makes a good Batmobile?” I used the following as a poor Batmoblie:
If the purpose of the Batmobile is to get the Bat Man around town, and the Bat Man just needs to go down to the corner to grab some smokes, then perhaps the above is a good Batmobile. However, if he needs to catch the Joker, perhaps not.
That lead me to my next slide, where I included some of my favorite panels from Batman and the Monster Men:
I just couldn’t resist that fin comment.
Air
Mar 2nd
Our lil man, Reed, grinning at our waiter at Rio Grande last night. The lil man was shy at first, or perhaps inquisitive, but he soon warmed up to him. You can see is four front teeth in the pic.
Here’s another pic from last night:
Sometimes it is good to stop and enjoy the blessings from God. As I’ll talk about shortly, Mere and I often feel as though we are treading water far at sea. Last night, we found land in love and stillness.
