θεοβλογουμενα (theoblogoumena)

"Just As It Is Written" - NOT!

2009-07-08T13:19:00.041-05:00

Just as it is written,
"Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense,
And he who believes in him will not be disappointed."
- Romans 9:33 (New American Standard Bible/NASB)

But that's NOT "just as it is written."

In Romans 9:33, the Apostle Paul combines two Scripture verses, Isaiah 28:16 and Isaiah 8:14, to come up with his quote. Here is how those verses read:

Isaiah 28:16:
Therefore thus says the Lord GOD,
"Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a tested stone,
A costly cornerstone for the foundation, firmly placed.
He who believes in it will not be disturbed." (Hebrew: NASB)

therefore thus says the Lord,
See, I will lay for the foundations of Sion
a precious, choice stone,
a highly valued cornerstone for its foundations,
and the one who believes in him will not be put to shame. (Greek: New English Translation of the Septuagint/NETS)
Isaiah 8:14:
"Then He shall become a sanctuary;
But to both the houses of Israel, a stone to strike and a rock to stumble over,
And a snare and a trap for the inhabitants of Jerusalem." (Hebrew: NASB)

If you trust in him, he will become your holy precinct, and you will not encounter him as a stumbling caused by a stone nor as a fall caused by a rock, but the house of Iakob is in a trap, and those who sit in Ierousalem are in a pit. (Greek: NETS)

While one can see from the English translations that Paul did not seem to exclusively follow either the Hebrew text or the Greek (Septuagint) version, the following shows the relationship between the Septuagint translation of these verses and Romans 9:33: blue marks what came from Isaiah 28:16, red marks what came from Isaiah 8:14, and green marks in Romans 9:33 the part of one word that may have come from either verse:

Isaiah 28:16: δια τουτο ουτως λεγει Κυριος Ιδου εγω εμβαλω εις τα θεμελια Σιων λιθον πολυτελη εκλεκτον ακρογωνιαιον εντιμον εις τα θεμελια αυτης και ο πιστευων επ' αυτω ου μη καταισχυνθη

Isaiah 8:14: και εαν επ' αυτω πεποιθως ης εσται σοι εις αγιασμα και ουχ ως λιθου προσκομματι συναντησεσθε αυτω ουδε ως πετρας πτωματι ο δε οικος Ιακωβ εν παγιδι και εν κοιλασματι εγκαθημενοι εν Ιερουσαλημ

Romans 9:33: καθως γεγραπται, Ιδου τιθημι εν Σιων λιθον προσκομματος και πετραν σκανδαλου, και ο πιστευων επ' αυτω ου καταισχυνθησεται.

Here are the verses in table form for comparison:

Isaiah 28:16 Isaiah 8:14 Romans 9:33
δια τουτο ουτως λεγει Κυριος και εαν επ' αυτω πεποιθως ης καθως γεγραπται,
Ιδου εγω εμβαλω εις τα θεμελια Σιων Ιδου τιθημι εν Σιων
εσται σοι εις αγιασμα και ουχ ως
λιθον λιθου προσκομματι συναντησεσθε αυτω ουδε ως πετρας πτωματι λιθον προσκομματος και πετραν σκανδαλου,
πολυτελη εκλεκτον ακρογωνιαιον εντιμον εις τα θεμελια αυτης ο δε οικος Ιακωβ εν παγιδι και εν κοιλασματι εγκαθημενοι εν Ιερουσαλημ
και ο πιστευων επ' αυτω ου μη καταισχυνθη και ο πιστευων επ' αυτω ου καταισχυνθησεται.

Isaiah 28:16	Isaiah 8:14	Romans 9:33
δια τουτο ουτως λεγει Κυριος	και εαν επ' αυτω πεποιθως ης	καθως γεγραπται,
Ιδου εγω εμβαλω εις τα θεμελια Σιων		Ιδου τιθημι εν Σιων
	εσται σοι εις αγιασμα και ουχ ως
λιθον	λιθου προσκομματι συναντησεσθε αυτω ουδε ως πετρας πτωματι	λιθον προσκομματος και πετραν σκανδαλου,
πολυτελη εκλεκτον ακρογωνιαιον εντιμον εις τα θεμελια αυτης	ο δε οικος Ιακωβ εν παγιδι και εν κοιλασματι εγκαθημενοι εν Ιερουσαλημ
και ο πιστευων επ' αυτω ου μη καταισχυνθη		και ο πιστευων επ' αυτω ου καταισχυνθησεται.

As you can see, Paul sandwiches part of the middle of Isaiah 8:14 between some of the beginning and most of the end of Isaiah 28:16.

Thus, as opposed to quoting Isaiah "just as it is written," what Paul wrote does not seem to fully agree with either the Greek text or the Hebrew text of these verses, and his wording also has some morphological differences with what was "written."

How Many Adams?

2009-06-19T13:17:00.024-05:00

The creation accounts in Genesis 1 and 2 are usually said to complement each other, with Genesis 2 being considered a "more detailed" or "close-up" recounting of what is stated more generally about the creation of plants, animals and men in Genesis 1.

But is the Genesis 2 account of the creation of the male adam/ish and the forming of the female ishshah indeed a retelling of the Genesis 1 creation of the male and female adam?

When reading Genesis 1, one sees that singular nouns are used to refer to plurals - e.g., "tree," "bird," "beast," "cattle," refer to the creation of "trees," "birds," "beasts," "cattle," etc. A natural reading of Genesis 1:26-30 (apart from Genesis 2 and 3) would be that God here created the human kind just like he had created the kinds of water creatures and flying creatures and land creatures – i.e., several or many male and female humans. The subsequent blessing and command to the adams to take over and fill the earth and rule all its creatures makes more sense if given to a large group of people. Note that just before this, God had given a similar blessing and command to all the water creatures and flying creatures, not just to a single pair.

(The verbs re: the blessing and command are plurals, as is the expression of what God intended for the adam before he made them. While the plurals could refer to or be directed to a single male and female pair, in the context it makes more sense to see them as referring to or being directed to many humans.)

Also, a Genesis 1 creation of many adams helps solve the problem of where Cain got his wife, if she was not a sibling, and renders moot the need to suggest (as some do in an effort to reconcile the two accounts of man's creation) that the first adam might have been a hermaphrodite, being both male and female, before YHWH God took the female out of the male's side.

Genesis 5:1-3 seems to collapse or mix the two creation accounts into the creation of a single adam, and as our text of Genesis now stands, I suspect it's impossible to cleanly separate what might have been two separate accounts. But the fact that they are read and taught as being a unified whole does not mean that they complement each other or were originally meant to, or that they can be perfectly harmonized.

Holy Roller

2009-06-13T22:17:00.050-05:00

Holy Roller: Finding Redemption and the Holy Ghost in a Forgotten Texas Church by Julie Lyons (Buy from Amazon.com)

My Review ***** (out of 5)

Put this book on your must-read list, especially if you live in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. I've now read it twice, and am giving copies to several people. It's G-O-O-D!

(Mrs. Lyons was the Editor-in-Chief for the Dallas Observer before she left her job in order to write this book. The writing and storytelling style of Holy Roller remind me of some of the cover stories I've read over the years in the Observer, but that could be coincidental.)

Excerpt:

I was driving on the wild frontier of gangsta-land, a place I'd learn to navigate by the sites where people got murdered. South Dallas always stayed crazy, and I was just getting used to the experience--the occasional kak-kak-kak of semiautomatic-weapon fire, the graffiti tags of the Trey-Five-Seven (.357) Crips, the distinctive choreography of drug dealing, with crack rocks passing invisibly from hand to hand in furtive motions that I came to recognize from afar.

I was twenty-seven years old, white, and quite conspicuous in black South Dallas the evening in late April 1990 when I set out to find a different kind of story for the Dallas Times Herald. Since starting a job two months earlier as a crime reporter, I'd been getting to know the roughest parts of the city, places like this. It was nothing like the small Wisconsin town where I grew up.

I'd tell myself I wasn't scared, but I think I was driving too fast to know for sure. This time I wasn't chasing flashing lights toward Bexar Street, hoping to get there before the witnesses and walking wounded had melted away in the dark. Instead, I was looking for the scene of a miracle.

There would be no crime-scene tape marking the spot. It was just me in my little car, prowling the streets and looking for a spiritual outpost. I had no idea what it would look like; all I knew was there had to be a church in this part of the inner city where people came searching for a supernatural breakthrough. I had decided it would be impossible to live in this crumbling, seemingly godforsaken territory without clinging to some shred of hope that things could get better. I was determined to find the place people go when despair drives them to seek a miracle.

I turned a corner and entered a neighborhood with all the familiar signs: slender boys with darting eyes, standing like pickets on the corner, beckoning to people in cars that were slowly passing through. I steered around potholes and broken glass in the street and looked past the drug sentries for evidence of light and life in the neighborhood's churches. You'd find Baptists on one corner and Holy Sanctifieds on the other, with a House of Prayer for All People wedged in between. They stood as silent witnesses while hell swarmed all around them. The truth is, I really didn't know what I was looking for. I just knew I couldn't leave South Dallas until I found it.

All this began with a lie, a made-up story idea that I pitched to my editors at the newspaper. See, there are these preachers in the ghetto who pray for crack-cocaine addicts, and people are supposedly getting miraculously "healed." And oh, I know a bunch of these preachers. The best you could say in my defense is that I thought about the story so much that it became real to me. Before moving to Dallas, I had lived in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where the Troubles erupted regularly into fire bombings, shootings, and retaliatory acts between working-class Catholics and Protestants. I had gone to the province of Ulster to write the story of a terrorist who found God and was now trying to lead his former enemies to reconciliation. I learned while living in Belfast that among certain types of Christians, unexplainable things were almost commonplace. You just had to know where to look.

My previous work as a crime reporter at the Seattle Times had led me to believe that miracle-working preachers could be found in any major city. In Dallas in 1990, the crack epidemic was leaving a trail of wreckage--of neighborhoods gone to hell in a swath of murder and ruin. Thanks to my experiences in Belfast and Seattle, I had come up with a simple theorem: where desperation multiplied, there you would find God.

At the Dallas Times Herald we were always looking for new angles to pursue in reporting the crack-cocaine story. I needed something bigger than yet another shooting, drug raid, or body found in the street. Why not make my mark at the paper by uncovering the miraculous? Here, then, was the problem: I didn't know any preachers who fit this description. There is a game that newspaper reporters play: you invest as little work as possible before pitching a story to your editor. That way, if your editor rejects the idea, you haven't wasted too much effort. I mentioned my story idea of supernatural healing, and to my surprise and secret horror, the editors seized on it immediately. They scheduled the story for Sunday A-1. I had just a few days to find my mythical ministers and write a lengthy feature story about themin time for the early edition, the "bulldog."

That's why I was cruising aimlessly through South Dallas. As evening moved quickly toward night, I was way more scared of my editors than I was of the ghetto. I passed dozens of churches without stopping. If the lights weren't on, I kept rolling. I eventually turned onto a one-block street, Brigham Lane, and saw two churches, one on each corner.The first seemed inconsequential, with a sagging roof and handmade sign. But at the other end of the block stood a tidy, brick-walled structure. I noted the affiliation: Church of God in Christ. Black Pentecostals. Holy rollers. I aimed for the far corner.

I had my music cranked, a soca artist from Tobago named Shadow, who had an insidiously hummable tune, "Tabanka." It has something to do with the sickness you feel when you're hopelessly attracted to someone. I craved the melody and syncopation of my beloved Caribbean music. All the plastic parts of my little Honda were rattling with the heavy bass line, and the noise helped to bury my nervousness.

I was driving past the scruffy-looking church when something intensely spiritual happened. I don't know how else to say this: God was in the car with me. I could feel his presence, a palpable thing that made my senses light up, even amid the dissonance of blaring soca. I might have been a tough-minded crime reporter, but I had recently reconnected with the faith of my childhood, and I was engaged to be married to a man who was a devout Christian. I was far from figuring things out but eager to investigate anything that might shed more light on questions about God's work on earth.

Is that really you, God? I thought. What else could I think? I turned the music down and pulled my car to the curb.

You want me to stop here, don't you? I said to myself and, I suppose, to God as well. Just then a girl popped out the front door of the dilapidated church. As the girl skipped down the sidewalk, I got out of my car, reporter's notebook in hand, and stopped her just short of the house that stood next-door.

"Do you believe in healing prayer?" I asked without introduction.

"Yes!" she said enthusiastically. She was brown-skinned, with pigtails, or so I recall. I don't remember very clearly anymore. I guessed she was about ten, but back then I wasn't good at estimating children's ages.

"Does your minister pray for drug addicts?" I asked.

"Yes!" she answered again.

"Are any getting healed?"

"Yes!"

I asked her to point out her pastor to me. At that moment a black man wearing a suit jacket and tie stepped outside the church's front door. Several church members were visible in the dim yellow light of the tiny foyer behind him. A thought flashed in my brain: Oh God, don't let him be one of those overbearing egotistical preachers. I'm not even sure where that objection came from--probably from a bad experience I'd had in my years as a reporter.

I walked over and introduced myself as a journalist. The pastor was Fredrick L. Eddington Sr. He was tall and I am not, and I remember he bent down slightly as he listened to me.

"Do you pray for crack addicts?" I asked. Might as well get right to the point.

"Yes," the pastor said.

"Are they getting healed?"

The pastor paused for a moment. "Some of them are," he said. We chatted some more, and I got the impression he was choosing his words carefully. Still, our conversation was casual. To listen to Pastor Eddington, you'd have thought we were discussing the weather or the Dallas Cowboys. But we were talking about miracles. This wasn't at all what I'd expected. The pastor came across as humble, gentle, plainspoken. And he didn't seem the least bit surprised that a young white woman--a stranger who clearly didn't belong in this neighborhood--had suddenly materialized out of the darkness.

I was looking for a feature story to run in the Sunday paper. What I was about to discover was a passionate, self-taught man who would introduce me to a world of spirits, healing, prophecy, and warfare waged to the death between invisible forces of good and evil. To Pastor Eddington these things were not superstition, legend, or overwrought emotion. This was reality, and over the next few months I would see it for myself.

Months later, talking with Diane Eddington, the pastor's wife, I inquired about the little girl who had come skipping down the walk in front of the church, telling me that healings took place there. I asked the First Lady to point out the little girl so I could thank her, and Diane told me there was no such girl. I thought back to the night I had found this church. The sun had just set, it was a neighborhood where the crackle of gunfire was often heard, and a young girl was the only person on the sidewalk. I realized that no parent would dream of allowing her child to be out alone at night. Not only that, but no one who attended the service that evening had seen a girl matching the description I gave.

So who was the girl I talked to? Diane had an answer.

"Oh," she said, "you was just seeing an angel."

- - -

Here's an interview with Julie Lyons about the book from KERA Public Radio. The interviewer chose to spend more than 25% of the show (i.e., 11+ minutes at 15:16-26:43 of the less-than-48-minute interview, plus some of the callers' questions) on Julie's biblical views of (and personal struggles with) same-sex attraction and homosexuality, but there is so much more to the book than that, and so much more Julie could have discussed.

Which is all the more reason for you to GET THE BOOK AND READ IT ALL. :^D

** You can email Julie Lyons at: therealbiblegirl@gmail.com **

From Amazon.com:

Product Description
Julie Lyons was working as a crime reporter when she followed a hunch into the South Dallas ghetto. She wasn’t hunting drug dealers, but drug addicts who had been supernaturally healed of their addictions. Was there a church in the most violent part of the city that prayed for addicts and got results?

At The Body of Christ Assembly, a rundown church on an out-of-the-way street, Lyons found the story she was looking for. The minister welcomed criminals, prostitutes, and street people–anyone who needed God. He prayed for the sick, the addicted, and the demon-possessed, and people were supernaturally healed.

Lyons’s story landed on the front page of the Dallas Times Herald. But she got much more than just a great story, she found an unlikely spiritual home. Though the parishioners at The Body of Christ Assembly are black and Pentecostal, and Lyons is white and from a traditional church background, she embraced their spirituality–that of “the Holy Ghost and fire.”

It’s all here in Holy Roller–the stories of people desperate for God’s help. And the actions of a God who doesn’t forget the people who need His power.

About the Author
Julie Lyons is an award-winning writer, editor, and investigative reporter who for more than eleven years was editor-in-chief of the Dallas Observer, an alternative weekly newspaper owned by Village Voice Media. She holds a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University and a B.A. in English from Seattle Pacific University. She and her husband, Larry Lyons Jr., live in Dallas with their son.

How Stan Gundry Became An Egalitarian

2009-04-27T10:53:00.002-05:00

From Bobbed Hair, Bossy Wives and Women Preachers to Woman Be Free

Read the comments, too.

Manga Messiah

2009-03-26T14:30:00.000-05:00

This is a great telling of the story of Jesus. Manga Messiah is faithful to the Gospels, weaving the accounts into one story. Highly Recommended.

A couple comments:

The Jewish leaders tend to be drawn a little too evil, in my opinion - i.e., darker skin, uglier features - while the other characters, their fellow Jews, have the typical manga Caucasian child-like look.
Jesus says to the thief on the cross: "I TELL YOU TODAY...YOU'LL JOIN ME IN PARADISE...," the punctuation reflecting the view of some churches/sects that we don't immediately go to be with the Lord at death. The NA-26/27 Greek text punctuates it as most translations do: "Truly I tell you, today you'll be with me in paradise."

I followed that by reading the sequel, Manga Metamorphosis (the Book of Acts):

It's equally good.

Get them both!

P4CM

2009-02-13T13:35:00.000-06:00

Wear your testimony:

An Amazing Story

2009-02-04T22:40:00.005-06:00

The Last Column, written by Amy Welborn's husband, Michael Dubruiel, just before he died suddenly this week.

READ IT.

Hat tip to Rod Dreher, the Crunchy Con at Beliefnet.

The Church And Same-Sex Unions

2009-01-20T21:41:00.025-06:00

The first time God blesses anything or anyone is when He says to His newly-created sea creatures and birds and humans, "Be fruitful and multiply"
God creates mankind - male and female - in God's image (i.e., God's image is expressed by male-female)
"The man" (i.e., the male) was in a "not good" state when he was "alone," and that was remedied by God making for him a female and making them to become "one flesh"
Paul likens the relationship between a man and a woman in marriage, and their becoming "one flesh," to the relationship of Christ with His church
This man-woman/Christ-church marriage relationship is again depicted at the end of Revelation in its description of the bride, the wife of the Lamb, the New Jerusalem

Thus, male-female marriage imagery bookends the Scriptures, showing in the end how God spiritually and eternally fulfills what He physically and temporally established "In The Beginning."

So as much as I'd like all things to be equal, all things do NOT appear to be equal, and I therefore think it's difficult for the church to find Biblical justification for "blessing" same-sex unions or according them the same status as male-female marriages. The problem is not that two same-sex people can't love each other, but that male-male and/or female-female does not accord with God's initial and ultimate intention. Such a relationship "casts the wrong shadow" (so to speak), because it doesn't properly copy the things in the heavenlies (Hebrews 8:5).

The Holy Spirit As "It"

2009-01-11T18:33:00.020-06:00

In some of my writings, I refer to the Holy Spirit as "It," rather than as "He."

Before explaining why, I want to make it clear that I do not regard the Holy Spirit as an "impersonal force." Nor am I denying the orthodox Christian understanding and expression of the Trinity.

My reasons for referring to the Holy Spirit as "It" are basically the following:

The most-developed Biblical concept of the Holy Spirit is found in the New Testament, and the Greek word pneuma (πνευμα) is a neuter noun.¹ Thus, referring to the Holy Spirit as "It" is kind of an artificial conformity to its "gender" in the New Testament. (I realize that the genders of Greek nouns don't necessarily correspond to or indicate the "sex" of the noun.)
The New Testament passages that commonly translate the Holy Spirit as "He" - i.e., Jesus's statements in the Gospel According to John 14-16 (see below*) - mislead many readers to think or assume that Jesus is deliberately breaking Greek grammar rules (i.e., a pronoun must agree with the gender of its antecedent) to emphasize the Holy Spirit's personhood by using masculine pronouns for a neuter word (and I've heard preachers and teachers say this very thing). But it can be shown that the word that is translated as "He" in those passages - i.e., the "far" (or "distant") demonstrative pronoun ekeinos (εκεινος) - has as its antecedent the masculine noun paraklêtos (παρακλητος) and not the neuter noun pneuma (πνευμα). In fact, it would be perfectly acceptable, and possibly more proper, to translate ekeinos (εκεινος) in these instances as "that one," since a "paraclete" (i.e., an advocate or someone called alongside to one's aid) need not necessarily be a male.

Actually, a case could probably be made for referring to the Holy Spirit as "She," since in the early church the Holy Spirit was at times equated with the "Wisdom" of the Old Testament and the Apocrypha, and both the Greek word for wisdom (sophia - σοφια) and the Hebrew word for "Spirit" (ruach - רוח) are feminine. But for me to refer to the Holy Spirit as "She" would be in my mind even more problematic and lead to greater misunderstanding than using "It."

* Here are the relevant verses in the Gospel According to John 14-16. I've marked in bold all the instances of paraklêtos (παρακλητος) and ekeinos (εκεινος), as well as any masculine pronouns that refer to paraklêtos (παρακλητος). I've also indicated where the New American Standard Bible used here translates verbs where the pronoun subject is included in the verb ending with "He" and neuter pronouns referring to the (neuter) Spirit with "Him" or "who(m)."

John 14

16 "I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; 17 that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.... 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you."

16 καγω ερωτησω τον πατερα και αλλον παρακλητον δωσει υμιν ινα μεθ υμων εις τον αιωνα η, 17 το πνευμα της αληθειας, ο ο κοσμος ου δυναται λαβειν, οτι ου θεωρει αυτο ουδε γινωσκει: υμεις γινωσκετε αυτο, οτι παρ υμιν μενει και εν υμιν εσται.... 26 ο δε παρακλητος, το πνευμα το αγιον ο πεμψει ο πατηρ εν τω ονοματι μου, εκεινος υμας διδαξει παντα και υπομνησει υμας παντα α ειπον υμιν [εγω].

John 15

26 "When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me,"

26 οταν ελθη ο παρακλητος ον εγω πεμψω υμιν παρα του πατρος, το πνευμα της αληθειας ο παρα του πατρος εκπορευεται, εκεινος μαρτυρησει περι εμου:

John 16

7 "But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. 8 And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment;... 13 But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative ("from Himself"), but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. 14 He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you."

7 αλλ εγω την αληθειαν λεγω υμιν, συμφερει υμιν ινα εγω απελθω. εαν γαρ μη απελθω, ο παρακλητος ουκ ελευσεται προς υμας: εαν δε πορευθω, πεμψω αυτον προς υμας. 8 και ελθων εκεινος ελεγξει τον κοσμον περι αμαρτιας και περι δικαιοσυνης και περι κρισεως:... 13 οταν δε ελθη εκεινος, το πνευμα της αληθειας, οδηγησει υμας εν τη αληθεια παση: ου γαρ λαλησει αφ εαυτου, αλλ οσα ακουσει λαλησει, και τα ερχομενα αναγγελει υμιν. 14 εκεινος εμε δοξασει, οτι εκ του εμου λημψεται και αναγγελει υμιν.

¹ In the Hebrew Old Testament, the corresponding word, ruach (רוח), is feminine, but Hebrew has no neuter gender. English, of course, has no genders for nouns at all.

Κεφαλη and Αυθεντειν

2009-01-08T08:14:00.006-06:00

Κεφαλη and Αυθεντειν.

Two words that have probably caused more ruckus in the last couple decades than any other words in the Greek New Testament!

(For non-Greek readers: One reason I do not give the definitions of these words is that the disageement about what they mean is a large reason for the ruckus.)

Whence "Complementarianism"?

2009-01-07T09:36:00.041-06:00

(Warning: The following may be "fightin' words" to some people.)

I've recently waded into the "Complementarian - Egalitarian" battle that's being waged in Evangelical Protestantism. (See, e.g., the Complegalitarian blog site.) Though I am not well read in the area,¹ I do not lack thoughts or opinions on the subject! And, per an earlier post, I've been to a church that is on the front lines of this battle.

Anyway, here's a salvo from me:

Note: Had I first read the introduction to Discovering Biblical Equality: Complementarity Without Hierarchy (Ronald W. Pierce and Rebecca Merrill Groothuis, Editors), I might not have written this post, since in it the editors discuss the subject I address here, though not exactly as I have done. And as the subtitle of the book indicates, egalitarians regard themselves as complementarians, but without the hierarchy that restricts church and home leadership to men.

Why is the "only men can be church leaders and teach other men in church" position called "Complementarianism"?

Sure, there are certain biological roles and functions for which men and women have complementary functions, but Christian "Complementarianism" also uses these biological differences to restrict certain church roles and functions to men, even though men are allowed to do in church everything that women can do (including the women-assigned things in Titus 2:4-5 - i..e, men can so instruct these young women as well). It's like they've taken Paul's statements in I Corinthians 12:13 and Galatians 3:26-28 and Colossians 3:10-11 about former distinctions being done away with in Christ and us all being one in Christ and "clarified" them to mean that "all Christians are equal and one in Christ - but some are more equal than others." (Cf. the commandment in Animal Farm being changed from "All animals are equal" to "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."²)

"Subordinationism" is probably not the right term, since "lay" men are just as "subordinated" to male pastors, elders, and deacons as "lay" women are. But since the path is open for "lay" men to become such "clergy" and to hold such "church offices" and to teach others, both male and female, whereas the path is not similarly open to women to enter or achieve the same rank or position or place of authority, perhaps "Restrictionism" is a more proper term.

Though the old "Patriarchalism" is not necessarily an ideal term, as it means a society headed by a "father," since it also means a system or organization whereby power is held by and transferred through males, it might still be the best term for so-called "Complementarianism."

To critique "Complementarianism" directly, and not just the term, if one distinguishes home and married life from church life, I think it shows that "Complementarianism" may be somewhat improperly importing the husband-wife relationship of men and women into the church realm or imposing it on the church. This seems contrary to one of the major Biblical images of the church as being the Bride of Christ, regardless of the genders of its members. It also seems contrary to the image of the church as the body of Christ in which God has placed the members as He decided, and to whom His Spirit gives gifts and giftings as It wills (I Corinthians 12:11,18) - with no mention made of restrictions or distinctions based on gender, or some positions or giftings being more appropriate for men than for women, or vice-versa.

(Note: When I talk about importing the husband-wife relationship into the church realm, I am not thereby saying or assuming that the husband-wife relationship has to be patriarchal, though there does seem to me to be Scriptural support for that, with the husbands' mutual respect and love and self-giving reciprocating the wives' and children's non-leadership or lesser-leadership roles. What I'm saying is that "Complementarians" seem to be imposing that model onto church roles and offices and tasks when they give men authority over women while denying a woman an equal right to be in authority or a pastor or a teacher of men.)

Maybe "Complementarians" would be offended if "Egalitarians" insisted on using "Patriarchalism" again, a term that more accurately describes the negative aspects of "Complementarianism." Is it the desire to dialogue without offending the other party that causes "Egalitarians" to acquiesce and accept the "Complementarians'" somewhat-euphemistic self-designation?

¹ I haven't read many of the latest articles written about this, but I have in the past owned and read several books on the subject, though I've subsequently sold or given away most of them. I have yet to read much of the largish (500+ pages) Discovering Biblical Equality, but have read most of the second edition of Two Views on Women in Ministry, as well as the first edition of Women in the Church: An Analysis and Application of 1 Timothy 2:9-15 (and own the second edition as well). I've also read several responses and rebuttals to and from the opposing sides.

² George Orwell, Animal Farm, Chapter X

"Happy Holidays!" - Bah, humbug!

2008-12-25T07:48:00.007-06:00

Call me a Scrooge, but in my opinionated opinion, "Happy Hanukkah!" or "Happy Kwanzaa," let alone, "Happy Holidays!", shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath as "Merry Christmas!" or used as a substitute.

Christmas is a true Holy Day, a commemoration of Christ's birth, the day God's Son became a human and began dwelling among us, an act(ion) He continues to do through His Holy Spirit.

Hanukkah, on the other hand, is a myth, a fable - or at least the "miracle" associated with it is. Unwilling and undesiring to make a popular military victory a holiday worthy of commemoration alongside the Biblical feasts and festivals, the rabbis invested the tale of the Maccabees' recapture of the Temple with a "miracle story" - in fact, several miracle stories, IIRC, the one about the flask of oil burning for eight days being the one that has survived. See, e.g., Bloch, Abraham P., The Biblical and Historical Background of the Jewish Holy Days (Ktav Publishing House, Inc., New York, 1978).

As for the true reason Hanukkah is celebrated for eight days, you can read about it in the 10th chapter of 2 Maccabees, an apocryphal intercanonical work:

1 Now Maccabeus and his followers, the Lord leading them on, recovered the temple and the city; 2 and they tore down the altars which had been built in the public square by the foreigners, and also destroyed the sacred precincts. 3 They purified the sanctuary, and made another altar of sacrifice; then, striking fire out of flint, they offered sacrifices, after a lapse of two years, and they burned incense and lighted lamps and set out the bread of the Presence. 4 And when they had done this, they fell prostrate and besought the Lord that they might never again fall into such misfortunes, but that, if they should ever sin, they might be disciplined by Him with forbearance and not be handed over to blasphemous and barbarous nations.

5 It happened that on the same day on which the sanctuary had been profaned by the foreigners, the purification of the sanctuary took place, that is, on the twenty-fifth day of the same month, which was Kislev. 6 And they celebrated it for eight days with rejoicing, in the manner of the feast of booths, remembering how not long before, during the feast of booths, they had been wandering in the mountains and caves like wild animals. 7 Therefore bearing ivy-wreathed wands and beautiful branches and also fronds of palm, they offered hymns of thanksgiving to him who had given success to the purifying of his own holy place. 8 They decreed by public ordinance and vote that the whole nation of the Jews should observe these days every year.

The account in 1 Maccabees Chapter 4 (considered to be more historically accurate than 2 Maccabees, and giving no explanation for the eight days) is as follows:

36 Then said Judas [Maccabeus] and his brothers, "Behold, our enemies are crushed; let us go up to cleanse the sanctuary and dedicate it." 37 So all the army assembled and they went up to Mount Zion. 38 And they saw the sanctuary desolate, the altar profaned, and the gates burned. In the courts they saw bushes sprung up as in a thicket, or as on one of the mountains. They saw also the chambers of the priests in ruins. 39 Then they rent their clothes, and mourned with great lamentation, and sprinkled themselves with ashes. 40 They fell face down on the ground, and sounded the signal on the trumpets, and cried out to Heaven.

41 Then Judas detailed men to fight against those in the citadel until he had cleansed the sanctuary. 42 He chose blameless priests devoted to the law, 43 and they cleansed the sanctuary and removed the defiled stones to an unclean place.

44 They deliberated what to do about the altar of burnt offering, which had been profaned. 45 And they thought it best to tear it down, lest it bring reproach upon them, for the Gentiles had defiled it. So they tore down the altar, 46 and stored the stones in a convenient place on the temple hill until there should come a prophet to tell what to do with them. 47 Then they took unhewn stones, as the law directs, and built a new altar like the former one.

48 They also rebuilt the sanctuary and the interior of the temple, and consecrated the courts. 49 They made new holy vessels, and brought the lampstand, the altar of incense, and the table into the temple. 50 Then they burned incense on the altar and lighted the lamps on the lampstand, and these gave light in the temple.

51 They placed the bread on the table and hung up the curtains. Thus they finished all the work they had undertaken. 52 Early in the morning on the twenty-fifth day of the ninth month, which is the month of Kislev, in the one hundred and forty-eighth year [Seleucid Era; 15 December 164], 53 they rose and offered sacrifice, as the law directs, on the new altar of burnt offering which they had built. 54 At the very season and on the very day that the Gentiles had profaned it, it was dedicated with songs and harps and lutes and cymbals.

55 All the people fell on their faces and worshiped and blessed Heaven, who had prospered them. 56 So they celebrated the dedication of the altar for eight days, and offered burnt offerings with gladness; they offered a sacrifice of deliverance and praise. 57 They decorated the front of the temple with golden crowns and small shields; they restored the gates and the chambers for the priests, and furnished them with doors. 58 There was very great gladness among the people, and the reproach of the Gentiles was removed.

59 Then Judas and his brothers and all the assembly of Israel determined that every year at that season the days of dedication of the altar should be observed with gladness and joy for eight days, beginning with the twenty-fifth day of the month of Kislev.

As for "Kwanzaa," it is a total fabrication, the 1966 creation of a former Black Nationalist. I would almost consider wishing someone a "Happy Kwanzaa!" to be an insult to their intelligence, akin to wishing an adult a "Happy Great Pumpkin Day!" Yet even Halloween has more validity than Kwanzaa.

The fact that Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa occur around the same time of the year is no reason to dilute or diminish the absolute uniqueness of Christmas by lumping it in with these other celebrations.

"Happy Holidays"?

No way!

"Merry Christmas!"

A Nightmare On El(ohi)m Street

2008-12-02T22:04:00.010-06:00

[Note: I have never seen A Nightmare on Elm Street (except for a few minutes), nor the sequels. I really don't care for "slasher" flicks, or see their point (no pun intended). But I sort of know the plot, I think - i.e., this guy keeps coming after people (in their dreams?) and tracking or chasing them down and killing them, and there is no way to stop him or escape from him.]

I just finished reading the Torah in English and Hebrew (mostly English, but occasionally checking the Hebrew), using Richard Elliott Friedman's Commentary on the Torah.

In response to something on the Internet about keeping kosher, I said that it seems to me that just about all the commandments that are in the covenant that YHWH makes with the Israelites at Sinai, and again later as part of Moses's last address to them, are connected to dwelling in the land. This isn't restricted to just the priestly/Temple commandments (impossible even for Israeli Jews to keep in the absence of the Tabernacle/Temple), but includes all or most or at least many of the other ones as well. And failure to keep the commandments and the covenant results in God driving the Israelites out of the land, as well as sending upon them all the plagues and diseases of Egypt, and doing a whole bunch of other things that would make being Jewish a lifelong Nightmare on Elm Street - with YHWH playing the part of Freddie Krueger!

Call me a Jewish apostate (which I am), but it seems to me that Jews who don't live in Israel have no Torah requirement to keep the food laws or a myriad of other laws as well.

What think ye?

WDJD (What Did Jesus Do?)

2008-11-18T18:45:00.027-06:00

As someone has said:

It's not that we don't know enough about Jesus.

It's that we know too much!

If we had only one Gospel instead of four:

We'd know what Jesus did during the last week of His life, and the order in which He did them.
We'd know what He said on the cross, how the thieves treated Him, and if He took the drink.
We'd know who was at the tomb.
We'd know if the Last Supper was a Passover meal.
We'd know when He gave the various parts that make up the Sermon on the Mount (or was it on the plain?)
We'd know if He healed Malchus's ear.
We'd know the right version of the Lord's Prayer.
We'd know what the words of institution were (maybe; there's still 1 Corinthians).
We'd know what He said in His Olivet Discourse, and where He said it.
We'd know how many blind men he healed.
We'd know His genealogy.
We'd know how many times He cleansed the Temple.
We'd know the names of His twelve disciples.
We'd know how Judas died (unless that one Gospel was Matthew's).
We'd know who washed His feet with her hair, and whether she anointed His feet or His head, and whose house it happened in.

Or would we?

A New "Voice"

2008-11-11T12:43:00.043-06:00

Thomas Nelson, Inc., has released The Voice New Testament, a new translation that has a unique style and format. Here is the promo info about the translation from the Voice blog:

Any literary project reflects the age in which it is written. The Voice is created for and by a church in great transition. Throughout the body of Christ, extensive discussions are ongoing about a variety of issues including style of worship, how we separate culture from our theology, and what is essential truth. At the center of this discussion is the role of Scripture. Instead of furthering the division over culture and theology, it is time to bring the body of Christ together again around the Bible. Thomas Nelson Publishers and Ecclesia Bible Society together are developing Scripture products that foster spiritual growth and theological exploration out of a heart for worship and mission. We have dedicated ourselves to hearing and proclaiming God’s voice through this project.

Previously most Bibles and biblical reference works were produced by professional scholars writing in academic settings. The Voice uniquely represents collaboration among scholars, pastors, writers, musicians, poets, and other artists. The goal is to create the finest Bible products to help believers experience the joy and wonder of God’s revelation. This is the first-ever complete New Testament in The Voice translation. Writers include Chris Seay, Lauren Winner, Brian McLaren, Greg Garrett, David B. Capes, and others.

Four key words describe the vision of this project:
Holistic: considers heart, soul, and mind
Beautiful: achieves literary and artistic excellence
Sensitive: respects cultural shifts and the need for accuracy
Balanced: includes theologically diverse writers and scholars

We have taken care that The Voice is faithful and that it avoids prejudice. As we partnered biblical scholars and theologians with our writers, we intentionally built teams that did not share any single theological tradition. Their diversity has helped each of them not to be trapped within his or her own individual preconceptions, resulting in a faithful and fresh rendering of the Bible.

Features include: bronze, highlighted text; screenplay-like format, ideal for public readings and group studies; devotional commentary; and book introductions.

I saw a copy at Borders Books Monday, November 10, and again at Barnes & Noble on Tuesday, November 11. For some reason, neither of the two chain Christian bookstores (Mardel and Lifeway) have it; maybe Thomas Nelson is marketing it to the non-Christian bookstores and markets first. I didn't see it at Wal-Mart, Target, Sam's Club or Costco, either.

I was prepared to be skeptical of it after first reading about it at the Better Bibles Blog, and it didn’t help when the footnote to John 3:3 said (in reference to "birth for a second time"):

* 3:3 Other manuscripts read "from above."

According to Nestle-Aland 27, there are no textual variants for ανωθεν (anôthen = "from above," "again," "anew"), so the footnote should instead have read something like:

* 3:3 The Greek can also mean "from above." or * 3:3 Or "from above."

Interestingly, the footnote for John 3:3 in the downloadable PDF file of The Voice: The Book of John does in fact read: * 3:3 Or "from above." I wondered why the proofs that went to the publisher incorrectly changed this, so I emailed Thomas Nelson on November 12. They responded the next day:

Thank you for your note. We have done some checking and you are right. It seems that late in one of our last proofing passes a freelance editor made a change, I believe to bring the wording in line with other footnotes, and it was not caught by those of us that are responsible for the content of the footnotes. It is an error and we are going to correct it in the next printing. I am sure the error was inadvertently introduced, but the end result is the same.... Actually your note is the first about an error. We had many extra proofings and feel that the text is in very good shape. There are always errors, because we are only human. My understanding is that a second printing is being order (sic) now.

As a side note, Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians, who believe in Mary's perpetual virginity, aren’t going to be happy with the translation of Matthew 1:25a: "(though he did not consummate their marriage until after her son was born)." While I believe that this is probably what Matthew 1:25 means or suggests, in my opinion The Voice overinterprets the verse.

Another side note: Repeatedly reading "The Liberating King" for "Christ" gets as old and repetitious as hearing Henry Ian Cusick say, "I tell you the truth" (for "Truly, truly" - i.e., "Amen, amen") over and over again in the movie The Gospel of John. (And...The Voice also uses "I tell you the truth" to translate "Amen, amen.")

The Preface says:

The Voice is based on the earliest and best manuscripts from the original languages (Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic). When significant variations influence a reading, we follow the publishing standard by bracketing the passage and placing a note at the bottom of the page while maintaining the traditional chapter and verse divisions.

Examples include Mark 16:9-20 (they also include the addition to Mark 16:8) and John 7:53-8:11. The introduction identifies the authors and commentators for the Gospels and the other books that have previously been published (e.g., Acts and Hebrews). For the entirety of The Voice, though, there is simply a list at the front of all the contributors and scholars, but their names are not connected to the books they worked on.

Despite my skepticism, I found The Voice to be quite captivating during my quick perusal, and I will likely purchase a copy. (I was disappointed, though, to see that the pages in the "leather bound" edition - more accurately the "1/3 leather + 2/3 fabric bound" edition - are glued, not sewn, so it may not be worth the extra buck$$.) I tend to agree with these positive comments from this reviewer:

1) The Voice is the most thoroughly readable translation I've ever experienced, more readable, even, than The Message. I'm not even kidding; I sat down and read fifteen chapters of Matthew's Gospel in one sitting, without stopping or realizing that I had read and digested that much material. It reads like a story, and the authors/translators have done a masterful job in capturing the narrative quality of Scripture. Before I knew it, I had been reading Scripture for an hour straight, and I didn't want to stop. I can't remember the last time I had such a powerful experience with Bible reading.

(In the second part of his review, he lists what he dislikes about The Voice.)

You can download The Book of John as a PDF file here.

So...Will The Voice become the Bible of choice for Emerging/Emergent Christians?

- - -

12-3-08: I ordered (and received) some leather bound copies of The Voice from Amazon.com, since the second printing is a few months off (per Thomas Nelson) and I wanted to read it, as well as give it at Christmas to some family members for whom the thought of reading the Bible (or even reading the Bible) might seem boring.

Church And Eucharist

2008-10-28T08:40:00.039-05:00

Unlike Non-Sacramental Protestant (NSP) churches, the Eucharist (i.e., "communion") is of supreme importance to the Roman Catholic (RC) and Eastern Orthodox (EO) Churches, being central to the RC Mass and the EO Divine Liturgy. Regardless of what beliefs and practices about God, Jesus Christ, the Trinity, salvation, the Bible, prayer, Christian behavior, etc., that NSP churches have in common with the RC and EO Churches, their respective Eucharistic beliefs and practices separate and will continue to separate them.

In the RC and EO Churches, partaking of the Eucharist is as much an act or expression of one's union with the Church as it is an act or expression of being a member of Christ's body (and these churches may in fact view the two as being pretty much the same thing). RCs and EOs affirm, both in doctrine and in practice, that those who do not belong to these churches do not have the right or permission or ability to take the Eucharist in these churches, for such persons are not properly united to Christ such that they can partake of His body and blood. RCs and EOs are likewise not allowed to take communion with those who are not RC or EO, respectively. (And even though the RC Church and the EO Church have very similar Eucharistic beliefs and practices, RCs are not allowed to share communion with EOs, and vice-versa.)

Thus, in terms of their Eucharistic beliefs and practices, RCs and EOs do not treat or regard "other Christians" as full and equal members of Christ's body – i.e., as those who can share in their respective Church's and members' communion (κοινωνια) with the Lord (1 Corinthians 10:16). While this can probably also be said of some Protestant churches that have closed communion, in this post I'm primarily addressing the RC and EO Churches' Eucharistic practices and beliefs vis-a-vis the large majority of Protestant churches that simply require basic belief in Jesus in order to take communion.

In saying this I am not thereby saying that the RC and the EO Churches are wrong, but am only pointing out that their Eucharistic practices and beliefs are tied not simply (as is the case in many NSP churches) to the communicants' response to the question: "Who is Jesus?", but also to the questions: "What is the Eucharist?" and "What is the church?" Because of this, I think a person's view of the Eucharist should be an important factor in their decision to become or remain RC, EO or NSP. For example, if a person believes that:

the bread and wine do or must become the Real body and blood of Christ (i.e., there is a change in the bread and wine),
and
an integral part of one's salvation process is the regular preparation for and act of eating and drinking the flesh/body and blood of Deity,
and
an apostolically-traceable ordained priesthood is a required component in authorizing and overseeing and effecting the salvific change in the bread and the wine, whether by the priest's pronouncing the words of institution (RC Church) or by the priest's calling upon the Holy Spirit to effect the change (EO Church),

then he (or she) will have to be in either the RC Church or the EO Church, for he believes that he needs the above to be saved and to be in the Body of Christ. (Or if not the RC Church or the EO Church, one of the so-called "Oriental" Orthodox churches, if one accepts or doesn’t have a problem with their non-Chalcedonian Christology.) While I think it's possible to believe in points 1. and 2. without believing in point 3., to be RC or EO one must also believe and accept and affirm point 3., for in these churches the mystery (sacrament) of the Eucharist is not separable from the mystery of the priesthood.

A Question: If Christianity from the beginning (i.e., from the time of Jesus and the Apostles) has clearly and unarguably always believed and taught and practiced points 1. and 2. above as a central doctrine and practice of the faith, can or should Non-Sacramental Protestantism be called "Christian"? I.e., can a "Christian" group which ignores or rejects something the earliest Christians (including Jesus and the Apostles) believed and taught as a central doctrine and practice of the faith really be said to be "Christian"? (I don't include point 3. because I don't think it is a requirement for believing points 1. and 2., or automatically follows from them, though history shows that this is how the church's Eucharistic practices and beliefs developed for the majority of Christians.)

Note that I am not saying that this is in fact what Jesus and the Apostles believed and taught, but only asking a question about what to do if this is in fact the case.

(I suspect that the RC Church and the EO Church teach either that this is in fact the case or that the church was led by the Holy Spirit to come to understand that this is what Jesus and the Apostles meant - and hence believe that their Church's teaching is the True Teaching of the Eucharist.)

For a book that says much of what I currently believe about the Lord's Supper, see Come To The Table: Revisioning the Lord's Supper by John Mark Hicks © 2002 Leafwood Publishers, ISBN 0-9714289-7-2. Though I find the book unnecessarily repetitive, Hicks confirms some of the main ideas I had concluded after much study of the relevant Biblical texts and the history of the Liturgy and the Eucharist. For more on Hicks and this book, see Thursday, December 01, 2005 Reflections on Come to the Table -- No. 1 (December 2005 archives) and Monday, August 08, 2005 Eschatological Table (August 2005 archives) at his old blog http://professingprofessor.blogspot.com/. FWIW, I had arrived at my thoughts and conclusions before I came across Hicks' book, which I serendipitously found during a visit to Half Price Books 10/21/08.

A Hollywood Plot Twist

2008-08-26T12:17:00.004-05:00

Article published August 23, 2008

'Basic Instinct' author writes book about faith

BLADE RELIGION EDITOR

Joe Eszterhas' latest book is a shocker, but not the kind that made him rich and famous.

The upcoming release from the man who penned dark thrillers such as Basic Instinct and Jagged Edge tells the story of his spiritual conversion and his newfound devotion to God and family.

In Crossbearer: A Memoir of Faith, to be published Sept. 2 by St. Martin's Press, Mr. Eszterhas describes how his life got turned around during the summer of 2001.

He and his second wife, Naomi, had just moved from Malibu to a suburb of Cleveland - where he had grown up; she was from nearby Mansfield. They felt Ohio would be a better, more wholesome place to raise their four boys (he had two grown children from his first marriage).

A month after the move, Mr. Eszterhas was diagnosed with throat cancer. Doctors at the Cleveland Clinic removed 80 percent of his larynx, put a tracheotomy tube in his throat, and told him he must quit drinking and smoking immediately.

At age 56, after a lifetime of wild living, Mr. Eszterhas knew it would be a struggle to change his ways.

One hot summer day after his surgery, walking through his tree-lined neighborhood in Bainbridge Township, Mr. Eszterhas reached a breaking point.

"I was going crazy. I was jittery. I twitched. I trembled. I had no patience for anything. … Every single nerve ending was demanding a drink and a cigarette," he wrote.

He plopped down on a curb and cried. Sobbed, even. And for the first time since he was a child, he prayed: "Please God, help me."

Mr. Eszterhas was shocked by his own prayer.

"I couldn't believe I'd said it. I didn't know why I'd said it. I'd never said it before," he wrote.

But he felt an overwhelming peace. His heart stopped pounding. His hands stopped twitching. He saw a "shimmering, dazzling, nearly blinding brightness that made me cover my eyes with my hands."

Like Saul on the road to Damascus, Mr. Eszterhas had been blinded by God. He stood up, wiped his eyes, and walked back home a new man.

In a phone interview this week, Mr. Eszterhas said it was "an absolutely overwhelming experience."

He went from doubting if he could make it through life without tobacco and alcohol, to knowing that he could "defeat myself and win."

He and Naomi have been faithfully attending Catholic Mass on Sundays ever since, and as the book title states, Joe carries the cross down the aisle. He asserts his nonconformity, however, by wearing jeans and Rolling Stones T-shirts when he does it. Despite the rebel attire, he says he carries the cross with more reverence than most.

Although he is a devout Catholic, Mr. Eszterhas writes bluntly of his disgust for priests who are pedophiles and bishops who have covered up for them. He and Naomi decided they could not, in good conscience, donate a dime to the church because of the clerical sexual abuse scandal.

He also writes about the inner turmoil he felt when he took his boys to catechism classes or other church events and kept a protective eye on them the whole time, making sure they were never alone with a priest.

And he complains about priests' homilies being boring and pointless.

When Mr. Eszterhas visited a nondenominational megachurch, he heard a sensational sermon. But he felt empty afterward, missing Holy Communion and the Catholic liturgy.

"It may have been a church full of pedophiles and criminals covering up other criminals' sins … it may have been a church riddled with hypocrisy, deceit, and corruption … but our megachurch experience taught us that we were captive Catholics," he wrote.

Mr. Eszterhas told The Blade that despite his mixed feelings over the church and the abuse scandal, the power of the Mass trumps his doubts and misgivings.

"The Eucharist and the presence of the body and blood of Christ is, in my mind, an overwhelming experience for me. I find that Communion for me is empowering. It's almost a feeling of a kind of high."

He said that living in the heartland, he sees how much Hollywood producers are out of touch with most Americans.

"I find it mind boggling that with nearly 70 percent of Americans describing themselves as Christians, and witnessing the success of The Passion of The Christ and The Chronicles of Narnia, that Hollywood still doesn't do the kinds of faith-based and family-value entertainment that people are desperate to see," Mr. Eszterhas said.

He has turned down hefty offers to write scripts for movies with sinister plots and dark themes like the 16 other ones he wrote that made it to the screen- some paying as much as $3 million a script.

Mr. Eszterhas said he spent too much of his life exploring the dark side of humanity and does not want to go there anymore.

He was born in Hungary during World War II, grew up in refugee camps, and then moved to the United States and lived in an impoverished neighborhood in Cleveland.

He worked as a police reporter in Cleveland and "was always fascinated with the darkness. I covered countless shootings, urban riots, and in several situations I was there before police were because I had a police radio and used to drift around the city until something happened," he said.

But after his spiritual transformation, he said, he had had enough of death, murder, blood, and chaos.

"Frankly my life changed from the moment God entered my heart. I'm not interested in the darkness anymore," he said. "I've got four gorgeous boys, a wife I adore, I love being alive, and I love and enjoy every moment of my life. My view has brightened and I don't want to go back into that dark place."

Mr. Eszterhas' love and appreciation for life was magnified even more last year when his surgeon told him he didn't need to schedule another visit.

"He used the word 'cured,' a word that oncologists generally don't use," Mr. Eszterhas said. "He said I didn't have to come back for any checks, that my tissue had regenerated to the point where you cannot only not tell that there was ever any cancer there, but you can't tell that there had been any surgery there.

"Naomi and I were, of course, overwhelmed when he told us. I think it's truly a miraculous blessing."

One miracle Mr. Eszterhas has hoped for but not seen since returning to Ohio is to see his beloved Cleveland Indians win the World Series. But he is using the Tribe's woes as a lesson in faith and patience for his children.

"I think that our deity may have a pretty nasty sense of humor," he said with a laugh.

His new book is evidence of Mr. Eszterhas' victory over writer's block, something that struck him after going sober. It was a difficult adjustment to write for the first time in his life without sipping wine or cognac.

But he was compelled to write Crossbearer as "a thank you to God" and "to tell the world what he has done for me."

When his wife finished the book, he said, she gave it a hug. "That's how I feel. I'm very proud of it."

- David Yonke

President Bill Clinton On The "Real Presence" In The Eucharist

2008-08-25T01:07:00.001-05:00

Mark 14: 22 And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them and said, "Take, eat; this is My body." 23 Then He took the cup, and when He had given thanks He gave it to them, and they all drank from it. 24 And He said to them, "This is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many."

A Woman In The Pulpit (Part 2)

2008-08-24T13:46:00.029-05:00

I went this morning to see and hear Jackie Roese give her first sermon at Irving Bible Church.

(See my previous post: A Woman In The Pulpit: "Lions And Tigers And Bears! Oh, My!")

You can listen to it here.

It was part of the church's current series in which the various leaders are sharing their dreams and visions for IBC - i.e., what it can and should be.

Jackie's text was John 4:7-37, and she used it to discuss how the church, like Jesus with the Samaritan woman, should not regard people, no matter how sinful or ritually or physically unclean they are, as those we are to avoid or protect ourselves from. (The woman had five husbands - which meant she presumably had experienced the rejection and devastation of five divorces - and was now living with a sixth man, plus Jews considered Samaritans to be unclean half-breeds.) Rather, we should fight for the heart for our King, and take Him and the Gospel to the poor and wounded and ravaged and outcast of the world.

She said that Evangelicals hadn't always been so withdrawn from culture, and that in the 19th century they had been instrumental in ending forced prostitution and child labor. However, during the 20th century Christians and the church decided to retreat from engagement with the world to "protect" themselves.

She shared about her own abusive childhood and how she came to faith in Christ due to the love and efforts of a person who was not afraid to get close to her, despite her profligate and sinful lifestyle. She also shared a bit about the results of the decision she and her husband made to let the world into their home - both the negative effects on their own children and home (their kids are more worldly than she would like them to be, and her house is always dirty and smelly and in need of cleaning and lots of febreze), and the positive effects on the kids they reach (protecting and feeding kids who have abusive parents and no food at home, and seeing some of them come to Christ).

All in all a good message. I'm not sure that its delivery by a woman made any difference in its effectiveness, either positive or negative.

And ... lightning did not strike the church.

Speaking of which: It is a BIG church. The worship center/sanctuary is a large auditorium with a balcony, a large stage, and two screens for video. The music, though loud, was not uncomfortably so. They have a hamster-tube (McDonalds-style) play area for little children. The entire structure is like a fancy airport terminal or upscale mall - they even have a lounge in back with a Starbucks coffee bar, complete with a huge espresso machine, and nearby on the walls they have these giant Magritte and Dali paintings:

It seems to have lots of "emerging church" touches, both in its decor and in the language used in its magazine.

A Woman In The Pulpit: "Lions And Tigers And Bears! Oh, My!"

2008-08-23T09:41:00.024-05:00

(Note: We live in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and used to attend Denton Bible Church, so this story impacts friends and people we know.)

Woman's turn in pulpit at Irving Bible Church generates buzz, beefs

10:09 PM CDT on Friday, August 22, 2008

By SAM HODGES / The Dallas Morning News

Irving Bible Church will have a woman preaching Sunday for the first time in its 40-year history, a move that has caused alarm among fellow conservative evangelicals in North Texas and beyond.

The church's elders – all men – spent 18 months studying the Bible, reading other books, hearing guest speakers and praying. They concluded that despite "problem" passages, the Bible doesn't prohibit a woman from instructing men in theological matters.

Jackie Roese [Facebook], the church's teaching pastor to women and a doctor of ministry student, will preach at all three services to a projected 3,500 people.

"We're pumped," said the Rev. Andy McQuitty, senior pastor and one of the elders who invited Mrs. Roese (pronounced "Reese") to take a turn in the pulpit. "She's an eminently qualified and gifted preacher."

While mainline Protestant churches have long had women in the pulpit, many Southern Baptist and nondenominational Bible churches strictly abide by verses such as 1 Timothy 2:12. There the apostle Paul says, "But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence."

The Rev. Tom Nelson of Denton Bible Church said his friends in Irving are on "dangerous" ground.

"If the Bible is not true and authoritative on the roles of men and women, then maybe the Bible will not be finally true on premarital sex, the homosexual issue, adultery or any other moral issue," he said. "I believe this issue is the carrier of a virus by which liberalism will enter the evangelical church."

Mr. Nelson added that his church's recent sermon series on the Bible and gender roles came in part because of Irving Bible Church's conclusions about women and preaching.

Another measure of the controversy is that Mark Bailey, president of Dallas Theological Seminary, has removed himself from a team of regular guest preachers at Irving Bible Church.

The Dallas seminary, which supplies pastors to Bible churches around the country, has long had close ties with Irving Bible Church. But Dr. Bailey said that he and his wife, Barby, were amicably distancing themselves for "personal convictions and professional reasons."¹

'Moral concern'

Outside Dallas, the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, a conservative evangelical group, plans to publish an editorial describing Irving Bible Church's decision as "a matter of grave moral concern."

"Taking this step has kind of rattled a lot of people's cages," Dr. McQuitty said, though he noted that only a few Irving members had left as a result.

The elders decided to study the issue of women in ministry after getting questions from members about what was permitted by Scripture. Ultimately, the elders produced a 24-page position paper, posted on the church's Web site.²

Among their findings is that the Bible offers examples of women teaching and leading "with God's blessing." Another is that some verses restricting women's roles "were culturally and historically specific, not universal principles for all times and places."

The elders note that Bible verses have been used to justify slavery and that few conservative evangelicals abide by verses requiring women to cover their heads.

'An ethic in progress'

According to the elders, the Bible presents "an ethic in progress leading to full freedom for women to exercise their giftedness in the local church."

But the elders also concluded that their office "seems to be biblically relegated to men." So Mrs. Roese will preach at Irving Bible Church under the authority of an elder board that will continue to be all male.

That's fine with Mrs. Roese, who noted with a laugh that she already works for her husband. Steve Roese is the church's executive pastor.

Mrs. Roese is a seasoned women's conference speaker who has preached to churches in the Northeast.

She said she has had much encouragement from women and men in the church but is aware of the controversy caused by the elders' decision to have her preach.

"There are great theologians in the conservative evangelical world who come down on both sides," she said. "I do want us to be loving in our disagreement. There's something powerful in that."

BACKGROUND: WOMEN IN THE PULPIT

Elders of Irving Bible Church spent 18 months studying the question of women in ministry, including whether women should be allowed to preach. Their key conclusions:

•The accounts of creation and the fall (Genesis 1-3) reveal a fundamental equality between men and women.

•Women exercised significant ministry roles of teaching and leading with God's blessing in both Old and New Testaments.

•Though the role of women was historically limited, the progress of revelation indicates an ethic in progress leading to full freedom for women to exercise their giftedness in the local church.

•Key New Testament passages restricting women's roles were culturally and historically specific, not universal principles for all time and places.

•Though women are free to use all of their giftedness in teaching and leading in the church, the role of elder seems to be biblically relegated to men.

SOURCE: Irving Bible Church

¹ Mark Bailey has posted a clarification of his and DTS's position.

² I find it interesting that in the 24-page Irving Bible Church paper, including the bibliography, the elders/authors never cite or mention WOMEN IN THE CHURCH: An Analysis and Application of 1 Timothy 2:9-15 by Andreas J. Köstenberger and Thomas R. Schreiner (Editors) (Baker Academic), a book which is perhaps the most detailed current exegetical study on the relevant passage, and one which critiques the egalitarian arguments of the Kroegers and others. I am not saying that Köstenberger and Schreiner are right and IBC is wrong, just saying that this is one book the elders at IBC really needed to engage with and include in their bibliography, and it appears they didn't. It's not like they wouldn't have known about the book. The second edition came out in 2005, ten years after the first edition, and the editors and contributors are well-known Evangelicals. I would suggest that those who read the IBC paper get a copy of WOMEN IN THE CHURCH and read it to learn, as Paul Harvey says, "the rest of the story."

"This Is My Cracker; This Is My Grape Juice"

2008-08-17T12:47:00.039-05:00

Remembrance® Box of 210 Prefilled Communion Glasses
Double-sealed and disposable, individual Remembrance® wafer and juice sets combine modern convenience and purity with a taste for tradition. The elements are prepackaged, with both wafer and juice in a single two-part container. Communion participants peel back one seal to remove the communion wafer. A second seal under the wafer is then removed for juice. Remembrance® cups are designed to fit standard communion ware. Box contains 210 ready-to-use cups.
For many Bible-believing Evangelical Protestants, the only two church sacraments (or, more properly, "ordinances") are baptism and communion, both of which they regard as being primarily symbolic (i.e., they don't believe in baptismal regeneration or in Christ's Real Presence in the bread and the wine, whether spiritually or by transubstantiation or consubstantiation, etc.).

It strikes me as kind of odd, though, that while they often insist that baptism be done by immersion because immersion better portrays or symbolizes identification with Christ's death, burial and resurrection than sprinkling does (plus, "immerse" is the meaning of baptizô βαπτιζω, and immersion was the original and early practice), when it comes to communion, instead of observing the Biblical and historical practice of everyone partaking from one broken and distributed loaf (1 Corinthians 10:17: "Because there is one loaf, we the many are all one body, for we all partake from the one loaf."¹), they are perfectly fine with everyone getting an individual tiny factory-formed cracker (or oyster cracker, as is done at a large church we used to attend) and an individual thimbleful of grape juice (i.e., it's not even wine, or wine mixed with water, like Jesus and the disciples and the early Christians used, let alone a shared cup).

What the heck???

Thus, while insisting on keeping a meaningful and proper and Biblical practice and symbolism for baptism, when it comes to communion they don't seem to think twice about discarding the Biblical practice and obscuring or obliterating the one loaf/one cup (= one body of Christ) symbolism.

¹ A textual variant adds: "and the one cup."

Take One Tablet For Three Days...

2008-07-05T16:02:00.006-05:00

When David Jeselsohn bought an ancient tablet, above, he was unaware of its significance.

July 6, 2008
Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Resurrection
By ETHAN BRONNER

JERUSALEM — A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days.

If such a messianic description really is there, it will contribute to a developing re-evaluation of both popular and scholarly views of Jesus, since it suggests that the story of his death and resurrection was not unique but part of a recognized Jewish tradition at the time.

The tablet, probably found near the Dead Sea in Jordan according to some scholars who have studied it, is a rare example of a stone with ink writings from that era — in essence, a Dead Sea Scroll on stone.

It is written, not engraved, across two neat columns, similar to columns in a Torah. But the stone is broken, and some of the text is faded, meaning that much of what it says is open to debate.

Still, its authenticity has so far faced no challenge, so its role in helping to understand the roots of Christianity in the devastating political crisis faced by the Jews of the time seems likely to increase.

Daniel Boyarin, a professor of Talmudic culture at the University of California at Berkeley, said that the stone was part of a growing body of evidence suggesting that Jesus could be best understood through a close reading of the Jewish history of his day.

“Some Christians will find it shocking — a challenge to the uniqueness of their theology — while others will be comforted by the idea of it being a traditional part of Judaism,” Mr. Boyarin said.

Given the highly charged atmosphere surrounding all Jesus-era artifacts and writings, both in the general public and in the fractured and fiercely competitive scholarly community, as well as the concern over forgery and charlatanism, it will probably be some time before the tablet’s contribution is fully assessed. It has been around 60 years since the Dead Sea Scrolls were uncovered, and they continue to generate enormous controversy regarding their authors and meaning.

The scrolls, documents found in the Qumran caves of the West Bank, contain some of the only known surviving copies of biblical writings from before the first century A.D. In addition to quoting from key books of the Bible, the scrolls describe a variety of practices and beliefs of a Jewish sect at the time of Jesus.

How representative the descriptions are and what they tell us about the era are still strongly debated. For example, a question that arises is whether the authors of the scrolls were members of a monastic sect or in fact mainstream. A conference marking 60 years since the discovery of the scrolls will begin on Sunday at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, where the stone, and the debate over whether it speaks of a resurrected messiah, as one iconoclastic scholar believes, also will be discussed.

Oddly, the stone is not really a new discovery. It was found about a decade ago and bought from a Jordanian antiquities dealer by an Israeli-Swiss collector who kept it in his Zurich home. When an Israeli scholar examined it closely a few years ago and wrote a paper on it last year, interest began to rise. There is now a spate of scholarly articles on the stone, with several due to be published in the coming months.

“I couldn’t make much out of it when I got it,” said David Jeselsohn, the owner, who is himself an expert in antiquities. “I didn’t realize how significant it was until I showed it to Ada Yardeni, who specializes in Hebrew writing, a few years ago. She was overwhelmed. ‘You have got a Dead Sea Scroll on stone,’ she told me.”

Much of the text, a vision of the apocalypse transmitted by the angel Gabriel, draws on the Old Testament, especially the prophets Daniel, Zechariah and Haggai.

Ms. Yardeni, who analyzed the stone along with Binyamin Elitzur, is an expert on Hebrew script, especially of the era of King Herod, who died in 4 B.C. The two of them published a long analysis of the stone more than a year ago in Cathedra, a Hebrew-language quarterly devoted to the history and archaeology of Israel, and said that, based on the shape of the script and the language, the text dated from the late first century B.C.

A chemical examination by Yuval Goren, a professor of archaeology at Tel Aviv University who specializes in the verification of ancient artifacts, has been submitted to a peer-review journal. He declined to give details of his analysis until publication, but he said that he knew of no reason to doubt the stone’s authenticity.

It was in Cathedra that Israel Knohl, an iconoclastic professor of Bible studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, first heard of the stone, which Ms. Yardeni and Mr. Elitzur dubbed “Gabriel’s Revelation,” also the title of their article. Mr. Knohl posited in a book published in 2000 the idea of a suffering messiah before Jesus, using a variety of rabbinic and early apocalyptic literature as well as the Dead Sea Scrolls. But his theory did not shake the world of Christology as he had hoped, partly because he had no textual evidence from before Jesus.

When he read “Gabriel’s Revelation,” he said, he believed he saw what he needed to solidify his thesis, and he has published his argument in the latest issue of The Journal of Religion.

Mr. Knohl is part of a larger scholarly movement that focuses on the political atmosphere in Jesus’ day as an important explanation of that era’s messianic spirit. As he notes, after the death of Herod, Jewish rebels sought to throw off the yoke of the Rome-supported monarchy, so the rise of a major Jewish independence fighter could take on messianic overtones.

In Mr. Knohl’s interpretation, the specific messianic figure embodied on the stone could be a man named Simon who was slain by a commander in the Herodian army, according to the first-century historian Josephus. The writers of the stone’s passages were probably Simon’s followers, Mr. Knohl contends.

The slaying of Simon, or any case of the suffering messiah, is seen as a necessary step toward national salvation, he says, pointing to lines 19 through 21 of the tablet — “In three days you will know that evil will be defeated by justice” — and other lines that speak of blood and slaughter as pathways to justice.

To make his case about the importance of the stone, Mr. Knohl focuses especially on line 80, which begins clearly with the words “L’shloshet yamin,” meaning “in three days.” The next word of the line was deemed partially illegible by Ms. Yardeni and Mr. Elitzur, but Mr. Knohl, who is an expert on the language of the Bible and Talmud, says the word is “hayeh,” or “live” in the imperative. It has an unusual spelling, but it is one in keeping with the era.

Two more hard-to-read words come later, and Mr. Knohl said he believed that he had deciphered them as well, so that the line reads, “In three days you shall live, I, Gabriel, command you.”

To whom is the archangel speaking? The next line says “Sar hasarin,” or prince of princes. Since the Book of Daniel, one of the primary sources for the Gabriel text, speaks of Gabriel and of “a prince of princes,” Mr. Knohl contends that the stone’s writings are about the death of a leader of the Jews who will be resurrected in three days.

He says further that such a suffering messiah is very different from the traditional Jewish image of the messiah as a triumphal, powerful descendant of King David.

“This should shake our basic view of Christianity,” he said as he sat in his office of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem where he is a senior fellow in addition to being the Yehezkel Kaufman Professor of Biblical Studies at Hebrew University. “Resurrection after three days becomes a motif developed before Jesus, which runs contrary to nearly all scholarship. What happens in the New Testament was adopted by Jesus and his followers based on an earlier messiah story.”

Ms. Yardeni said she was impressed with the reading and considered it indeed likely that the key illegible word was “hayeh,” or “live.” Whether that means Simon is the messiah under discussion, she is less sure.

Moshe Bar-Asher, president of the Israeli Academy of Hebrew Language and emeritus professor of Hebrew and Aramaic at the Hebrew University, said he spent a long time studying the text and considered it authentic, dating from no later than the first century B.C. His 25-page paper on the stone will be published in the coming months.

Regarding Mr. Knohl’s thesis, Mr. Bar-Asher is also respectful but cautious. “There is one problem,” he said. “In crucial places of the text there is lack of text. I understand Knohl’s tendency to find there keys to the pre-Christian period, but in two to three crucial lines of text there are a lot of missing words.”

Moshe Idel, a professor of Jewish thought at Hebrew University who has just published a book on the son of God, said that given the way every tiny fragment from that era yielded scores of articles and books, “Gabriel’s Revelation” and Mr. Knohl’s analysis deserved serious attention. “Here we have a real stone with a real text,” he said. “This is truly significant.”

Mr. Knohl said that it was less important whether Simon was the messiah of the stone than the fact that it strongly suggested that a savior who died and rose after three days was an established concept at the time of Jesus. He notes that in the Gospels, Jesus makes numerous predictions of his suffering and New Testament scholars say such predictions must have been written in by later followers because there was no such idea present in his day.

But there was, he said, and “Gabriel’s Revelation” shows it.

“His mission is that he has to be put to death by the Romans to suffer so his blood will be the sign for redemption to come,” Mr. Knohl said. “This is the sign of the son of Joseph. This is the conscious view of Jesus himself. This gives the Last Supper an absolutely different meaning. To shed blood is not for the sins of people but to bring redemption to Israel.”

English Translation of the Tablet:

Translation (Semitic sounds in caps and\or italics)
Column A
(Lines 1-6 are unintelligible)
7. [… ]the sons of Israel …[…]…
8. […]… […]…
9. [… ]the word of YHW[H …]…[…]
10. […]… I\you asked …
11. YHWH, you ask me. Thus said the Lord of Hosts:
12. […]… from my(?) house, Israel, and I will tell the greatness(es?) of Jerusalem.
13. [Thus] said YHWH, the Lord of Israel: Behold, all the nations are
14. … against(?)\to(?) Jerusalem and …,
15. [o]ne, two, three, fourty(?) prophets(?) and the returners(?),
16. [and] the Hasidin(?). My servant, David, asked from before Ephraim(?)
17. [to?] put the sign(?) I ask from you. Because He said, (namely,)
18. [Y]HWH of Hosts, the Lord of Israel: …
19. sanctity(?)\sanctify(?) Israel! In three days you shall know, that(?)\for(?) He said,
20. (namely,) YHWH the Lord of Hosts, the Lord of Israel: The evil broke (down)
21. before justice. Ask me and I will tell you what 22this bad 21plant is,
22. lwbnsd/r/k (=? [To me? in libation?]) you are standing, the messenger\angel. He
23. … (= will ordain you?) to Torah(?). Blessed be the Glory of YHWH the Lord, from
24. his seat. “In a little while”, qyTuT (=a brawl?\ tiny?) it is, “and I will shake the
25. … of? heaven and the earth”. Here is the Glory of YHWH the Lord of
26. Hosts, the Lord of Israel. These are the chariots, seven,
27. [un]to(?) the gate(?) of Jerusalem, and the gates of Judah, and … for the
sake of
28. … His(?) angel, Michael, and to all the others(?) ask\asked
29. …. Thus He said, YHWH the Lord of Hosts, the Lord of
30. Israel: One, two, three, four, five, six,
31. [se]ven, these(?) are(?) His(?) angel …. 'What is it', said the blossom(?)\diadem(?)
32. …[…]… and (the?) … (= leader?/ruler?), the second,
33. … Jerusalem…. three, in\of the greatness(es?) of
34. […]…[…]…
35. […]…, who saw a man … working(?) and […]…
36. that he … […]… from(?) Jerusalem(?)
37. … on(?) … the exile(?) of …,
38. the exile(?) of …, Lord …, and I will see
39. …[…] Jerusalem, He will say, YHWH of
40. Hosts, …
41. […]… that will lift(?) …
42. […]… in all the
43. […]…
44. […]…

Column B
(Lines 45-50 are unintelligible)
51. Your people(?)\with you(?) …[…]
52. … the [me]ssengers(?)\[a]ngels(?)[ …]…
53. on\against His/My people. And …[…]…
54. [… ]three days(?). This is (that) which(?) …[… ]He(?)
55. the Lord(?)\these(?)[ …]…[…]
56. see(?) …[…]
57. closed(?). The blood of the slaughters(?)\sacrifices(?) of Jerusalem. For He said,
YHWH of Hos[ts],
58. the Lord of Israel: For He said, YHWH of Hosts, the Lord of
59. Israel: …
60. […]… me(?) the spirit?\wind of(?) …
61. …[…]…
62. in it(?) …[…]…[…]
63. …[…]…[…]
64. …[…]… loved(?)/… …[…]
65. The three saints of the world\eternity from\of …[…]
66. […]… peace he? said, to\in you we trust(?) …
67. Inform him of the blood of this chariot of them(?) …[…]
68. Many lovers He has, YHWH of Hosts, the Lord of Israel …
69. Thus He said, (namely,) YHWH of Hosts, the Lord of Israel …:
70. Prophets have I sent to my people, three. And I say
71. that I have seen …[…]…
72. the place for the sake of(?) David the servant of YHWH[ …]…[…]
73. the heaven and the earth. Blessed be …[…]
74. men(?). “Showing mercy unto thousands”, … mercy […].
75. Three shepherds went out to?/of? Israel …[…].
76. If there is a priest, if there are sons of saints …[…]
77. Who am I(?), I (am?) Gabri’el the …(=angel?)… […]
78. You(?) will save them, …[…]…
79. from before You, the three si[gn]s(?), three …[….]
80. In three days …, I, Gabri’el …[?],
81. the Prince of Princes, …, narrow holes(?) …[…]…
82. to/for … […]… and the …
83. to me(?), out of three - the small one, whom(?) I took, I, Gabri’el.
84. YHWH of Hosts, the Lord of(?)[ Israel …]…[….]
85. Then you will stand …[…]…
86. …\
87. in(?) … eternity(?)/… \
\

A Song Of Christ's Redemption According To Irenaeus

2008-07-01T08:24:00.006-05:00

...Irenaeus, like all the ancient writers, uses a variety of scriptural images in interpreting the Cross. It is connected with his picture of man's salvation as a rescue operation from captivity.... This redemption is achieved by Christ's victory over the devil...in which the Temptations play a vitally important role as the scene of the triumph of the second Adam's obedience. Combined with this thought, however, is the interpretation of Christ's blood as a ransom paid to the devil for the release of his prisoners.... Irenaeus, however, does no more than glance in that direction. His conception of the reconciling work of Christ is much more complex and profound than any theory of mere transaction. A good modern summary of it is afforded by Newman's well-known hymn, "Praise to the Holiest in the height." - Christian Theology in the Patristic Period - III Melito and Irenaeus by G. W. H. Lampe in A History of Christian Doctrine, edited by Hubert Cunliffe-Jones with Benjamin Drewery, pp. 48-49

Praise to the Holiest in the height
by John Henry Newman

Praise to the Holiest in the height,
And in the depth be praise;
In all His words most wonderful,
Most sure in all His ways.

O loving wisdom of our God!
When all was sin and shame,
A second Adam to the fight
And to the rescue came.

O wisest love! that flesh and blood,
Which did in Adam fail,
Should strive afresh against the foe,
Should strive and should prevail.

And that a higher gift than grace
Should flesh and blood refine,
God’s Presence and His very Self,
And Essence all divine.

O generous love! that He, who smote,
In Man for man the foe,
The double agony in Man
For man should undergo.

And in the garden secretly,
And on the Cross on high,
Should teach His brethren, and inspire
To suffer and to die.

Praise to the Holiest in the height,
And in the depth be praise;
In all His words most wonderful,
Most sure in all His ways.

The Christian Tradition and The Early Church

2008-06-29T11:54:00.017-05:00

I have just finished reading all five volumes of Jaroslav Pelikan's The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine. My reaction could be summed up in Jerry Garcia's words: "What a long, strange trip it's been."

Pelikan defines "Christian doctrine" as " What the church of Jesus Christ believes, teaches, and confesses on the basis of the word of God." The books in the series are:

Volume 1: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600)
Volume 2: The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700)
Volume 3: The Growth of Medieval Theology (600-1300)
Volume 4: Reformation of Church and Dogma (1300-1700)
Volume 5: Christian Doctrine and Modern Culture (since 1700)

I don't think I can overstate the value of this series for broadening and deepening one's understanding of what Christians believe, teach and confess, and why. For the many who don't know the history of Christian doctrine, or church history in general, reading these books will be both a valuable education and an eye-opener.

If I could fault Pelikan at all (and who am I to do so?), it would be for totally ignoring the Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements. Unless I missed it, they don't even get so much as a single sentence in Volume 5 (or anywhere else in the series), even though they arguably have been the most influential force(s) in Christianity in the final decades of the 20th century, both in the United States and worldwide, simultaneously unifying the church and dividing it (and not always along denominational lines). Volume 5 was published in 1989, and the Pentecostal Movement in the United States began in 1901-1906 and the Charismatic Movement in 1960 (and in his book Christianity's Dangerous Idea: The Protestant Revolution: A History from the Sixteenth Century to the Twenty-First, Alister McGrath shows that the Pentecostal Movement had its counterparts in other countries at the same time), so Pelikan's omission is puzzling to me, as the attendant beliefs about the Holy Spirit in the life of the church and the believer can indeed be considered a development of Christian doctrine, even if not done in a creedal or conciliar way (though the doctrinal statements of various Pentecostal and Charismatic denominations can probably rightly be regarded as what they "confess," as well as what they believe and teach).

Focusing more on history than on doctrine (though in some senses the history of the Church is the history of doctrine), a great one-volume book on the first 1,000 years of the Church is The Early Church: The story of emergent Christianity from the apostolic age to the dividing of the ways between the Greek East and the Latin West (Revised Edition) by Henry Chadwick (The Penguin History of the Church 1). One should at least know what preceded the Reformation before moving on to or from Luther and Calvin and their descendants, and this is a great way to fill in one's knowledge gaps.

A quote attributed to Otto von Bismark in various forms goes something like this:

I have about made up my mind that laws are like sausages — the less you know about how they are made, the more respect you have for them.

Some of the variants include:

If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being made.
Laws are like sausages — it is best not to see them being made.
Laws are like sausages. It is better not to see them being made.
Laws are like sausages. You should never see them made.
Laws are like sausages. You should never watch them being made.
Law and sausage are two things you do not want to see being made.
No one should see how laws or sausages are made.
To retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making.
The making of laws, like the making of sausages, is not a pretty sight.

After reading the above books, the reader might feel tempted to add "church doctrine" or "church history" to "laws" and "sausages."

"The history of the Church us in many ways very disconcerting." - A History of Christian Doctrine, edited by Hubert Cunliffe-Jones with Benjamin Drewery (Introduction, p. 16)

This is another book I'll probably recommend after I finish reading it.

Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Head Coverings*

2008-06-10T14:03:00.003-05:00

* But Were Afraid To Ask:

Paul's Argument from Nature for the Veil in 1 Corinthians 11:13-15