MetaCatholic

I don’t mean to pick on him particularly, but I feel obliged to haul Claude Mariottini over these metacatholic coals, pour encourager les autres. In an otherwise good post (read it), he says:

In late Judaism, the Messiah was considered to be God’s agent who would bring restoration to Israel. The New Testament used the title and applied it to Christ to designate him as the savior of the world. (my emphasis)

But if Judaism was late 2,000 years ago, what on earth is it now?

I am aware that this used to be a standard and commonplace phrase of a Christian scholarship that operated in complete isolation from Jewish scholarship, with a completely supercessionist theology, and quite commonly with an anti-Semitic ideology. But I had thought the phrase had been pretty much stamped out nowadays. I will put its use on this occasion down to carelessness caused by reading too many worthy but now ancient tomes of Christian scholarship on the Second Temple period.

I really think we ought to stop using the phrase “late Judaism” to describe something that has continued to flourish for 2,000 years after the period being described as “late”. It’s not even middle-aged at that point. Arguably, in any sense that we know it today, it’s not Judaism either, but a common ancestor of Christianity and Judaism.

Let’s be clear. “Late Judaism” is a theological construct, not a descriptive one, when it is applied to the late Second Temple period, and in many people’s ears (including mine) it carries anti-semitic baggage. (I am not accusing Claude of that, but only of using a phrase carelessly. I am quite sure Claude didn’t mean to be insulting to contemporary Judaism at all.) Christians need to stop saying “late Judaism” and say something else.

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I’ve upgraded to the spiffy new WordPress 2.5. Then, partly to play with some of its features, I’ve updated the blogroll, and changed the theme. The original theme behind i3Theme 1.6 was designed by N.Design Studio and customized by MangoOrange.

I must say this seems like a really good upgrade to WordPress. A few days ago Nick Norelli asked why on earth people would pay to blog when you can do it for free. Well, I don’t pay that much, but I like the sense of making my own decisions. Should I come across a better blogging system, I can change over, and keep the same address. Should blogging cease to be attractive, or I want to do something else, or it all just becomes passé, I still get to keep my web home. I think that’s worth it. Having said all that, if WordPress keep their upgrades going like this, I’m highly unlikely to change.

written by doug \\ tags: Blogging, Wordpress

Well, most people never did read the small print. What’s been surprising over the last couple of days is that even the people who write the small print don’t read it.

Apple’s version of its Safari browser for Windows came with this original wording:

This license allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time.

Released for Windows, only usable on a Mac. Yeah, right. They’ve now changed it, since some kind soul pointed out to them that they were making it illegal for Windows users to use their Windows product. Doh!

But has Adobe also been failing to read its own fine print? The new (and still in beta) Photoshop Express is supposed to offer you a photo-sharing and editing service for your photos. At the date and time of this posting, however, the terms of use (Section 8: Use of Your Content) state:

Adobe does not claim ownership of Your Content. However, with respect to Your Content that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services, you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other Materials or works in any format or medium now known or later developed.

ArsTechnica thinks this is a mistake like the Apple one, and that Adobe haven’t read their own fine print. Let’s hope they’re right, and that like Apple’s mistake, this will be corrected soon. Since, however, it’s buried fairly deep in the Adobe site, I can’t help but wonder rather cynically whether Adobe were just hoping no-one would read it.

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I want to pull a quick thread out of the comments on yesterday’s round-up. (You can skip below the quotes if you’re in a hurry.) In the course of the post I said:

Soloveichik says: “When someone asserts divinity, his interlocutor has only two options: Believe, obey, and worship, or back away slowly.” But did the historical Jesus assert such a thing, and what, in any case would it have meant in context?

Justin queried this in the comments:

You do not believe the historical Jesus claimed divinity? What do you make of John 10:30 or John 8:58?

I replied that I saw those verses as part of the evangelist’s creative meditation on the significance of Jesus, and then Michele of Reformed Chicks Blabbing asked in another comment:

How can you be sure? What is your proof? Are you denying that the interaction with the Jews took place? Or just the words that John attributed to Jesus.

Part of me was a bit surprised to be asked these questions, because I’m so used to reading and describing John as a highly creative narrative in my preaching and teaching as well as in my own thinking. The primary indicator seems to me to be style, and in particular the piecing together of two fairly obvious points:

• The style of Jesus’ speech in John is quite different from that of the Synoptic Jesus.
• The style of Jesus speech is of a piece with the style of the narrator.

The conclusion that the author is creatively writing Jesus’ speeches seems to me to follow fairly logically. This dovetails with the way in which the content and focus of these speeches are declarations – testimony – about Jesus’ identity and purpose. By contrast, in the Synoptics Jesus speech about himself is elliptical, ambiguous and riddled with riddles, and the main content is not himself, but the kingdom of which he sees himself as something like an inaugurating agent, a vehicle of the active presence of God restoring his people. (Begging about a million historical questions!) The rather strange conflict over exorcism that leads to the “blasphemy against the Spirit” saying (Matt 12:31 and parallels) is one of several texts that suggest Jesus saw this ambiguity as an intentional strategy to make space for God’s revelation.

Another pointer to the stylised nature of the dialogues in the gospel — well they’re often really monologues with prompts — is precisely at the heart of part of Michele’s question. Am I denying that “the interaction with the Jews took place”? This concept of “the Jews” is itself a highly stylised presentation. I do not think it can simply be explained by translating it as the “Judaeans” in contradistinction to the Galilean movement of Jesus. Its strangeness is well illustrated by the raising of Lazarus episode. Bethany, after all, is firmly located in Judaea, and the narrative seems fairly clear that is as as much the hometown of Martha, Mary and Lazarus as Nazareth is Jesus’. Yet, we read, “many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother.” (John 11:19) Quite frankly, however, you translate it, this makes little geographical or historical sense, and the descriptor “the Jews” has to be read as a phrase describing a collective character in the Johannine narrative. This character stands in for diverse real people who had real doubts and questions about, or conflicts with, Jesus. But the drawing of the character is also coloured by the conflicts experienced at the time the gospel was written. The conflicts themselves are therefore equally stylised representations.

Leaving aside all the complicated philosophical stuff that is too much for a simple brain like mine, one reason the C. S. Lewis style “mad, bad or God” apologetic doesn’t work is that Jesus didn’t run round saying all those “I am …” claims that he makes in John’s gospel. The speech of Jesus in the gospel is largely a stylised representation of Jesus’ significance, given narrative form within the newly established genre of gospel, and I think, intentionally to supplement at least one of those prior gospels.

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It’s been a while since I offered anything of a round-up, but it’s something I ought, I think, to do more often. It’s surprising how often other people’s round-ups shove something I’d missed under my nose again, and either leave me wondering how I missed it in the first place, or make me add a new blog to my groaning feedreader. Besides, there are a number of conversations going on where I only have a passing comment.

Daniel Kirk first drew attention to the suspension of an OT professor Peter Enns from Westminster Theological Seminary. Jim Getz comments, and Jason von Ehrenkrook calls it militant fundamentalism before updating his title with a question mark. This is all a little arcane to me, but Enns’ big sin seems to have been writing a book on the Old Testament which says we should take account of what sort of writings are contained in Scripture when we formulate a doctrine of it and its inspiration. Those who have ousted him believe we should only take account of sixteenth century confessions, which are a rather better guide to the Bible than its own contents. Yeah, that sounds really clever.

Iyov has a link and a lengthy quotation from Meir Soloveichik on Jacob Neusner’s (Benedict blessed) dialogue with Jesus. It’s well worth reading but does make one very questionable assumption when one is talking about historical reconstruction. Soloveichik says: “When someone asserts divinity, his interlocutor has only two options: Believe, obey, and worship, or back away slowly.” But did the historical Jesus assert such a thing, and what, in any case would it have meant in context? I think the answer is no, and therefore Neusner’s dialogue with Jesus is something rather different from the article’s characterization.

I’ve commented at some length on the Tom Wright / John Piper dispute. (Conclusion with links here.) It’s only fair to note that Michael Patton of Parchment and Pen offers a two part review of Piper’s book, and takes Piper’s side. He makes some rather odd comments on his way to his conclusion, especially regarding “imputation” on which Wright is particularly compelling in my view. Righteousness in a judge is significantly different from innocence in a defendant, and is not a transferable quality. All the more strange then that Patton defends the forensic understanding, when he chooses to interpret the language in a way which simply doesn’t work in a forensic context.

Speaking of Tom Wright, I nominate Loren Rosson for the N.T. Wright “completely obvious” award of the week. He’s been running a poll on the meaning of “all Israel” in Romans 11:26. The respondents were (excluding his casting vote) equally divided. That doesn’t stop Loren stating that “Option (3) has to be correct” and “That’s how the argument of Romans 11 goes, and to me it’s clear.” While I happen to agree with him, patently it isn’t clear among his respondents. How many times does Tom say something is “clear” and “obvious” when the only thing that is clear and obvious is that many people disagree with him?

Tyler Williams has a good post on the odd appearance of Satan (as a proper noun) in English translations of Job, which is seconded by Chris Heard. It’s a fair point, but one that illustrates the problems of translation. The appearance of a heavenly adversary / prosecuting counsel in Job, whose title later becomes a proper noun needs some reference either in footnote or text to Satan if later uses of the word as a name are to be understood, not least in 1 Peter and Revelation. The options seem to be translating it in Job by the rather odd “the Satan” and footnoting it “the accuser”, or else capitalising “The Accuser” in the text and footnoting it “the Satan”. But some reference needs to be made that help readers grasp the sense of an idea in development, not least to stop people reading a full blown Christian mythology of the devil into the story of the serpent and  calling it exegesis.

Nijay Gupta blogs the email announcing speakers for the British New Testament Conference for all who don’t get it. I must say I think Dale Martin on ‘Angels, Demons and Paul’ should be a highlight.

Finally, Halden asks the interesting question “Out of all premodern theologians, (lets say up until the 19th century) who would you most want to study” if you could only study one. The comments reveal great diversity, but Ben Myers cheats (I think) by including St Paul. I would go for Aquinas, and if you want to know why, see these really great summaries of his reasons for the crucifixion and the resurrection by (respectively) Brant Pitre and Michael Barber. They illustrate both his complexity and his clarity, characteristics most of the rest of fail to combine well.

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Duane Smith has a provocative post on belief and lack of belief, which is, I think, in danger of comparing apples to elephants. It’s worth reading, and, unlike his posts on Ugaritic vets, who always seem to be taking the piss out of their horses, very comprehensible. He lumps together what I see as three separate groupings, linking them by the mismatch between external speech about faith and actual interior experience of it.

• The first group is instanced by the story of a retired minister he knows, who ceased to believe what he was paid to preach, but felt compelled to continue acting as though he believed inn order to support his family. It’s not clear to me from what Duane says whether this entailed an complete or partial loss of belief, or indeed whether the conceptual framework within which this minister thought was able to make room for doubt and absence. I am sure (as I think Duane is) that this minister is far from unique. A clergy chapter of Agnostics Anonymous might help create the kind of safe space for people in situations like this to find support in dealing more constructively with such hard situations.
• The second group is instanced by Mother Teresa. The story of her spiritual life as evidenced by her letters to her confessors led to quite a stir. Unlike Duane’s clergy acquaintance, she had both a context and a tradition which, rightly or wrongly, could allow her to conceive of her experience spiritually, and more importantly, in frank discussion of it with her confessors. Effectively she conceives of her faith as one held in the teeth of God’s absence, not his non-existence. Duane of course would see this as a delusion, similar to the third category of person. (I’ll come back to that at the end.)
• The third category is an extraordinary story of an Indian “tantrik” who seems seriously deluded about his own power, never mind his conception of the universe. Evidence simply has no effect on the delusion, although it seems remarkably obvious to everyone else. (I’m assuming the story is fairly reported, but I’m unsure how representative of the Hindu tradition — that did after all give the world Gandhi — this man is.)

Now, it is entirely possible that people of faith are all as deluded as this Indian tantrik. But I would (obviously — being deluded myself) suggest not. The delusions portrayed here are about controlling the world, and trying to make it be, or appear to be, another kind of thing than it is. Faith and theology, however, are about trying to make sense of the world as it is, and discerning how to live in it wisely. That is the difference between Mother Teresa’s dealing with her depressive sense of a lack of God in the world, and the other cases. In her case there is a searing honesty that discards illusions about how God is meant to behave, and what the world is meant to be like. Her language about God’s absence becomes tied up in the motivations that drive her to care for the most abandoned people in the world, not as a superior, but as a servant who also knows abandonment, and faces squarely some of the worst the world has on offer. As some bloke said “by their fruits you shall know them”.

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I wish this were unbelievable. A group of “conservative evangelical” Christians try to convert people engaged in a Good Friday ecumenical walk of witness. There is a kind of sick irony in trying to hand a tract about Jesus to people who are following a man carrying a cross.

(HT Dave Walker / Church Times)

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Most spam comments are un-amusing as well as rubbish. But I enjoyed the way that my earlier post on “Messy patterns of mass and meal” got a spam comment from a site ostensibly offering links for 30 Minute Meal Ideas. Presumably a said Eucharist.

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Michael Bird has drawn attention to an interesting series of posts on Darrell Pursiful’s blog, which I’d not come across before, but shall be adding to my feedreader. He discusses the separation of Eucharist and Agape, and has a lot of useful comment on the topic. He is quite right to state that:

It is universally agreed that the earliest forms of Christian worship were integrally related to the congregation’s communal meal or agape.

I do find myself wondering, however, whether that universal agreement is one that imposes a clearer shape on the evidence than it really admits, even while it seems the most likely overall pattern. I enter the following observations:

• The clearest NT evidence comes from 1 Corinthians. The problem is that in many respects this seems to have been a very atypical church, both in Paul’s day, and at the end of the first century when we encounter it via Clement. Given that the social mores of eating seem to have been a significant problem, how much should we assume about Eucharistic patterns elsewhere?
• The evidence of Jesus’ meals as sacramental of inclusion, forgiveness and the bonds of fictive kinship should not be overlooked as giving some force to the importance of a communal meal. There is no clarity, however, on how these relate to the Last Supper, nor on what seems to have led, quite early on, to a Sunday observance of Jesus’ actions with the bread and wine, taken out of the annual Passover context in which they originated.
• The Didache seems to talk about a eucharistic gathering which comes at the beginning of a meal (Did 9, 10), although exactly what it is describing is not as clear as we would like. But there is another eucharistic reference in Didache 14, which seems not to relate to a meal, but be a more cultic observance (and the first mention of Malachi’s pure sacrifice in relation to the Eucharist).
• I find the evidence of Pliny useful but not unambiguous. While it is most reasonable to assume that the Eucharist was part of their evening meal, it is not impossible that the ritual remembrance of Jesus with bread and wine was connected to the morning oath, and that may be why the evening meal is referred to as food “but ordinary and innocent food”. It is, after all, this latter evening meal that they appear to have given up on Pliny’s direction.

The way Darrell read the evidence, is that the separation of Eucharist and Agape begins to happen sometime between Pliny and Justin. This would be the near universal consensus. But he wants to give far more stress to the continuing pattern of conjoined Eucharist and Agape running alongside the increasingly widespread separation.

What I would suggest may be worth further consideration, however, is the possibility that the pattern of separate Eucharists and Agapes was pretty much always there — perhaps as a function of numbers, perhaps of persecution. At first it was unusual, but later it became more common, before finally displacing the conjoined celebration.

written by doug

I’ve been stunned by the number of helpful comments on my most recent switching to Mac post, some very specifically answering my question about virtualisation, and others giving general encouragement. I think the enthusiasm and helpfulness is itself a reason to consider switching. In fact, I’ve decided to make a static page referencing these posts for those who want to follow my journey and offer further advice. It’s my intention that I will blog the process of switching when I finally do it.

Thanks especially for the links to discussion or Parallels versus Fusion, and the comments about that. It will matter for the first few months, since I can’t afford to change all my software at the same time as the hardware.

I want to respond to some of the many comments here a bit more fully, so that I can clarify one or two things, and why the reasons I’ve already given remain the main reasons for me. I’m sure other people will have other reasons which are more important to them.

Cost. I agree (and have said) that the costs like-for-like are roughly comparable. It is true, however, that it is possible to buy a really cheap PC that is adequate. If, for example, I suddenly developed a major and expensive problem with my car, I would be forced to go that route in the short term, and come back to buying a Mac when finances were again in a bit better shape.

Laptop or desktop. In the end, my particular pattern of working probably means both (not least so that two users can be active simultaneously). One of the things I’m waiting for is the release of a new iMac, which is probably due, and certainly heavily rumoured to be due, in the next few weeks.

Support. One kind commenter asked whether I could be sure I had enough support. If everyone around me was on Windows, did that mean I might be cut off from help if I had a problem. Well, the number of comments on that post suggest it won’t be a problem, but in any case, I’m usually the one who helps other people with their problems.

User experience. I expect using a Mac to be a good user experience, however, I can honestly say that I’ve found using Windows to be a good one too. I know people say that “With a Mac I can just get things done” but I’ve found that has been my normal experience on Windows, especially with XP. It’s also true that some of the graphics and DTP lists I subscribe to suggest that there are always times when whatever the OS, there’s a gremlin there waiting to trip you up. With anything as complex as a modern computer and OS, it’s actually amazing that this doesn’t happen more often.

Viruses etc. I know many people regard this as a big selling point for OS X. However, I haven’t had a virus problem, ever, on Windows, nor indeed a malware, spyware, trojan or anything else problem, mainly because I keep my security up-to-date. It’s not a big deal for me. The problem (which is a real one) is due, I think, less to the sheer number of Windows viruses in the wild, and more to the fact that there’s a very high percentage of computing novices and ignoramuses on Windows.

So thanks again everyone who’s commented to date.

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