A comment by Duane on another post, about pages left intentionally blank, makes me wonder if sometimes people forget the old jokes even when they are the best. So if this is new to you, note the index entry in Paul and Palestinian Judaism for “Truth, ultimate”. Look up the page numbers listed there, and you will see they are all blank.
Tim is rendered virtually speechless by the concept of erasable paper as a new technology. Actually it reminds me of my etch-a-sketch.
Apparently some people think this is a current technology:
- Woman 1: ”What is that little trash can on the screen?”
- Woman 2: ”My son says that is call the ‘recycle bin’. He tells me when I don’t want a Word document anymore and I delete it, it really goes in there.”
- Woman 1: ”Why in the recycle thingy? Can’t you just erase it?”
- Woman 2: ”Oh no, Word wouldn’t work for very long if I did that, I would run out of blank pages.”
- Woman 1: ”Why?”
- Woman 2: ”Because it cleans the words off the pages, then sends the blank sheets back to Word so they can be used again. That’s why it’s called the recycle bin.”
What more fitting a punishment could there be for this Zwingliolatrous post than the ultimate anathema devised by that little Swiss banker?
Then again, I am struck by Jim’s fatwa-meriting comment that:
Meanwhile, Paul’s ‘love is patient’ is ok. But he’s no Zwingli.
Jim may underrate Paul’s encouragement to be patient and kind, but perhaps I should take heed of the great apostle, and the Lord he followed, and repent of my hasty condemnation of Jim’s total theological depravity.
I shall seek to forgive him, and retract my call for his re-baptism in concrete overshoes. Instead I shall chastise him as a brother, and think of finding a way of adding him to this list on this site.
It gets harder every year to be sure which stories are April Fools and which are just the world gone mad. Here are some you may have missed.
The new Biblical Studies Carnival
Plastic surgery for David in Biblical film
New job, new house, and catholic conversion thrown in
The Gospel according to Brian: major new discovery
Garage-band loops to embarrass the king’s wife
Mac versus PC gets serious
It’s not so much that the “fools” are cleverly done, though many are, but that the real stories are quite insane. The BBC has a list of things that ought to be April Fools, but turn out to be quite genuine. What about this one?
A new pay-per-view funeral service scheme is being launched today. The Daily Mail says the scheme at Southampton Crematorium allows mourners to grieve from home by watching proceedings online.
If you must catch one spoof, watch this. (If the link to the iPlayer doesn’t work from here, you can access it from the previous BBC link.
I admire James McGrath’s willingness to admit to being a Baptist, and to stand up for the intellect among the fundies who would uniquely claim the name for their own. It does seem to me that some people are very confused about what Jesus (and Paul) said.
What Jesus never said.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. (Guess what’s been forgotten in this version: see Mark 12:30)
What Paul never said.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your souls. (See Romans 12:2)
Some churches and Christians act as though this is what the Bible says. I imagine that their ideal church foyer has an attendant who allows them to check their brains in before entering worship. (And I’d love for Dave Walker to draw this one)
I know it’s rude to make fun of other people’s names, but now that first John Hobbins has praised the ISV translation for having the perspicacity to invite him to review it, and Lingamish has asked the vital question “Why does the so-called International Standard Version of the Bible not have any Internationals translating it?” my attention has been drawn to this hitherto unknown to me project.
Sadly for me, the first thing that struck me was the list of contributing scholars. Is there really a Bible translator called Mona Bias? (maybe that doesn’t sound as funny without an English accent!) I haven’t had as much pleasure from an appropriate name since I discovered The Graeco-Roman Contexts of Early Christian Literature was written by a bloke called Roman Garrison.
Today Jim offered us an interlude of comments put on student’s report cards. It’s alleged these all genuinely have been written in New York, and all I can say is that they obviously get around, and have been around. My guess is some of them appeared on Zwingli’s report card from his theology teacher. However, they’re all good insults, and one of them was new to me.
They put me in mind of a small stocking-filler I got at Christmas, which, from a variety of quiz shows, gave a number of (genuine) examples of people and situations where Mr Brain had clearly left the building. Here are a few of my favourites.
Q. Name a film starring Bob Hoskins that is also the name of a famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci.
A. Who Framed Roger Rabbit?Q. Which ‘J’ is a major figure in the New Testament whose mother is often called the Blessed Virgin Mary?
A. Pass.Q. In clubs and societies, what word for a dark-coloured spherical object means to veto?
A. Pardon?
Q. (repeats) In clubs and societies, what word for a dark-coloured spherical object means to veto?
A. Custard.Q. What language was the Koran originally written in?
A. Er … Hebrew.
In marking some basic doctrine assignments (comparing the Nicene Creed with a metrical version of it) I was very impressed by some students’ ability to spot the serious implications of what might have seemed like an insignificant change on the surface. As well as marking them I decided one or two deserved a special award.
No sooner had I created the award (see below) than I stumbled across this blog posting by Molly Aley. I would like to make her my first blog recipient of this award. Taking Wayne Grudem to task for distorting the fathers’ teaching into its opposite is a worthy deed.
I was also amazed in passing at her quotation from Grudem’s systematic theology.
“subordination in role has been essential to the church’s doctrine of the Trinity since it was first affirmed in the Nicene Creed, which said … that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son.
Breaking news: the phrase “and the Son” was not added until two centuries after the Nicene Creed first affirmed the doctrine of the Trinity (or two and half centuries if you mean the Nicene Creed as opposed to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed) and then only in Latin, and always subsequently disputed. Ironically the root of the dispute lies partly in the question of the ordering of the relationships in a way that safeguards the divine monarchy in Eastern thought.
But would you buy a doctrine from this man?
Oh, and a PS. Did you hear about the inquisitor who bought a dog and called it “Anathema”, just for the pleasure of being able to keep saying “Anathema - sit!”
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world — he’s going to have a church to do that.
(An irreverent thought that popped into my mind while reading today’s gospel!)
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