Luke 1:17, "to turn the hearts of fathers toward children"

Gabriel's fascinating annunciation to Zechariah of his future son John the Baptist using Mal 4:6, "to turn the hearts of fathers toward children" receives immediate application in Zechariah's pronunciation recognizing his son, "His name is John" (1:63) and the so-called "Benedictus"of 1:68-79.

Another application might be in a later description of how children were treated in a monastic setting.

In a celebrated scene in Eadmer’s Life of St Anselm, a fellow abbot described to Anselm his difficulties with the child monks. ‘They are incorrigible ruffians. We never give over beating them day and night, and they only get worse and worse.’

Anselm retorted that his philosophy of education was radically at fault. ‘Are they not human? Are they not flesh and blood like you? . . . Consider this. You wish to form them in good habits by blows and chastisement alone. Have you ever seen a goldsmith form his leaves of gold and silver into a beautiful figure with blows alone? I think not . . . In order to mould his leaf into a suitable form he now presses it and strikes it gently with his tool, and now even more gently raises it with careful pressure and gives it shape. So, if you want your boys to be adorned with good habits, you too, besides the pressure of blows, must apply the encouragement and help of fatherly sympathy and gentleness.’

The goldsmith created an impression, an image; and elsewhere, we are told that Anselm ‘compared the time of youth to a piece of wax of the right consistency for the impress of a seal . . . If it preserves a mean between . . . extremes of hardness and softness, when it is stamped with the seal [matrix], it will receive the image clear and whole.’ The goldsmith passed a message to his patrons – and, if his work survived, to posterity; the man who makes the impression on the seal creates an image which can be recognized from that day to this as the legal signature of a community or a king – and perhaps too by its beauty it may be an expression of the culture of its day.

The Rev Michael Livingston in On Faith at the Washington Post yesterday:-

It’s time we get back to celebrating the diversity this country has held up to the world for more than two centuries. It’s time to recover the American values of justice, freedom, forgiveness and reconciliation so that we may authentically hold those values up for the rest of the world to see.

Those American values happen to be Christian values. You can also find those values in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Koran and many other sacred texts of numerous faith traditions. Our country, our world, will be better off if we recover those values. And our young people would not be skeptical or dismiss Christianity as a negative part of America.

Missing from the lectionary: Luke 17:20

Has anyone else noticed that Luke 17:20 is missing from the lectionary cycle? How can a central Lucan idea of the presence of the kingdom be omitted?

I preached on the preceding passage last weekend and, in accordance with the rubric in the BCP, extended the gospel reading by adding the notion of the presence of the kingdom within or among you (pl) to the passage about healing the 10 lepers one of whom was a Samaritan. I asked that someone in the congregation read the verse and (wouldn't you know) a Kenyan woman in the front row offered to read her Swahili Bible! Doesn't it make sense of our communion today that a Kenyan Anglican woman would have brought her Bible among us to read it in church?

Manga Messiah and the (forthcoming) Manga Bible

I try to follow marketing of the Bible and here's another example. Published by Tyndale in the UK in 2006, and in the US in September 2007, Manga Messiah heralds the Manga Bible to be published in November 2007. According to Anime News network, The Manga Bible will include the entire New Living Translation of the text with three 32-page manga tip-in sections that summarize the narrative. Zondervan is getting on board with its own contribution.

Tyndale's project with Japanese artists is different than The Manga Bible by British born Nigerian artist Siku, published by Hodder and Stoughton in the UK, endorsed by the ABC in August.

A few comments on the Tyndale venture, Manga Messiah. It's a synthesis of all four gospels which makes reading a bit jarring (unless you are used to Tatian's Diatessaron, a second-century synthesis of all the gospels combining them all into a single narrative). At the same time, Manga Messiah has its own agenda. This has something to do with families. There's never a tension between Jesus and his family of origin. For example, Jesus' address to his mother in John 2:4, "Woman!" at the wedding in Cana becomes, "Dear Woman, What is that to you and and me?" Instead of this being the only thing Jesus says to his mother as it is in John 2 and thus strange, Jesus and his mother say to each other on p.71 of Manga Messiah before the wine runs out, "Um...Yeshuah..our hosts have a bit of a problem here..." "What happened, Mother? Everything appears to be going well for them..." This exchange is not in the biblical text.

Similarly, texts in which Jesus seems to displace his family of origin ("Who are my mother and sister and brothers") with "Whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my brother, sister, and mother" in Mark 3:35, for example, are the subject of an inserted comment (Manga Bible, p.149): "Yeshuah's words did not express hostility toward his family...but his new teaching defined a new family relationship...one created by mutual faith...the family of God." Its obvious that there is a tension between Jesus and his family of origin. Why does Manga Messiah gloss over it? Is this an example of Japanese family values intruding into the text?

Most depictions of Pharisees or other opponents are caricatures of unappealing people which become sterotypes by the time one has finished reading the book. Pharisees are lurking in wheatfields looking out to catch hungry disciples eating wheat on the sabbath. This isn't good and it isn't plausible. Similarly, Judas goes out to betray Jesus before the Last Supper. Which means he doesn't have the Last Supper with Jesus and the other disciples. Why should he be excluded from this important meal? This isn't the sequence of any of the gospels. Also, for some reason Judas wears a single earring. Does this stereotyping have to do with the genre "manga?" Likewise, the genre can't convey the long discourses of Jesus in John's gospel. In the Manga Bible, Jesus speaks in sound bites.

Parables are "picture stories" rather than something else like "riddles" or enigmatic sayings. Aspects of the parable of the sower receive a single explanation: "The seeds must be God's word! And the good soil must be someone who believes the word of God" (p.151). No other fate of seeds is explained nor is any attention given to different soils. Isn't this simplistic even for teenagers?

It would be a good thing if this kind of book was not an end in itself.

The Acceptable Face of Fred Thompson?

How might a Southern Baptist like Richard Land find Fred Thompson morally acceptable as a condidate for President, asks TNR? Michelle Cottle suggests various possibilities:

1. Cite an expiration date on adultery. Unlike Rudy's relatively recent tackiness, Fred's marital indiscretions took place two decades ago--long before he was in public office. Land could always argue that Thompson has since experienced some sort of religious epiphany that showed him the error of his ways. Any mention of this subject could be brushed aside with something akin to George W. Bush's all-purpose "When I was young and stupid, I was young and stupid."

2. Cite the sad state of Thompson's first marriage. (You know, the old, "Adultery is a symptom not a cause of marital problems" line of argument.) Apparently, Fred and first wife Sarah were having troubles long before their 1985 divorce. Sarah's brother Oscar was recently in the London papers discussing Sarah's original divorce petition, filed in 1981. Of course, Oscar noted that the "cruel and inhuman treatment" Sarah accused Fred of in '81 had to do with Fred's tendency to "take opportunities" with the ladies--suggesting that at least some of their existing problems had to do with Fred's wandering ... eye.

3. Stress the exceptional cruelty of Rudy's behavior. It is hard to deny that Rudy isn't at least a little special in the utter disregard for human decency he displayed by announcing his impending divorce and his affair with then-mistress Judy at a press conference before he had told then-wife Donna the marriage was over. Fred at least kept Sarah safely back in Tennessee while he did his thing in Washington. And even if folks knew he was catting around, he at no time called a press conference to announce that he was dumping the mother of his three children.

GodTube.com: Baby Got Book

Ok so its not perfect (advice from Proverbs 31??), but it is fun! Publishers of diminuitive Bibles, take note...

Interfaith Conference on Sunday at JTS

“For There Is Hope: Gender and the Hebrew Bible,” an interfaith conference to honor the memory and legacy of Dr. Tikva Frymer-Kensky, will take place from 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. on Sunday, October 21 at The Jewish Theological Seminary, 3080 Broadway (at 122nd Street) in New York City.

The symposium will address the roles gender plays in the culture, literature, and study of the Hebrew Bible, with particular attention to the impact of Dr. Frymer-Kensky’s impassioned work in these areas to make the Bible relevant to all of its readers. In addition to presentations by nationally renowned Bible scholars, the event will feature a musical tribute by Debbie Friedman, award-winning singer, songwriter, and guitarist.

Committed to fostering meaningful religious experience, Dr. Frymer-Kensky worked to make ancient texts relevant and ethically informative for contemporary readers. She was committed to interfaith dialogue and to discovering humanistic values in ancient texts that would reach and inform a wide audience.

The faculty will include: Dr. Susan Ackerman, professor of Religion, Dartmouth College; Dr. Mary Boys, professor of Practical Theology, Union Theological Seminary; Dr. Tamara Cohn Eskenazi, professor of Bible, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion; Dr. Stephen Geller, professor of Bible, JTS; Rev. Dr. Katharine R. Henderson, executive vice president, Auburn Theological Seminary; Dr. Lori Lefkovitz, professor of Gender and Judaism, Reconstructionist Rabbinical College; Dr. Carol Meyers, professor in Religion, Duke University; Liz Swados, award-winning author, musician, director, and composer; and Dr. Jeffrey H. Tigay, professor of Hebrew and Semitic Languages and Literatures, University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Frymer-Kensky (1943-2006) was an outstanding scholar of the Hebrew Bible and the ancient Near East. Combining rigorous scholarship and a feminist perspective, she offered new insights into ancient worlds and their texts that are powerfully relevant to a contemporary audience. Her books, which make major contributions to the study of biblical religion, literature, and feminist criticism, include In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth; Motherprayer: The Pregnant Woman’s Spiritual Companion, and Reading the Women of the Bible, which won the Koret Jewish Book Award in 2002 and a National Jewish Book Award in 2003. In 2006, the Jewish Publication Society published a collection of her articles, Studies in Bible and Feminist Criticism, and she was the first woman to have her work included in JPS's Scholar of Distinction series.

I am told it is still possible to show up at the door.

Gary Wills' new book on the Gospels due Spring 2008

Hillel Italie reports for AP yesterday that Gary Wills presides over three metal music stands while at work in his study, his chosen "scores" including dictionaries of Greek, Latin and Italian.

He might need, for example, to look up the Greek word "ekklesia," which appears in the New Testament and is commonly translated as "church." A mistake, Wills says. "Ekklesia" means "gathering," an informal assembly. "Church" implies a Christian hierarchy that never existed in biblical times.

Matthew 16:18 actually. Tyndale here is helpful:
"And I say also unto thee that thou arte Peter. And upon this roocke I wyll bylde my congregacion."

Perseus has a hypertext dictionary entry for "ekkle^sia" that yields:

"Assembly, duly summoned (with texts); In LXX the Jewish congregation (with text); In NT, the Church as a body of Christians (with Matt 16:18 and other texts)."

The LXX actually has 114 instances of the noun or verb which presumably had some effect on Matthew. (Perseus is deficient in its citations from the LXX). Uses of the noun are invariably translated "assembly" or "congregation" by the NRSV e.g. at Deut 23:2, "Assembly of the Lord." Take 1Chr. 29:20 ¶ Then David said to the whole assembly, “Bless the Lord your God.” And all the assembly blessed the Lord, the God of their ancestors, and bowed their heads and prostrated themselves before the Lord and the king.

Wills has a point. How is it helpful to separate English speaking readers of Matthew's gospel from uses of "ekkle^sia" in the Hebrew Bible? Isn't this Christian privileging?

Apparently, Wills' new book on the Gospels is due to be published in Spring 2008.

Jacqueline Huggins--first African American woman to translate the NT

Christian News Wire reports that this year, Jacqueline Huggins—through her involvement in translating the New Testament into the Filipino Kagayanen language—will become the:

-- World's first African-American female to ever complete a New Testament translation.

-- First African-American to complete a New Testament translation since the early 1900s (Efrain Alphonse completed the Valiente New Testament).

-- First African-American with Wycliffe bible translators to ever complete a New Testament translation.

In 1986, 36-year-old Huggins, a Philadelphia-born linguistics and Bible translation specialist, headed off to the Philippines on assignment with Wycliffe Bible Translators. She would spend more than 20 years translating the New Testament into the Kagayanen language, which is spoken by some 25,000. Now, with the Kagayanen translation complete, the first copies of the New Testament are expected to be delivered in February 2008.

The Rev. Martin Reynolds on the Christian Struggle with Homosexuality

The New Statesman has an excellent essay by The Rev. Martin Reynolds, "The Christian Struggle with Homosexuality" following on recent events in the Vatican.

He opines, "The issue of homosexuality has taken an unexpected leap in relative importance amongst Christians of all shades in recent years. A matter seen in the past to be of minor ethical “third order” importance – now seems to be for many Christians a “first order truth” demanding absolute obedience."

I think the gender aspects of the story and the discussion are important.

Sojourner Truth's Stirring Rhetoric Interpreting Women's Roles in light of Jesus' Origins

It's a poem by Robyn Bolam at the Guardian Arts Blog, based on the famous speech given by Sojourner Truth at the Women's Rights Convention in Ohio in 1851, as reported by an eye-witness, Frances Gage. Bolam has shaped Sojourner's words so as to conserve the force and spontaneity of the original. The speech is not pushed into a consistently symmetrical or perfectly rounded poem, but rhetorical patterns provide a sound underlying structure.

The voice is wonderfully present. It sits us in the front row of the audience, where we can see every gesture and facial expression, and feel for ourselves the speaker's passion, frankness and humour. We glimpse other figures in the crowd, too ("that little man in black, there") and I particularly like the aside in stanza five. One of the audience has muttered to Sojourner Truth the (supposedly) elusive word ("What's this they call it?/ That's it honey - intellect") and it's a fine moment of irony. This speech is not, somehow, just a simple piece of polemic. It is the whole character: it is Sojourner Truth.

Ain't I a Woman? by Robyn Bolam

But what's all this here talkin' about?
That man over there say that woman
needs to be helped into carriages,
and lifted over ditches, and to have
the best place everywhere...
Nobody ever helps me into carriages,
or over mud-puddles, or gives me
any best place!
And ain't I a woman?

Look at me! Look at my arm!
I have ploughed and planted
and gathered into barns -
and no man could head me -
and ain't I a woman?

I could work as much
and eat as much as a man -
when I could get it -
and bear the lash as well
and ain't I a woman?

I have born thirteen chilern
and seen 'em mos' all sold off to slavery,
and when I cried out with my mother's grief,
none but Jesus heard me -
and ain't I a woman?

Then they talks about this thing in the head-
what's this they call it?
That's it honey - intellect. Now what's that got to do
with women's rights or niggers' rights?

That little man in black, there -
he say women can't have as much rights
as men, cause Christ wan't a woman...
Where did your Christ come from?
From God and a woman!
Man had nothin' to do with him!

If the fust woman God ever made
was strong enough
to turn the world upside down, all alone -
these women together
ought to be able to turn it back
and get it rightside up again.
And now they is asking to do it -
the men better let 'em!