Tim Bulkeley

There’s a day event at Carey soon Baptist Church and Leadership. So it was interesting to come across this post from five years ago. Much has changed, Rhetspect has died, or moved on leaving no forwarding address, yet, I think I’d still stand by my dinosaur vision of what leadership ought to mean among a people called Baptist.

Why “Baptist”?

Rhett (of the Rhetspect) has a post (Feeling Strangely Warmed) in which he comments:

People, I think usually just end up in denominations, and then often work backwards and try to justify (to themselves as much as anyone else) why they belong there.

Baptists, endearingly, seem to be quite honest about this. There is no major over-arching vision statement or document of beliefs. On most theological issues they give a pretty wide berth. As I have said before, it’s a great ecumenical approach.

Having said that, I find the whole congregational governance thing a bit hard to stomach. It’s just a bit reactionary for my tastes. But perhaps that’s because I was once involved in a Baptist church where we voted on everything down to the copy machine budget.

So first, as a Baptist (not quite, but nearly, life-long) I’ll be – I hope – endearingly honest about this, I am (still) a Baptist precisely because of the congregational and Christ-centeredness of Baptist life. The picture of “voting on everything” simply misunderstands. In an ideal church meeting (which does not exist, see Genesis 3) we would vote on nothing. The Church (the local gathered community of Jesus followers) would pray, discuss, argue, debate, and finally recognise, which way the Spirit is blowing and follow.

In the real world, we often often end up voting. That’s because of contagious heteropraxis [If you don't understand see Rhett's Feeling Strangely Warned and substitute "praxis" (doing) for "doxy" believing.] what I mean is that we hear of congregations voting, and our society votes, we’re democratic, so the church copies the world. When we do, we think of Church as “democratic” what a heresy! We should be pneumocratic, governed by the Spirit of Christ. And that’s why Baptists should be Bible centered, because we know the mind of Christ through the Scriptures that witness to him.

So, Rhett (and anyone else ;-) if that’s “reactionary” then I’m an old reactionary – boots and all!

RBL (the SBL’s Review of Biblical Literature) is an innovative and interesting journal. It fulfills the important, but unglamorous, scholarly task of organising and publishing reviews of new book-length work in the field. So far so useful but ordinary. RBL has also pioneered the electronic publication of these reviews while retaining a print edition.¹ It has used the flexibility of this mode of publication to open reviewing and the selection of works to review wider than traditional journals.

• Any SBL member or other scholar can request a book (from the list of titles offered by the publishers), and if their CV looks suitable, review it. Traditionally the book re views editor searches round their circle of friends and acquaintances for someone who “might be interested”.
• More than one review can be published for the same work. Traditionally each book will get at most one review in any particular journal.
• Because e-publishing is speedy RBL is also “timely” it usually gets reviews out much closer to the publication date of the work than any print journal can achieve.

You get the picture, RBL is an early adopter and enthusiastic scholarly institution. Mark Goodacre has a post (RBL Innovation: Scholarly Rejoinders to Reviews) which draws attention to a new departure from standard journal practice that could have far reaching impacts on this unglamorous aspect of scholarship. Mark summarises the development thus:

SBL Review of Biblical Literature is allowing authors their right to reply in its blog.

The blog format enables authors to add their thoughts on their reviewers in the “comments” and the regular RBL newsletter has begun to draw attention to these.

He and his commenters speculate on the impact this right of reply may have on reviewing and scholarship in general. After pointing out how often authors feel aggrieved by a reviewer’s obtuse missing of the point, or unfair presentation of their work,²  Mark goes on to say:

I must admit to mixed feelings about this.  On one level, it could help to hold reviewers to account.  But on the other hand, it is part of the academic experience to learn to cope with reviews of your work with which you may disagree.  I wonder if the ease of a blog-comment response will encourage too many authors to respond too quickly and too negatively to critiques of their work that may — on reflection — help them.

Moreover, sometimes discretion is the better part of valour.  If you have an unfair review, it’s sometimes better not to respond.  Knee-jerk responses all too often end up looking petty, pompous or self-indulgent.

To me this is where the potential impact of this seemingly innocuous move in a quiet backwater of scholarship is really interesting. The location, on a “blog” that seems hardly visited and serves merely as a convenient RSS feed for lists of new titles reviewed, is obscure. Yet the phenomenon it recognises and enshrines in the practice of the scholarly “guild” is revolutionary.

For the practice of an author having the capacity to reply to a review already exists, if not on the journal’s site then at least on their personal blog authors now clearly have the “right of reply”, and are increasingly beginning to take it up.

This makes this aspect of scholarship, up to now one of the most impersonal in a culture (Western Academic) that has erred on the side of aiming to remove humanity from the humanities (“objectivity” anyone?) more social. So, in this brave new electronic world of scholarship we will need to learn are a new set of social skills. Too intemperate a response or any response at all that seems “wrong” (nitpicking, ad hominem etc…) will presumably lower the writer’s standing as a person. And this “personality” will no longer be hidden away in “real life” where fellow scholars do not follow one home.

Up to now this social aspect of scholarship has been by an large confined to conferences, now it is slowly entering everyday life. Interesting times :)

1. RBL’s URL bookreviews.org is a clear indication of how early it was in adopting the electronic medium.
2. Thinking of the effort and time that goes into writing a scholarly work there are understandably powerful emotions driving these feelings ;)

Jim West has a post which he seems to think defuses one common argument used in debates about issues like gay marriage. He wrote:

If you apply the OT legislation concerning homosexual behavior – that is, a man shall not lie with a man as with a woman, than you have to stop eating shrimp and you have to stop wearing garments of mixed fabrics’.

The problem with this argument is that it fails to distinguish moral law from ritual law.  As such, and as a failure to understand genre, category, and purpose, these arguments are flawed and inappropriate.

Sounds good. Sounds scholarly… But will it work?

To be fair to Jim this is a longstanding and very convenient Christian approach to eating their cake and having it around still too. The problem, gay marriage apart, is that there are a ton of Old Testament laws Christians (even those who claim to be faithful Bible-believers) don’t want to follow. But even more they don’t want to be accused of cherry-picking the Bible – a horrible sin.

Along comes a fine upstanding, grey-bearded biblical scholar (or in view of recent discussion in various places, rabid scholarship hating religious person who happens to spend their life studying and teaching the Bible) and waves a magic wand and the nasty problem goes away. “You no longer have to obey ritual law because it has been anulled by the superior sacrifice of Christ on the cross.” They intone, “But you should still, of course, obey all the moral laws.”

Sounds good, but does it work?

Take Ex 21:22-25 :

22 When people who are fighting injure a pregnant woman so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no further harm follows, the one responsible shall be fined what the woman’s husband demands, paying as much as the judges determine.
23 If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life,
24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
25 burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

Sounds like Christians for the death penalty are onto a good thing? “Oh, no!” interrupts the grey-bearded scholar (or possibly religious bigot in disguise) “That does not apply any more either, civil law is also abolished in Christ.”

Hmm. So, what makes the treatment of disorderly conduct, or slaves civil law and something else moral law? It’s quite simple really. Moral law is about sex and civil law isn’t.

This is a response to Mark Vitalis Hoffman’s guest post. The post was presented here in lots of bits because I suffered a “WordPress moment” yesterday and the “system” kept refusing to accept the post giving mysterious error messages :( so here are the parts in order:

• Bible and technology guest post
• Bible and technology guest post (part two)
• Bible and technology guest post: Audio Bibles
• Bible and technology guest post: Reading experience
• Bible and technology guest post: Bible reading as personal
• Bible and technology guest post: ubiquitous Bible reading

One phrase in Mark’s guest post(s) has been ringing in my ears overnight. He wrote:

Can people be enticed to read the Bible if it is delivered in digital forms?

To someone brought up as heir to the radical wing of the reformation (in a self-consciously Non-conformist English family) there is something deeply disturbing about the thought that people must be “enticed” to read Scripture. The Bible is the book that set my spiritual ancestors free of human lords and priests. It is also in large measure the book that freed the slaves (despite its use by slaveowners and traders to justify their commerce in humanity). It is the book which has opened the door to God’s amazing grace for so many across the years. How could people need to be “enticed” to open such a treasure?

Yet we do.

Rich,¹ fat,² comfortable inhabitants of the “Christian” West can hardly be persuaded to read Scripture. In part this very affluenza is the problem, as a Peter Kirk reminded us in a comment on Facebook, the Bible is avidly read in other parts of the world. A Galilean teacher once pointed out that it was easier for a camel to pass through a needle’s eye than for a rich person to accept God’s grace…

And then there’s our church culture, by and large (at least in the Evangelical sectors I inhabit) church culture has rushed to follow the TV evangelists and accepted the lie that the Bible is merely a storehouse of “verses”, small fragments to be used like a lucky charm to ensure continued blessing, or like a club to beat an opponent in conversation into submission. Generations (like all those alive in the West today) who have been loosing old superstitions (even if eagerly adopting worse ones) will hardly continue the first with quite the same enthusiasm. And no one not but a bully could find the second attractive … no wonder Bible reading is loosing its hold on the Western mind.

1. By global standards not merely rich but very rich.
2. Suffering in fact an obesity epidemic.

Here’s where producers of Bible software and apps come into play. To keep this response from getting too long, I will simply make a number of observations,

[TB: WordPress is throwing a fit every time I try to post these, so I'll post them one by one :( ]

• My sense is that there will always be a place for audio Bibles, but they will not likely become a predominant form.
  You, Tim, have been involved with the podbible and the 5minutebible projects, and there is also The Bible Podcast site. These are great resources for people who have various challenges reading, and my commuting students loved having them available. On the other hand, hearing is just much slower than reading, audio is becoming largely associated with music, and music is being challenged by video.

It’s probably safe to say that the number of Bible readers is directly related to the number of Christians. In the West (and the best numbers I could find relate in general to Europe and the USA), there has been a steady decrease in the number of self-identified Christians and church attendance. It’s no surprise, then, that Bible reading has decreased, and the only way to reverse this contribution to the decline has to be a revitalization of Christianity in the West. The follow-up question then is, “Can new technologies contribute to the revitalization of Christianity, including the reading of the Bible?”

I think there is also a conceptual factor at work. People still simply conceive of the Bible as a printed, physical book. There is an older gentleman in my home congregation who uses a computer regularly for email and internet, but when he reads his Bible, he pulls out his mother’s RSV Bible from the 1950′s. It’s rewarding for him to have that tangible connection with his family’s history. Even when he was part of an online Bible study group, and I linked directly to biblical texts using bib.ly or Reftagger, he still pulled out his Bible to read the text. It’s not just an issue with older readers, however. Biblical scholars and seminary students have certainly discovered the benefits of working with Bible software, but I don’t know how many of them actually just read the Bible on their computer. How does this concept of the Bible as a physical book affect the number of people reading the Bible? Sales of physical books have been steadily declining in recent years, and just last year, Amazon reported that they were selling more e-books than physical ones. So, if fewer people are reading physical books, and the Bible is primarily conceived as a physical book, we should not be surprised to see a decrease in Bible reading. I believe that the majority of Bible readers simply have not made the shift to think of the Bible as a digital resource.
Now the question becomes, “Can people be enticed to read the Bible if it is delivered in digital forms?”

[More in part three all being well, WordPress problems continue.]

Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg are holding a Blog Tour on Religion and Media, in this post Mark Vitalis Hoffman (of Biblical Studies and Technological Tools) is replying to this question from me:

Mark, advances in electronic communications technologies and equipment (especially Internet and mobile phones) makes Scripture and the tools to understand it more easily and widely available than ever. Yet at the same time rates of engaged regular Scripture reading among Christians in the West since the reformation has hardly been lower.

Are there technologies or tools you think have the potential over the next few years to revitalize Scripture reading among Western Christians?
He writes:

Thanks for this question, Tim. I know it’s a concern that is near to your heart!

Two or three decades ago, at least in the United States, it was not unusual to see Christians who would regularly carry their Bibles around with them and presumably read them. There was quite a market for Bible carrying cases. A quick check on Amazon shows that there still is a market for them (over 900 items under “bible carrying case”), but there in the fourth spot is a “Leather Christian iPad 2 Case.” My point? As you note, technology is providing more biblical resources than ever, and they are easier than ever to access. So why the decrease in Bible reading?

I am convinced that Christians, both consumers (readers) and producers of content, will eventually get in sync with the possibilities technology offers, but it also is probably going to require some revitalization of Christianity in general. I’m trying to say a few things with that sentence, so let me expand.

[I have been having real problems with WordPress today :( I hope I can post the expansion in another post.]

With mothers’ day coming up it seems a good time to reissue an old post, with a new format and somewhat cleaned up audio. I briefly remind you of some of the passages that picture God as a midwife. The Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) regularly pictures Yahweh as intimately associated with forming in the womb and with birthing. In view of “his” role as midwife “he” can hardly have been thought of as a male god.

Remembering this stuff and celebrating motherly God (who is no god) is particularly appropriate as we approach mother’s day! Better for us than extra chocolate too And it’s not un-topical here in NZ where the TV is showing a drama about Midwives just now, either.

After several false starts I believe I now have 5 minute Bible working on iTunes

Please let me know if you have difficulty finding/getting it, I believe a search for “5 minute Bible” under “podcasts” will show it.

I have also created a Facebook “page” for 5 minute Bible, please consider “liking” the page, at Stu’s suggestion I am experimenting with “video” versions of the podcasts for the Facebook page. The idea is you can if you want listen while you “do Facebook“… again please let me know if this is helpful and worth the effort…

I’ve been marking student assignments for a course on Genesis. The more I mark the more I become aware of the issue of the intended (expected/implied) audience. In this podcast I’ll suggest that the answer is not as simple as it sounds and draw a conclusion about our practices of reading Scripture…

Like all good stories, and the Bible is before and after everything else a story, Scripture begins at the beginning. The beginning of everything, and a garden planted by God. Everything falls apart, for humans fall apart, and many of the stories in Scripture are horrible, grotesque or inspiring, for such a mixture describes the world we inhabit.

In the middle of the Bible story, at the start of the second part of the library of Scripture, we hear the story of Jesus and his teaching, his death and resurrection. This is prolonged into the beginning of the story of the new humanity and illustrated by various letters before the big story ends in terror and destruction leading to a new heaven and earth.

The Christian Bible is a big sprawling collection of documents from widely different time periods (roughly the end of the Bronze Age to the Roman empire) in many different genres (as different as history and love poems, or proverbs and lengthy letters) composed in three languages and two different writing systems.

To make matters worse most Bibles do not “work” the same as other books. Page numbers do not help in identifying sections because they differ in most of the myriad different translations and editions.

So, how does one find one’s way around and use such a weird book? This podcast explains “chapters” and “verses”, how to find “books”, and gives the chief key to making some sort of sense of the widely and wildly different contents of The Holy Bible.

Future podcasts in this Bible in 5 minutes series will include (I may well add others to this list, so please suggest any you think could be useful :

• The Bible in 5 minutes: Where do I begin?
• The Bible in 5 minutes: The Story

Since I am teaching Genesis again I am filling out the gaps in my podcasts on this book. I think it is important to notice that Genesis is told to us by (at least) two narrators. The story comes to us as an edited text, that is it already in its telling belongs, not to one person, not even a great hero like Moses, but to a community. For it is a book that tells of the origins not only of “everything” but of the people of God…

In this podcast I’ll focus on chapters 1-5 where it is easiest to spot the different narrators, then (all being well) I’ll talk about the rest of the book soon.

Here is the audio: Genesis as an edited text: pt.1 Genesis 1-5.

In this podcast I’ll again argue that Robert Carroll gets it wrong. Despite his own fierce black humour he fails to acknowledge its presence or at least its prevalence in the prophets. He writes about humour in Hosea in:

Carroll, Robert P. ‘Is Humour among the Prophets’. On humour and the comic in the Hebrew Bible. Edited by Yehuda T. Radday and Athalya Brenner. Continuum International Publishing Group, 1990, 179-180.

Bob was a fine friend, and a great scholar, I wish he was still around to argue against me! Since he isn’t perhaps you will do him the honour of looking for the gaps or weaknesses in what I say and pointing them out in the comments (he’d appreciate it

Here’s the audio: Humour in the Bible: book 28: Hosea

My class on Genesis starts soon, and I’ve been working on a Bible Dictionary article on “Genesis” , so it seemed like a good time to fill in a gap in my Genesis page. I am a bit “bunged up” today, so forgive the nasal quality to the voice please.

I’ve tried both to introduce very briefly some of the scholarly issues as well as the theological importance of this magnificent book, let me know where you think I suceed or fail! Your criticisms could be really helpful

Here is the audio: Introducing Genesis

One of the things I have not yet done as well as I’d like is to package these podcasts into convenient forms to give quick simple  introductions for students in classes I teach, so I’ve been collecting the posts on Genesis with that in mind.

I’ll gradually be adding podcasts to fill some of the gaps. Here’s one to introduce the section of the Bible that contains Genesis, the Torah or Pentateuch. I’ll try briefly (5 minute Bible) to explain what the Torah is and what it does. To do this we’ll also look briefly at what it contains, and hint at the role of the Pentateuch as Christian Scripture.

Here is the audio: Introducing the Torah or Pentateuch

In part one I drew attention to the problem that this verse seems to contradict what Paul himself approves and to some funny things going on in and around the verse. Here I’ll focus on my reason for mentioning this, how we should respond when a Bible passage seems to contradict what the same author says or does elsewhere…

Perhaps no Bible text illustrates the dangers of a simplistic reading of Scripture than 1 Cor 14:34.

If we tear this verse from its cotext,¹ and then read it as if the Bible were “God’s instruction manual for life” and even worse read it also literally then we are in trouble! The verse (in the fairly literal NET)² reads:

the women should be silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak. Rather, let them be in submission, as in fact the law says.

The verse is full of oddities.³ Not the least of which is that in 1 Cor 11:4-6 Paul assumes that both women and men will pray and prophesy, and in this same chapter 1 Cor 14:4-5 suggests the same thing, and that this is indeed in the public meeting (cf. v.4). Paul seems to be contradicting himself!

What is going on, and how should we interpret such passages?

1. Or for a podcast.
2. Even the NRSV is less literal here omiting the “the” before women, one of the oddities of this verse is that Paul seems to be talking about some particular women.
3. Another is the way most English translations make the first sentence a run-on from the verse before, though many MSS mark vv.34-5 off from the surrounding texts.

Many people think the Bible is like a hologram, any part of which shows the truth. The practice of scholars, preachers and teachers, of citing single verses or lists of verses to demonstrate something, encourages this view. The claim that the Bible is “inerrant” in all its parts seems to seal the idea. Yet in the Bible God itself told us in the Bible that it is false!

Here is the audio: What is the Bible? (Part 2) A hologram?

________________________________________________

Yes, another blast from the past, but while all the other fine people enjoy SBL in San Fransisco I’m still marking away

How do we picture Scripture? That is what is/are the (unconscious) models in our heads as we read and use the Bible?
This ‘cast refers particularly to Gen 18:20ff. and Amos 7.

How did God reveal Scripture, by dictation as with Moses, by some less sharp inspiration as seems to have been the case for prophets? And why do the four gospels not all sound alike?

Here is the audio: What is the Bible (Part 1)

_________________________________________________
Things have been very busy for a while now, so I thought I’d recycle some old podcasts. This one and its follow up, to come, were done back in 2007 when this podcast was pretty new, and I think the topic is one that bears repeating

Like Esther, Daniel is set in a foreign court and telling to the trials and triumphs of exiled Judeans and is packed with humour at the expense of the imperial overlords.

In this podcast I’m following an article by Hector Avalos from CBQ and focusing on the repeated lists of Dan 3. For his comparison text Avalos went to the early English Piers Ploughman but I’ll refer to “How the Whale got his throat” from the Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling (for obvious reasons

Audio file: Humour in the Bible: book 27: Daniel the humour of lists

Well,the end of the world has passed, again That’s the second time this year! It is the Bible that causes all the problems. or ratheit is bad reading of the Bible that causes all the problems. No book is more commonly misread than Revelation. Christians keep wanting it to predict tomorrow. And boy, do they get tied in knots!

But a simple direct dose of the KIIC principle would cure them… Keep It In Context, that’s all you have to do. Ask how the message would sound to the writer and intended receivers of the message.

Here is the audio: Decoding Revelation: the KIIS principle

In Understanding the prophets: Part one I spoke about the “Three Cons” as a key to reading the prophetic books of the Old Testament with understanding and in ways which are faithful to their original intention. In this second part we’ll look at an example from Amos 5:18ff. and apply this approach. The result will be an uncomfortable word from God for us today.

Here are the slides from that talk: Understanding the Prophets: Part Two: Amos 5:18ff. There are some podcasts that deal with the book of Amos here and there is a detailed free online commentary with a wealth of background information and pictures here.

If podcasts can have dedications, then this one is dedicated to Robert Carroll. The podcast is full or irony, first that of an introvert who spoke before thinking and who failed to read or digest a fine work by an admired teacher and friend, and then that of a frequently (and often mordantly) humorous Irishman who denies title humour to black humour so like his own. And then in the end, in Ezekiel 4:9ff. I’ll suggest there is both irony and (black) humour in the account of the Lord GOD conceding a customary prohibition to his staunch, righteous and rigorous prophet, while demanding that nevertheless he break the clear commandment of Scripture.

Here’s the audio: Humour in the Bible: book 26: Ezekiel

In this podcast I refer to:
Chotzner, Joseph. “Humour of the Bible.” In Hebrew humour and other essays, 1-12. Luzac & co., 1905. (The quotation is from page 12.)

and especially to:

Carroll, Robert P. “Is humour also among the prophets?” In On humour and the comic in the Hebrew Bible, edited by Yehuda T. Radday and Athalya Brenner. 169-189. Continuum International Publishing Group, 1990.

Gender is not (only) a Feminist issue!

I ended my double post Proverbs as a gendered text and Proverbs as a gendered text: Proverbs 31:10ff. with the question of where reading such (strongly) male texts left women readers. Sadly it has had little response, (though thank you Judy

So I’ll end this podcast with a reverse of the question with which I ended the one on Pr 31, and suggest there are parts of the Bible that heterosexual men can only read with the help of a little creative gender bending.

Let’s see what you make of my (literal) reading of Song 2:1ff.?!

More on gendered texts: Turning the tables

Back to the longer series, just in case you thought I’d forgotten. Jeremiah has a harsh and cutting humour on almost every page. In this post we’ll look at Jer 2:26-28. And just so you don’t think I am inventing the humour I find there I’ll cite some proper scholarship.¹

Here’s the audio: Humour in the Bible: Book 24: Jeremiah

1. William R. Domeris, “When metaphor becomes myth: A socio-linguistic reading.” In Troubling Jeremiah, edited by A. R. Diamond and Society of Biblical Literature. Composition of the Book of Jeremiah Group. Continuum, 1999, 257.

The poem in Prov 31:10ff. has been read in various ways, by men and by women, as an oppressive and as a liberating text. I will suggest two clues to making sense of the poem. The first is to read it in the context of the book of Proverbs (and not as an isolated poem), and the second is to read it precisely as a gendered text.

This podcast was provoked by reading a short piece on this text by Ann Wansborough produced back in 1992 for the Uniting Church in Australia’s “Commission on Women and Men”. (Thank you Judy

BTW since Proverbs is a gendered text, and since I read it as a male, I offer an invitation to my women listeners to do a short (ideally 4-6 minute) female reflection on this text from a woman’s perspective to set alongside mine… Where/How do you find the Strong Woman?

Here’s the audio: Proverbs as a gendered text: Proverbs 31:10ff..

While it is quite clear that Proverbs is a gendered text, the way it speaks of women is interesting. For a text coming from an ancient patriarchal society human women who serve as aspirational models are a surprise.

No doubt any real Feminist would instantly switch into “pedestal” mode, but I think it’s worth pausing and noticing what’s going on, and maybe as I’ll suggest in a follow-up podcast finding inspiration for contemporary spiritualities…

Here is the audio: Proverbs as a gendered text

I am doing a three part series at South City Baptist Church on Sunday afternoons on Understanding the prophets. This week thinking, about what a prophet was and how they spoke, I used the title: “What does a prophet? What does it profit?” these are the slides from the talk.

A key idea in this talk was the ideas in my Prophets: three principles to unlock the code another podcast that uses the same idea (but to address a New Testament prophet) is: The teachings of Jesus the prophet. There are many more of these 5 minute audio teaching about the Hebrew prophets and about particular prophetic texts. Just use the menu above > OT > and choose a prophetic book.

Another good place to explore the nature and contents of biblical prophecy is the book of Amos. My commentary with also a huge amount of Bible Dictionary type material is here Amos: Postmodern Bible.

At last, I’m on the home straight, the first of the prophets The prophetic books are packed with humour. But right at the start we’ll need to get one thing clear. Humour is not just the comic, entertainment that promotes a giggle or a smile. There is humour also in tragedy, at times when “you either have to laugh or cry” and those when the sharp scalpel of cutting wit is needed to cut through defenses.

I’ll try to explain this idea of tragic (as well as comic) humour in exploring Isaiah 1, and will also argue that in this passage (at least in Isaiah 1:8ff) all but two of the “signs of humour” we have been working with are present. One that isn’t is “lighthearted mood” but you’d hardly expect that if there is such a thing as “tragic humour”, as I am claiming.

So, listen to the podcast and tell me if YOU think that tragic humour exists, and if I’ve rightly named it!

Humour in the Bible: book 23: Isaiah: tragic humour

If you ever want to provoke laughter in church in the 21st century, just read a chunk of the Song of Songs, of course it works better if you get a couple to read to each other! The imagery is just so strange to our culture that almost any passage will achieve laughter in moments. But this does not mean that the book is intended to be funny.

So my difficult problem in this podcast is to try to convince you that there is humour, as well as poetry and sex, in this very best Song.

It won’t be easy or quick, indeed this is the longest ever “5 minutes” at way over 6 minutes on the other hand, I’m convinced that looking seriously at the topic of humour in the Song is a great way to get closer to its heart…

Here is the audio: Humour in the Bible: 22: Song of Songs

Never one reluctant to ask for more, David Ker has rightly pointed out that I did not explain how/why Ecclesiastes 10:5-15 is (and was meant to be) funny. So here goes…¹

Oh, don’t worry, this won’t be a dull dissection or a boring breakdown, I’ll just show you how several of the signs of humour are present, and in doing so hopefully reveal (without analysing to death) the humour in this passage!

So, here’s the audio: Humour in the Bible: 21B: Ecclesiastes (again)

1. If I had the hubris I’d title this podcast: “An artist’s reply to just criticism”, but that would be most unfair to poor David

This series is just getting more and more interesting For Ecclesiastes I came across:

There certainly should certainly be humour in Proverbs, after all the books says:

A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person’s strength. (Proverbs 17:22)

And sure enough when I went humour-hunting Google quickly fitted me up with Hershey H. Friedman, he used to be Bernard H. Stern Professor of Humor so you know he’s a serious humour scholar, and he wrote on “Humor in the Bible” with lots of examples from Proverbs. The article is in the journal Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, (Vol. 13:3, Sept. 2000, 258-285) so again we know this is pukka academic stuff.

The trouble is what Hershey found funny, often left me un-moved, and worse he seemed to have an affinity for nagging wife jokes, and Barbara is no nag! But he did prompt me to look at Proverbs 26 (lots of his examples came from there) and boy is that right, as you’ll see nearly every line is funny. I only get up to verse 10.

Though the humour does sometimes raise questions, like those Randal raised about ethnic sterotyping in Paul’s comments about Cretans.

Here’s the audio: Humour in the Bible: book 20 Proverbs

When looking for humour in Psalms, towards the end of the marking season, when teachers are always at a low ebb, I again cheated, asking Bob MacDonald (who has been studying the psalms closely for years now).

I’ll repeat some of his general insights about the book, and then take up his suggestion about Psalm 94 (his rendering of the psalm is here). I invited him to do a guest post, but for a mix of reasons he declined. So please do not blame Bob for what follows, it’s my reading of the psalm suggested by his idea… This psalm works for me because I hear in it the sort of overt dialogue between God and speaker that I often hear in the prophets, and like in Jeremiah’s confessions I think here God is gently leading his servant on and educating them

The audio is here: Humour in the Bible: book 19: Psalms

After some quite difficult books, suddenly a couple in a row that are easy. Job is full of humour, for all its dreadful topic and storyline, or perhaps because of them, almost every page sparkles with fun, or with sharp irony or more pointed sarcasm.

The big question, of whether the book as a whole is ironic and humorous, I’ll leave to you. For the purposes of this series I’ll just read a bit from Job’s first reply to his friends “comfortable words” (job 6:1ff.).

Here’s the audio:

Humour in the Bible: book 18: Job

BTW the classic article I refer to is:

E.A. Speiser, “The case of the obliging servant”, Journal of Cuneiform Studies 8, 1954, 98-105.

I have argued before that Esther is full of sexual and/or gendered humour, but that was before I took the topic of humour in the Bible (documents from very different cultural contexts from ours) seriously. Now however I have nine criteria to measure whether it is likely that authors intended the humour we find. These are all present in Esther chapter 1:

1. incongruity
2. lighthearted mood
3. surprise
4. ingenuity (cleverness is often a mark of humour think of puns)
5. hyperbole
6. inferiority
7. disguise or something or someone pretending to be something else
8. “inelasticity” (following Bergson)
9. human pretension revealed in all its lack of glory!

So, enjoy

So, here’s the link to the audio: Humour in the Bible: book 17: Esther

Nehemiah seems like a typical Sunday School story of a book, a sort of hero story made even less interesting by being told by the hero. Like Ezra it is not the first place I’d look searching for humour in Scripture. Yet, I think reading Nehemiah 6 we can trace more than one example of humour, at least one subtle and another quite open.

See what you think

So, here’s the link to the audio: Humour in the Bible: book16: Nehemiah

Ezra is far from the funniest book in the Bible, or the easiest read. Yet even here there are hints and traces of that most human of phenomena, humour. In Ezra 3:12-13 (as often) one either has to laugh or cry. Throughout the book something funny is going on with language and translation (see e.g. Ezra 4:7, 18), but no one has yet explained satisfactorily what! The ever so tactful representation of Ezra’s lack of faith in Ezra 8:21-23 is often cited. And in the end, I cannot resist mentioning David’s candidate in Ezra 5-6 culminating in Ezra 6:8-13. Isn’t this punctilious obedience a surprise

So, here’s the link to the audio: Humour in the Bible, book 15: Ezra

The strange, and strangely disturbing story of Micaiah ben Imlah in 2 Chronicles 18 which repeats very closely its source in 1 Kings 22¹ it ticks all the boxes as a passage intended to be funny.

And when you read it, it is hilarious. From Jehoshaphat’s gentle resistance through Zedekiah with a “Viking” helmet, and Micaiah telling porkies after swearing the truth, only when caught claiming a Lying spirit from Yahweh tricked him, to Micaiah’s last laugh from prison, the tale is a riot

But what is its point?

So, here’s the link to the audio: Humour in the Bible, book 14: 2 Chronicles 18

1. Which may mean this entry is cheating in terms of finding humour in every book of the (Hebrew) Bible, though it does seem to show that the Chronicles was not so humourless as to damage fine humour when he came across it. BTW if anyone has an example of humour in 1 Chronicles, I am still looking and would value your help. Tyler hinted at some killer comedy in Chronicles but so far no one has proposed a good example…

The prayer of Jabez was wildly popular a few years back among voguish Christians worried about the lack of obvious and excess prosperity in their lives (compared to those richer and general better off than them, not compared to the world population in general).

Even without that 1 Chron 4:9-10 is funny (strange peculiar, if not humorous) in several ways:

• first narrative in Chron
• not part of surrounding genealogy seems stuck in
• Jabez does not seem to fit into the genealogies
• though there is a town of that name inhabited by possibly Kenite scribes
• and begins “there was” vayyehi like stories do
• though there are puns and other wordplays in the genealogies, they are more prominent here
• Jabez is honoured, but was born in pain, and prays for pain to be removed from his life

So there are a number of clues that the passage may contain intended humour.

Tyler pointed me to it, and Chris Heard has an article in JHS: R. Christopher Heard, “Echoes of Genesis in 1 Chronicles 4:9–10: An Intertextual and Contextual Reading of Jabez’s Prayer” JHS 4:2, 2002

Among the other resources I used I’ll quote from: Japhet, Sara. I & II Chronicles: A Commentary. Westminster John Knox Press, 1993, 110.

Heard argues against Japhet’s claim that in the Chronicler naming implies destiny, making Jabez’ name almost a curse and shows that it rather (as in the text) reflects his mother’s pain (hearing an echo of Gen 3:16).

He also argues that we should read this little story with the other small stories in the opening of Chronicles dealing with the acquisition of land in the south by non-Judahites (Rubenites and Simeonites) in this case Jabez is more honoured (than his brothers in story) because he gets his land by prayer rather than warfare.

This is a miniature story full of delightful and amusing turnarounds.

So, here’s the link to the audio: Humour in the Bible 13: 1 Chronicles 4 The Prayer of Jabez

Since Google suggests the first chapter of 2 Kings is humorous I’ll measure it against the criteria. It meets most (but not all) which i think makes it clear this passage is not merely funny but was intended to be funny. Though again it is a “black” humour.

As a bonus I’ll offer a reading of the passage, it seems a shame to be talking about humour but not be “allowed” to get any laughs NB: this reading is basically the NRSV, which being a very literal translation captures the fairy tale quality of the telling rather well.

So, here are links to the audio:

Humour in the Bible: Book 12: 2 Kings 1: Mission interrupted

Special bonus: reading of 2 Kings 1 based on the NRSV

Idols, “gods” that people make! The very idea of making a god is one of those notions that almost have to reduce you to tears (whether of laughter or sadness and desperation depends on the circumstances), and the Bible has plenty of fun at the expense (in both senses) of idols. In this episode, therefore, we’ll look at 1 Kings 18 (particularly 1Kings 18:27 & 39).¹

So, here’s the link to the audio: Humour in the Bible 11: 1 Kings: In an idol moment

1. There is fuller background on this in 1 Kings 16:29 – 19:18: The big fight at Mt Carmel

The narrative books are on the whole easy targets for finding humour, so again I’ll recycle an old podcast This time in 2 Samuel 7 where God plays with words and puns away while explaining what he meant…

So, here’s the link to the audio: God the Exegete

For 1 Samuel I am going to cheat again, I just don’t think I can beat the hilarious introduction the first king, Saul, receives. In these two podcasts (again repeated)¹  I’ll point up some of the fun in the tale of Saul and the donkeys

So, here are links to the audio:

Introducing Saul (1 Samuel 9)

Still introducing Saul (1 Samuel 9)

1. • Introducing Saul
   • Still Introducing Saul

Ruth is a lovely story, it’s humour is¹ gentle and subtle. Part of the subtlety is that most (though not all) of the signs of humour are missing. However, I think we are intended to smile in at least two ways in the portrayal of the characters.

For this entry in the humour series I am repeating my podcast on chapter 2, where I think several of the signs are present, if subtly:

• incongruity: found I’ll claim in the disparity of cultures between peasant farming Bethlehem and semi-nomadic herding Moab
• lighthearted mood – it’s harvest time and there’s a meal
• surprise – Ruth “happens” on the field of a suitable husband
• ingenuity (cleverness is often a mark of humour think of puns) – if it’s present it is in Ruth’s possible playing with words for servanthood, but that’s too technical for this post
• inferiority – Ruth is a foreign, young, woman; Boaz is a wealthy, older, man
• “inelasticity” (following Bergson) – does Boaz’ slight pomposity count?
• human pretension revealed in all its lack of glory! – not at all present
• hyperbole – not present, except perhaps in the quantity of grain Ruth gleans

The other candidate is the use of direct speech to characterise, and since it is even less overt I’ll just point to the file for those who want to listen: Anyway here’s my candidate for humour in Ruth: Direct speech in biblical narratives

So, here’s the link to the audio: Ruth is from Moab, Boaz is from Bethlehem

1. Chapter three is a possible exception  – and the humour there, if there is humour, is disguised and sexual, so very difficult to spot with confidence across cultures!

Usually I try to present the ideas in these podcasts so that anyone can understand. However, this time if you cannot read Scripture except in translation and you have not learned to use an interlinear or computer Bible to get beyond that handicap, this podcast may be less accessible.

It deals with the naming of God, in one of the most challenging and difficult stories in the Bible, the near-sacrifice (or binding) of Isaac.

An unheard of second warning, in this podcast I don’t reach any conclusions, I either leave that to you, or you will have to wait till I am inspired to make a follow-up ‘cast

So, here’s the link to the audio: Would a rose smell as sweet? What’s in a name? Genesis 22

Judges is one Bible book where it has been common to recognise humour. Ehud killing the fat and oppressive king Eglon in the toilet has been a popular example, though  I’ll pretty much leave the scatology to David and others who appreciate it

I’d rather focus on gender.

In Judges relationships between men and women are either funny or horrible.

The story of Deborah (Judges 4) may provide examples, but the humour in the poem (Judges 5) is much clearer. It shows all nine of my diagnostic signs of humour. And develops some powerful (and this being Judges disturbing) gender bending humour. Though after the harsh laughs of the role reversals it is with a pleasant smile that we notice the delight Sisera’s womenfolk take in their imagined looted finery with “divers colours of needlework on both sides” (Judges 5:30) with its gender stereotyping
So, here’s the link to the audio:  Humour in the Bible Book 7 Judges: Gender Bending

The little story, in Joshua 2, of Rahab and the clueless pair of young Israelite would be spies, provided Spenser¹  (see Signs of humour: especially in written texts across cultures) with a nice example of several of his criteria all together in one text, making it evidently humorous.

What do you think? Do the criteria work? Or is this vignette deadly serious?

So, here’s the link to the audio:
Humour in the Bible: Book 6 Joshua: Rahab and the bungling spies

1. F. Scott Spencer “Those Riotous – Yet Righteous – Foremothers of Jesus: Exploring Matthew’s Comic Genealogy.” In Are we amused?: humour about women in the biblical worlds, edited by Athalya Brenner, 7-30. Continuum, 2003

David Ker, in one of the posts that stimulated this series, poses the serious and significant question: given the cultural gulf that separates us from the authors of Scripture how can we be sure something we see as funny tickled ancient Hebrew funny bones?

Spotting humour is easier in speech than writing, and spotting humour is difficult across cultures. Anyone who has worked in a different culture knows how people’s “sense of humour” is to a considerable extent culturally determined.

There’s a whole academic discipline studying such questions, and several biblical scholars have put these studies to work. For we have such a cross-cultural written case everytime we think something in Scripture is funny!

In his paper F. Scott Spencer “Those Riotous – Yet Righteous – Foremothers of Jesus: Exploring Matthew’s Comic Genealogy.” In Are we amused?: humour about women in the biblical worlds, edited by Athalya Brenner, 7-30. Continuum, 2003, lists some attempts to approach such questions and arrives at a list of clues that humour is present. I have modified his list:

• incongruity
• lighthearted mood
• surprise
• ingenuity (cleverness is often a mark of humour think of puns)
• inferiority
• disguise or something or someone pretending to be something else
• “inelasticity” (following Bergson)
• human pretension revealed in all its lack of glory!

So, here’s the link to the audio: Signs of humour: especially in written texts across cultures

In this podcast I’ll introduce the idea of the ending of John as a sphragis, and very briefly mention what that might mean for reading John’s gospel, but most of the time will be spent on the much less technical question of why I am convinced that Jesus rose from death and met with the disciples – because after all this passage is about the resurrection, and not about the technical details (however fascinating to biblical scholars

So, here’s the link to the audio: E100-69: John 20:1 – 21:25: The Resurrection

This chapter gives what it tells us is an eyewitness account of a Roman execution. Jesus, who has done no real wrong, except offend the religious leaders, and worry the politicians is subjested to the casual brutality of an imperial production-line death. Such a death, of an innocent man, is shocking. But Jesus was not merely a man, this was also the death of God, so as Jesus points out to the Roman govenor, Pilate, “You would have no power over me unless it had been given you” John 19:11 such a death overturns all expectations, gods are powerful, vengeful, gods are kindly and helpful… gods do not die so that humans may live!

So, here’s the link to the audio:
E100-68: John 19:1 – 19:42: The Crucifixion

CHRIST – DEATH
The fourth vertical window on the north side depicts the death of Christ. It is a dramatic, powerful, eerie and gruesome composition recording the most momentous event in history. Dark grays in the upper portion represent the actual darkness that invaded the cross where Christ died. The streams of red tell of the great suffering and sacrifice of our Savior. The gold around the cross and throughout the window symbolizes the presence of God in the death of Christ.

In this chapter, we get the climax of John’s series of sayings where Jesus echoes the divine “I am” cf. Exodus 3 (E100-17: Exodus 3-4: Getting the holy between your toes!), and we also notice how amid powerful people who seem muddled and out of control, Jesus (the one who seems to be the victim) is the only person in control of himself! And we’ll discover his secret.

We’ll also notice the three betrayals, and ask how we can avoid joining they betrayers.

So, here’s the link to the audio:

E100-67: John 18:1 – 40: Jesus secret and three betrayals

This second look at the complaint psalms continues to focus on Psalm 22. Part three will return to Jeremiah…

Right-click here to save the podcast for this audio

This post starts to talk about Psalm 22, mentioning Job 10 on the way, we will examine these passages as a way into understanding “complaint psalms”. Complaints are the commonest type of psalm in the book of psalms. You might like to listen to my earlier post “Arguing with God: Jer 12:1-4” first, it sets the scene for this one, and should probably have been called “Complaint psalms: Part One”!

I hope the next post – in a few days – will follow up looking some more at Psalm 22.

Right-click here to save the podcast for this audio

Passover was the greatest pilgrimage festival for 1st century Jews, Jerusalem was packed with people (like for a world cup – only more crowded celebrating the great liberation from foreign oppression that God worked for Moses and the ancestors in Exodus. No wonder the Romans were jumpy, no wonder the Sadducees on the Sanhedrin (Jewish council) shared their concern, and it was an ideal opportunity for the Pharisees to do something about a dangerously radical Rabbi who failed to respect proper authority. And no wonder among the religious and national fervour and the political fears Satan was also at work.

So, here’s the link to the audio: E100-66: Luke 22:1 – 46: The Last Supper

Gospels are not biographies, nor are they just collections of sayings, they focus on Jesus’ death and resurrection. Without either event can’t understand Jesus or the gospel. But we also to see and understand that Jesus is God incarnate and that Jesus is risen else his dearth and the disciples turnaround between end of gospels and Acts  makes no sense.

This week’s readings bring to fruition the message we heard time and again in the Old Tedstament, that the only true God is Yahweh, the one who will be with and for us, this God is Yeshua (in English – Jesus) “he saves”.

So, here’s the link to the audio:
E100: Week 14: Death and resurrection

Since (at least Western) Christians this week leading to the celebration of the resurrection on Easter Day by first remembering the events of the days leading up to Jesus’ death, and remember his crucifixion on Friday, I will not be podcasting any of my “Humour in the Bible” series this week. Rather I will repeat Week 14 from the E100 series. (If you heard them the first time I am sorry, but others no doubt missed them then…)

Humor in the Former Prophets will resume after Easter…

This podcast, suggesting a gentle wry smile in Dt 1:6 was inspired by a blog post from Rabbi Michal Shekel “Could it be possible to stay too long at the site of Revelation?”

There are also quotes from: Tigay, J. Deuteronomy. Jewish Publication Society, 1994, 8; and Rashi on Dt 1:6.

As well as Dt 1:6-7 I will also refer to Mark 9.

No one has get suggested humour in Leviticus, so I’m moving on while I think…

Numbers 11 provides a fun story with several wry smiles, and Moses tells God that as Israel’s mother (which role Moses himself is not at all keen on) Yahweh should feed and care for these “babies”.

 
So, here’s the link to the audio:
Humour in the Bible: Book 4 Numbers

I never said all the humour in the Bible was gentle or polite. We have come to expect harsh even toilet humour from the prophets, but in this reading Leviticus outdoes Ezekiel sharpening his toilet humour and even making it shorter and more pointed.

In this podcast I’ll compare Ezek 6:3-6 with Lev 26:30, and even throw in some Hebrew and a reference to Cuneiform, just to show how serious Leviticus’ humour really is

.

So, here’s the link to the audio:
Humour in the Bible: Book 3 Leviticus

In this post we’ll discover some humour from below. The humour of the oppressed often pokes fun at the oppressor. Those who subjugate others fear them, and this fear generates feelings of inferiority that in Exodus some oppressed women manipulate delightfully.

Please open your Bibles at Exodus 1-2.

So, here’s the link to the audio:
Humour in the Bible: Book 2 Exodus

In a post Why the Bible is just not (so) funny David returned to a theme he’s argued before, that the Bible is not funny. Aparently back in 2007 he issued a challenge that readers of his blog could not give examples of humour from every book in the Bible: Funny Stuff in the Bible. Now of course his 2007 post was cheating. He set a (nearly?) impossible task, to find humour in Lamentations might be hard! But that does not mean that there is no humour in Scripture. Just think of one of the occasions when Jesus spoke about camels (he seems to me to have had a thing about camels). Or, for crying out loud, read Jonah aloud in any translation or language you like, and try keeping a straight face…

I thought I would take up David’s challenge. Not seriously, as I said I expect there are some books devoid of humour, it takes all sorts to make up God’s world, even the humourless! But I do plan to work through the Bible (or at the very least the Hebrew Bible) pointing out humour in most of the books.

This podcast refers to Gen 1:14ff. and Gen 3:1-7.

So, here’s the link to the audio: Humour in the Bible: Book 1 Genesis 

The prophet Jonah (at least as his story is told in the book that bears his name) is perhaps the most orthodox if perhaps the most heteropractic¹ prophet in the Bible!

Yet this book perhaps better than any other in the Old Testament encapsulates the essential truths of Scripture.

[For more on the "Perspicuity of Scripture" see The Perspicuity of Scripture or see the podcasts listed here.]

The next podcast on Jonah should return to a detailed look at a small chunk of the book, this one is big-picture stuff, just to keep you interested

.

1. The prefix “ortho-” straight or right and “hetero-” different or wrong are used as opposites. The endings “-dox” to do with worship or theology and “-praxis” to do with action. So orthodox is right-thinking and heteropractic is wrong-doing.

I’ve already a podcast on Jonah 1:7-8 Direct speech in biblical narratives if you want a fill in between the last podcast and this one.

Had you noticed? We were eight verses into the book and Jonah had not said one word. In Jonah 1:1-8 not a peep out of Jonah the prophet, so 1:9 where he finally speaks has to be significant…

.

In these two verses we get some more clues about how to read the book of Jonah, we’ll notice how everything is big, and how the ship has personality. I’ll suggest that Jonah is in some ways like a children’s story, larger than life and painted in bright primary colours. I’ll even suggest that there are hints the telling is like Thomas the Tank Engine

.

As a counterbalance to Jonah I’ll take Psalm 69. I’m considering it as typifying many Bible passages where people pray imprecation on evil people (usually their own enemies, but sometimes the enemies of others).

Something deep in us wants to believe that God is just. Such prayers appeal to this.

.

In this short series (of two podcasts) I’ll describe two things I think I know, two stakes in the ground when I come to think about the topic of “universalism” that has been much discussed (and even more an excuse for slanging matches) recently around the Bible-focused blogs.

Let’s start by admitting there are many many things on this topic that we simply do not know. I list a few of the many things that I am firmly agnostic about in a blog post OK, till now I’ve held my peace, and avoided discussing that Bell fella and universalism. But….In this podcast and the next one I’ll offer two things that I do know related to this topic. Today from the book of Jonah (for other podcasts that may give a fuller idea about how I read Jonah go here) and tomorrow from Psalm 69. In both cases the set text is intended to be typical of a major strand of thinking and expression in the Bible.

.

Back in the days before I was a professional Bible teacher I could never have imagined anyone wanting to rip the book of Jeremiah from Scripture. Jeremiah the emotional prophet, who speaks sometimes such lovely promises, who expresses how his own and God’s hearts are torn by the terrible future (and present) Judah’s apostasy and sin have brought upon Jerusalem the holy city, how could anyone not love Jeremiah!?

But then I was asked to teach Jeremiah, and once I did. In preparation I read the book, aloud into a recorder, and then listened to the recording, while driving to work. I discovered, to my horror, but more and more strongly that I detested the book. It is grubby, nasty and leaves such a sour taste that I wanted to spit it out.

And yet, I’ve continued to live with Jeremiah, it’s part of Scripture, it’s part of my Prophets in Context course… and perhaps I can see why it remains in the canon….

I’ll try to illustrate some of this looking at Jer 6:1-8 as a sample passage.

.

Gavin in his post “Mrs. God” linked to my recent podcasts about Yahweh’s wife, he notes one area for discussion:

I’m a bit worried about the distinction Tim makes between a historically married god and a theological entity who wasn’t, but it’ll be interesting to see where it all leads.

To respond in this podcast I’ll talk about what the Bible is and how we can read it to try to give the distinction some context. Doing this as a podcast is a bit of an experiment, and I may move the discussion over to my blog if it seems the 5 minute talking head is not the best way to carry it on. So this podcast may be a bit of a one off, though hopefully even if it does not further the conversation with Gavin it may be helpful background for other listeners to my current podcasts on was God married and the gender of God.

.

In this podcast I’ll briefly argue that since the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) regularly pictures Yahweh as intimately associated with both forming in the womb and birthing, and particularly since “his” role is often as midwife “he” cannot be thought of as a male god. Rather “he” is God and as later (though very early since several key Patristic fathers say it) in God there is no gender, God is not part of any group (gender).

The primary passage I’ll discuss is Psalm 22:9-10 (MT 10-11). This is discussed more fully in the section Yahweh and the womb of my online discussable book Not Only a Father.

.

Francesca Stavrakopoulou closed her article “Why the BBC’s new face of religion believes God had a WIFE” saying:

I can’t help but wonder what the world would be like had the goddess remained.

Let’s explore the evidence and try to answer her speculation. This evidence comes mainly from surrounding peoples, though the Bible has some contribution to make, so this podcast can squeak into a series called 5 Minute Bible

Most of ancient Israel’s neighbours had pantheons which included prominent goddesses alongside gods. In Egypt Isis was particularly important, while in Mesopotamia the gate named after Ishtar was a hugely impressive archaeological feature. In Ugarit, Anat the sister and wife of Ba’al had an important role to play in restoring the king of the gods to life.

Could Israel have benefitted from a female companion for Yahweh?

.

In this podcast I’ll suggest that noticing the importance of why we read Scripture can help clarify at least the theological question about the genocide of the Canaanites. Listen to my previous two posts for more on how knowing why we read matters:

• Why do you read? Or: Was God married?
• Are you an idolater? (Not – Was God married? Part Two)

.

I know I promised two sequels to yesterday’s podcast. But I think I need first to explore the theme of the gender of God (Yahweh) in the Old Testament, and the evidence for Yahweh’s wife, a bit more first. Bear with me and we will get to “Why do you read? Part two: The genocide of the Canaanites” and “Was God married? Part two: the death of the goddess” just be patient

PS: In the Mail article Stavrokopoulou says that the Kuntillet Ajrud pithos is lost, yesterday Hershel Shanks published a piece in the Jerusalem Post saying it has been recovered. (HT Claude Mariottini)

.

The Daily Mail (a UK tabloid newspaper) carried an article “Why the BBC’s new face of religion believes God had a WIFE”¹ It caused a flurry among the Twittering classes, and on Facebook, and even among the biblioblogs (though in the latter group most dismissed the article saying: What can you expect from a British Tabloid?)

Actually the article is by Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou a member of the Society for Old Testament Study with a DPhil from Oxford and a job at Exeter University. So in this podcast I’ll take her article seriously, but use it to ask whether and how it matters why one reads.

.

1. Yes, the capitals were in the original, for some reason…

Way back, at the turn of the century, I wrote an article for  Festschrift volume:

Tim Bulkeley, “Where do you read.” in Mission without Christendom: exploring the site, essays for Brian Smith (Carey Studies in Theology) Auckland: Carey Baptist College, 13-22.

Among other things it noted how the assumptions and cultural baggage we bring to “reading” a passage of Scripture can colour, change or allow us to see things more or less clearly. This podcast illustrates this listening to one of Jesus’ best-loved parables (Luke 15:11-32). And (I hope tactfully) suggests Western Christians risk missing the “point” in a quite dangerous way

BTW I dealt with the chapter as a whole in a previous podcast: Luke 15:1 – 15:32: Lost and Found if you are not quite sure about something I say here then that ‘cast might help

.

We looked at this passage in class last week. I’ve based this podcast on my own very literal translation (so as to make spotting how if works easier). The translation with a couple of explanatory notes is here: Jeremiah 4:23-27 (translation and notes)

.

In some Bible passages as atheists and others who want to avoid the claims of God are quick to point out God sounds like a Dalek.

Deut 7:2 is a typical case.

When the LORD your God hands these nations over to you and you conquer them, you must completely destroy them. Make no treaties with them and show them no mercy. (NLT)

Here God demands that Israel exterminate all the Canaanites. What’s going on? Is the God of the Bible (or at least the Old Testament agenocidal maniac?

This is part one of a series, so it will only deal with part of the answer. You will have to watch out for the other parts for a fuller treatment. The really difficult takes more than five minutes

.

My earlier podcast: The last Confession of Jeremiah: Jeremiah 20: Yahweh seduces his prophet I simply assumed the translation seduce” for patah But “seduce” is not a translation favoured by English translations.

I dealt with this issue briefly in a blog post Did Yahweh seduce Jeremiah? with a bibliographic note Did God seduce Jeremiah? Addendum but since the issue was raised orally it seems right to deal with it orally here.

.

So, in Jer 20:7ff does Jeremiah claim YHWH seduced him, or not? Listen to the podcast and then you decide!

As well as Jer 20:7ff. these other places where patah is used in the piel are mentioned:

• Gen 9:27
• Ex 22:15 (v.16 in English)
• Jud 14:15; 16:5
• 1 Kgs 22:20,21,22 cf. 2 Chron 18:19,20,21
• Ps 78:36
• 2 Sam 3:25
• Pr 24:28
• Hos 2:1
• Pr 1:10
• Ez 14:9

Sorry this podcast is firstly out of order (it should have come before the last confession and then late (it should also have come a while back but I’ve been busy trying to get a paper on Isaiah finished

This fourth confession illustrates strongly both the dramatic narrative character of these “confessions” and that they are not to be taken as examples to follow, or as a mine from which we can quarry “texts”. For anyone who followed Jeremiah’s example would be rightly shunned, and any text torn screaming from this matrix would yield most unchristian applications!

No! Rather read this “confession” as a further episode in the continuing drama of Jeremiah and his Yahweh. As you read, allow yourself to be read, and you will listen with profit to the prophet

.

Jeremiah gets more personal in his complaints, but his “conversation” with YHWH still seems to shut out any response… curiouser and curiouser… and which ending will you choose of this series?

.

Jeremiah’s third confession is a monologue, mainly (or all, depending where we think it starts) addressed to God. Complaint is the dominant tone, and Jeremiah asks for vengeance on his opponents. So this text raises interesting questions about the nature of Scripture, and how God might read (some parts of) the Bible…

.

Continuing a series on The Confessions of Jeremiah, we’ll explore the second of these rich and complex texts Jer 15:10-21. Although I only have 5 minutes I hope I’ll give you material to spark several times that of study of the biblical text for it is out of such personal wrestling (sometimes like Jeremiah’s struggles with Yahweh) that we grow and learn from our Bible reading

.

In the previous two podcasts in this series I’ve introduced “the Confessions of Jeremiah” and the first confession (11:18-12:6). Here we’ll look at this text from the point of view of how it portrays the characters of Jeremiah (in the book the speaker of the passage) and his God (whom he often addresses and on whose behalf he speaks to others).

I’ll suggest that this passage is far from a neat static cartoon of Jeremiah and God on one side and the Judeans (or the “Men of Anathoth”) on the other, goodies and baddies. Rather it shows a rich depth of character as Jeremiah learns to experience God more profoundly.

.

Before thinking about this “confession” we’ll first look at lament psalms briefly. Lament psalms often contain:

• an address (maybe simply “O God” or “O Lord”)
• a/some complaint(s)
• a request for help addressed to God
• the affirmation of trust in God, as thanks for past action or simply as praise and conviction God will act
• a vow to praise God when the crisis has passed (44:8; 80:18).

The first Confession of Jeremiah is a good illustration of both how these speeches are like, and that they are unlike Lament psalms. We will also notice how in Jeremiah the lament-like material works with its surrounding text. The condfessions are not a separate part of the book, they are parts of the book. (The next podcast will continue to look at this text, building on this material.)

.

A series of passages in Jeremiah stand out because of their contents which presents itself as powerful debates about Jeremiah, his call, his enemies and his God. In some of them Jeremiah seems to be speaking alone, in otgher God responds.

These “Confessions of Jeremiah are: Jer 11:18-20; 12:1-6; 15:10-21, 17:14-18; 18:18-23; 20:7-13 (the exact details of the list are debatable, but its broad lines are well established.

This podcast introduces Jeremiah’s confessions, subsequent podcasts in the series will examine each in turn.

.

We’ve just recorded the video for the new CareyMedia DVD, this year it is conversations between small groups of us, one I was involved in was about worship. So, here I want to suggest that Leviticus (esp. Lev 19:1-2) and Isaiah 6 can help us come back to the heart of worship (as the song puts it).

.

I once made a silly offer: “Give me a random Old Testament passage, and I’ll show you how the 5 step process works!” So they offered me 2 Kings 10, the lovely story of the seventy heads offered to Jehu in baskets. (Read it yourself if you don’t believe me.)

My goal was to show how the 5 step process could take us from that passage to a sensible message I could preach in church on a Sunday. This podcast is a summary of what we did. (I say “we” because I made my listeners do much of the work, asking:

1. What DID the story mean? (I.e. what was it supposed to communicate to its early hearers, Jews in or just after the exile.)
2. What are the differences that make a difference? (I.e. what has changed that either makes us likely to misunderstand, or that make our situation significantly different from theirs. One that isn’t mentioned in the podcast, but should have been is that we will be shocked by this tale of mass murder, they probably cheered it on, politics was a rougher game there than for most of us today
3. What does it say about God? (If the Bible is about God then each passage will tell us something about God. And Scritpture IS about God and NOT about us.)
4. How do we understand this in the light of Jesus? Or, since this is an Old Testament passage: How does Jesus complete or fill out what is here?
5. How does that work today?

Listen and see if you think I succeeded, got a message for today, and one which is Christian, and one which is fair to the lovely passage of Scripture they gave me!

BTW my mate Jonathan has been writing about Christian Preaching of the Old Testament, I wonder what he thinks of this example

.

In our student exegesis assignments we ask them to state the intended meaning for the ancient hearers, ideally in one sentence, maybe two, never more than 50 words. They commonly have two problems. The first is being brief I have a Sansblogue post on writing tightly that helps address this issue. Their second problem is that they often tend to forget that the text ever had ancient hearers!

Yet the Bible is a record of communicative acts, and communicative acts are always contextual. Some “holy books” (like the Qur’an?) are believed to be timeless and decontextual, some (like the I Ching) are thought of as magical or quasi-magical, but the Bible is “just” a complex communicative act.

It’s a very complex one, according to Christians, since it involves the Holy Spirit communicating with people in all sorts of times and places, through human acts of communication at particular times and places. That’s what some hermeneuts¹ call the double agency of Scripture. But doubly agented texts are not unusual – all messages (except written or electronic ones) have double agency.

So why is the notion that an Old Testament text was addressed to ancient Israelites, and/or ancient Judaites or Jews, before it was addressed to modern Christians so difficult?

Other podcasts on this topic already include:

• A Text without Contexts is Dumb!
• Luke 9:1 – 9:36: What’s the point of a miracle?
• Prophets: three principles to unlock the code
• Reading the parable of the Big Feast in context (Luke 14)

.

1. If the art and science of understanding is hermeneutics, then the person who does it is presumably a hermeneut.

The flat out contradictions in Scripture make Bible readers jumpy.Conservatives seek to defend the “integrity” of Scripture by denying that there is any (even the slightest) disagreement, those on the other side delight in the “proof” that the Bible is merely a collection of venerable ancient texts of no relevance today. Both responses are dead wrong!

Contradictions in Scripture are real guides to how we should read. In Proverbs they reminded us how proverbs work, and how we have to select when to apply which proverb. In other places they are often reminders of the humanity of Scripture, that we have the thoughts of particular authors, in particular times and places, who were inspired by God not the words of God taken down as dictation.

So Is 56:6-8 stands in contrast in its welcoming approach to foreigners to the harsher attitude of Ezra’s prayer 9:5ff.
The debate between the two passages shows us Scripture as incarnate word, rooted in particular times and places, but then that is how the God of the Bible works: choosing the Jews, coming to earth in Jesus…

.

“I am making everything new” what a wonderful promise!

Not just a repair or clean up, but a renewed creation. Back in Genesis, the new line that started with Seth instead of Cain (the murderer) failed, after the flood Noah who was “a righteous man, blameless in his generation; and walked with God” (Gen 6:9) promptly became the first drunk, even Abraham – the father of faith – showed his lack of faith a few verses after responding to God’s call. Clean up jobs don’t work, they just sweep human sinfulness under the carpet. As Jesus’ parable (Mat 12:43ff. Luke 11:24ff.) shows even casting the demon out does no long term good, only a new creation will do, so… the one who began it all will end it all : “I am the alpha and the omega”.

And then there’s the holy city, which is quite clearly nothing like the existing unholy cities, the Babylons that we keep building: Gen 11, Babylon of the exile, and “now” (in John’s time) Rome, and note that in 11:8 he links Sodom, “Egypt” and Jerusalem to my list! Human cities concentrate human evil, but since we are ALL broken even the smallest inhabited place is already contaminated.

So we too need to be made new!

.

With this reading, skipping all the confusing stuff about the seven seals and the seven bowls, and most of the material about the false bride (the whore of Babylon), we come straight to the end of the beginning in chapter 19. We’ve returned to the throne room in heaven, now in victory!

Westerners, especially those of us born after the end of the second world war (which means most listeners to this podcast have difficulty really understanding this joy in heaven, most of our battles are such trivial ones. But live for a while with people far away, share their pain as their children get sick while a corrupt system that should provide treatment does not. Feel their anger at the tyrants who oppress, ruling at the end of a gun, burning crops and homes, raping the girls and working the men to) death. The horrors in places like Burma/Myanmar, Congo or Darfur hardly bear thinking about, but they are repeated in less extreme ways across much of the planet. Take a share in these feelings, and the victory of the lamb sounds just fine. Remembering my new friends in the camps on the Thai-Burma border, or thinking of my old colleagues in Congo, I’ll pray Maranatha Come Lord! So that they can join the celebration in heaven.

This chapter paints a Jesus the pious portrait painters never imagined, but when you think of what it really means
that our world is spoilt and broken by human Sin (not sins, as in the little wrongs we do but Sin the power that is woven of those little wrongs and becomes a cyclonic system in which fairly ordinary people commit monstrous atrocities) thinking of such a broken world makes sense of this Jesus.

.

If you’ve been wonderoing when all the visions in Revelation begin, wonder no more. Today’s reading is full of visions.

A throne in heaven: for God alone rules heaven and earth. One sitting on it: God is not named, for that would be too familiar in this dangerous vision, dangerous because humans are unholy and God is holy. Then v.3 is a reminder not to take this vision as visual, it’s a word picture

Many of us approach John’s visions wanting to know more than John tells us, either about what heaven is like or about God’s timetable for the future. So people dig into the visions, work cleverly at their imagined codes… Spurgeon in a sermon on this passage puts it well:¹

It is very little that we can know of the future state, but we may be quite sure that we know as much as is good for us. We ought to be as content with that which is not revealed as with that which is. If God wills us not to know, we ought to be satisfied not to know. Depend on it, he has told us all about heaven that is necessary to bring us there; and if he had revealed more, it would have served rather for the gratification of our curiosity than for the increase of our grace.

So sit back, relax, and enjoy the words, catch a glimpse of the glory and holiness of God! But, be content with this glimpse “through a glass darkly” because this side of death it is all you will get, or need. And one day, quite soon enough we’ll be there face to face! It’s better to spend time getting spruced up and ready, rather than speculating on what the view will be like!

This vision is full of echoes of Scripture. The most obvious in ch.3 is the “Trishaggion” (the triple declaration of God’s holiness) that recalls the temple vision in ch.6 of Isaiah. But the creatures with their eyes echoes Ezekiel’s opening vision (as does the scroll at the start of ch.5).

There are loads of intertextual echoes throughout this material. So, why not get a good set of cross references (the ones in the NET Bible are not bad, the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge ones are free with most Bible software, but the best I’ve seen come with Bibles from the French Bible Society – why haven’t others copied them? Get a set of cross-references and follow them to see how richly biblical chapter five is but don’t get so caught up in the trees that you miss the forest!:

Revelation 5:11-14 11 Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels surrounding the throne and the living creatures and the elders; they numbered myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, 12 singing with full voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” 13 Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, singing, “To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” 14 And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” And the elders fell down and worshiped.

Because only the “lamb that was slaughtered” is worthy, because only he has or could “Revelation 5:9 ransom God saints from every tribe and language and people and nation.

Amen!

.

1. C.H. Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol 15, No.887

Most listeners to this podcast, judging by the website stats, come from comfortable Western countries. If this is you (and it is ME) then most of what is said to the first six churches does not closely fit us, though it more often gives us goals to aim for.

Laodicea by contrast does fit, neither hot nor cold – isn’t moderation one of our chief virtues, especially in Church (even more than our society more widely where often excess reigns). We are also (on a global scale if not as individuals rich and successful. Of course if we look beyond the material things that are so plentifull we might really see ourselves as blind and naked! (As the risen Christ saw the Laodicean Christians

Our moderation, being not hot or cold won’t do. Jesus says he wants to spit us out!

It is in this passage that we read the word picture of Jesus standing knocking. It is not an evangelistic message but call to re-commitment!

Then running through these messages are the twin themes of sexual immorality and eating food offered to idols. Sex is much the same in any time and place, but the problem of food offered to idols hardly seems real today except…  What did eating food offered to idols mean to Christians in those churches in Turkey? Returning to their old ways, acting like and sharing leisure with old pagan friends, and so reducing God to another god. For most of us the similar temptation is to look for money and comfort to trust and enjoy things. Reducing God to an auxiliary role and not the main or only source of our life and happiness!

.

This reading introduces the book and Revelation needs introducing because it is a difficult book. Among its oddities are the rhetorical flourishes (present elsewhere in the Bible but very strongly featured here), the use of picture language (which interestingly often cannot actually be pictured), vivid visions and a strong interest in the future/eternity.

Listening to John’s word pictures makes clear that these aren’t really pictures that John draws, the “word pictures” signal other things, so white as wool, white as snow – signals purity. However, it also does clever stuff called intertextuality – John sets up echoes with other Scriptures that ought to be familiar. These intertextual echoes are everywhere in Revelation and vital to understanding the book, so it’s one book where a good set of cross references will pay its weight in gold!

.

The book calls itself the apokalupsis of Jesus Christ – the revelation the disclosure of hidden things – so like parts of Daniel it will show us glimpses “behind the scenes” of the world letting us see a bit of what Christ is doing off stage. This means (paradoxically) that this book requires us to learn a bit about the setting and people for whom John is writing – it may be even more important for such a book than for one that tells the action on-stage John is a prisoner, “for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus”, in PATMOS, a small rocky island in the Aegean, about 15 miles West of Ephesus.

Futurist: Revelation talks about the future so interpreters often assume it is talking about our near future! We call these readings “futurist”. Because the book calls itself a revelation of hidden things, it is easy for clever interpreters to convince people it is a secret to be decoded. So Hal Lindsay in 1972 decoded Revelation and “proved” that the world would end in one generation from 1948 – when the modern state of Israel was founded – a generation he said was 30 years, so 1978 was the date. When it passed he decided that a generation is actually 100 years, even if he lived to be a hundred he’ll be safely dead by 2048!

But the Bible is not a code, its message is clear “perspicuous” God is not a trickster or puzzler who sets us difficult intellectual problems to solve.he earliest futurist readings (like Justin Martyr in 2nd century) saw the 1000 years ending (with the world in 1000or 1030AD) but that is long past so now.

Preterist: Another approach sees the book entirely set in our past – around John’s own time – this seems more true than the extreme futurist approach BUT some things in Revelation would not have made sense to John’s readers as being fulfilled in their lifetime. There IS still a future element…

Intertextual: John continually echoes rest of Bible especially the prophets, in doing this he creates resonances and so suggests that history repeats itself.

Literary/symbolic: John creates a “virtual world” where the real significance of events and things in the here and now can be seen a bit like CS Lewis’ Narnia stories.

Whatever approaches (and for sure we’ll need more than one for almost any passage from Revelation!) we need a strong awareness of John’s setting and the people to whom he was writing. So why not read a few pages, from a Bible with introductions to books or from an “Introduction to the New Testament” book before you read the E100 chapters?

.

Beware this reading is dangerous!

After readings from Peter and then James, the E100 gives us another reading from one of the less Greek of the NT writers. Like James John circles round his topic and returns to the same “place” (though having moved forward). John is (at least if you have a poetic cell or two in your brain) less confusing than James, partly because he is obviously writing poetry. But also because the ebb and flow of his thought, and its parallelism more obviously moves forward.

Having said John writes (near) poetry our reading cuts in at just one of the points where John breaks into prose and logic, though the first line sounds quite poetic. However after a little prose logic we get a fine “poem”, and one that carries a powerful “sting” like the prophets for many readers today.

.

James is a difficult book to read, though in this podcast I’ll suggest that things we learn reading the Old Testament can help us. I’ll also try to explain how understanding where James is coming from can help, that is a bit of cultural understanding will make clearer how his mind works, and so his book. But if I tell you more you won’t listen to the podcast

[PS: sorry, this podcast is longer than it should be, but it does introduce how to read James, and begins to address the "famous" faith and works dispute among early Christian leaders!]

I chose the picture and (longer than usual) caption on the right because an example James gives in this reading (James 2:16) happens (or almost happens) too often today – truly we live in a global village!

.

This epistle is a bit of a puzzle it presents itself as written by Peter, Jesus’ rough practical fisherman disciple, but it is written in smart literary Greek and the style seems to reflect Hellenistic rhetorical training. (As well as the sort of knowledge of Scripture we might expect from Peter!) Perhaps it was written by someone who owed a great debt to Peter or perhaps Peter had help from a ghost-writer – Silvanus (see 5:12) is a frequent candidate.

The Bible quotations and allusions pretty consistently seem to reflect the Greek (LXX) which also points away from Peter having selected the words of the letter. But the letter is most deeply concerned to discuss the Scriptural basis of Christian theology (remember Scripture means OT). As well as the Psalms and references from Isaiah that are common in the NT it also quotes Proverbs several times and Leviticus.

However the letter was composed, its solid Scriptural foundation, and polished style make it surprising that it is not better known among Christians, perhaps it is only read so little because Paul has such a dominant place, and because Peter deals less in controversy and more with the simple basics of faith!

Wow never mind who wrote it, and what writing it meant, just listen to the powerful language and theology!

.

Clay vessels were everywhere, plates, bowls, cups, storage, cooking… most of the everyday objects we make of glass or china, and many we make of plastic (or even metal) were clay pottery in the ancient world. Living back then you were deeply (and probably unconsciously) aware of just how fragile standard clay pots are. We live in a world of bone china and hardened glass. Even the average cheap dinnerset is so much tougher than an ancient pot, and the broken pieces of pottery were everywhere. Walking across the top of Tell Miqne – identified by the excavators as the Philistine city of Ekron – there were small fragments of broken pottery everywhere. Most of them from ancient times.

Pots broke very easily, hardly needing to be dropped, but apart from shattering into smaller pieces the material is very durable. So when Paul talks of treasure in clay jars the first thing to come to mind would be the fragility of the vessels. On the other hand fired clay is indeed very durable – it does not decay like wood or even iron (which rusts), unless it is broken, a clay vessel seals and preserves. Fine wines were kept in clay jars, the famous Dead Sea Scrolls were (many of them) held in clay jars to protect and preserve them. So Paul’s imagery here is vivid, simple and immediate.

But, wait… there’s more

.

There’s so much in this chapter!

No wonder it’s a favourite to read at weddings, for indeed it does describe a sort of love that is far removed from the sugary candy floss that popular culture usually presents as “romantic”. Though of course Paul is not writing about marriage, but about the greatest gift given by God’s Holy Spirit.

So now’s our chance (if we are not “Charismatic” with a capital C) to beat those benighted speakers of tongues over the head with a powerful Scriptural sword! Of course if we do so we’ll just prove their point that we have NOT received the gifts of the Spirit, because if we do we are obviously lacking love

Better by far to notice that Paul describes all sorts of spiritual gifts, not least in ch.12 where he stressed both the variety of gifts, and their common goal:

1 Corinthians 12:7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

These bewilderingly varied gifts all have the purpose of building up the whole body. If your gift does not build up – then it does not come from the Holy Spirit. If I look down on those claiming the gift of tongues or prophecy, then I have not received the best gift, let alone those “lesser” gifts!

That’s why “love” as described in this chapter is the greatest gift because love builds up!

You see as Paul notes towards the end of ch.13, even with all these spiritual gifts:

1 Corinthians 12:8-10 speaking wisdom, or knowledge, faith, healing, working of miracles, prophecy, discernment of spirits, various kinds of tongues, interpretation of tongues.

And all the varied sorts of leaders God raises up:

1 Corinthians 12:28-30 apostles, prophets, teachers; miracle workers, healers, helpers, various other forms of leadership, or kinds of tongues.

All of these risk leaving us blind, like the prophets of old (about whom Jewish writers used Paul’s picture of “through a glass darkly”) like those prophets of old, despite all these spiritual gifts we would see what God is like and what God is doing through a glass dimly. Whether the “glass” was a mirror or a primitive magnifying glass it was dim and obscure, as prophecy always is! But love shows us a glimpse of the clear view of God we will get one day in heaven
no wonder Paul calls it the best gift!

.

To my mind this passage provides a nice example of what Paul was on about in the previous reading, many people get hung up on the picture of Christ descending from heaven, and the possibility of people rising to greet him, and spend their time constructing imaginative and creative theologies and multi-million dollar businesses writing books about “the rapture” claiming that the notion is a “biblical doctrine”. Actually , there are only a few passages like this one that merely hint at such ideas. The whole “Christian” futurology industry is built on a misuse of Scripture!

Notice here how a few verses further on Paul says very clearly something that Jesus had already said, but such end times prophecy fanatics miss the obvious, perspicuous, message of Scripture to speculate on irrelevant details!

If rather we listen to Paul (or Jesus) quite without end-times calculations and non-biblical prophecies and the rest of the “Christian” futurology businesses we are well prepared for Christ’s coming.

9 For God has destined us not for wrath
but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10 who died for us,
so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him.

11 Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.

1 Thessalonians 5:9-11

.

This passage, which begins and ends with Paul’s suffering, centres on Scripture. It contains the verse which in Evangelical circles is probably the second best known (after John 3:16) Bible reference of all (more rightly it should be two verses, since one cannot understand 2 Tim 3:16 without the purpose declared in 2 Tim 3:17).

2 Timothy 3:16-17 All Scripture … is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that those who belong to God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Missed out the debated word “theopneustos”. This is a hapax legomenon¹ though it does occur occasionally outside Scripture, so the Greek-speaking Jewish writer Josephus around this time says of Scripture: talks of the prophets who wrote the 22 sacred books² who wrote according to theopneustia that comes from God.

It is quite clear he means “divine inspiration” he did not think theopneustos meant “God breathed” because “according to the God breathed quality that comes from God” is a daft thing to say, and Josephus wasn’t daft!

So in 2 Tim 3:16-17 Paul tells us Scripture is inspired by God, and then tells us how we can know that it is, and how we can use it rightly: 16 “teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness“, and in v.17 tells us its purpose: “so that those who belong to God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work“.

Take-aways from this passage:

• Scripture is inspired (by God, no less!) so it is useful to teach, reprove and correct, and train us – in short in these ways it equips us to belong to God and to work for him.

• Scripture is good: anyone who makes it achieve other results fear, isolation, oppression… is misusing it!

.

1. a word that only occurs once in Scripture
2. the Hebrew Bible our Old Testament

There are two takeaways from this chapter. The first is the lovely poem (or verse from a hymn) in vv.11-13

If we have died with him, we will also live with him;

12 if we endure, we will also reign with him;

if we deny him, he will also deny us;

13 if we are faithless, he remains faithful-

– for he cannot deny himself.

The other is the apparent contradiction between Paul’s advice to Timothy (2 Timothy 2:14) “avoid wrangling over words”, suggesting that there are details that do not matter, and him then going on to correct someone teaching nutty stuff, in the strongest terms (2 Timothy 2:16-18).

There is a tension here, how do we distinguish “wrangling over words” (v.14) from the sort of false teaching that needs calling gangrene (v.17)? There’s a double answer…

.

Here are videos of the fire. Still no news of the people…

A fire has destroyed a bible school and other buildings in Mae La Refugee Camp, 57km north of the Thai town of Mae Sot at 12.30pm today. Camp residents managed to put out the fire after about an hour.

A camp resident whom witnessed the fire explained to Karen News that the fire destroyed several buildings in the Kawthoolei Karen Baptist Bible School and College (KKBBSC) compound located in Zone C.1A of Mae La refugee camp.

“The fire started in the food storage building. Now many buildings including the school, food storage, library, teachers’ houses and other buildings were destroyed by the fire.”

There’s been so much hopeful news from Burma recently, not least the bye-elections, and the talks between the government and various ethnic groups.

And yet this BBC report from Kachin State shows how in many ways and places the army is continuing “business as usual”.

At this time of hope, but uncertainty, Burma needs your hope more than ever. And our governments need wisdom, to nt release sanctions too fast, but yet to encourage the reformers.

Partners has a good simple chart of the Good (progress towards freedom and peace) the Bad (things which have not changed or are still worrying) and the Terrible (the continued atrocities and everyday disasters of a poor, run down, police state) in Burma/Myanmar today. The chart provides food for thought and a corrective to the excessive optimism most of us a prone to when there is a glimmer of hope in such a terrible situation.

Read the chart, think and pray about it (please) but also continue to pray for peace and real development, and to give to Partners or others who are working still for those goals…

News sources including the Guardian are reporting that among the 600+ prisoners being released by the government in Nappydaw are many prominent political prisoners.

Despite the facts that there are still many political prisoners in jail and despite the laws that put them their being still on the books this is good news. It is another sign of hope after so many years of worsening gloom in Burma.

Pray that the progress may continue.

Both AFP and the Irrawaddy are reporting that the KNU have signed a ceasefire with the Nappydaw government. This deal could mark the beginning of an end to the war which has been running for well over 60 years.

Pray that this and other hopeful signs from Burma may indeed mark a new beginning for the troubled country!

The question of when child labour is a traditional form of community self-help has come up a couple of times for me recently.

The example nearer home came from a friend of ours working on the border in a village that runs dormitories and a school for teens and kids who otherwise would miss out (falling between two countries systems, an ongoing war and just plain remoteness). She writes(with a few identifying details changed)  of a new project at the village, a vege garden:

As I have watched the transformation of scrubland into well ordered farm, a conundrum has arisen in my mind. My Western Social Work self asks if this is a form of abuse and exploitation of a captive youth labour force compelled to do whatever their elders “ask” of them. As one new 18 year old student assertively told the Principal, “I have never had to get out of bed at 5.30 a.m. and have never had to work like this in all my life. I came here to study  so I can go to university”. Then my K’nyaw wah (white Karen) self sees one boy playing guitar and singing alongside of other boys who are splitting bamboo stakes 1, and I see the bwadawar (community) at work and it all seems perfectly normal – a  community that sows together, reaps together, producing nutritious food,  developing new skills and combating the passive donor aid mentality that so permeates the border – just one of many casualties of this 62 year old war.

Please share with me your thoughts – I would appreciate some dialogue on this.

My “take” is simple:

• if the labour is for the children’s benefit, as in this case since they will eat the results instead of eating a more minimal diet
• if no one but the children is profiting from the work, as in this case since the food is grown as food not for sale
• if the children learn and grow themselves – as in this case for growing (even a little of) your own food is rewarding and builds a sense of one’s own worth as well as practicing skills of collaboration and dependability

then it is not child labour but community development.

The first example came up in a discussion on Fair Trade chocolate and the accusations of slavery in the Ivory Coast. David Ker pointed me to a post by a friend of his (a link which I have somehow lost The friend had spent time working in Ivory Coast and argued that (at least) many of the cases of supposed child labour there were the common African phenomenon of children being sent to live with relatives for their schooling, and while there helping out the family with family work.

On the whole the case he described, which fits with what we knew in Zaire/Congo, is similar to the case above, with the added benefit that the adults involved are relatives, but the complication that it is a cash crop being grown.

(On the general case of Ivory Coast I am not convinced, there are what seem to be well-documented reports from reputable organisations, e.g. the US State Department, that claim regular trafficking of children for work in cocoa plantations.)

What do you think? How would you answer my friend?

I wrote to the Rt Hon Murray McCully (NZ’s foreign minister) back at the very start of March: Double standards? An open letter to Murray McCully. That letter basically suggested that the UN operated a system of double standards:

The United Nations operates a system of double standards. When in North Africa (close to Europe as so “visible”) a military dictator begins attacking civilians the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon and Security Council reacted quickly to Colonel Gaddafi’s attacks on Libyan civilians. The Security Council passed a unanimous resolution demanding an end to the attacks, imposed sanctions, and refered Libya to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

In Burma ethnic minority civilians have been attacked by the state for decades.

I then mentioned the KNU’s appeal “asking UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to take effective action to immediately stop the Burmese regime’s military operations and human rights violations in Karen areas. ” and asked:

Is NZ supporting this appeal? If so how? If not why not?

Mr McCully’s answer only took about 12 weeks to compose and basically says: No, but we do support some humanitarian projects in Burma, and did oppose the unjust imprisonment of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

Basically this does not answer the question. So I will reply like this:

Dear Murray,

Further to my letter of 4th March and your reply of 30th May, as I understand your answer it is a firm: No. But you seem also to claim that somehow our support of some humanitarian projects and campaigning for the release of one prominent political prisoner (out of thousands), Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, somehow absolves us from complicity in the ongoing abuse (amounting according to many observers to attempted ethnic cleansing)  of the ethnic  minorities by the regime’s armed forces. Can you please explain the logic of this to me. If it was my daughter being raped, or my brother maimed by landmines I doubt I would see NZ’s support for the release of one prisoner as a great support.

Yours faithfully,

Tim Bulkeley

Several sources have been reporting remarks made recently by the Thai Governor of Tak province (where most of the Burmese refugees in Thailand are) these all refer to a report on Alert Net: Thailand wants Myanmar asylum seekers to go home – official

The headline is a touch misleading, since it has always been Thai policy that the refugees return home once there is no fighting and their homes are safe. The refugees wait for that day too. What is new and involves a flagrant disregard for the truth is the claim that the elections in Burma have ended the fighting and removed the need for the refugees to remain. In view of the shelling, mortar fire and repeated gunfire (heard in Mae Sot as well as in smaller Thai towns close to the border) this claim either betrays a total disconnect from reality, or a blatant lie by Govenor Loifah.

Loifah said Myanmar was no longer violent and “we should start considering asking them to return voluntarily”.

But the United Nations’ refugee agency UNHCR said voluntary returns should only happen if there was no longer any fighting and refugees could sign papers saying they wanted to go back.

“That means Myanmar would have to be welcoming them home and guaranteeing their rights when they go home. UNHCR would need to be able to monitor their safety when they go home. It’s fairly clear that none of these conditions exist right now in the areas these refugees come from,” said UNHCR spokeswoman Kitty McKinsey.

Loifah said he would be happy to work with the European Union and the UNHCR if they started reducing spending on assistance to the camps to persuade residents to leave.

“Ideally, the province would like to be able to set a deadline for closing these camps but realistically, it’s hard to do so because of international organisations. So it’s likely to drag on,” he added.

When NZ and Japan were struck by earthquakes recently each country welcomed International search and rescue teams to help hard-pressed local teams.

When a nearly 7 point quake shook a tribal area in northern Burma (Myanmar) the generals who have the power reacted just as they did to previous national disasters. The Irrawaddy reports:

However, the junta once again prioritized internal security above the lives of its own downtrodden population while stubbornly refusing to request any direct international humanitarian assistance. This repeated self-centric slow disaster management was compounded by the lack of any rescue expertize or equipment.

Although the junta eventually accepted material support from the international community, the generals remained reluctant to invite in foreign rescue teams with well-equipped experts. They seem to think it would be a national humiliation, and chose to let the people suffer more and die merely to save face.

But even if such deplorable motives for the refusal of international aid comes as no surprise, it does nothing to explain why domestic efforts were similarly thwarted. Local civic groups and Burmese volunteers who—individually or in groups—rushed to the disaster areas to provide victims with assistance were turned away.

These military rulers really seem to be men without heart or soul.