tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-92123462024-03-06T20:48:14.234-08:00quixotic infidel (the)<b>. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . </b>A mote, a log <small><small><small> <sup>. . . . . . . . . .</sup> </small></small></small>a weblogQuixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03126711689901268060noreply@blogger.comBlogger284125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9212346.post-63530284256649257522021-03-16T18:57:00.012-07:002021-03-16T19:32:02.095-07:00Thank you, Tio Maelo, the uncle I hardly knew ...<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbN9JbYsl_VJDxAbdUt2X3YZqoNMXDbbBcTz1nC7gnJ_1i6Ox2Z-fYZIL9jyhoh6GV5UKdofiyHi-yISWnnkJwbZA_QnfaOEPk4hyphenhyphenTKsBfwaaH9GmTqBwjFe2qlNrBsc15dugucg/s720/Maelo+Yankee.jpeg" style="clear: left; display: block; float: left; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="720" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbN9JbYsl_VJDxAbdUt2X3YZqoNMXDbbBcTz1nC7gnJ_1i6Ox2Z-fYZIL9jyhoh6GV5UKdofiyHi-yISWnnkJwbZA_QnfaOEPk4hyphenhyphenTKsBfwaaH9GmTqBwjFe2qlNrBsc15dugucg/s320/Maelo+Yankee.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><p style="text-indent: 0.2in;">I have been in love with Rickie Lee Jones since I was twelve.</p>
<p style="text-indent: 0.2in;">It was summer. I was a "fresh-off-the-boat" jíbaro immigrant kid lost in New York City. For some reason that I can't recall (I reckon my mom must have had an interview or a meeting or something), I was under the care and charge of one of my uncles that day. Tio Maelo's idea of 'babysitting' was to take me along with him to one of his favorite pool halls in Spanish Harlem. It was still early afternoon, so when we got there, the place was empty except for a handful of barflies, Tio Maelo's friends. Maelo handed me a roll of quarters and left me alone to play pool on one of the tables in the place while he drank and cavorted with his friends, talking about whatever it is that Puerto Rican drinking buddies talked about back in those days. Probably women and boxing or the Yankees, is my guess.
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<p style="text-indent: 0.2in;">Near the pool table, facing it, there was an enormous jukebox, one of those old ones that played 45 RPM singles. This was the perfect way to drown out all the Boricua bravado and drinking coming from the direction of the bar. I was a twelve year old kid with a pool table, a jukebox, and a roll of quarters at my disposal. I was in heaven. So I got to it. <br />Though I'd always loved music and jukeboxes, something happened that day to my not-yet-adolescent brain that had never happened before. I don't recall how many songs I listened to before I finally stumbled onto a Rickie Lee Jones record, but once I did, I just kept playing that one 45, over and over again, for the rest of the afternoon (the a-side was "Chuck E's in Love"/ the b-side was "Danny's All Star Joint"), while I played long solitaire games of billiards one after the other. For some reason, the sound and general texture of her voice drew me in. Her music moved me in a way that was deeper than had been my experience with the pop and Latin musics that I had grown up with and was used to hearing before this day. I was entranced. There was something about her music that compelled me to alternate between those two songs again and again. I have no idea all these years later what other songs might have been in that jukebox that fateful day, but I only remember those two tunes. </p><p style="text-indent: 0.2in;">It was completely serendipitous that I should connect with a work of art as intensely as I did at that age. If it weren't for this musical moment, I probably would have no memory at all of that particular afternoon. Funny how one seemingly random moment in time can affect a whole lifetime's course, though.</p><p style="text-indent: 0.2in;">That day was one of the milestones which would eventually inspire me to become a musician. There was something bold and sublime and urgent in her phrasing that I took notice of. It caught me off guard. It had qualities that I now appreciate in the great performers of our time. Fearlessness. Recklessness, even. The music of Rickie Lee Jones, like that of other vital artists, is resistant to easy categorization. Equal parts traditionalist and iconoclast, her recordings over the years span a wide gamut of styles and genres ranging from soft ballads to strident walls of sound. </p><p style="text-indent: 0.2in;"> Tio Maelo had little to do with my epiphany, really, other than providing me with the quarters I needed. I never quite developed any kind of close relationship with him; he was not really a central figure in my life before that or since. <span style="text-indent: 19.2px;">This was the only personal interaction I remember having with him, in fact, yet I am eternally grateful to him that he took me to the bar that day all these years later.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;"> In retrospect, I probably drove those guys in that bar crazy, playing those two songs repeatedly. Oh well. No one complained, so I guess they didn't find it too disagreeable.</span></p><p style="text-indent: 0.2in;"><br />I'm writing this because Tio Maelo passed away today. <br /><br />Rest in peace, Tio. Thank you. </p><p style="text-indent: 0.2in;"><br /></p>
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Ó Quixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03126711689901268060noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9212346.post-47800907101604302112018-08-07T19:11:00.000-07:002018-08-07T19:58:41.104-07:00Science, Culture & Frankestein (a post-post modern Prometheus)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It’s tempting to think of science and culture as parallel tracks supporting the train of humanity as it chugs along toward the future. But they’re not parallel at all. Science and culture are both provisional in nature, this they have in common—nothing is written in stone in either—but the adjustments in our understanding of the world that they each provide us are not of the same kind. Science accumulates knowledge. Culture is the way whereby we assimilate this accumulated knowledge into our lives. Science gives us models of reality. Culture prescribes our behavior in light of the models. The respective aims, though they may seem inextricably linked, are rather independent of each other, albeit not completely (yet even when they depend on each other, culture always follows our mode of technology, and not the other way around). On the main, science is dispassionate and objective, and relies on consistency and predictability. Culture is rather more subjective and capricious, and is decidedly more arbitrary as a result. Science runs in but one direction. That is to say, we cannot unlearn something once we have learned it. It’s like the proverbial box of Pandora. We can’t go back to “unknowing” something. On the other hand, we can never know which cultural material will take root in our world, even if we do our best to keep well informed of scientific discoveries; some stuff sticks; some doesn’t. We could say science moves like a glacier, fast or slow at any given time, but in a single general direction: down. By contrast, culture moves more like a pendulum. It tends to be cyclical, polar. And though they’re difficult to discern in realtime from up close, given enough time and perspective, we can statistically trace these dissimilar movements in relation to each other.
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This year marks the commemoration of the bicentennial of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which affords us with an occasion to survey and critically assess the association of these two phenomena as they relate to this novel.
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We all know the meta-story. Mary Shelley was there on that fateful night when Lord Byron reportedly challenged everyone in attendance to write their own ghost story. She took up the challenge and wrote Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus shortly after that dare. She was only nineteen years old when it was finished. Here we are now, two centuries later, still ruminating about it and celebrating it. Two hundred years is a hell of a long time to be at the top of the charts. Not bad for a teenager.
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In fact, it’s pretty amazing, not only because she was a successful woman writer at a time when women writers were something of a rarity, but also because of the caliber of her writing—articulate, erudite, world-weary—which is surprising from one so young. She also had reportedly had very little formal education, which makes her undeniable chops all the more impressive. (Chalk one up for the autodidacts of the world.) It that weren’t enough, her novel transcended many of the conventions of the romanticism that was then in full swing while retaining others. As such, the book marks an important point of transition toward modernism. We could even dare call this work sui generis without exaggeration; it is arguably the first example of what we now call science-fiction, two hundred years after that legendary opium-enhanced sleepover night dare.
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By subtitling her book The Modern Prometheus, Shelley left little doubt that she aspired to write more than just a Romantic ghost story. The Romantic movement had been a reaction to the Enlightenment’s emphasis on logic and reason as ultimate arbiters of truth, but by the turn of the nineteenth century, instinct and a kind of mystical approach had become a renewed focus of understanding. While the dichotomy between logic and instinct was certainly no novelty—Apollo and Dionysus have been figuratively vying for the favor of mortals since time immemorial—it took on a new characteristic that was specific to the newer times at the turn of the nineteenth century. The industrialization of the world, the rapid growth of cities, advances in fossil fuel technology and in chemistry and in physics: all these added mass to an already swinging pendulum weight. What goes up must come down, and the Romantics’ aversion to logic and “the here and now,” a kind of distrust in the ‘tyranny of the empirical,’ an attitude which lasted well into the Victorian Era, was once again subdued by the increasingly rapid advances in the sciences, particularly in the health sciences. Statistical data began to suggest to us that the answer to one of the questions raised by Shelley’s novel, namely, “Can we extend life?”, which was only merely a theoretical feasibility at the time of her writing, might turn out to be a resounding “yes!” Who could lament that?
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But a funny thing happened on the way to the twenty-first century, though. Namely, the twentieth. The birth of moving pictures at the turn of the century led to a proliferation of film and audio technology. Cinema became a bona fide film industry, which would eventually lead to a golden age of Hollywood. Needless to say, this was uniquely fertile new soil for storytelling. Along the way, virtually every classic tale in the trove of world literature was to become the subject of a film adaptation. 1931’s Frankenstein (directed by James Whale) was thus inevitable. Though it was an instant hit, the film bears little resemblance to the novel, however. Shelley’s incisive proto-psychological character study about hubris and science-gone-awry
certainly would have made for a great film, if perhaps a pretty lengthy film. But would Frankenstein be as ubiquitous a meme as it is today if it had remained faithful to the novel?
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It’s hard to say. It’s possible, but I think not. Indeed, when we hear the word Frankenstein today, it’s Boris Karloff’s iconic flat-topped, bolted-neck characterization that invariably spring to our minds. Everybody knows it was a groundbreaking novel, but, when we were kids, it was really this monster movie version that was our introduction to the character, even for those of us who would eventually read the original. This image is permanently burned into our collective mythology, even supplanting the novel’s original vision. Boris Karloff as a grotesque lumbering grunting giant, this is the symbol that Fred Munster, and Young Frankenstein, and Phil Hartman’s “Fire Bad!” parody were all referencing and echoing, rather than Mary Shelley’s sophisticated creature, a creature intelligent enough to teach himself how to read just so that he can imbibe Goethe and Dante. In fact, the creature is the most sophisticated character in the whole book. Therein lies the irony. The proliferation of film as an artistic medium is the reason (at least partially) for the longevity that Frankenstein (the icon) has had, despite the dissimilarity of the film adaptation that burned it into our minds.
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As a general rule, the audience of any given movie is less discriminating than its corresponding novel’s readership. This was especially true during that formative period of early cinema. An audience didn’t expect the same kind or level of catharsis from the experience. It need not even be literate, really. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but it cannot come close to conveying the nuance of an emotional state or the development of a character the way that prose (as florid as Shelley’s) can. Hollywood wanted a scary monster movie, though, not a morality play or social commentary or articulate epistemological ruminations. “Frankenstein” was thus rewritten (or, rather, the play by Peggy Webling which was the basis of the film adaptation, was) and transformed into a facile fairy tale about madness, about outcasts and mobs. And above all, a monster. Rather than focusing on the function of hubris in human enterprise, or on the audacity of playing God and the consequences this might bring, rather than seriously engaging the many perennial questions that are raised in the novel—e.g. ‘Is reanimation possible? Would a created being have rights? Would it have a soul?’—the emphases are instead “mad scientist” and “monster.” Indeed, the movie’s only source of nuance seems to be its cinematography, which is admittedly state-of-the-art for the time (great use of lighting to evoke a sinister feel). But even the acting is lackluster for the most part. By way of comparison and example, one cannot make a similar criticism of the Moby Dick film adaptation. Hollywood did not turn that classic book into just a story about a nasty whale who kills a bunch of people. It retained at least some of the subtexts and characterizations that make the novel the classic work that it is. Thank goodness.
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Why the film bears so little resemblance to the novel is a neglected question. On the surface, we could say it’s a direct result of early screenwriters and producers and directors encountering an unforeseen obstacle in their way, a problem intrinsic to all cinema: How does one treat and condense a classic work of literature, especially one that is rife with archaic linguistic conventions, so that its story can be depicted visually in a way that will seem coherent (and entertaining) to a contemporary audience’s sensibilities in the span of an hour or two? This is easier to do in some cases than in others. It worked in Moby Dick. Not so much in Frankenstein. (To be fair, Moby Dick came more than two decades later, and the techniques in both screenwriting and film making were that much more developed and refined by then.)
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Regrettably, the producers of the film chose to dispense altogether with the Prometheus motif. Prometheus is a metaphor for science itself, thoughts about which are a crucial component of the novel. Other than some footage of crackling induction coils and some vague allusions to surgical procedures, which are really mere affectations, science is either completely absent from the movie, or it is relegated to something dangerous, a source of evil from someone who is clearly a madman. It wasn’t a tendentious scheme to make science look bad, surely, but I fear that this kind of relegation has nevertheless had an effect culturally. The fact that the word Frankenstein has been co-opted to mean anything bizarre and unnatural and malevolent (“frankenfood,” for example) illustrates the extent of the influence that this negative correlation has had on society.
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The problem, though, is that Prometheus is not a villain. On the contrary, Prometheus is a savior archetype, a hero who sacrifices himself for the sake of all humanity. The intimation that some things should remain forbidden knowledge is neither a part of Shelley’s creative work, nor is it a wise ideological position to take if you ask me. What’s more, I think that this casting of science in this kind of negative light has done, and continues to do, a disservice to our culture inasmuch as it mischaracterizes the function and the nature of science.
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I can’t help but muse that perhaps the bad name that science gets as a result of this kind of mischaracterization might simply be the way that the vultures get to eat away at Prometheus’ liver for eternity, like the myth says, as a punishment from the gods. But we are not gods. We are certainly not qualified to judge science as a malevolent force in this way. Why twist the myth so? We are the beneficiaries of Prometheus, not his victims. We seem to be confused.
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As someone with a healthy respect for science as the proven way to explore the workings of nature, I’m hopeful that the pendulum will stop swinging in this irrational hyper cynical anti-science direction sooner than later.</div>
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Quixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03126711689901268060noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9212346.post-56571208416714983712017-07-05T22:23:00.000-07:002017-07-05T22:40:21.949-07:00Religion, Science & All That Jazz<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #274e13;">.</span></span><br />
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Though there was reportedly not a cloud in sight, rumor has it that a thunderclap rang out in New York City at the moment of Charlie Parker's death. A few days later (three?) the words "<i>Bird Lives</i>" appeared graffiti'd on a wall on 52<sup>nd</sup> St., and then on another nearby wall, and on another, and another, and so on. His music and fame spread through word-of-mouth over the ensuing decades and he now (and hereafter) holds a legendary place in North American art and folklore. There’s a certain mythological adulation that has been bestowed on a handful of eminent jazz musicians since Charlie Parker. <br />
Miles Davis. Billie Holiday. Thelonious Monk was dubbed the “high priest” of bop. There’s even a Church of John Coltrane in San Francisco. Some people take jazz music pretty seriously.
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One of my favorite examples of this kind of postmodern jazz mythologizing involves Charles Mingus. After being diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease, he and his wife Sue traveled down to Mexico in search of natural holistic healing methods that might restore his health, to no avail. In January of 1979, at the age of only 56, Mingus died at the little beachfront house that the couple was renting. <br>The mythic bit: On the day that he died, fifty-six grey whales are said to have beached themselves nearby. This story spread quickly among jazz aficionados, who were titillated by its mystical connotations. Fans love this kind of stuff.
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Now, there's obviously some storytelling going on here. Some questions pop up:
Did the whales beach themselves on the <i>exact</i> day Mingus died? Were there really fifty-six whales? How close to the house that the Minguses rented did the whales beach themselves? <br />
In short: <i><b>Did this really happen?</b></i><br />
This was 1979, mind you, long before Google, so, short of finding some yellowing remnant of whatever small town newspaper this story <i>might</i> have appeared in on the day or the week in question (if at <i>all</i>), we really have no way to verify this as being factually accurate.<br />
Maybe it happened. Maybe it didn’t. (The best person to ask about this would probably be Sue Mingus, I suppose, but then she had other, weightier things on her mind than whales on that day, I’m sure.)<br />
But the story is such a beautifully poetic tribute that, even if it’s not historically accurate, it has become a part of the literary legacy of a great artist. Stories don't have to be “true” in a factual sense for them to serve as useful metaphors for us to meditate on and incorporate into our lives. This is something that scholars like Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell (and many liberal theologians like Rudolf Bultmann, Paul Tillich, John Shelby Spong etc.) have been telling us for a long time now. Stories like these can serve as tributes, as tools for contemplation, edification, inspiration, insight, admiration, and all manner of intellectual and/or emotional stimulation, even if they didn’t really actually happen. Poetry and myth serve their purpose, and this is exactly it. Stories are a vital part of our humanity.
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Idolatry is another matter, however, and this is where an important distinction needs to be pointed out, particularly as it pertains to the question of whether religion and science really are “non-overlapping magisteria” (as the late paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould once famously framed the problem). Before we can tackle that particular question, though, we must first address a prior one, namely:
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What does it mean to be religious?
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The Latin root of the word “religion” is “<i>religare</i>,” which means “to bind.” This connotes a sense of commitment or a sense of obligation. But does religion involve a commitment to a moral/ethical code of conduct? Or does it involve a commitment to uphold and defend the veracity of improbable historical claims? This is a crucial distinction, one that will necessarily have some effect on how we approach the question of overlap between these two magisteria—science and religion. No matter how deep someone’s devotion to jazz music may be, I can't imagine a jazz aficionado saying anything like:<br />
<i>"Yeah, I know Charles Mingus was a visionary who made tremendous contributions to the music of his time, but what's really important is that fifty-six whales beached themselves on his front yard the day he died. That's obviously the proof of his true worth."
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No. Such an utterance would be met with either amusement or mild scorn, in fact. It would be a truly weird thing to say. Apocryphal stories may be nice adornments to someone’s legacy, but that’s not what digging Mingus or Bird or Miles is about. Such an utterance would be idol-worship and such idol-worship would unnecessarily detract from the actual genius of the artistic expressions of these artists, which does not need to be vouchsafed by any magical or supernatural support. The art stands all on its own. To those who are tuned in to music as a spiritual medium (and I think most modern people fit into this category to some degree) it’s always about the music. Always. That’s where the value lies. In a jazz context, this kind of idol-worship feels obviously grossly anomalous, and so we can easily understand why it would be awkward and naïve to say such a thing, yet when it comes to religious analogues to this scenario, we sometimes tend to be reluctant to see a similar awkwardness there:<br />
<i>“Oh, it’s not the same at all. It’s just music and art, after all. Religion is way more important than that, way more dignified, way more nuanced, way more influential.”</i>
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But is it, though?
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At this juncture, I’d like to ask the reader to mentally recall, if you will, the most intimate or the most intense musical experiences of your life (thus far, at least) for a moment. How trivial did these feel to you at the time? My guess is that they matter very much to you. In fact, I would argue that the opposite of such trivialization is actually more likely the case. The truth is that some works of art can actually resonate so strongly with our psyches that we are sometimes tempted to imbue them with a sense of mystery and meaning that transcends our ordinary mundane experience. The arts—and music in particular—though not the <i>only</i> conduit to the realm of the “spiritual,” can take us there quicker than just about anything else. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. We all have. The effect that music has on human beings is undeniable. It is instantly discernible, and similarly experienced. It seems to be a constant of sorts in our species. For some reason, when the human mind encounters the sublime in music, it searches for patterns and connections that suggest “transcendence,” and it very often finds them. A sense that some of the aesthetic stimulation that we experience is in some way a kind of personalized and portentous communication between an ultimate "ground of being" (<i>Deity A</i>) and a "being" (<i>Human B</i>) is strengthened by these semi-rare moments of perceived synchronicity (as Jung called the phenomenon) in our lives. This sensation makes music a uniquely “spiritual” experience for most people. Indeed, it’s no mere coincidence that every great religion has a correspondingly rich musical tradition tethered to its history, one that evolves in parallel with it. (In fact, one does not even have to be religious at <i>all</i> to be familiar with this numinous, emotional link between music and human psyches. Even the completely irreligious can be brought to tears by a great musical experience. )
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But even when they think they perceive a supernatural source for some of the music they hear, people will usually stop short of idolatry, though. The missing element in this context, the thing that distinguishes a jazz freak from a religious acolyte, is the intrinsic soteriological component that supports most of the world’s major religions, of course, which is thankfully missing from the act of enjoying music. Because of this, very few will be tempted to actually venerate someone like Mingus or Parker like they are willing to venerate the Buddha, or Jesus, or Mohammed. We will, quite rightly, question the sanity (or the sobriety) of someone who would literally take the fifty-six whales as a supernatural verification of Mingus’ greatness. No one thinks Charlie Parker is any kind of prophet or savior, except perhaps as a poetic metaphor.
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The major world religious traditions, such as Islam, Buddhism, Judaism and Christianity, as I understand them, all pride themselves on the role that compassion and charity and humility play as guiding principles of the self-identification of their respective adherents. I see this as analogous to the value that the “music” in my jazz examples has. Yet, if I were to ask a Christian<sup style="color: red;"><big>1</big></sup> what it means to be Christian (and I have asked this question fairly often), the answer is almost invariably the same: “A Christian is one who believes in Jesus Christ.” Press them to elaborate on what exactly this belief entails and they will more often than not proceed to explain that the primary requisite to being a Christian is a belief in the miracles of Jesus—his resurrection above all—as proof of his divinity, taken as literal, factual, historical occurrences. Jesus may have taught about compassion and about the importance of loving our neighbors as we love ourselves, and believers celebrate these teachings, the parables, the sermons—simple love songs at heart—as ways of pointing out the ultimate beauty of a selfless life of virtue, altruism, and sacrifice, as I suspect that any religion worth its salt would, but that’s not the crucial gauge of their faith. Followers of Jesus are happy to subscribe to his exhortations to love, to be sure, but these teachings are not in themselves what denote people as Christian. Rather, it is the acceptance of Jesus’ divinity that establishes one’s status as a Christian. This is where the rubber meets the road. The <i>worship</i> of Jesus is the metric. To stretch the musical metaphor a bit further, where Jesus preached harmonic consonance and dissonance, people have tended to venerate his <i>fingers</i> playing the music instead of the music itself, and this is tantamount to upholding the fifty-six whales in the Mingus story or the thunder in the Parker story as the valuable thing to consider in <i>that</i> previous context, awkward though we already acknowledged this would be in any other context.
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Remarkably, it has been quite normative for adherents of the various religions to engage in this very type of cultic veneration or projection. The Buddhist who questions the historical accuracy of the Buddha’s having been born with the ability to make eloquent proclamations, even at the very moment of his birth, risks angering his more reverent companions. The Muslim who expresses any doubts that Mohammed really (not just figuratively) flew on a winged horse one night risks being ostracized, reviled, or worse. The Christian who admits that she does not believe that Jesus literally walked on water or rose from the dead will very likely be denied the right to be called a Christian thereafter by her fellow religionists.
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Once a religion bases its identity on acceptance of the literal veracity of the events it purports to trace its roots to in this way, it becomes vulnerable to this kind of exclusivity and idol-worship.
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<i>“There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his messenger (PBUH).” “The Qur’an is the true and final revelation of Allah.” </i><br>Every Muslim must believe these things, literally, to be considered Muslim.
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<i>“No one comes to the Father but through the Son.” “On the third day, Jesus rose from the dead.”</i><br />
Every Christian <b>must</b> believe these things, literally, to be considered Christian.
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For some reason, this creedal adherence to the factualness of the foundational myths, with all their accompanying miraculous accretions (<i>i.e. the thunder and the whales in the equation</i>) seems to be the standard used to identify and typify the true acolyte, rather than a focus on ethics or compassion or altruism (<i>i.e. the music</i>). In fact, it seems to me that a devotional fixation with historicity of this kind is roughly the equivalent of a rote approach to music, which is the exact opposite of what makes jazz
music beautiful and valuable. As you can probably already infer from my commentary so far, I think that the formal contrast between these two prospective functions of religion—I’ll label them “virtue” and “dogma” for brevity’s sake—is problematic for any discussion on the dialogue between science and religion.
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The answer to the question of whether religion and science really are non- overlapping magisteria is <i>both</i> yes and no, depending on which of these functions of religion one is contemplating at the moment. The reason for this is that while science ostensibly has little-to-nothing to say about the “virtue” function of religion—since the time of Hume, it has generally been thought that an “is” cannot philosophically elicit an “ought”<sup style="color: red;"><big>2</big></sup>—science <i>does</i> admittedly have something to say about some of the claims of a tangible, empirical, or historical nature that comprise the “dogma” function of religion. Claims of winged horses, claims of eloquent newborn orators, claims of post-mortem resurrections , these are all subject to scientific and logical speculation, investigation and assessment.
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Science is defined by E. O. Wilson<sup style="color: red;"><big>3</big></sup> as “the concerted human effort to understand, or to understand better, the history of the natural world and how the natural world works, with observable physical evidence as the basis of that understanding.” It depends on an epistemological authority that is derived from and based on this emphasis on evidence and methodology as the ultimate arbiters of knowledge. But nothing is written in stone when it comes to science. Too many people see science as an authority and overlook its all-important pliability. All of the knowledge acquired through the use of the scientific method is necessarily provisional. It must be adapted and amended when new evidence requires it. For example, when archeological research determines that there is no physical or otherwise external evidence of the Hebrew conquest of Canaan<sup style="color: red;"><big>4</big></sup> described in the biblical book of Joshua, we are faced with having to either accept that this was very likely a mythical fiction intended to affirm and buttress an emergent sense of Israelite nationalism, or else to obstinately defend the veracity of the story solely because the Bible says that it happened. The epistemological authority that is the basis of our scientific paradigm (and simple intellectual honesty) demands that we reconsider the nature and function of the story, it is the responsible thing to do, yet religiosity often tends to make people reluctant to do this. People very often prefer to cling to their habitual reverence rather than accept the possibility that the Bible may contain things that are not factually true, rationalizing their obstinacy behind an appeal to “faith,” which they feel is immune to such scrutiny.
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Inasmuch as one’s religiosity consists of a commitment to subjective and/or abstract or metaphysical concerns regarding wellbeing, social harmony, ethical conduct, etc. (i.e. the “virtue” function), Gould can be said to have been somewhat correct in his assertion that there is no overlap between science and religion. Any dialogue between them is merely incidental, limited by a mutual concession that they are independent areas of expertise. But inasmuch as one’s religiosity entails a commitment to defending the historical accuracy of one’s chosen or inherited traditional stories, particularly those that contradict what we know about the natural order of the world or otherwise violate logic, reason, or the laws of physics, the overlap between these subjects is inescapably obvious, and we must admit that Gould’s view on the matter may have been somewhat myopic, or maybe even a bit Pollyannaish, especially in light of the fact that this “dogma” function of religion is the more dominant of the two as regards religious self-identity. In this case the dialogue between science and religion is not merely incidental. For those for whom truth matters, this overlap between science and religion is very important and cannot be simply glossed over as some sort of inviolable tabú. For them, truth is more important than cultural habit or loyalty to one’s ethnic group. For them, in the name of intellectual honesty and rigor, the overlap must be explored and dealt with openly.
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Of course, devotional fixations die hard, and they are often correlated with people’s familial and ethnic or national identity or relationships, making them all the more difficult to let go of. This inevitably means that those who cling to these superfluous fixations will consider such prescribed explorations of the overlap between religion and science, and the necessary correctives that are needed, to be antagonistic or offensive. I understand the apprehension, but I think it is ultimately unwarranted. This is most unfortunate, because, given the drastic importance that people tend to place in their religious convictions, as long as they feel that such explorations puts their “eternal” souls at stake, this state of affairs is not likely to change any time soon. Not only is it not necessarily antagonistic, it is incumbent on us to be audacious enough to engage in this kind of honest exploration and follow wherever evidence may lead, corrosive though it may be to religion’s dogmatic function in the end.
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Perhaps it is a bit Pollyannaish on my own part to hope that people will finally focus on Jesus’ teachings (or Buddha’s, or Mohammed’s, or Bahaullah’s, or whichever flavor of faith they prefer) in the same way that they focus on Charlie Parker’s music instead of on his deification. I remain hopeful.
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Nevermind the beached whales, I say. <br />
Let the music do the talking.
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: red;"><big>1</big></span> — I grew up in a Latin American country. Christianity is thus the religion that I’m most familiar with, and so I focus mostly on this tradition throughout this essay.
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: red;"><big>2</big></span> — Though Sam Harris, in his The Moral Landscape (2010) argues that science does have something to say about such subjective things as morals and ethics, challenging this old Humean dictum.
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: red;"><big>3</big></span> — In his Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (1998). There have been various other definitions of science advanced, but I rather like the economy and scope of this one, and it suits my purpose here.
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: red;"><big>4</big></span> — See the work of Thomas L. Thomson and William Dever and Israel Finklestein (and others) on the subject of what has come to be known as Old Testament minimalism.</span>Quixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03126711689901268060noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9212346.post-72936942424914171642017-03-05T21:58:00.002-08:002017-03-05T22:17:08.092-08:00Even the "Good" Ones Are Rotten<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgviWP1sAxhkvNNaVndUgUfOQbdJBAHXD93zRCnF90e0XsrdK76STHsyS-ATjAgwH4NM0eYD56bJ0W1XCEXKP2dHaavwOxkymCybUayyswZpyenxhRlMMA2Vil8mM2idURLWEdDxA/s1600/jeffrey-lord-bd6a6579e47e74bd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgviWP1sAxhkvNNaVndUgUfOQbdJBAHXD93zRCnF90e0XsrdK76STHsyS-ATjAgwH4NM0eYD56bJ0W1XCEXKP2dHaavwOxkymCybUayyswZpyenxhRlMMA2Vil8mM2idURLWEdDxA/s320/jeffrey-lord-bd6a6579e47e74bd.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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On September 9th, speaking at the LGBT for Hillary Gala in New York City, Hillary Clinton made the now-infamous remark:
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“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic -- you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people -- now 11 million.”
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She was of course immediately lambasted by all those on the right who conveniently ignored the fact that she was referring to “<i><b>half</b></i>” of the Trump supporters. Realizing that it was being misconstrued, even though she explicitly prefaced the remark by saying it was a “gross generalization,” and even though she had in fact said nothing that was untrue, she later apologized for the remark. This, of course, did absolutely nothing to assuage the conservative frenzy that her comment engendered. Many of Trump’s supporters at the time in fact openly and defiantly identified themselves, in the media, in social media, in tee-shirts, in rallies, etc. as proud members of this basket (i.e., as racists, homophobes, xenophobes, Islamophobes), something which I found very confusing at the time. Had I been a Trump supporter, I would have surely placed myself in the <i>other</i> basket. No? The only conceivable reason to self-identify with the “deplorables” (unless one really <i><b>is</b></i> a racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, and/or Islamophobic person) would be a gratuitous self-serving partisan insolence.
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Regardless, here we are, six months later.
Bill Maher, who has no love for this basket of deplorables, opened his Real Time show on Friday (March 3rd) with an interview with CNN anchor (and longtime Trump supporter) Jeffrey Lord, whom he was told was “the nicest guy in the world,” presumably in the interest of fairly representing the opinions of the members of that <i>other</i> basket of Trump supporters, the non-deplorable. Indeed, Maher introduced him as “polite” and “genteel.”
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You can view the entire interview below:
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_sMMJBJ1EGY" width="560"></iframe>
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Maher has been duly lauded since Friday for holding Lord’s feet over the fire for dissimulating on the severity of the allegations regarding the influence that the Russian government may have had on the Statesian** 2016 election and on the involvement of Trump and his circle of friends in this matter. “Don’t bullshit me!” Maher implored Mr. Lord, to a round of well-deserved applause. I won’t belabor that particular point here, except to say that Maher was in good form.
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But I would like to comment on something that I think has been regrettably overlooked from that same interview.
Namely, on the following volley:
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Maher— “You know what could clear so much up?”
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Lord— “What?”
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Maher— “[…] if Donald Trump would release his tax returns. Why doesn't he release his tax returns, as every other president has done in my lifetime?”
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Lord— “To be perfectly candid, as I've said many times on CNN, I totally disagree with this. I don't think he should ever release his tax returns. We've had presidents of the United States from George Washington all the way through Lyndon Johnson who never released a single tax return. Was Franklin Roosevelt a bad president because he didn't release his tax returns? I don't think so.”</blockquote>
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It was with visible exasperation that Maher sighed a feeble “<i>OK</i>” before moving on with the rest of the interview, which only lasted a couple more minutes. But Lord should have been immediately challenged for this remark, a remark that made me somewhat nauseous to hear from someone who definitely should know better. Superficially, the statement is true; almost none (see second footnote) of the presidents from Washington to LBJ ever produced their tax returns before taking the presidential oath. But to present this “fact” as a defense of Trump’s defiant refusal to release his tax returns is ludicrous. Breathtakingly so.</div>
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Why?</h2>
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To answer this question we must engage in a brief review of Statesian history:</div>
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Before the Civil War, all national revenue was accrued through a series of tariffs (on goods, services, property, slaves, inheritances, etc.). There had been no direct taxation of individual incomes prior to this time. This spans Washington to Buchanan—fifteen presidents for whom “tax returns” could not have been applicable.</div>
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During the Civil War, President Lincoln and Congress passed the Revenue Act of 1862, creating the office of Commissioner of Internal Revenue and enacting a temporary income tax as an emergency war-time tax. By 1864, the new income tax was 5% on incomes over $600 (equal to about $48,000 in current dollars) and up to 10% on incomes over $10,000 ($800,000 in current dollars). This essentially exempted most wage-earners in the country. In fact, by the end of the war, only roughly 10% of Union households had paid some form of income tax.
After the war, the rates were reduced to a flat five-percent rate, and imposed only on incomes over $1,000.
Regardless, the system at the time was modeled on the English system and had little resemblance to taxation as we know it today. What we know as “tax returns” did not yet exist. Tariffs were still, by far, the bulk of the national revenue.
This spans Lincoln to Taft—twelve more presidents for whom “tax returns” could not have been applicable.</div>
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Finally, in 1913, at the beginning of President Wilson’s first term, the 16th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, which granted Congress the specific power to impose an income tax without regard to apportionment among the states by population. This was the beginning of the system we are now familiar with today. The very first IRS 1040 form, dated 1913, specified that only those with incomes of $3,000 (the equivalent of roughly $69,000 today) or more were instructed to file.</div>
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Now, the first instance of a president’s income tax returns being at issue occurred, not surprisingly, as a result of the Watergate scandal. Even in this case, though, Nixon did not <i>release</i> his tax returns. Rather, his returns were <i><b>leaked</b></i> to the public. Jack White of the <i><b>Providence Journal</b></i> won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting about Nixon's tax returns. Nixon, with a salary of $200,000, paid $792.81 in federal income tax in 1970 and $878.03 in 1971, with deductions of $571,000 for donating "vice-presidential papers." So controversial was this leak, that every*** candidate for US president has released his/her tax returns (at least for the most recent year or two) ever since, as a sign of good faith and in the interest of personal accountability and transparency. Before Nixon’s scandalous egress, it had simply never occurred to anyone how crucially important a president’s tax returns could be in revealing any potential conflicts of interest or unflattering activities.
This spans Wilson to Nixon—ten more presidents for whom the release of their “tax returns” was not conventional or normative.</div>
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This leaves us with the seven presidents since Nixon, <i><b>all</b></i> of whom have complied in good faith, releasing their tax returns as a matter of course and in a timely manner.</div>
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And then there’s the eighth of these, who indignantly refuses to do so.</div>
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And so, even if an argument could be made that Trump does not have to release his tax return (I don’t see how it could, in good faith or in good conscience), the defense that Mr. Jeffrey Lord offered up on the Real Time program of Trump’s refusal is facile and disingenuous at best.</div>
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Nay, it is pure bullshit!
It is tantamount to blaming President William Henry Harrison for not having a nuclear disarmament or proliferation policy. He should be ashamed of himself for treating the public like a bunch of uninformed idiots.
And this is one of the “good” Trumpites!
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** A personal peeve of mine is the use of the word “America” to refer to the United States of America, which is but one nation among thirty-five which comprise North America and South America.
“America” extends from Cape Columbia to Tierra del Fuego. Though I realize that this is a convention which is here to stay, I don’t mind being a minority of one on this issue.
The precedent informing my phrasing is the analogous “<i>estadounidense</i>,” which is the preferred nomenclature in the Spanish-speaking countries in both of these continents when they refer to the U.S.A. specifically.
This is neither here nor there re: this essay, except that I realize that it may cause confusion in some, and so I add this footnote.
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*** The exception is Gerald Ford, who was not a candidate for either the vice-presidency or the presidency at the time of his appointment, though he did release a summary of his finances after the fact.
Also, though FDR didn’t release his returns in his lifetime, his estate did release them after his death. This makes Lord’s claim re: FDR only partially correct. Moreover, President Truman did release his tax returns, which also poses a problem for Lord’s broad brush stroke assertion.
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</blockquote>Quixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03126711689901268060noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9212346.post-86216185010224169522015-08-20T10:06:00.003-07:002020-02-24T18:57:09.914-08:00The Sermon on the Mount - A Brief Review <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Facebook is very often used as a personal soapbox. I am alternately fascinated and perplexed by the psychological projections that social media ultimatums reveal in people, usually expressed in the form:</div>
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"If you believe or subscribe to [idea X], then please delete me." </blockquote>
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Idea X can be any number of things that a person might find offensive or disagreeable. It could be some perceived racism. It could be a perceived blasphemy. It could be some particular stance on abortion. It could be a political viewpoint. Whatever the sore spot, such an ultimatum essentially says: "If we disagree on this all-important idea, then you are not worthy of my attention. You are beneath me." This is silly, of course. Such an expression is really just a projection of our egos onto our social interactions. They are inadvertently just funny if anything, and they can usually be dismissed as the selfish primping of our inner Narcissus. Now and then, though, we encounter one of these ultimatums, and instead of ignoring it, the expression sets us on a train of thought, bringing us to some hitherto unthought-of reflection or insight. <br />
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This was the case when an acquaintance of mine recently posted:</div>
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"If you are against Christianity, read the sermon on the mount (Mathew 5-7). This sums up what Jesus stood for nicely. If you are against that then we shouldn't be friends. <br />
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Now if I can only get the Christians to read and adhere to those teachings."</blockquote>
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Upon reading it, my initial question was, What would constitute being "against" Christianity? <br />
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I mean, a religion can be seen as adversarial by a person only inasmuch as its proponents try to limit or trespass on the liberties of fellow citizens for the benefit of the religion. Until someone crosses that line, most people don't even care what others believe. Why should they?<br />
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But say someone were to approach me with the "good news" that God once (fourteen hundred years ago) spoke through an angel to a man in a desert cave and commanded him to recite poetry, ... poetry which is to be considered a socio-spiritual mandate for all mankind (divine and unalterable) for ever after.<br />
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... after some consideration of the probabilities, the contingencies, and the implications of this proposition ... let's say that my response is, "Bah, humbug."</div>
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Does this mean that I am "against" Islam?<br />
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Would a simple rejection of a religion be sufficient to qualify one as a bigot? Of course not. One would have to actively campaign for the subjugation (or the vilification) of that religion, in either word or deed, to qualify, I think. Luckily, this kind of activist religious bigotry is rare, at least in this country, and so most of the time people just go about their daily business without having to even think about it. Most people who reject religion are just too busy with lives, with mates, children, jobs, dreams, aspirations, etc., to spend any time actively "<i>againsting</i>" on some particular sect. <br />
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That said, I reject Christianity, but it is not because of any antagonism on my part, but simply because I find it to be obsolete, irrelevant (at least in its traditional, devotional sense). Nevertheless, since the Sermon on the Mount was offered up as axiomatically self-evident and true, it occurred to me that I had never given much critical thought to the precise content of that famous biblical passage, and so I decided to take seriously the invitation from that Facebook post. I went ahead and read G°Matt (ch 5–7) critically, just to see whether I agree or disagree with any of it, just to satisfy my own curiosity, ruminating on each verse as I went. It's something I had never really asked myself this directly before. <br />
Do I agree or disagree with the Sermon on the Mount? </div>
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GºMatthew Chapter 5</h2>
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(verses 1–2) - These verses frame the scene ... <big>N N</big></div>
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"And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,"</blockquote>
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"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." </blockquote>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
Already, from the git-go, there is ambiguity at hand. What does it mean to be poor "in spirit"? Why did the author of G°Matt feel the need to change G°Mark's unambiguous "poor"? Everyone knows what "poor" means. It's an interesting substitute phrase. While we're at it, why did he similarly change G°Mark's "Kingdom of God" to "kingdom of heaven"? Though I know that valid self-consistent responses are possible within the Christian paradigm, I ask these questions not so much to elicit a response, but only to point out that this verse involves concepts and symbols and theological formulations that are quite nuanced and that need to be unpacked and teased out, and are as such actually far from the self-evident axioms they have been suggested to be by my friend's post.
Having said that, inasmuch as this verse has to do with a future reward after death, I have no reason to think the statement is true. <big>X</big></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
(verse 4)</div>
<blockquote>
"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted."</blockquote>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
I'm down with this verse as a simple expression of compassion and empathy and sympathy, for I think they are good things. But viewed as a reference to some future reward for the downtrodden in the after-world, I see no reason to think this an accurate statement either. <big>X</big></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
(verse 5)</div>
<blockquote>
"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." </blockquote>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
The meek have never inherited anything and that is not likely to change. (Note here that I am not suggesting that one not be meek in conduct, but that one should not expect a reward later. In fact, I think that humility and sobriety in this life are arguably their own rewards.) <big>X</big></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
(verse 6)</div>
<blockquote>
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled."</blockquote>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
Like verse 3, this one has been abstracted from the original version (G°Mark), which talked of hunger as hunger. Everybody knows what hunger is. Why has the author of G°Matt changed it to "hunger for righteousness"? It's a tangential, rhetorical question, but one I find fascinating: Why is the author of G°Matt so bent on ambiguating poverty and hunger, on turning these urgencies into metaphors for something else, almost trivializing them? At the very least, this verse is not as self-evidently "true" as my friend suggests. <big>X</big></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
(verses 7–11)</div>
<blockquote>
"Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake."</blockquote>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
These are pretty much the same promises of reward in a coming <i>after</i> world, reward for having to live such a nasty, brutish, and short life in this one. I would like to note, though, that removed from their afterlife context, framed instead as self contained metaphors, verses 7–9 are actually nicely poetic koans. And so I'll give some kudos to Jesus on this pericope. <br />
I'd be down with all three in that case. <big>X X Y Y Y</big></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
(verse 12)</div>
<blockquote>
"Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."</blockquote>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
This verse turns out to be more problematic than one at a first glance might think. It reflects the "O Jerusalem!" admonition. That the Jews had killed all their prophets is a charge that is accepted here at face value and is reinforced by Paul in 1Thess 2 and repeated by G°Matt later in chapter 23 and by G°Luke 13. The problem, though, is that when you go look in the Old Testament for a corroboration of this charge, the only instance we can find of anything like this having occurred is in the case of Urijah, a small-time Jeremiah parrot, who was tracked down, dragged back, and killed by King Jehoiakim (Jere. 26:20-23). Even in this case, the killing was the deed of one Jew and his flunkies. It was not a collective act of society in the sense implied by the "O Jerusalem" theme.
Therefore I think that this verse likely reflects an early second century provenance, a time by which "the Jews always kill their own prophets" has become a party line, a talking point for the gestating Christian community. The author of G°Matt makes Jesus say things that are simply wrong about the fate of the prophets. Why? <br />
And why would being proud of this lie be a good thing? <span style="font-size: 19.2000007629395px; text-indent: 19.2000007629395px;">X</span></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
Thus conclude what are generally known as the Beatitudes, a series of promises (from Jesus to his hearers) that in spite of the pain and suffering that they have to undergo in this life, a blessing is guaranteed to them along with an afterlife in which they will rejoice.<br />
Isn't that nice.<br />
I'm all for it.<br />
I just don't think it likely. I have no reason to.</div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
The sermon continues.</div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
(verse 13)</div>
<blockquote>
"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot."</blockquote>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
This is a particularly cryptic saying. The ancients used halite (NaCl=sodium chloride=salt), even back then. I'm not sure, but I think the "saltiness" is a metaphor for a thing's essence(?). Otherwise, I don't really know what it means for salt to lose its saltiness. Spices can lose potency with time, but salt is just a mineral that sits there for millions of years before it is harvested (sea salt is the same mineral but harvested differently). Trust me, salt's saltiness ain't going anywhere.
A tricky passage, count this verse with those others which belie the notion that the truths within the Sermon are somehow self-evident. <big>X</big></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
(verses 14–16)</div>
<blockquote>
"Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."</blockquote>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
These three verses I'm totally down with. Removed from their theological context, I think this is generally good advice to give aspirants in any quest. <big>Y Y Y</big></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
(verses 17–20)</div>
<blockquote>
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven."</blockquote>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
Bracketing for the moment that this is an exposition of fulfillment theology, which I have always found abhorrent and insulting, this is saying, <i>explicitly</i>, that Torah is still to be followed to the letter. I'm not particularly interested in becoming Christian, but then I'm not really interested in becoming Jewish either, so, in the end, any exhortation to adhere to Torah doesn't really apply or appeal to me. <big>N N X X</big></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
(verses 21–26)</div>
<blockquote>
"Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing."</blockquote>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
These verses regarding one's attitude toward murder and toward violence and toward rancor and grudges are generally good advice, I'd say (references to an afterlife notwithstanding), but the hellfire imagery kinda defeats the beauty underneath. <big>Y Y N N N</big></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
(verses 27–30)</div>
<blockquote>
"Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell."</blockquote>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
These verses regarding adultery and "thoughtcrime" are a bit harsh in my opinion. While I would agree that it is certainly a good idea to control one's libido, I disagree with the notion that to have prurient thoughts at all is somehow tantamount to having sinned. I don't think it's a realistic demand on one's biological makeup (or at all helpful, for that matter) to condemn oneself for one's natural urges. In fact I think it's pericopes like this (cf. G°Mark 9:45) that would eventually drive some early church luminaries like Origen to do crazy things like castrate themselves in the name of piety and purity. <big>X X X</big></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
(verses 31–32)</div>
<blockquote>
"It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement: But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery."</blockquote>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
Do I agree with this? I think people are free to marry and/or divorce if they choose to for whatever reason they want to, so I guess I don't agree with Jesus. <big> X </big></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
(verses 33–37)</div>
<blockquote>
"Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths: But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God's throne: Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil."</blockquote>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
Oaths. <br />
I don't have any fundamental objection to oaths. I have no idea why the character of Jesus here thinks they are so bad. I can deduce that he thinks them idolatrous, but that needs some further unpacking. We can thus place this pericope with the others that belie the sermon's "self-evident" claim. <big> N X </big></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
(verses 38–42)</div>
<blockquote>
"Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away."</blockquote>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
Eye for an eye. While I don't particularly care to defend "eye for an eye" justice, to go as far as saying that one should submit oneself to further abuse from an aggressor is lunacy, in my opinion.
I will add, however, that I like the simple altruism of verse 42. <big>X X X Y</big></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
(verses 43–48)</div>
<blockquote>
"Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."</blockquote>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
Love for enemies? I'm happy to love my enemy, but not if he is shooting at me.
This pericope, while actually trying make what could be a valid point, fails to make a crucial distinction.
Let's say that your brother needs a kidney transplant. Most people would gladly donate their kidney to a family member, I think. That's an easy decision to make. It's making that decision to donate it to a <i>stranger</i> that would be a better test of one's altruism. But why does the author have to conflate "neighbor" with "enemy" here? This conflation seems mean-spirited to me. In a sense, I am in agreement with Jesus, but as a general mandate to love one's "enemy" ... I will say that this pericope's phrasing is less than endearing. <big> X Y </big></div>
<br />
<br />
<h2>
Chapter 6</h2>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
The sermon continues ...</div>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
(verses 1–4)</div>
<blockquote>
"Beware of practising your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. ‘So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you."</blockquote>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
Giving to the needy. I'm totally down with this part. Even better, not being an ostentatious asshole when we give to the needy. <big> Y Y Y </big></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
(verses 5–15)</div>
<blockquote>
"‘And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. ‘When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. 8Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. ‘Pray then in this way:<br />
Our Father in heaven,<br />
hallowed be your name. <br />
Your kingdom come.<br />
Your will be done,<br />
on earth as it is in heaven. <br />
Give us this day our daily bread.<br />
And forgive us our debts,<br />
as we also have forgiven our debtors. <br />
And do not bring us to the time of trial,<br />
but rescue us from the evil one.<br />
For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."</blockquote>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
Prayer. <br />
Hmm. I have no use for prayer in the conventional Christian intercessory sense, but if I take the word to mean "introspective meditation" (or something along that line), then I'm cool with his exhortation to do it in private ... not in a showy self-serving way. <br />
Forgiving people their trespasses. <br />
Some times it's harder than others (this is why forgiveness is so valuable—because it is so hard), but I generally think that forgiveness is a good spiritual practice. I'm totally down with that, theological affectations aside. <big> Y Y X </big></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
(verses 16–18)</div>
<blockquote>
"‘And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you."</blockquote>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
Fasting. <br />
I can see a use for fasting as a spiritual exercise. Again, I'm totally down with Jesus' warning against ostentatiousness in our behavior. <big> Y Y N</big></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
(verses 19–24)</div>
<blockquote>
"‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
‘The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! ‘No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth."</blockquote>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
Treasures ... Yeah, I more or less agree with these sentiments, theological concerns aside. In fact, I find this pericope to be particularly lovely in its imagery. <big> Y Y Y N</big></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
(verses 25–34)</div>
<blockquote>
"‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ‘So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today."</blockquote>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
Don't Worry; Be Happy ... <br />
Sorry, but this, along with his exhortation to turn the other cheek and love your enemy, is one of the places where I strongly disagree with the Jesus. I think that Jesus' exhortation against prudence is unwise and impractical. Waiting for a god to take care of everything is not a very good idea. <big> X X X </big></div>
<br />
<br />
<h2>
Chapter 7</h2>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
The sermon continues ...</div>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
(verses 1–6)</div>
<blockquote>
"‘Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgement you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbour’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbour, “Let me take the speck out of your eye”, while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour’s eye. ‘Do not give what is holy to dogs; and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under foot and turn and maul you."</blockquote>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
Judging others. <br />
Hmm ... I don't think that we can avoid "judging" people places and things according to our critical faculties. Such rationalizations are how we navigate our interactions with our world. The general idea that we should be compassionate and empathetic in our judgments, though, is something I can get behind. However, the extreme exclusivism of verse 6, the dismissal of opponents as "swine" (a pejorative metaphor <span style="text-indent: 19.2000007629395px;">is a problem, not a solution, if you ask me. T</span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">hink about it ... Is this not the very kind of judgement that is being discouraged? </span><big style="text-indent: 0.2in;">X Y X</big></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
(verses 7–12)</div>
<blockquote>
"‘Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him! ‘In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets."</blockquote>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
Ask and ye shall receive ... <br />
Yeah, when I remove its theological overtones, this seems to speak of ambition and a proactive outlook. As such, it doesn't bug me. The golden rule is certainly one of the good ideas. A good general attitude toward life. <big> Y Y</big></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
(verses 13–14)</div>
<blockquote>
"Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it."</blockquote>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
Narrow and wide gates ...
Another cryptic passage to add to the pile of "not-so- self-evident" material. I think this is saying that though it is harder to do, living a decent life is preferable to blindly running with the herd. I find this sentiment ironic in a Christian historic context. Regardless, I more or less agree. <big> Y </big></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
(verses 15–20)</div>
<blockquote>
"‘Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits."</blockquote>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
True and false prophets ...
Verse 20 is absolutely brilliant and true as far as I'm concerned. ... It goes for <i>any</i> enterprise in life, in fact (prophethood notwithstanding). <big> Y N</big></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
(verses 21–23)</div>
<blockquote>
"Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord”, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?” Then I will declare to them, “I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.” "</blockquote>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
True and false disciples ...
This reflects the sectarian divisions at the time of composition. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to agree or disagree with here. <big> N</big></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
(verses 24–29)</div>
<blockquote>
"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!’ Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes. "</blockquote>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
The wise and foolish builders ...
A cryptic guarantee that what he has just said is true. Verse 28 tells us that the crowds were "amazed" at his teaching. I don't think I would have been amazed. I would have stuck around for the Q & A. <big> N N N </big></div>
<br />
<br />
<hr width="60%" />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
Okay, so there it is, the Sermon on the Mount broken down into 65 individual literary components that I can vote pro or con or as irrelevant.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
So what's my tally?</div>
<big></big><br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
<big>Pro (Y) = 35.4% </big></div>
<big>
</big>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
<big>Con (X) = 41.5% </big></div>
<big>
</big>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
<big>Not Appicable (N) = 23.1% </big><br />
<big><br /></big></div>
<big>
</big>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
I can kinda dig three Beatitudes, five other pericopes, and there is a smattering of partial agreements here and there.
I'm indifferent to a few pericopes as irrelevant and/or inapplicable. I think that at least one pericope is a historically indefensible polemical anachronism, and that two pericopes are hyper-ascetic, and were very likely the direct inspiration for some very wacky (Encratites, Montanists etc.) sects sprouting up early on.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
I outright directly disagree with what Jesus says on about three of these pericopes. <br />
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
So ... am I against Christianity?<br />
<br />
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
That said, I find a certain symmetry to the fact that my friend focused on the sermon in G°Matt as the litmus test, for this gospel uses the word "against" in a sense similar to the post that prompted this train of thought which now finally is coming to a stop. Referring to G°Matt 12:30 will be a good place to once again bring up and highlight the author's detectable habit of redacting G°Mark. </div>
<blockquote>
"He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters."</blockquote>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
This is the exclusivist, divisive version that the author of G°Matt preferred, one which reverses and essentially negates G°Mark's original optimistic (un-paranoid) take on that saying (9:40):</div>
<blockquote>
"For he that is not against us is for us."</blockquote>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
<span style="text-indent: 19.2000007629395px;">G°Mark's</span><span style="text-indent: 19.2000007629395px;"> original version is the more beautiful of the two, in my opinion. </span>Moreover, I propose that G°Matt's version is fundamentally mean-spirited and pessimistic (by design!). It is not very useful as a "rule" for good living, I think. <br />
Though I may be 35% <span style="text-indent: 19.2000007629395px;">in</span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;"> agreement with the Sermon on the Mount, I reject this latter exclusivist way of thinking categorically.</span><br />
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<span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">--------------------------</span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">--------------------------</span><br />
<span style="text-indent: 0.2in;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: x-large; text-indent: 0.2in;">Ó</span></div>
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<blockquote>
</blockquote>
Quixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03126711689901268060noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9212346.post-51444185553293594422015-04-02T01:38:00.000-07:002015-04-02T08:06:00.904-07:00Richard Carrier coming to Phoenix ...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_FKCmKXprRd9eD_dOCDIdXIwaEDTzvcGXbdZM6C2bmiVyMGnhXY9GRKESzYvox_16S-A3kmZ6bmsiURJKEfCfwa233OtuIB7zXKbHaLkBUXS1ehuptLfrjm3ZRrNzru29MZWuXw/s1600/Richard-Carrier.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_FKCmKXprRd9eD_dOCDIdXIwaEDTzvcGXbdZM6C2bmiVyMGnhXY9GRKESzYvox_16S-A3kmZ6bmsiURJKEfCfwa233OtuIB7zXKbHaLkBUXS1ehuptLfrjm3ZRrNzru29MZWuXw/s1600/Richard-Carrier.jpg" height="132" width="200" /></a></div>
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<br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
Dr. Carrier will be discussing his new book On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt.
</div>
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<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Where:</span><br />
Arizona State University,<br />
Schwada Building - ASU Tempe Campus<br />
Northwest corner of intersection of Orange St & McAllister Ave <br />
Tempe, AZ
</div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">When:</span><br />
<b>This</b> Friday, April 3, 2015 at 7:00 PM
</div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
More info:<br />
<a href="http://www.meetup.com/phoenix-atheists/events/221567819/">http://www.meetup.com/phoenix-atheists/events/221567819/</a>
</div>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
</div>
<br />Quixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03126711689901268060noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9212346.post-68134838374710002032015-03-25T17:05:00.000-07:002015-03-25T17:05:52.621-07:00On Islam (pt. 2 — My Own Private Jahiliyyah)<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivy84HjFkqgsSYDiR5hoAoLbVr4vgo3nEGnpkWdMW-CtyJ9f5dvGPBozau6OOidFUxvxSjaMif8c-amJzF24Hs1lbmN11HdYY89aN2GZ2kICm1aLdTdmiCx9qxfIAJjyPyq4NxOw/s1600/Mohammed_receiving_revelation_from_the_angel_Gabriel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivy84HjFkqgsSYDiR5hoAoLbVr4vgo3nEGnpkWdMW-CtyJ9f5dvGPBozau6OOidFUxvxSjaMif8c-amJzF24Hs1lbmN11HdYY89aN2GZ2kICm1aLdTdmiCx9qxfIAJjyPyq4NxOw/s1600/Mohammed_receiving_revelation_from_the_angel_Gabriel.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a>Whoever was not familiar with Islam's foundational story in August of 2001, was almost certainly familiar with it by October.
</div>
<br />
The gist of the story: <br />
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<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
In the year 610 C.E., at the age of forty, an Arabian caravan merchant named Mohammed ostensibly received a revelation from what he described as the one and only god, whom he called Allah, through the angel Gabriel (this is the same character that announces the coming of the baby Jesus to the virgin Mary in the Christian Gospel of Luke, which had by that time been in circulation for four centuries and change). Gabriel reportedly overwhelmed Mohammed in a cave, commanding the man to recite verses of poetry. Mohammed obeyed and his recitations were then memorized and recorded by his companions over the course of some years, resulting in the book we now know as the Qur'an. </div>
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<div style="text-indent: .3in;">
In the previous post in this what I thought would be a series, I put forth a simple ontological rejection of god(s). The absence of evidence concerning the supernatural restrains me (and everyone else in the world) from making any positive claims regarding the "meaning" of the cosmos or regarding ultimate reality. In fact it makes those who do make such cosmic claims particularly insufferable to me. I'm embarrassed for such people (Google <em style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Fremdsch<em>ä</em>men</em><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">)</span><span style="text-indent: 0.3in;">. Even in my crude childhood ruminations, my spidey-sense would tingle around people who were so audacious as to speak for God. </span><span style="text-indent: 0.3in;"> It blows my mind that there are so many who think they know what "god" thinks or wants. To me, even in my not-yet-fully-congealed twelve-year-old mind, this felt like high hubris. Public personae run amok. At the heart of the problem is that even if one could unambiguously define a god (an impossibly tricky problem in itself), ... what criteria would one then use to gain access to a god's mind? How do we ascertain its will? If <i>God</i> is metaphorically something that transcends everything, how would I be able to assess someone's claim to know what <i><b>it</b></i> wants? How could I learn what, if any, propitiation it requires? </span></div>
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<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
There will be those, no doubt, who have a ready answer to these questions, of course: "<i><b>scripture</b></i>" (<i>i.e.</i>, revelation and <span style="text-indent: 19.1999988555908px;">prophesy</span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">). But in that case, two problems present themselves immediately.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
First, the concepts of prophesy and special revelation are esoteric by definition. They presuppose that a special instruction has been given by a supposedly "omniscient" god <b><i>only</i></b> to a very specific individual (or a group), who then<span style="text-indent: 19.1999988555908px;"> disseminates these wisdoms</span><span style="text-indent: 19.1999988555908px;"> on down to the people below by </span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">enacting exclusivist, inviolable rules for any would-be initiates to use as a liturgical guide to "right opinion" (<i>ortho-doxy</i>). Revelation was only for a select elite. Gods are very picky when it comes to the messengers they will entrust their proclamations to. Two prophets per millenium is </span><span style="text-indent: 19.1999988555908px;">just about </span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">the average allotment when it comes to prophets, I reckon. A trickle. A drip. There have been billions and billions of people to choose from in time,<span style="text-indent: 19.1999988555908px;"> yet precious few are ever worthy.</span> The gods just sit and wait and wait and wait and wait for just the right man to come along. — "</span><i style="text-indent: 0.2in;">Well, what's wrong with <b>that</b>? God can talk to whoever he wants to.</i><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">" —"<i>God's mysterious ways</i>" are always available as an escape-hatch , catch-all palliative. It seems a fair-enough notion at first yawn, but on reflection, and on a very fundamental level, the very esotericness to me of any given evangelizing theology serves to render that theology untenable, to render it </span><i style="text-indent: 0.2in;">non sequitur</i><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">. Put another way, if a god <b><i>really</i></b> wanted to make an announcement that was for some reason important enough for the whole world to know about, a mandate reflecting its mind and will, why take an esoteric route? Wouldn't that be counter-productive? If the ultimate purpose of revelation is communication and proliferation of information, cryptic whisperings in the ears of prophets at the rate of one per quincentennial is probably not a very efficient way to go about it. In fact, it is exactly the wrong way. This is a simple truth that is too often overlooked by many religionists, namely, that a god's reliance on elite prophets to get a message across to "all the people" only reveals a god's deficiencies as a communicator. Librettist Tim Rice expressed something like this tacit implication in the closing song of the musical </span><b style="text-indent: 0.2in;">Jesus Christ Superstar </b><span style="text-indent: 19.1999988555908px;">(sung by the resurrected Judas)</span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">:</span><br />
<blockquote>
"If you'd come today you could have reached a whole nation<br />
Israel [<i>sic</i>] in 4 B.C. had no mass communication ... "</blockquote>
<br />
To offer a "<i>God's ways are mysterious</i>" answer for this esotericism problem at this juncture would only be a feeble escape-hatch maneuver, an evasion, else we be forced to admit that sometimes the gods do not seem to follow the path of least resistance. It may make no sense, yes, but sometimes the shortest distance between two points is a convoluted manifold zigzagging maze instead of a straight line for god. Why make things so complicated? Couldn't gods, being "omnipotent" and "omnipresent" and all, just express themselves clearly and at will? Despite devout claims to perfection in all things, gods seem to be vague and inefficient communicators. Why is that? Could it be that sometimes gods like to do things in really cumbersome ways just to test us (read: "to mess with us")? A god could just be capricious if it wanted to be, I suppose, perhaps, but isn't it strange that a reliably consistent principle that is always at work in the rest of the world, that of parsimony, is <span style="text-indent: 19.1999988555908px;">somehow always </span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">suspended where communication between a god and humans is concerned? Why would a god prefer to beat around a burning bush rather than take a more direct approach such as talking to the people waiting at the foot of the mountain himself? No, the prophet <i>must</i> ascend alone. Hang tight; he'll be right back with the divine goodies. Wink, wink. Are gods really so shy and fastidious? Or maybe it's like in that movie, <b>Raiders of the Lost Ark</b>, where (G)od's glory is so majestic and so powerful that peoples's heads will explode for </span><span style="text-indent: 19.1999988555908px;">merely</span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;"> beholding it. Is that it? (I doubt it.) Since I was a kid I have found all esoteric claims regarding ultimate reality as suspect, from the moment they are voiced. Nothing I have learned since has shown me any different. </span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">A simple hermeneutic of suspicion is the best starting point where big weird claims are involved, my experience tells me. </span><br />
<span style="text-indent: 0.2in;"><br /></span>
<span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">The second problem is somewhat graver in that it reveals a glaring lapse in the logic of the proposition itself. In short, it is nonsensical to attribute written mandates to divinities that one has yet to adequately define. Logically backward, it's the proverbial cart before the horse. To stress this point I should here rephrase and highlight the topic sentence of the previous post: </span><i style="text-indent: 0.2in;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Because I have no warrant to believe in gods, I simply don't.</span> </b></i><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">There are special (I'm told) books that purport to speak for some conception of one or another of these gods. Although these books are endlessly fascinating from many different perspectives, my approach to such a text is unaffected by its 'special' or 'holy' status. I cannot justify upholding the sanctity of any text, and so I simply don't do so. Easy peasy. The idea never even enters my mind. There's no apprehension or shame about it. No anxiety. No tabú. </span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">S</span><span style="text-indent: 19.1999988555908px;">ince I don't believe in gods, these books have no stigma attached to them at all. They are just books. They are ancient artifacts which merit as much interest and study and reverence as other similarly ancient books, say, The Epic of Gilgamesh, or The Odyssey, and no more. E</span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">very text, even a "holy" one, is a human relic that originates in a specific time and place and culture. A holy book tends to contain the dreams, fears, and aspirations of the people who composed it. In view within its verses are glimpses of the lives these people lived, the axes they ground, the heroes they exalted, the foes they reviled, the archetypes they molded and cast and recast (and recast again and again in some cases) ... all of which are linked to a very specific socio-religio-historical <i>Zeitgeist</i>.</span><span style="text-indent: 19.1999988555908px;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">A holy book is the mythological record of one tribe's ongoing struggle with its concepts of the divine, the numinous, the mysterious. This may not be a trivial thing, but neither is a text to be venerated simply because of its privileged status in a particular <span style="text-indent: 19.1999988555908px;">liturgical</span> tradition or cultural hierarchy. This goes for the Tanach, it goes for the New Testament, <i>and</i> it goes for the Qur'an as well. </span></div>
<br />
<h2>
Bang! — <small>Into the Fray</small></h2>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.2in;"><br /></span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht8uYTMcw4mQQh85FgrQ659E71I0FWqjo4UruM8vXbDBU_lpAn0EX3gwCQmB8BQsKAyhhh0g3fLuaLYyTXwaHxql4EIZrFu1klQl9haYDydQNE5NV_AKyzH_5AFXvyEIEUV_LrCA/s1600/BlogTwintt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht8uYTMcw4mQQh85FgrQ659E71I0FWqjo4UruM8vXbDBU_lpAn0EX3gwCQmB8BQsKAyhhh0g3fLuaLYyTXwaHxql4EIZrFu1klQl9haYDydQNE5NV_AKyzH_5AFXvyEIEUV_LrCA/s1600/BlogTwintt.jpg" height="205" width="320" /></a><br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
Although I've been fascinated by Christian origins in particular—and by history in general —for over two decades now, my interest in Islam didn't really begin until after 9/11. Before then, I knew a few muslims, but I rarely gave it any thought. For me, before 2001, Islam didn't really register as anything but an exotic "other" world religion. I had no opinion to offer; it just never interested me much. In the aftermath of the events in New York City, Arlington, and Shanksville in 2001, however, like everyone else in this country, I was made aware of (and confused by) all the rhetoric that was being bounced around the airwaves and in print regarding the role that religion played in the atrocities of that fateful day. Islam was all of a sudden the talk of the town, whatever town you happened to be in. The $64,000 question was: What part did Islamic faith play in the attacks? To answer it, the hijackers each left behind some video footage of their last will and testament which leaves little room for guesswork. In these they recite their last witness to the camera on the eve of their imminent glory, religious fervor radiating from their every sentence, so it's really a no brainer. "<i><b>Jihad</b></i>" (this concept of "struggle" is very important for Islam and will be dealt with in more detail as I proceed) was undoubtedly the reason they did it. They said so. Repeatedly. Every other phrase out of their mouths was a Qur'anic citation. But despite even such overt testimonials to the devotional nature of the holy war that these boys saw themselves fighting in, there were still those who insisted that Islam is "a religion of peace," that religion was only peripheral to the situation, that the nineteen were compelled to do what they did by <i><b>political </b></i>reasons rather than religious ones.</div>
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<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
I could of course, like everyone else, speculate plenty of political motives, ones involving retribution for the sins of U.S. foreign policy <i>viz</i> the Middle East, for instance. During those early aftermath days, in fact, I remember being prone to say things like: "it would not have happened but for our lopsided support of Israel." I remember paraphrasing Malcolm X's "the chickens are coming home to roost" a couple of times in reference to my speculations. After all, the videos do mention the boys' solidarity with the Palestinian cause against Israel, and their condemning the presence of Westerners in what is traditional Arab/caliphate sacred land. There is plenty of elbow room there for at least some minimum of geopolitical vengeance to come into play. Religion happens within a context of cultural background, after all. No saint is an island. But to deny that it was a religious impulse, specifically, at the root of the crimes of 9/11, is to take leave of reality, I think. Religion was their point of departure. The terrorists videoed testaments don't evince much by way of "power-to-the-people" rhetoric. Their concerns were not the plight of the world's poor, as far as I can see. These guys weren't voicing any of the revolutionary angst about post-colonialist exploitation that one would expect from a self-styled leftist vanguard. This was not about social justice. This was not a "power to the people" impulse at all. This was about <i>divine</i> justice. It was all "power to Allah" rhetoric. It was a clear, direct, defiant, ostentatious, and <b><i>overtly</i></b> <i>religious</i> challenge to infidels (the West). There's no escaping this fact as I see it. One can of course argue that the hijacker's particular version of Islam was an aberration, that it is far from normative, that their interpretation is just an egregious anomaly, just an outlier sample in an otherwise serene curve, but even then one <i><b>cannot</b></i> deny that the destruction these boys caused that day was first and foremost an expression of their religious devotion. One cannot gloss that over. It is how these boys saw themselves and it is how they intended for the world to see them. They went out of their way to make videos so that there would be no doubt about it. No honest discussion can proceed without acknowledging this. This was a religious act.</div>
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<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOMjq2XmdY77jkfq_Wwfgtdz9od53SoW1fJ6mKFLM4iWupo2TCQG6TQAmXKkicVJF2u7Uy0kuOi_0vQYTJB1k92zk43M9KOsH_9KdghzLP0qr3Mn1P7e7OdVxBz_5FmmL0I5al_w/s1600/JihadVideoStill.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOMjq2XmdY77jkfq_Wwfgtdz9od53SoW1fJ6mKFLM4iWupo2TCQG6TQAmXKkicVJF2u7Uy0kuOi_0vQYTJB1k92zk43M9KOsH_9KdghzLP0qr3Mn1P7e7OdVxBz_5FmmL0I5al_w/s1600/JihadVideoStill.png" height="153" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">9/11 terrorist's video testimonial</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Because the evidence for it is so overwhelming, one clever circumlocution I've seen employed to trivialize this intrinsic religiosity is an equivocation, a conflation of the impression that most mainstream North Américan Christians have of the notorious Westboro Baptists (who are unanimously regarded as loony), on the one hand, with the way <i>we</i> <i><b>should</b></i> view the suicide hijackers' fanaticism, on the other— <i style="text-indent: 0.2in;">i.e.</i> the implication here being that we should see their idiosyncratic theology and barbarism as those of a lunatic fringe that no one in the Muslim world really takes seriously. In other words, we are urged to think that workaday Muslims view the ideas of these radical terrorist extremists in the same light as Christians view those of the Westboro Baptists. But is this true? Are these two hateful groups really analogous? Are they equally 'hateful'? I dare say not. Don't get me wrong; I think that Fred Phelps was a real fucktard (a word I don't wield lightly); make no mistake about that. But in the final analysis, where the rubber meets the road, Phelps and his activist church were/are as harmless as sheep. They may be hateful to the core, but they don't go around shooting gay people. There's a limit to their ire; they only get as far as publicly speaking their ugly and stupid and spiteful words, but no further. They stay well within the bounds of the law. 'Being infuriatingly annoying and rude' is the worst crime that one could charge the Phelps gang with. Can we then really compare them to suicide bombers? Is that fair? There's something just a little more serious about terrorism than just standing on street corners holding up placards ranting about sodomites or whatever else Leviticus finds abominable. More than annoying and impotent words, these folks bring sticks and stones, and they're hell-bent on breaking bones. No. Only a stupid and facile Facebook meme mentality could dare to compare the posturing exhibitionism of the Westboro Baptists to the murderous acts of armed and dangerous fanatics like Al Qaeda or ISIL. It's just ludicrous. It's not enough to be just crazy or wrong or rude. Some people are crazy and rude <i><b>and</b></i> they are <i>really</i> dangerous to boot. A bonus, let's say. It's important to not lose sight of this distinction. Were it not for the stridency of their protests, were it not for the offensiveness of protesting at veterans' funerals, the Westboro hate-mongers would be as innocuous (and as ignored in the press) as the little old Catholic ladies protesting outside the venue the last time I saw a performance of <b>Jesus Christ Superstar</b> at Gammage Auditorium. The Phelps are worse for all their mean-spiritedness, of course, but they have as much chance of affecting any kind of change as those old ladies do, in the end. People around the world don't rally behind the Phelps in any way. Even die-hard homophobes would wince at the thought of behaving this way at a memorial for a fallen soldier. <span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">The same could not be said of the terrorist groups in question, though. They <b><i>do</i></b> have real followings, and they <b><i>would</i></b> use any means at their disposal to achieve their aims. This is not polemical ranting on my part; radical islamists have said as much; it is what they openly and relentlessly repeat at every <i>foto-op</i>. </span><br />
<br />
It's a silly analogy. The Phelps, by comparison, have a threadbare following of maybe a few dozen people, mostly family members and their friends. If we take the whole of Christendom and measure their influence, roughly .000037% (that is, almost 4 hundred-thousandths of one percent) of Christians would support their weird theology and or conduct. This is a negligible fraction. A blip. For all intents and purposes, it is zero percent. By contrast, how extensive is Islamism relative to a more "normative" moderate Islam? Luckily, we actually have some statistical data on this. There have been polls conducted, the most famous of which is the Pew poll that Sam Harris notoriously featured in his book The End of Faith<span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">, which seem to show that in traditionally Muslim countries a significant number of people believe that it is sometimes appropriate to resort to violence on non-combatants in defense of one's religion. As few as 13% and as many as 28% of the populations of many nations condone violence of some kind, be it toward blasphemers or to more pedestrian things like cartoon depictions of Mohammed. 13% –28% is not zero percent. It's a significant fraction. Worldwide, this could potentially mean that there are between 220 and 476 million people who potentially approve of violence in the name of religion. This is roughly the current population of the United States of America. Mind you, this is based on polling in relatively moderate Muslim nations. The percentage in countries that did <i><b>not</b></i> participate in the polls (who are known to be more extreme in their implementations of Shariah than the participating nations), are almost certainly higher. </span><br />
<span style="text-indent: 0.2in;"><br /></span>
<span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">But let's grant for the sake of argument that it is only a very small fraction of the global Muslim population that is so Jihad-minded. Even it this were the case, its minority status would not be a good reason to dismiss them as inconsequential. History shows again and again that the black swans of any given era are under the control of just a few aggressive individuals. It is those few alphas who can muster and exert the force required to wrest control from 'the many' that eventually wind up doing so. Numbers are almost irrelevant once a bloodbath is in motion. All it takes is one guy with a mission. </span><br />
<span style="text-indent: 0.2in;"><br /></span>
<span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">Sure, "most" Muslims are peaceful individuals who just want to live their lives, who want to pray their five times a day, who want to play with their kids on weekends. "Most" Germans under the Third Reich were likewise peaceful individuals who just wanted to live and let live. The Japanese people in Nagasaki were peacefully living their lives while NanKing was being raped. In most cases of imperial delusion, the peaceful majority proves to be irrelevant to the respective courses that the history of a nation takes. All it takes is one bold asshole or two to drive the political agendas of their time and place. It's a sad truth about humans that they yearn to conquer the world. It's another sad truth about humans how easy they are to herd.</span><br />
<br />
An indelible detail about 9/11 remains in my mind's eye. Watching what they thought was Goliath taking a fall, all the vicarious little Davids of the world suddenly overflowed with delight.Throngs of people, both young and old, festively cheering and dancing in the streets, gleeful in their hatred, the images being broadcast on television news were images of people that I could not for the life of me understand. That it could be seen as a cause for joy, that it resonated with so many people, so many in fact that they spilled out onto the streets to express their rapt approval, was a moment of epiphany for me. This calling for a violent revolution is no anomaly. For the first time, some idea of just how significant a portion of the world feels about the West entered my consciousness, not in some abstract academic inductive sense, but in the very real experience of watching people react so viscerally and so approvingly to what for me was a heinous crime. For a way higher number of people than I was comfortable with realizing, 9/11 was a joyous occasion. A celebration. This was no anomaly. These images showed me a seething pervasive undercurrent. That the people engaged in this violence is a minority voice becomes irrelevant in light of the fact that it is precisely this small fraction that is armed and committed to the use of violence. All it takes is one asshole with a bomb.<br />
<br />
The use of violence is the key here. </div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
Discovering just how deep a commitment and a primacy are bestowed on Islam by its adherents, so deep that people could even forego sense and sensibility to uphold it, was cathartic for me. Like many others during that time, I resolved to learn about this religio-political phenomenon. When I searched for moderate voices within Islam, however, they weren't quite forthcoming. There was a silence there (it's finally better now, a decade on, but not much) that piqued my interest. It was the silence of people who would rather not get involved. I get why ... at least now I do, but I didn't then. Either way, this silence began to feel effectively like the silence of complicit inaction. With so few moderates speaking, I would have to educate myself, I guess.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
What religious ideas would compel people to behave in such a sociopathic manner in their name? What would compel people to prioritize their religious commitments even above their concern for human well-being? <br />
<br /></div>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
This became the focus of my study on Islam.
<br />
<br />
For now ... </div>
<blockquote>
</blockquote>
Other posts in this series:
<br />
<a href="http://leoquix.blogspot.com/2014/09/on-islam-pt-1-preface.html">Pt. 1</a> — Pt. 2 — Pt. 3 — Pt. 4<br />
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<br />
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1 - for this calculation I'm postulating around 1000 members for the Westboro Baptists. I am admittedly pulling these numbers out of the air just to make a rough percentage estimate, I don't know exactly how many there are, in fact, but I think it's reasonable educated guesses, in fact it is generous, and any margin or error in either direction would not change the tiny percentage much, given the size of the greater population that these radicals are on the fringe of.Quixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03126711689901268060noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9212346.post-20505549835547750162014-11-25T21:33:00.002-08:002014-11-28T15:17:57.358-08:00Book Review: On the Historicity of Jesus<br />
<h2>
Methodquake</h2>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Volume II</td></tr>
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<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
Mythicism, the notion that Jesus was more likely a fictional character rather than an actual human being who played some role in the founding of a world religion, is not a very popular idea in New Testament studies departments. Less than a minority view, it is a fringe position, one that only a handful of scholars have seriously considered, much less adopted. Richard Carrier opens his new book, <b>On the Historicity of Jesus</b>, (Vol. 2 to his previous 2012 work, <b>Proving History</b>) by admitting as much. Ordinarily, like most people, myself included, Carrier depends (and insists) on the epistemological authority that academic consensuses afford us. After all, were it not for a reliable standard of expertise on a given subject or field of study, how would we be able to discern or to weigh the truth of any claim? It's common sense. If you need help with your car you take it to someone who knows about cars, i.e., a mechanic. If you want to get medical advice, you find a trained physician. You need meat? Go to the butcher. It’s an often-heard <i>cliché</i> formula, and it's true most times. In almost all cases, it is best to go with the professional/academic consensus. </div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
Indeed, Carrier cites “fringe-ness” as the reason that he was initially reluctant to read Earl Doherty’s <b>The Jesus Puzzle </b>(1999), even though trusted peers had recommended that book to him as a well-argued and well-written work. He finally relented and decided to read it, but his intention at the time was in fact to use it as an opportunity to debunk mythicism once and for all. Something happened on the way to the Coliseum, however. When he <i>did</i> read the book, thrashing it turned out to be not as easy a task as he had imagined it would be. Not only did he discover that Doherty had in fact laid out a fairly cogent and well-sourced case, but in the process of examining the methodology used in New Testament studies to analyze the pertinent evidence, Carrier was also surprised to learn that all of the scholars who had written <i>specifically</i> about currently used methods in New Testament studies (the criteria of embarrassment, of multiple attestation, of discernible aramaisms, <i>etc.</i>) had found them all to be flawed in significant and demonstrable ways. Curiously, although these criteria are consistently shown to be logically unsupported, many mainstream New Testament scholars persist in making a big deal of these tainted “criteria” and they continue to employ them nonetheless. There's a certain obstinate dependence on them. They stick to scholars' fingers. But why should this field in particular get a pass when it comes to methodology? Philip Davies poignantly asked in 2005:</div>
<blockquote>
"Can biblical scholars persuade others that they conduct a legitimate academic discipline? Until they do, can they convince anyone that they have something to offer to the intellectual life of the modern world? Indeed, I think many of us have to convince ourselves first."</blockquote>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
Before he could tackle the historicity of Jesus specifically, Carrier felt the need to address this institutional issue. The first goal of <b>Proving History </b>was thus to <i>mathematically</i> demonstrate the inherent flaws in New Testament "criteriology" (exposed most recently by scholars like Davies and Hector Avalos), by applying Bayesian statistical methods to them. </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi7tDw1KEW792-blKUrOwBpiulekmnx-weLX8blXroZs483FR-AdE_YdCTlk0evQVcwRF3gqZhPzyRhyphenhyphenrWEpFpJPWGvkCO3uF8pPS0ArhEjonfDNjVUzdobNZT0_POQdUr_V4qog/s1600/ProveHist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi7tDw1KEW792-blKUrOwBpiulekmnx-weLX8blXroZs483FR-AdE_YdCTlk0evQVcwRF3gqZhPzyRhyphenhyphenrWEpFpJPWGvkCO3uF8pPS0ArhEjonfDNjVUzdobNZT0_POQdUr_V4qog/s200/ProveHist.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Volume I</td></tr>
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<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
Once the spuriousness of the current methodological paradigm in New Testament studies has been brought to light in this way, any consensus that is dependent on those faulty methods is pretty much rendered moot. And once shown to be specious, a consensus loses its epistemic authority and can thereafter be challenged. The inherent invalidity of the New Testament studies paradigm can be seen in how inconsistent all the professional proclamations coming from this field are. When you think about it, it's no wonder we don't know much about Christian origins. It's because when we bring our "car" to some New Testament "mechanics," it soon becomes obvious that they cannot agree on a single datum regarding the car—Is it an SUV? What color? What year and make is it? Two-doors? Four? Automatic or standard? Diesel or hybrid? Indeed, every detail of the story we get as many discordant opinions are there are "mechanics" advising us. Doesn't that in itself suggest that something is probably woefully wrong with these "expert" opinions? By contrast, if we were to ask a roomful of physicists about the characteristics of a light spectrum from a specific distant star, or about the distances between detectable celestial bodies, or even about how to make these kinds of determinations, we should not be surprised to find that their answers will be more or less consistent across the board (and fairly precise to boot). That such agreed-upon precision is virtually unknown in New Testament studies is telling. </div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
So, if criteriology doesn't work, what does? <br />
<br />
Carrier's second goal in <b>Proving History</b> was to propose an alternative methodological framework for historical inquiry, one that is more empirically based. He makes a case that Bayesian reasoning can be foundational to this end. So what does that mean, anyway? What's Bayesian reasoning? Well, essentially (at least in the simplified model of Bayes' Theorem that Carrier uses), it means that the resultant probability of any event can be expressed as a ratio between three variables:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>A 'prior' probability, given our basic knowledge about the world, </li>
<br />
<li>The probability of a claim given a (complete) body of evidence, and </li>
<br />
<li>The probabilities of all other rival claims given the same body of evidence</li>
</ol>
<br /></div>
Already, before we even get to the meat of Carrier's thesis, I suspect that this Bayesian approach will be a stumbling block for many. For starters, Bayes Theorem is a mathematical formula, something too many people seem to have a phobia toward. There's an old adage in publishing that says that you lose half your readers with every math formula you include in a work. I think there's some truth beneath that bit of hyperbole. Math seems to scare the hell out of people for some reason, even people who are otherwise quite bright and daring. But math formulas aside, what will be even more problematic for some will be Carrier's unmitigated audacity in even attempting to quantify that which has heretofore <i>only</i> been considered qualitatively. Carrier is treating history as something more than a "social science." Those who believe that history (in general) and New Testament studies (in particular) are not things that one can (or should) apply mathematical thinking to because of the nature of the questions history explores will balk right from the starting gate. Come to think of it, most of Carrier’s work revolves around this central idea – i.e., that the academic discipline of history and its correlates should be regarded as a proper science, which is to say … that it should be held to an empirical and naturalistic standard, with an emphasis on verisimilitude, parsimony and falsifiability. The knee-jerk reaction of some will be, "<i>Falsifiability</i>? <i>In history</i>? <i>That's crazy talk</i>!" But those who assume that the study of Christian origins cannot be made a quantifiable matter, Carrier looks right in the eye and tells, “<i>It can too</i>! <i>And I'll show you ho</i><i>w</i>!” His proposed methods could of course be wrong, it goes without saying, and they may indeed turn out to be wrong in the end, but that is to be determined by an engagement with his thesis, and not by simply prematurely dismissing it by appealing to some impenetrable ambiguity (the general “<i>unscienciness</i>” of history). This predictable kind of academic line in the sand, this potential barrier, is what makes the first volume of this work necessary (and why I begin by referencing Vol. I in this way). Volume II will go right over the head of anyone who insists on staying safely behind the hard-science/social-science line in the sand, or who doesn't realize that there is a problem with the consensus in the first place, or who is otherwise content to continue to adhere to this broken consensus simply because it's mainstream ('<i>a little epistemological vagueness never hurt no one ... Right</i>?')<br />
<br />
<h2>
Down to the Minimals</h2>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
That preliminary work completed, Carrier now aims to bring this versatile statistical methodology to bear on the specific question of the historicity of Jesus. This is the subject of <b>On the Historicity of Jesus</b>. One of the crucial points to remember about the methods laid out in Vol. I is that a theory cannot be analyzed in isolation. To gauge the probabilities of a historical claim in terms of only its consistency with itself is to engage in question-begging circularity. Without comparatively referencing how the evidence (ALL the available evidence) might also fit a conflicting theory, such an analysis is necessarily incomplete, logically fallacious, and therefore invalid. </div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
So the first step is defining the terms. Lest a careless reader mischaracterize him as arguing for some of the more bizarre and convoluted forms of mythicism out there that have been formulated (to his credit, he mentions no names), Carrier frames what he calls "minimal" mythicism:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<ul>
<li>At the origin of Christianity, Jesus Christ was thought to be a celestial deity.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Like many other celestial deities, this Jesus 'communicated' with his subjects only through dreams, visions, and other forms of divine inspiration.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Like some other celestial deities, this Jesus was originally believed to have endured an ordeal of incarnation, death, burial, and resurrection in a supernatural realm.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>As for many other celestial deities, an allegorical story of this same Jesus was then composed and told within the sacred community, which placed him on earth, in history, as a divine man, with an earthly family, companions, and enemies, complete with deeds and sayings, and an earthly depiction of his ordeals.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Subsequent communities of worshippers believed (or at least taught) that this invented sacred story was real (and either not allegorical or only 'additionally' allegorical).</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
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In addition, lest he similarly be misconstrued as straw-manning some of the more bizarre forms of historicism as normative in any way, he also defines a counterpart "minimal" historicism.</div>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<ul>
<li>An actual man at some point named Jesus acquired followers who continued as an identifiable movement after his death.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>That is the same Jesus who was claimed by some of his followers to have been executed by the Jewish or Roman authorities.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>This is the same Jesus some of whose followers soon began worshipping as a living god (or demigod).</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<br />
He narrows his focus to these "minimal" rival theories so to pare away any accretions, mythicist or historicist, that can easily be shown to be superfluous or to depend on some significant amount of <i>ad hocness</i> or gratuitous speculation or special pleading, thus forfeiting their validity. This <i>ad hocness</i> lowers such a claim's probability to something close to zero. On the historicist side, this eliminates from the field, right off the bat, all fundamentalist apologist formulations which posit a superhuman Jesus and also those that posit similarly fantastical magic-mushroom-eating, or vampire-magician, or Holy Grail/Holy Blood "historical" Jesuses. On the mythicist side, this eliminates from the field, right off the bat, similarly <i>ad hoc</i> formulations such as the astrotheologically-derived Jesus or the Flavian-conspiracy Jesus, hypotheses which depend on forced, <i>Pesher</i>-ish or inordinately parallelomaniacal readings of the evidence. From a Bayesian perspective, the prior probabilities that we can justifiably calculate for these kinds of ersatz hypotheses are simply too close to zero to be statistically nudged at all in the direction of veracity by the available evidence (if anything, such <i>ad hocness</i> brings our posterior calculations even closer to the zero asymptote). </div>
<br />
<h2>
<i><big>A Fortiori</big></i></h2>
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<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
The bulk of <b>On the Historicity of Jesus</b>' 710 pages is devoted to a careful and exhaustive consideration of the evidence forwarded in support of <i><b>both</b></i> minimal historicity and minimal mythicism. <i><b>All</b></i> the pertinent evidence. The epistles. The gospels. Acts. The patristics. Josephus. For the sake of accuracy, it is important that the likelihood that we would wind up with a given bit of evidence under either scenario (historicist or mythicist) be calculated as clearly and objectively and honestly as possible. This need for honest thoroughness under <i>both</i> paradigms is why this work is as hefty as it is. It has to be. Despite its density and its exhaustiveness, though, Carrier's method is fairly transparent and simple. You take each piece of evidence one at at time, evaluate it under contrasting scenarios, and then plug the result of this analysis into a Bayesian formula. It's simple math.
</div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
Interestingly, one of the book's recurring themes is his granting to minimal historicity the greatest latitude possible in his calculations. That is, at every step, he intentionally argues <i>against</i> mythicism as far as his method will allow, at times granting things that are not even realistically warranted by any stretch of imagination, so that it can be fairly said that the probability of historicism <i><b>must be</b></i> lower than the intentionally conservative range estimate given by this kind of 'devil's advocate' calculation. He calls this arguing <i>a fortiori</i>. With each respective piece of evidence, he first calculates this <i>a fortiori</i> probability, and then, after that is out of the way, he also calculates where he <i><b>really</b></i> thinks the probability lies. This more-realistic estimate is considerably closer to mythicism than the a fortiori one, of course. Doubling down on his calculations in this this way precludes any potential accusation that he might be weighing the evidence in his favor in any way, and it also shows a willingness on his part to be fair with historicists while also being honest to his own intellect. It also serves to provide a defensible upper and lower limit to the range of probability for any given datum. It seems to me a very clever and useful technique. When after reviewing all the evidence he finally estimates that it is between 70% and 100% probable that mythicism is the correct theory of the two, it's important to keep in mind that the lower limit was calculated <i>a fortiori</i>, which all but guarantees that it is higher still. In fact, Carrier's more realistic calculation is virtually 100% in favor of mythicism (something like 12,000 to 1 if I recall). </div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
Is he correct?
</div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
I think so. Probably. I more or less agree with his assessment, but then I started accepting mythicism as a viable theory years ago. It was in fact Doherty's work (and Robert Price's) that convinced me of mythicism's viability. I am thus part of the "choir." But although <b>On the Historicity of Jesus</b> was not the book that converted me, I nevertheless think this is a very important work, if not <b><i>the</i></b> most important book on the topic so far. Not only do I think he is right, but what I think is Carrier's main achievement with this book is the systematic organization of the desultory, interpretive ideas of previous minimal mythicists like Doherty and Price (and to some degree, of Wells and Brodie, et al) into a more cohesive and comprehensive theory, one that does not stop at merely engaging Jesus' historicity, but one that takes this historicity (or lack thereof) into accounting for the origin and the subsequent early development of the Christian religion that the myth inspired. This is something that has been sorely lacking in previous monographs. In fact, Carrier's Christ myth theory is cohesive enough that I would even recommend this book as a general introduction to the origins of Christianity to a neophyte. That his is the first book defending the mythicist case that has undergone the formal rigor of academic peer-review is also noteworthy, especially since the very idea of mythicism is being unduly mocked and derided by a small number of reactionary scholars, defenders of historicism, who, like a united front of self-appointed guardians of an obsolete paradigm, have regularly resorted to mischaracterizing the previous, less-quantitative formulations of these ideas. </div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
The most important novelty, nay the most important function of <b>On the Historicity of Jesus</b>, in my opinion, comes after he has laid out his thesis. At the very end of the last chapter of the book, Carrier directs a sober, clear, and direct challenge at this peanut gallery of complacent "experts" who find the whole idea an unsophisticated laughing matter:
</div>
<br />
<blockquote>
[...] if readers object even to employing Bayes's Theorem in this case (or in any), then I ask them to propose alternative models for structuring the debate. If, instead, readers accept my Bayesian approach, but object to my method of assigning prior probabilities, then I ask them to argue for an alternative method of assigning prior probabilities (e.g. if my choice of reference class is faulty, then I ask you to argue why it is, and to argue for an alternative). On the other hand, if readers accept my method of assigning prior probabilities, but object to my estimates of consequent probability, then l ask them to argue for alternative consequent probabilities-not just assert some, but actually argue for them. Because the mythicist case hinges on the claim that these things cannot reasonably be done. It is time that claim was properly put to the test. And finally, of course, if readers object to my categories and sub categories of evidence or believe there are others that should be included or distinguished, then I ask them to argue the case.
<br />
<br />
I know many devout Christian scholars will balk and claim to find all manner of bogus or irrelevant or insignificant holes or flaws in my arguments, but they would do that anyway. Witness what many Christian scholars come up with just to reject evolution, or to defend the literal miraculous resurrection of Jesus (which they claim they can do even with the terrible and paltry evidence we have). Consequently, I don't care anymore what Christian apologists think. They are not rational people. I only want to know what rational scholars think. I want to see a helpful critique of this book by objective, qualified experts who could live with the conclusion that Jesus didn't exist, but just don't think the case can be made, or made well enough to credit. And what I want from my critics is not useless hole punching but an alternative proposal: if my method is invalid, then what method is the correct one for resolving questions of historicity? And if you know of none, how can you justify any claim to historicity for any person, if you don't even know how such a claim can be justified or falsified at all? Also correct any facts I get wrong, point out what I missed, and if my method then produces a different conclusion when those emendations are included, we will have progress. Even if the conclusion is the same, it will nevertheless have been improved.
But it is the method I want my fellow historians to correct, replace or perfect above all else. We can't simply rely on intuition or gut instinct when deciding what really did happen or who really did exist, since that simply leans on unexamined assumptions and relies on impressions and instincts that are often not reliable guides to the truth. We need to make explicit why we believe what we do rather than something else, and we need this as much in history as in any other field. And by the method I have deployed here, I have confirmed our intuitions in the study of Jesus are wrong. He did not exist. I have made my case. To all objective and qualified scholars, I appeal to you all as a community: the ball is now in your court.
</blockquote>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
I recommend this book highly to anyone who is interested in Christian origins.
</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Ó
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Quixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03126711689901268060noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9212346.post-62877749947106823012014-09-13T22:09:00.004-07:002017-02-26T16:27:09.176-08:00KISS and I (a retrospective) ...<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
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<br />
KISS celebrates forty years as a band this year.
</div>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
I have a confession to make. During the hormonal netherworld that the onset of puberty was for many of the boys of our generation, my brother Fred and I were big KISS fans. Yes, I admit it. We were two of those dorky kids. We had the stickers, the magazines, the comic books (printed in their own blood, no less!), all kinds of posters, and, of course, the records: <b>Love Gun</b>, <b>Destroyer</b>, <b>Alive!</b>. KISS were pioneers of a certain kind of intensive marketing strategy which is now so ubiquitous in the show business world that it’s almost taken for granted. But at that time it was almost unprecedented. My brother and I were just the right age at the right place at the right time for KISS’s heyday, you could say.
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This is not to say that KISS was my introduction to music, though. Far from it. I had by then been plucking out Puerto Rican folk songs on my old nylon string guitar for a few years before I ever heard any rock music, so I already had a taste for melody and for rhythm. My first big concert was a double header featuring Celia Cruz and El Gran Combo. I think I tuned in relatively early to a rustic, folksy kind of music, which was the only music that was available to me during my childhood on the island, anyway. Once I was stateside, though, music took on a whole new dimension. It was all of a sudden a lot bigger than it had seemed before. It was everywhere and it was now in technicolor. Rock music introduced me to new sounds, a completely new aesthetic, and I rather liked it. I liked the stimulus. The window into this sensory Oz during those days was a little transistor radio that I kept under my pillow that I would quietly listen to late at night. I don’t know if the term “classic rock” had been coined yet, but AOR/F.M. radio was in full swing in those days in New York (WPLJ and WNEW and WLIR were my stations). Before KISS, some of the first pop songs that had already made strong impressions on me during this early immigrant period were songs like “Carry On My Wayward Son” [Kansas], “Short People” [Randy Newman], “Got To Give It Up” [Marvin Gaye], and “Solisbury Hill” [Peter Gabriel]. Of course I had no idea who sang any of those songs back then; I just knew that I really liked how they sounded and how they felt. I still do.
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Come to think of it, KISS wasn’t even the first record that I purchased, either. That particular honor goes to the Beatles, whose classic “red” and “blue” double anthologies, on vinyl, were the first albums that my brother and I ever bought, as I recall.
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So, though KISS was not my first ‘anything’ musically speaking, there was a period of a couple of years, when KISS got way too big a portion of my lunch money. It was all empty calories and soda pop but there I was ingesting the stuff. My fascination with the band, though short-lived, now serves as a reminder of my teenage enculturation. The relentless demographic harvesting of (mostly) boys, who gleefully forked over their weekly allowance at Crazy Eddie’s for a copy of <b>Love Gun</b>, or <b>Hotter Than Hell</b> (or whatever we didn’t yet have in our collection), was pure marketing genius, and my brother and I both were definitely part of the tail end of this late-seventies North American phenomenon. By the time that we got into KISS, the band was already the most hyped and famous rock group on the planet, and were in fact in the early stages of the process of decline. In other words, unbeknown to us, they were already old hat. They had by then already released all of the early classic recordings of the original lineup, and were actually starting to descend in popularity. But we didn’t know this; we were busy playing catch-up at that point. Ours was in fact the batch of fankids who saw KISS go from being sorta-kinda cool … to ‘sucking’ … all in the course of just two years! Kids were getting wise to the swindle. How could they not after seeing <b>KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park</b>, a movie so bad that it is a viable candidate for worst film ever made by a rock band. This, along with the four solo records of 1978 was bad enough (Ace’s is the only one that actually sounded kind-of like a KISS record -- the other three were just lame), but by the time they released the <b>Dynasty</b> album, I was fully aware of the fact that KISS … well … they just weren’t making very good music. What was once a crude and fun kind of rock & roll was turning into vacuous disco/pop crap right before our eyes. Not that it was very good before, but at least it had not been premeditated saccharine before then. By this point, their music had turned essentially into a fluffy kind of thing, not at all the cocky, greasy, simple thing it had started out as. Sure, it was shinier and more expensively produced, but ultimately it was less than crude, less than graceless. It had become almost entirely unimaginative and heartless. (And that’s just the music; the lyrics were even more shallow and vapid than the music was.)
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But I really don’t want to spend too much time listing all the reasons why I thought KISS sucked after <b>Alive! II</b>. Suffice it to say that by the time high school had started for me, that particular sugar high had run its course. I was done with KISS forever. I’d moved on.
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In the ensuing years, KISS completely fell off my radar screen. Every now and then, I would hear about Gene Simmons doing or saying something rude or stupid or inappropriate, such as his shameless, disrespectful, and indefensibly misogynistic interview with NPR’s Terri Gross in the nineties, or such as the time when, during another interview, he suggested that striving to improve musically as an instrumentalist is a waste of time. (<i>Did you hear that, Mr. Metheny? You can stop practicing now.</i>) Later on I heard that he had a cable reality show, which I have caught small glimpses of while YouTube surfing, but that’s pretty much it for me, as far as KISS goes, except that they just celebrated their fortieth anniversary and they’ve also finally been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which means that they've found their way back into headline news again, and thus into my news feed, inadvertently bringing my mind back to those clueless days of early puberty in the Bronx for a moment.
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The Hall of Fame. There’s some logic to that. It makes sense. Congratulations to them. Though I haven’t cared about their stuff since way back when, they certainly paid their dues, they did their time in the trenches, and so I reckon that they deserve to be in the Hall of Fame as much as everyone else who’s been inducted into that prestigious [<i>hiccup!</i>] club. Turns out they were actually eligible for inclusion fifteen years ago, and it’s only now that it’s finally happening. “What took so long?” It's a valid question. The delay raises some further questions regarding the <i>realpolitik</i> underlying the Hall of Fame’s agenda and administrative method and style (and bias). Given KISS’s unprecedented popularity and sales during their seventies heyday, one would think they were a shoe-in for the Hall. On the contrary, they weren’t even considered, and as the years progressed the band saw this as a ‘<i>dis</i> from the “academy,” one more reflection of the lack of respect they have been enduring from the industry for ages. They were being treated like ciphers in a cultural landscape that they had some hand (however minor or superficial) in helping to forge. What does the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame represent? Rock & Roll? Like them or not, KISS helped build that house. And yet KISS has always been a proverbial red-headed stepchild when it comes to critical acclaim. The “cool kids” have just never been on board, and KISS have always responded with a reciprocal disdain. Fittingly, there was no love lost when Paul Stanley opened the KISS show the night after the big ceremony by glibly uttering a defiant: “About time; … and big fucking deal.” I can’t say I blame him much.
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To add insult to insult, although, ordinarily, Hall of Fame inductees get to play a few tunes as part of the evening’s ritual ceremony, in KISS’s case a problem arose when they were told that only the original members would be allowed to perform. Although Ace and Peter were okay with this exclusivity, Paul and Gene wanted to include the current members on the same stage (along with former member Bruce Kulik, who had contributed much to their work in the 80s and 90s). This was only fair, Paul said, citing as a precedent last year’s induction performance by Heart, which included their own classic original lineup alongside its current one. No hard feelings, no egos, no grudges; it’s about celebration, right? But the Hall for some reason stood firm in its request in this case; only the founding members would perform. Period. Ace and Peter, who in my opinion should have been more magnanimous and gracious (read: grown-up) by just letting the current lineup also play on stage with them, were instead uncooperative and stubbornly selfish about it all, talking smack of their own in the press, so in the end it was decided (I suspect mostly by Paul) that, if that’s how it’s going to be, then fuck it, no one would play.
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Perfectly timed to coincide with both the 40th anniversary and the Hall of Fame milestones, Paul Stanley released <b>Face the Music</b>, making him the last founding member of KISS to publish a book of memoirs. All of the hoopla surrounding their Hall of Fame induction and anniversary made me decide to read it. It’s a fairly honest and open recollection of the early days: from riding from town to town in a loaded station wagon, to becoming bona fide rock stars. Some things were not all that surprising to me: <b>1)</b> Peter is a tone-deaf idiot. <b>2)</b> Ace is not stupid, but he makes up for it in laziness and avarice. <b>3)</b> Gene is a self-centered opportunist. <b>4)</b> Were it not for the grace and prescience of Paul Stanley (our hero—surprise!), KISS would be financially and artistically bankrupt. Since I don’t intend to read any of the others’ respective books, and since this all seems plausible enough based on what little I know (and what little I care to know), I guess I’ll just take his word for it. But lest I seem too facetious here, let me say that although the last third (or so) of the book admittedly put me to sleep, I did genuinely enjoy reading the first part of the book, even past the point in their chronology where I was no longer personally paying attention to them. I commend Paul for his willingness to talk so candidly about those wild early days. He’s come a long way from being the insecure narcissist he admittedly once was, allowing himself to open up about his physical deformity (he was born without a right ear, a condition he had surgically remedied in ‘79, which until then he simply covered up with his long wavy hair), about the deep depression that set in when KISS was no longer on top of the world (the exodus of kids was so big and unexpected that it made him despondent for a while), about the tragic illness and death of drummer Eric Carr (the most poignant moment in the entire book is when he closes a chapter by lamenting the fact that he should have been more supportive of Eric’s feelings, that he should have been more accessible to him), and about his feelings regarding how the band was perceived by their critics.
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This last thread of insight turned out to be one of the most revealing for me. He seems to be under the impression that the reason KISS developed the stigma they did was because they didn’t partake in the drug lifestyle that was such a prevalent aspect of the pop star culture of the time. This struck me as a strange thing to say, considering the well-known public excesses of Peter and of Ace (who was undeniably drunk as a skunk during Tom Snyder’s 1978 television interview of the band, and who was notorious for destroying hotel rooms wherever the band toured). If Paul is under the impression that KISS were ostracized by critics because of their drug-abstinence, not only does it belie the basic facts concerning half of the group, but he is also completely way off-mark as far as what was on the minds of those critics who reviled their work. No. The truth is that, if the creed of the day was “Sex, Drugs, & Rock n Roll,” KISS was sitting on a one-and-a-half-legged tripod. They (Gene and Paul, that is) were depending on sex alone as the driving force behind their work. Now, if not outright silly, this was at least overly ambitious on their part, given that they are not, let’s face it, good looking men. It was all literally smoke and mirrors and makeup. After the show, Gene was just another marginally talented, unduly conceited, mouthy asshole in a landscape full of those ... and Paul, by his own admission, was so insecure and introverted that he once drove to some big event only to become so riddled with anxiety at the prospect of having to be around people in a social setting, that he sat in his parked car for an hour before finally resolving to just go home. This is no self-confident sexual icon. It’s no wonder then that things had to crash. The sex, the only rock-star vice he allowed himself to indulge in, was just an escapist distraction from his deep insecurities; the drugs were a cause for denial in relation to the reality of his surroundings (<i>i.e.</i> his band mates), and finally, the "rock ‘n roll" being churned out was just pure shit, though Paul, who seems to be aware of his limitations as an instrumentalist, seems to have no idea of his limitations regarding everything else about music-making. Reading, writing, rhythmetic.</div>
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One scene in the book brought this to light for me. In one of the few places where he elaborates on the process of songwriting, he says:
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“To be able to write something like that without laboring over it is a place you just can’t get back to. It’s writing without rules, without any thoughts of justifying or answering to anybody. I think that over time you can become a more technically proficient songwriter, but that doesn’t mean you write better songs. This was our third album, yes, but all three within barely a year, so we still had the freedom of not really knowing the rules, of not analyzing the lyrics under a microscope. The lyrics […] created such a fluid rhythmic effect. Later in life, I couldn’t write lyrics like that even if you put a gun to my head.”
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On its own, a remark like that seems like an innocuous enough bit of insight from someone in the arts. As such it is not unlike other expressions of the importance of allowing for some intuitiveness in one's writing process, the importance of “kissing the joy as it flies” (as Blake would say). In fact, right before reading this paragraph, I had watched an interview that the <b>20/20</b> news program had done with Bob Dylan in which, when asked about the process involved in writing something like "Blowin' in the Wind" or "Like a Rolling Stone," his response was essentially the same as Paul's, saying that it was an almost automatic phenomenon, that such songs come from some indefinable place, and also adding that he could not write like that later on. The difference between these two variants, however, is that Dylan is referring to songs that in their novelty and ingenuity of style and content would eventually be seen as foundational works of an era, expressing the hope of the (then) up and coming generation of socially conscious individuals looking for a cultural voice of their own, while Stanley, on the other hand, was referring to the lyrics of "Come On and Love Me," a song from KISS‘s 1974 album <b>Dressed to Kill</b>:
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“She’s a dancer<br />
A romancer<br />
I’m a capricorn and she’s a cancer<br />
She saw my picture in a music magazine.”
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Granted, it’s probably a bit unfair for me to compare Paul Stanley with Dylan like this. In fact, had it not been for the synchronicity that coincidentally brought a YouTube video of the Dylan interview into my view at the same time that I was reading Paul’s book, I might have not even noticed the extreme hubris in his statement, but I could not help but find some irony there once the comparison <i>did</i> present itself to me. Still, I don’t think Stanley would be delusional enough to think that the process that brought forth his ‘<i>Fuck me; I’m a rock star</i>’ songs is for all intents the same as Dylan’s. God, I hope not. Paul, the reason the critics hated you was because your music essentially had nothing to say about anything of relevance to anyone but your libido. That you were sober was the least of your problems.</div>
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At any rate, in addition to reading Paul’s book (<i>because</i> of reading it, really), it was in this same sense of thinking about their the 40th anniversary that I decided to finally listen to KISS’s <b>Music from the Elder</b> for the first time ever. In fact, this essay was initially intended to be nothing but a hyper-belated album review of <b>The Elder</b>, an album that the band made a couple of years after I had already given up on them. It was fascinating to read about the exodus of fans from Paul’s first-hand perspective. Spitting blood, fire-breathing and sexual bravado are all pretty cool, especially when you’re twelve, but as time progressed the band strayed further and further from the formula that had put them on the map in the first place, and it just wasn't interesting anymore. They had started out as purveyors of an anti-intellectual hedonistic barre-chord rock that touched a certain pre-adolescent nerve precisely because it was primitive and visceral and brainless. It was brash for brashness‘ sake. That was its appeal. Theirs were simple songs full of frantic power riffs that any kid could air-guitar along with in their bedrooms without having to think too hard. Start with one of those simple three-chord riffs … throw in lots of innuendo, and … violá … you have a KISS song. At heart KISS wasn’t really about music, though. Not really. The music in fact was almost incidental. It didn’t have to be great music. It was just another product to sell, like the tee shirts and the lunchboxes. KISS was a spectacle set up to sell product, not art. KISS was a circus. A show. This is not necessarily an indictment of circuses, mind you. I don’t want to sound here like I look down on entertainment value in and of itself. Far from it. Heaven knows that circuses serve a noble function. We need them. But this particular circus started to take itself way too seriously by the end of the seventies. It’s hard to continue to believe in the magic of the circus anymore when all one can see is the carnival barker counting receipts after the show.
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By the decade’s end they had allowed themselves to be tempted away from the visceral primitiveness that had been the fountain of their success. They went from making strident rock records that flaunted their disinterest in critical acclaim … to making polished and uninspired pop records that practically begged for this acclaim. It was a cry to be loved by the very elite they reviled. Kids could tell the difference between real shit and bullshit, though, and we had started to leave the party in droves. We who had been sustaining their business model were soon to enter high school age, and we weren’t buying the crap that KISS were trying to push off on us, not when there were plenty of cool bands around (Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest … etc) to take up the hard rock slack. There was plenty of music out there to fill the need for shock and glam that so many kids seem to have needed at that pubescent age. Form and bluster can only dance you from here to there, though, and that’s not very far. At some point, a lack of substance will sure enough betray itself, and the KISS army of accountants during this time of diminishing returns must have sounded the alarm loud and clear, because KISS suddenly changed lanes without warning. They must have seen the writing on the wall that things were about to change drastically, but they made what was possibly the dumbest career decision they could make under the circumstances. Instead of going back to cranking out their basic visceral three-chord rock ’n roll music full of double entendres, which might have stemmed the exodus of kids a little, at least until they could figure out what to do next, KISS decided to go “legit,” to make “serious” music. Success with the kids is one thing, but it turns out that the band had been harboring secret ambitions. They started to imagine that they could finally win the respect of their peers by making a masterpiece album. It was the heyday of the concept album. Fresh on the heels of having helped to record Pink Floyd’s colossal <b>The Wall </b>album, producer Bob Ezrin somehow convinced Gene and Paul to try their hand at making a concept album of their own. Somehow overlooking the fact that such a thing would have been asking way too much of KISS even in the best of circumstances (by that time drugs and alcohol had rendered Peter and Ace barely functional), Paul and Gene persisted in this vision. They went ahead and did it. They made <b>Music from the Elder</b>. Like any concept album worth its salt, it had to be grandiose, cryptic, … maybe a tad apocalyptic … epic. It had to be deep.
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Was it?
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Well … sort of … if by “deep” you mean “ambiguous.”
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My first reaction to this record, which was probably not unlike that of everyone who first listened to it in 1981, was simple confusion. I pricked up my ears and audibly said, “<i>What the fuck</i> ... ?” It is such a radical departure from what KISS had done up until then that some cognitive dissonance is inevitable before one can rightly process it upon first hearing it. It’s a bizarre experience. I sort of expected that I would be totally panning this album, that I would mock it from the git go, and the truth is that that’s almost exactly what I did. But I waited it out a bit. A second listening didn’t help much. But something happened on the third listening, when I played it as my midnight swim music last night. I was able this time to listen to it without the prejudice I had first come to it with, to bracket the fact that the artist was KISS, to just listen to nothing but the songs themselves. Out of context like this, there are a couple of things I can critically say about <b>Music from the Elder</b>:
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I won’t go as far as calling <b>The Elder</b> a great record, or even a particularly good record, but, all things considered, in almost every respect, be it melodic, harmonic, lyrical, rhythmic, textural, or in terms of arrangement and orchestration, this is the single best record that the band KISS has ever made, but this fact would only be obvious once one’s “KISS sucks” prejudice is suspended. It's not saying much, but the record, while retaining the basic hard rock forms of the day, simply has more breadth than anything they had ever done previously. That it was doomed to bomb commercially was never in doubt by anyone but Gene and Paul, of course—they should have known better than to bet all their chips on green—but for the first time, they allowed themselves to pretend to be actual artists rather than entrepreneurs. Regrettably, artistic success being synonymous with commercial success to Paul Stanley, when sales of the album proved to be dismal (what did they expect after <b>Phantom of the Park</b> and <b>Dynasty</b> and <b>Unmasked</b>?), instead of standing by their work, he distanced himself from it. KISS dropped it like a hot potato. In fact, it was to be the only studio album that they ever made that they did not tour to support. A few years later, Paul would say about <b>The Elder</b>, “It was pompous, contrived, self-important and fat.” In my opinion, though, I think he succumbed to his insecurities too easily, and that‘s a shame, because <b>The Elder</b> actually presented them as something more than comic book figures. I think that Ace Frehley was closer to the truth in his estimation of the record when he said, "<b>Music From The Elder </b>wasn’t a bad album .... it was just a bad KISS album." I suspect that if it had sold better, Paul would concur and would not be as ashamed of it as he seems to be.
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It’s funny, but it’s as though KISS's discovery of metaphor, allegory, polyrhythm, alliteration, motivic development— the arsenal of tools that is available to poets and songwriters—was seen as a liability by their fans, who only wanted to rock out. That’s what happens when you build a fan base out of pre-pubescent boys, with no regard for artistic integrity. It’s a cautionary tale. If you sell your soul to the circus early on in your career, enjoy the ride and enjoy the benefits of having your brass ring, but don’t be surprised when no one takes you seriously later on when you try to do something of substance. People generally don’t look to people they’ve known for years as clowns for their high art.
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Quixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03126711689901268060noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9212346.post-70615430805506935132014-09-11T17:17:00.000-07:002014-09-11T21:50:38.947-07:00quote of the day ...<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
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All religions, including Buddhism, stem from our narcissistic wish to believe that the universe was created for our benefit, as a stage for our spiritual quests. In contrast, science tells us that we are incidental, accidental. Far from being the <i>raison d'être </i>of the universe, we appeared through sheer happenstance, and we could vanish in the same way. This is not a comforting viewpoint, but science, unlike religion, seeks truth regardless of how it makes us feel. Buddhism raises radical questions about our inner and outer reality, but it is finally not radical enough to accommodate science's disturbing perspective. The remaining question is whether any form of spirituality can.</blockquote>
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from <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2003/02/buddhist_retreat.single.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><b>Buddhist Retreat</b>: </a></div>
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<a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2003/02/buddhist_retreat.single.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>........ </i>(<i>Why I gave up on finding my religion</i>)</a></div>
Quixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03126711689901268060noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9212346.post-20246065504144058382014-09-08T20:14:00.005-07:002016-08-22T13:43:26.638-07:00On Islam (pt. 1 — Preface)(<span style="font-size: x-small;">I am hereby embarking on a series of posts addressing the religion known as Islam. I’ve been giving the topic a lot of thought for some years now and I was inspired by a discussion on the word “<i>Jihad</i>” that I took part in with a beloved family member recently to finally jot down some of my feelings about it. I initially intended to focus just on the concept of <i>Jihad</i>, but after thinking it through, I determined that such an effort would be too limiting. It would be like talking about <i>Juche</i> —i.e. Kim Il Sung’s concept of self-reliance— without considering its background, or like talking about Reconstruction without considering the causes and effects of the American Civil War. Not only would it be unduly constraining, it would simply make no sense out of its proper context. This is why it needs to be a series, and why this first post is only a preface. As always, I am not above correction and I welcome
criticism of any statement I should make in this my sincere analysis as long as
it is pertinent and not combative or abusive. </span>)
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I don’t really like the word “atheism.” It is a label I’d rather not have placed on me. The only kind of “-ist” I readily concede to being is a “humanist” (“scientist” might also conceivably be an adequate descriptive term, since that was my formal academic training, but I do not currently labor as one, so it is only in a tangential, semantic sense that it could apply to me). That said, I am definitely not a “theist.” Neither am I a golfer, nor a “poetry-slam” aficionado (though I love actual poetry), nor a Somali. Much in the same way that I see no need to coin words to describe my relation to golf or to “slamming” or to the nation of Somalia, I fail to see any need to refer to my relation to any specific “god” concept using the word “atheist.” If anything, the closest I feel that I come to fitting any of the words currently used to describe a person’s relation to theism would be “ignostic,” which is the position that, until an adequate and unambiguous definition of what an actual god might be, the very question of its existence is a meaningless one. </div>
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This is not to say that I am unfamiliar with many of the concepts of god(s) that have been formulated through the ages, however. On the contrary, as a lifelong student of culture and of history I have a deep fascination with these god concepts in the Jamesian sense that they are indispensable parts of ongoing mythological complexes consisting of devotional writings, symbols, metaphors, and archetypes that can be individually distinguished and described within the sociological and historical contexts of the cultures in which these concepts germinated and developed. In this mythological sense, Zeus exists and the Great Spirit exists and Oduduá exists and Yahveh exists—hell, even Superman exists in this cultural phenomenon sense. But I realize that this is not the ontological sense that most people mean when they use the word “God.” What they usually mean by that word is an actual personal being/entity, one which created and which transcends the cosmos, and, perhaps more importantly for their worldview, one which continually interacts with it in some way. I also realize that this god concept is so pervasive and so ingrained into their respective religio-cultural contexts that the convention of referring to those outside of this theistic paradigm as “atheists” is here to stay, for better or for worse (I vote “worse”) and that there’s nothing I can do to change that custom, no matter how logically nonsensical it may be, and so, in the course of dialogue with any such theist, for the sake of an argument, I will occasionally reluctantly don the term for a moment when confronted by people seeking to challenge me about my indifference to their religious zeal. Their first question is almost invariably, “Why don’t you believe in God?” My answer is terse: “Because I have no reason to.” It’s really that simple to me. If you want to believe in some supernatural super-being, I say, “Go for it.” If you have decided to subscribe to or adopt the strict mandate of a given religious tradition, even though I may think it is pure folly, you are surely free to do so. I won’t stop you. “God” is a useful metaphor when discussing the numinous aspects of the world. I don’t object to its use <i>per se</i>, and in fact even I use it myself in this sense from time to time. The problem only arises if someone starts to imagine that his chosen religious mandate somehow extends to the point that it encompasses not just him, but me (and everyone else around him) as well. I find that notion to be problematic and highly offensive. </div>
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This does not mean that I think religion is offensive in and of itself. Not at all. I am aware that religions vary in terms of their beliefs and their practices and their functions and that it would be facile and unfair to use such a large brush to paint them all as equally nasty (or as equally benevolent, for that matter). They are decidedly not all the same. Satanists in their hedonistic self-worship are clearly infinitely more repulsive than Jainists in their radical pacifism. Moreover, sometimes even different factions within a single religion can vary in their levels of offensiveness. Compare and contrast, for example, the altruistic Christian faith of someone like Albert Schweitzer with that of the repugnant, hate-filled Westboro Baptists. The crux of the matter for me boils down to what the prescribed conduct of such a group is, particularly if it focuses on missionary activity and/or exclusivist rhetoric. The way I see it, the opinion that everyone should (nay, that everyone must) adopt one’s own religious mandates, or else be considered somehow spiritually “deficient” (or worse) is a special kind of misguided and myopic selfishness.
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I state this caveat up front because, before I begin to address Islam specifically, I feel a necessity to establish some standard of measurement, a lens through which a discussion can proceed without veering off into accusations of either ‘theophobism’ or ‘islamophobicism.’ The fact is that, although I have no reason to believe in any personal gods, I really don’t care what anyone “believes.” I have no stake in it. It’s none of my business. I am not anti-anything; I simply reject most theist claims.</div>
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Nevertheless, this lack of belief in gods is relevant and prior to such a discussion in that, since I have no use for any god, this necessarily means by extension that I also have no reason to take seriously either the ‘divine revelation,’ or the ‘prophesy’ that this god is supposed to be the source of. Once this superstitious veneer is put aside, all that is left is a historically/literarily/culturally documented tradition. Nothing more.
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This post is just an introductory one, serving the function of disclosure <i>viz a viz</i> my own stance in relation to general theism. In the next post I will proceed to explore the topic of Islam and the Koran proper.
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Quixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03126711689901268060noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9212346.post-3655869278744494452014-07-19T22:47:00.000-07:002014-08-16T22:48:37.195-07:00Some Thoughts on "God's Not Dead" (the motion picture) ...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>The storyline:</b>
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When a freshman (Josh Wheaton) enrolls in an introductory philosophy course to fulfill an elective requirement toward a "pre-law" curriculum, the professor (Jeffrey Radisson) of the class turns out to be a tyranical militant asshole atheist. Professor Radisson commands his students, just barely a minute after entering and introducing himself to them on the very first day of class, to sign their name on a sheet of paper with the simple statement, three little words: "God is dead." He tells them that signing it means they can skip right over the part of the course where students typically get their worst grades. The rest of the students sign their sheets without hesitation, but Josh, the only holdout of the entire class, can't bring himself to deny his god. He refuses. The professor then puts Josh on the spot. If Josh will not sign the paper, he will then have to debate the existence of god against the professor before the whole class. If he fails to get his fellow students to change their vote, he forfeits 30% of his final grade right off the top.<br />
[<b>Spoiler alert! —</b>Josh <i>does</i> in the end succeed in changing the hearts and minds of his fellow students and they live happily ever after—big surprise, I know.]<br />
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I write what follows by request. A dear friend, a Baptist minister that I used to work with, recently sent me a link to a preview of the film. Saying that he'd seen it, he warned me that it was not very good, but he said that he'd be interested in reading my opinion of it.<br />
<span style="text-indent: 0.15in;">So here goes:</span></div>
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<b>MY REVIEW:</b></h4>
(<span style="font-size: x-small;">It's impossible to separate the forest from the trees, but I'd like it to be the film that I review here—not the viewpoint it promotes—so I'll do my best to just focus on formal flaws that the film suffers from, rather than on any theist/atheist arguments made within.</span>)
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The most glaringly obvious problem in this film is its inability to present even a single character that is not two-dimensional or ill-developed<b>:</b></div>
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<b>• Josh:</b> The most fleshed-out role is Josh Wheaton (there's the Prof. too; I'll get to him shortly), but even this central character is not much more than a thumbnail sketch. He's believable enough as an awkward teenager, but there's not much there in his performance to shape a character.<br />
(He winds up being the guest of honor at a "Christian" rock concert at the end of the movie, though. How cool is that?)</div>
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<b>• blonde girl: </b>Josh's girlfriend (I forgot her name), a control freak determined to not let anything get in the way of her and Josh's future picture-perfect life together. She forbids Josh from taking Prof. Radisson on. Josh disobeys her, so she breaks up with him, saying, "My mother was right about you." She thus disappears from the film, never having congealed into a real person with any discernable depth. (What her mother was right about, we'll never know.<sup style="color: red;">1</sup>) She functions as the example of a "fake" Christian in the film.<br />
(She had tickets to the concert, it was his anniversary gift, but I didn't notice if she was there or not.)</div>
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<b>• Amy:</b> Amy is an up and coming journalist/blogger. She is depicted as radical far left. The entirety of her character development consists of the camera panning across her car's abundant bumper stickers. She's a atheist vegan activist. Yup. She's one of them liberals. It's a disingenuous leftism, however. We later learn that she's in it just for the money. Nevertheless, she is intent on exposing and discrediting all that the good people of the American hinterland (represented by one of the Duck Dynasty guys) consider right and good and proper (hunting, Christianity, apple pie, etc.) on her blog. <span style="text-indent: 0.15in;">Scatterbrained and disorganized, nothing ever goes right for poor Amy. </span><span style="text-indent: 0.15in;">Upon discovering that she has cancer, she goes to interview the band (to trash them, apparently) but her inevitable conversion ensues after being stumped by a single question from the singer.</span></div>
(Definitely at the concert that night, getting saved by the band backstage.)
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<b>• Muslim girl: </b>Aysha wears a hijab to school to appease her fanatical father (who, incidentally, looks just like a stereotypical crazed terrorist), but she discards it as soon as he is safely out of view when he drops her off in the morning. We soon learn that Aysha is actually a Christian in secret. Where and/or how she became infected with this little religious habit we are not made aware of. Did she just pick it up it from sermons and podcasts? <sup style="color: red;">2</sup> Her malevolently psychic (¿ —it is a confused and confusing scene — What the hell was <i>that</i> about?) little brother betrays her, snitching to their father about her infidelities. Her dad then throws her out of the house onto the street. </div>
(She is seen dancing and swaying ecstatically during the rock concert.)
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<b>• cleric #1:</b> We meet Reverend Dave<sup style="color: red;">3</sup>, who finds young Josh in <i>his</i> chapel praying for guidance just as he is about to close shop for the night, which must have been fate (of course—What else?), so, in what seems like an abridged Brady Bunch kind of moment, the good Reverend naively advises Josh (a freshman on his first day of college) to go ahead and debate the mad professor (a PhD in philosophy) on the existence of God. To assist him in in his noble <strike>quest</strike> task, Reverend Dave offers Josh a passage from the Gospel of Matthew (he backs it with an alternate one from Luke). <br />
"Don't try to be clever," he says, "just tell the truth." <br />
Yeah, okay. Thanks Reverend. </div>
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<b>• cleric #2:</b> We meet Reverend Jude, a jolly platitudinarian [<span style="font-size: x-small;">I hereby coin the word</span>], a sojourning African missionary whose function seems to be to prop up Reverend Dave's ego with affirmations meant to dispel his feelings of inadequacy and ineffectuality ("Don't worry, Dave, I know it feels like you ain't doing nothing but weddings and funerals around here, but you just have to trust that the Lord knows what He's doing in giving you this vocation. Don't you worry now." [<i>to paraphrase</i>]). I suspect that Reverend Jude may have been an afterthought meant to bring some folksy comic relief to this otherwise soulless and tepid film. </div>
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<b>• Mina:</b> Mina is the subservient girlfriend of the asshole professor. She is a Christian but she never brings up the topic with Jeffrey for fear of antagonizing him. For his part, Jeffrey treats her like shit in front of all his friends, making fun of her religious tendencies, asserting his intellectual superiority at every turn. Theirs would be a believable passive/aggressive/enabler kind of relationship if we weren't also led to believe that they have simply avoided talking about religion all this time, that their broaching the topic of religion is really an anomaly. His hatred of God [oops—spoiler alert!] is so all-consuming that it is simply impossible for me to believe that premise. He is such a pompous ass, and she is so milquetoast, that I just can't envisage their having fallen in love with each other. They're not believable characters, not in context.</div>
(She is at the concert too.)
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<b>• Mark:</b> We meet Mark, Mina's brother (and Amy's boyfriend). Their mother is suffering from dementia in a home for the elderly. If such a thing were possible, Mark is an even bigger asshole than the professor is. He is only interested in money and in keeping up appearances. <sup style="color: red;">4</sup></div>
(He's too busy accumulating wealth to care about some silly concert.)
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<b>• Martin:</b> We meet Martin, an exchange student from Communist China. Josh's "debate" with Professor Radisson is enough to convert him to Christianity.</div>
(Definitely at the concert. Like all newbie converts, he is extra-enthusiastic [if a little graceless].)
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<b>• Jeffrey Radisson:</b> The straw elephant in the room. I saved the professor for last because he is the fulcrum on which the whole film turns As far as characters go, he's the film's black eye shiner. Worse than a caricature, he's a boogeyman. His character is a gross mischaracterization. It can only be the creation of someone who believes that our higher-educational institutions are actively involved in some insidious effort to silence religious believers on their campuses. This imagined affront to religious expression is the very motivation to make a film like this in the first place; it is its <i>raison d'être</i>. The screenwriter's/director's portrayal is a mischaracterization, nay, a demonization, of both what a freshman philosophy course is and what a philosophy professor's job is. As such, it is insulting to philosophy and to higher education in general. <br />
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Imagine for a moment that it's the first day of a freshman year philosophy class. Given such a bare scenario, what would we expect to see? Sure, one might expect an austere man to walk in and turn over a chalkboard on which he'd prepared a list of famous philosophers. Such a list, on the very first class session, might include a few of the Greeks, maybe a couple of the later influential thinkers—the course in skeletal outline, basically. But would such a list include Ayn Rand, Noam Chomsky, and Richard Dawkins? I dare say not. Why on earth would a philosophy department start with that angle? Ayn Rand? Richard Dawkins? Seriously? This was the first sign that something was terribly amiss in this movie. The producers don't seem to know what philosophy actually is. They seem to be under the impression that the central question of philosophy is about atheism. As someone who enjoys philosophy, it seems bizarre to me that in this film the professor relies exclusively on quotes from biologists (Dawkins) or physicists (Weinberg, Hawking) and <u>not</u> from philosophers (not even once) to counter Josh's all-too-recognizably Craigian <strike>nonsense</strike> spiel.
Why would a philosophy professor quote an evolutionary biologist in this context? It makes no sense. What I fear is happening there is that the commitment and fervor that the producers of this film feel toward their religion is being projected, equal and opposite, to how a liberal arts professor 'might' feel for his corresponding "atheism." The missionary zeal projected onto him is telling. In their view, Professor Radisson is not just an asshole, he's an active agent of the encroaching secularism that the producers of this film imagine themselves to be at war against in America. There are atheists waiting in ambush around every corner, chompin' at the bit, seeking to win souls for the other guy (<span style="font-size: x-small;">wink wink</span>).</div>
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This film owes almost its entire conception to this sort of projection, in fact.<br />
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<li><span style="text-indent: 0.15in;">Radisson demands written professions of faith. </span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: 0.15in;">The arguments that he offers are all arguments from authority. </span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: 0.15in;">He relays this received authority onto himself and uses it to coerce his students into compliance. </span></li>
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<span style="text-indent: 0.15in;">The film presents these as normative in academia (or at least as tolerated on campuses). They are not. Quite the contrary, in the real world, a professor like Radisson would be reprimanded and corrected just for his combative stridency alone, nevermind for the fact that he is engaging in such unethical activity as that of religiously coercing students. These just wouldn't fly in an American University. The irony is, of course, that these sorts of things <b><i>are</i></b> normative in the Christian paradigm, where all roads lead to the authority of the Bible and where mandatory statements of faith as academic or professional prerequisites are standard fare. As such, these projections are all proverbial logs in the eyes of filmmakers too busy looking for motes in the eyes of academia to realize it.<sup style="color: red;">5 </sup>They know not what they do. </span></div>
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This projection of academic intransigence onto institutes of higher learning, coupled with a tendency to believe that religion is being actively repressed by secularist forces within them (what a psychologist might diagnose as a martyr complex in an individual) is where the real interest lies in this subgenre of filmmaking for me. I get the feeling (films like this drive the point home) that there really <i>are</i> people out there who believe that the secular world is out to get them, that it is out to silence them and take their religion away. It sort of reminds me (and disturbs me in much the same way) of the current subculture of Americans who imagine that Obama is coming to take away their guns. There isn't any legislation pending that could conceivably be interpreted that way, but that doesn't seem to matter to them. They've decided that Obama is coming and that they have to stand their ground. This not only makes sense to them, they consider it their patriotic duty. Facts be damned. And now these kinds of imaginary bogeymen are inspiring movies. Oh, great. </div>
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Now, it's not a sin to make a bad movie. People have been doing it for decades. <span style="text-indent: 0.15in;">The banal products of Hollywood far outnumber the sublime. They have from the beginning of the medium's history.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.15in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.15in;">The fact that art is such a subjective thing in the end always allows us a lot of wiggle room in our judgments, however. Criteria are flexible rather than absolute, and this results in the arbitrariness and ambiguity that are inherent in our perceptions of art. As an example, in the eyes of those within the particular subculture that </span><b style="text-indent: 0.15in;">God's Not Dead</b><span style="text-indent: 0.15in;"> targets and panders to, namely North American Evangelicalism, the fact that its conception and execution are so facile and overtly apologetic (a deal breaker for me) does not at all mar the film's artistic integrity. In fact, if anything, it </span><i style="text-indent: 0.15in;">heightens</i><span style="text-indent: 0.15in;"> it in a significant way for this demographic group. Their sense of piety easily overrides their sense of aesthetics and they tend to judge an artwork in relation to a </span><i style="text-indent: 0.15in;">cause célèbre</i><span style="text-indent: 0.15in;"> rather than as simply a work of art. Because they perceive beauty in piety, they mistakenly conflate these two concepts. In this sense "testifying" is beautiful by definition. </span><br />
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I have to stress this conflation before I conclude my review because of the particularly weird movie-going experience I had for this film. Many of the people in the audience were very expressive. They felt free to sporadically utter audible paroxyms of approval throughout the course of the film. That's fine, I guess. I get that it is all part of the act of public "worship," but it was nevertheless kinda weird to me in context. I went to a movie theater, not to a church. It was more tactless and awkward than rude, but it needs to be mentioned. I am not that frequent a movie-goer, but I've seen my share, and this kind of audience-participation is definitely out of the ordinary in my experience. The round of applause that erupted as the end-credits began to roll was as ostentatious and out of place as all the "<i>amening</i>" throughout. It just made no sense. [spoiler alert!] How the film ends: The bad guy dies, but not before the good guys (clerics #1 & #2) elicit a deathbed conversion from him. They go as far as calling the incident a "cause for celebration." It's perverse. Just when I thought this was the pinnacle of bad taste, there I was, scratching my head at this incredibly bad movie, when, as if the horrendous screenplay I am being subjected to weren't bad enough, here comes a syrupy over-produced saccharine musical number (performed by a band called the Newsboys). Finally the movie ends with the punchline of its only comic-relief tangent, involving the pastor and the missionary's "faith that the car would start." This was the best ending the film's director could think of? I mean, I'm a friggin' atheist and even I knew that the car would start! This film is so bad that when the audience applauded at the end, I wondered if the twilight zone had overtaken the theater we were in. Had we just watched the same movie? It boggles the mind that such banality could incite applause. Obviously, these people were applauding for their love for Jesus, not for any merits the film may have had. How could they? The film simply had none (again ... that is, unless of course one counts piety, which the film did have in spades). If what you are looking for in a movie is maudlin edification and/or reinforcement of the faith you already subscribe to, then you will probably think <b>God's Not Dead</b> is pretty good.<br />
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I found it to be nothing more than badly conceived, badly executed, alarmist, paranoid religious propaganda.<br />
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<strike style="color: grey;">Loose Ends</strike> Footnotes</h3>
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<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">A word of advice to aspiring novelists and screenwriters: if a character hammers a nail into a wall during the course of a narrative, there better be a framed painting hanging from that nail by the story's end.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">A podcast sermon about 1 Corinthians on her IPod is the unresolved nail in the wall in this instance.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Is he a school chaplain? — We are told nothing about the community he pastors.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">Here, I'm going to take a moment to say something nice about the film. One of the only scenes I thought was well-written was when Mark finally visits his mom and where she, in a moment of graceful lucidity, responds to a question he asks rhetorically into the room about life being unfair, essentially scolding him for being a selfish prick before fading back into her dementia, no longer recognizing him as her son. I liked that scene a lot. :)</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-size: x-small;">If these are attributes of the professor and his department that are to be rejected and rebuked, what does this say about the Church?</span></li>
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<br /></blockquote>Quixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03126711689901268060noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9212346.post-20097357032509875532014-03-09T22:44:00.000-07:002014-08-17T03:25:58.382-07:00Fessing Up ... <span style="font-size: large;">(<i>An Open Response to Mike Dobbins</i>)
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“By their fruit you will know them.” This saying, attributed to Jesus as part of what is arguably his greatest hit, the Sermon on the Mount, is in my opinion as true a statement as anyone has ever uttered. The context in that particular passage is that of distinguishing between true and false prophets, but even removed from this specific setting, I think that the statement would be just as brilliant and would ring just as true in virtually any human activity. This includes rhetoric. The methods and style that one uses in one’s rhetoric will always reflect one’s underlying motives. If you have an axe to grind, it will quickly become apparent not only in your content but in your phrasing and in your choice of words and emphases, try though you might to maintain an objective and/or academic posture as you proceed. It’s hard to hide rancor.
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Mike Dobbins has written <a href="http://killingthebuddha.com/mag/dogma/what-atheism-really-means/?utm_content=buffer4310b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer" target="_blank">a blog piece called “What Atheism Really Means”</a> that I think illustrates this point very well. Objecting to the simple definition of atheism as a “lack of belief in god(s),” he essentially exhorts atheists to “fess up,” that is, to drop the dishonesty he sees as intrinsic to their position and finally admit that they are deliberately being evasive in their self-identification as atheists. He insists that there is more to atheism than that, that there is a positive claim being made, that it is not just a rejection of a proposition, but that it is a proposition in itself, and further, that we atheists <i><b>know </b></i>this. This sounds serious. Those atheists sure do sound like some pretty insincere people. His is, of course, not the first such formulation of what is essentially a “burden-of-proof” challenge.
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But it’s not just that one cannot prove a negative (though we can‘t escape that fact). It's also that some such negatives don’t even warrant any attempt to do so. For example, if a claim is made, say, that the moon is made of bleu cheese, for instance, and yet no rational evidence is presented in defense of this idea, then I am justified in simply ignoring this claim, just because it is unsupported. It’s that simple. I need no other reason. It has nothing to do with “proving” it false; who would want to try to disprove what is no more than a speculative proposition, anyway? This goes for ANY claim made in the absence of evidence. If evidence is not advanced, then the claim does not reach the threshold necessary for it to be considered a truth in any meaningful sense. This is akin to Christopher Hitchens’ famous aphorism: “That which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” It really is that simple. I can certainly entertain all kinds of ideas as useful speculations in my brainstorms if I find them sufficiently intriguing or esthetically pleasing. Indeed, it is often such abstract speculation that lubricates the mind into insight and into action, and makes possible eureka moments through which history and science continue to progress. I have nothing against speculation. I’m all for it. But it takes evidence to elevate a speculation to the category of a truth. There is no shortcut.
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Dobbins knows that one can’t prove a negative claim. He also knows that any positive claim that is made bears this burden of proof it must meet if it is to be considered true in any significant way. Therefore, if he could demonstrate that atheism is a “belief” in itself then it would render the simple definition of atheism as a “lack” of belief invalid, and this would place atheism on the same level that theism occupies: both positive claims, both “unproven.” In other words, if you object to theism’s indefensibility, then you <i><b>must </b></i>also object to atheism on the same basis. See how that works? Clever, eh?
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But notice that, even if this were correct (it‘s not), Dobbins’ charge entails a tacit admission that he cannot meet his theism’s burden of proof. So instead of trying to meet it, he points his finger at atheists and says, “<i>Sure, okay, I can’t prove my claim, but you can’t prove yours either, so there!</i>” Thus, it is not just a projection of his own erroneous logic onto his opponents, it is a textbook example of a “<i>tu qoque</i>” (“you too”) fallacy. “By their fruit you will know them.”
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But it’s worse than that. He could have really tried to engage this idea seriously, but, instead, in attempting to demonstrate that atheism is a positive claim rationally, he puts forward an argument that is not just erroneous, it is downright facile and embarrassingly <i>naive</i>. Namely, in making his case, he actually appeals to dictionary definitions of the word “atheism.” A word of advice to all students: in almost every subject, no matter what some teacher may have told you years ago, do not ever waste your time or words repeating a dictionary definition in an academic or a debate setting. Dictionaries are descriptive references, not authorities, and almost certainly they are useless for the argument you wish to make. How the Oxford Dictionary defines “discrimination,” for instance, has nothing to do with demonstrating an understanding of the issues and the materials involved in a discourse on civil liberties. There are obvious exceptions (in philology, etymology, etc.), but I have yet to see a paper where a dictionary definition didn’t motivate tooth-grinding or face palming. This tactic is a distraction from what the writer needs to do in a paper, it’s poor debating technique, and it is trite.
(Dobbins, his bio says, managed to earn a master’s degree in special education, so he should know better than to try to pull such a sophomoric stunt.)
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Moreover, while this bald appeal to authority is bad enough in itself, in making it he implies that atheists all derive their self-identification from a sub-par dictionary (he even specifies which one, the online Urban Dictionary), while he, on the other hand, prefers the definition culled from a more-prestigious one (he cites Webster’s as supporting his case).
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— <i>Right … right</i> … because people always automatically consult dictionaries when they are working out their metaphysical outlooks, contemplating their mortal souls and meditating on the purpose of their life and on the ground of their being.
Worse … when atheists consult a dictionary for this purpose, being the terrible and stupid contrarian people that they are, not only do they reach for a dictionary, they <span style="text-indent: 0.3in;">intentionally</span><span style="text-indent: 0.3in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.3in;"> reach for a misleading and inferior one. </span><span style="text-indent: 0.3in;">— It's ludicrous.</span></div>
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This doubly idiotic straw man is Dobbins’ lead-off argument in his blog piece, mind you, his first line of attack (!). He has the audacity to <i><b>open </b></i>with this stupid insinuation. It’s somewhat dumbfounding to find that someone would take this approach and yet still wish to be taken seriously as a thinker. “By their fruit you will know them.” Perhaps he’ll have better luck with another reader. It’s too bad too, because he is pretty good with a turn of a phrase. He could be a decent writer if he weren’t so angry at atheists, angry enough to forego valid (or even relevant) arguments. (“<i>My team, right or wrong</i>! <i>Right</i>?”) That he cannot control himself in this way is embarrassing and it taints and ruins whatever modicum of validity his position may have.
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8hgH64asIfNVOtXVh8jsY15vtd0ugqv5EFh7P7mPDtS_wYLB45EvvsbpV5_ntHk6u5i_jmKTTQ4lN67LpSmM5Y4brWYYBOQs9y5GPoqp2b_XDLRqixoRzVCETjlERJKlhGikZPg/s1600/angry-atheist-iii.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8hgH64asIfNVOtXVh8jsY15vtd0ugqv5EFh7P7mPDtS_wYLB45EvvsbpV5_ntHk6u5i_jmKTTQ4lN67LpSmM5Y4brWYYBOQs9y5GPoqp2b_XDLRqixoRzVCETjlERJKlhGikZPg/s1600/angry-atheist-iii.jpg" /></a>At any rate, his opening salvo may be an ineffectual dud, but it is worth noting that he delivers it (and the rest of his rant) with such defiant and self-assured stridency that it’s as if he imagines that standing his ground with his dukes up is enough, that <i>that </i>can somehow substitute for a valid argument. In this sense he reminds me of scrappy apologists like Dinesh D’Souza. I get the feeling Dobbins (and D‘Souza), presumably offended and inspired to counter-attack by the recent publication and success of a number of books on the irrelevance of traditional theistic religion and perhaps by the resultant growing number of atheists in the world, feel it is okay to fight fire with fire. If the “new atheists” are mean and scrappy (he reasons), why shouldn’t <i>he </i>also be mean and insulting in return? All that turning the other cheek and meekness business is for pussies who are afraid to defend their faith. No, a real apologist comes ready to fight. (O, the irony.)<br />
<span style="text-indent: 0.3in;">Since I think that even Dobbins would admit the dearth of evidence in this case, all of his bravado and bluster is no more than his own exercise wheel squeaking along while he runs in place. Maybe he likes the sound of it; maybe it makes him think he’s doing something noble. Me? - I think it’s kinda funny.</span></div>
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We’ve seen that he’s obviously ready, willing and able to use pathetic non-arguments as part of his strident anti-stridency ranting, and so he is not a threat to anyone with half a brain, really. In fact, I fear that I’ve probably <span style="text-indent: 0.3in;">already</span><span style="text-indent: 0.3in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.3in;">spent more time on his blog piece than it deserves (chalk it up to my generosity, I guess, or, more likely, to my having the evening off tonight). On the other hand, being more or less one of those pesky atheists that he finds so maddeningly evasive, I’d like to personally respond to the challenge he raises there directly by pointing out some of the places where it fails. I’d like to humor him in the hope of clarifying his misguided ideas even a little.</span></div>
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The main failure of Dobbins’ outlook, from which all others flow, lies in his conflation of two different words: “god” and “God.” To him, these are one and the same thing; they’re interchangeable, and so not being capable of making a distinction between them leads him to treat them both the same, so that what is true for one is also true for the other. When an atheist says that he doesn’t believe in god, Dobbins presumes he means that he doesn’t believe in God, and vise versa. It’s therefore no wonder then that he finds atheists to be so frustratingly obtuse. He doesn’t realize that it’s his own deficient understanding (to be fair, it is the paradigm he subscribes to that‘s at fault, the error is not ultimately his personally, but his culture’s) that is the cause of his frustration.
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Let’s first take the case of “God.” The use of the word “God” as a proper noun is problematic even before you try to equivocate it with the lower-case “god.” Dobbins never quite specifies whether he is a Christian or a Muslim or a Jew, so I don‘t know whether he is speaking of Yahveh, or Allah, or Yahveh 2.0 (Abba), or, for that matter of Odúdua, or Ozomatli, or Shiva, or any number of other gods available to us from history‘s rich pageant. I suspect this is intentional on his part, since his bio doesn’t specify his religion either, which is something that an apologist would ordinarily include. He probably wishes to be seen as a champion of all of them simultaneously (at least that is the impression I get). Fair enough. But I think that Seneca was essentially correct when he noted: “If you are everywhere, you are nowhere.” And so I am compelled to ask which God he is asking me whether I believe in or not. One can surely assume that Jews, Christians, and Muslims acknowledge the same God. This has been a proposition (indeed, a presupposition) held by many for a long time now. But it can be shown that in fact what they have in common is their conviction that there is only one God, the creator of the universe and of us, <i>not </i>that their God is one and the same as the others. The god of each respective corner of this would-be Abrahamic triangle is far from identical to the other two. A cursory reading of these three religions’ respective holy texts would show this. But even if for the sake of Jerusalem we were to grant these “Gods” identity, could we also grant it to Kali? To Neptune? One would be hard pressed to show Shangó and Yahveh to be the same personage. If someone is a devotee of Yemayá, queen of the sea and bringer of fertility, are they worshipping “God”?
If not, are they “atheists”?
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The first point to be gleaned from this is the absurdity of this conflation of sundry deities and divinities into a single term: “theism.” The second is that the recognition of this non-unity of “God” allows me (and anyone else) to compare and contrast these different formulations of “Gods” (with names) and to make certain probabilistic determinations about each accordingly. In this sense, when I (or Mr. Dobbins) “don’t believe in" the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I am employing my rational and critical faculties on some specific claims about a proposed divinity. It’s not that I am claiming knowledge regarding Zeus' ontological status; it’s that since the only data I have concerning this deity comes from a body of literature which I recognize as mythological (and, mythology being one of the most beautiful of human activities, I do not use the word as a pejorative in the least), and since no empirical corroboration of those stories are forthcoming, I am justified in proceeding in my day to day life as though the proposed deity is no more than a mythic construct until some evidence should appear. I am not making a categorical statement about the nature of reality by dismissing it. That would be silly of me since I have no evidence (and therefore no warrant) to make such airy proclamations. No, when I say that I don’t believe in Zeus, or Yahveh, or Thor, or Exu, my reasoning process is the same as it is when I say that I don‘t believe that the moon is made of bleu cheese. To Dobbins, it feels as though I am making some important ‘positive’ proclamation about the universe when I merely negate an unsubstantiated claim. The difference between the bleu cheese moon and God is the importance he places on the latter. I doubt the cheesiness of the moon would upset him. All knowledge being provisional, his attitude is misguided and unnecessary. In the case of atheism, the rancor he feels is directly proportional to the cavalierness with which a given atheist may express his opinion regarding that which he (Dobbins) feels so very strongly about--i.e. the existence of some God. That rancor, of course, is in his head and is not my problem, except inasmuch as he openly challenges or questions my motives or my honor (in a defiant blog post calling all atheists liars, for instance), which I am ready and willing to engage.
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The lower-case gods all exist, of course, in the Jamesian sense that they are part of mythological complexes of scriptures, symbols, metaphors, and archetypes and can be distinguished and described within the sociological and historical contexts of the cultures in which they germinated and developed. In this sense, Zeus exists and the Great Spirit exists, and Ishtar exists and Yahveh exists. It is the only sense I find at all interesting. Like most human creations, gods have evolved over the ages, but this, of course, is not the kind of sense that Mr. Dobbins was hoping for.
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In closing I should add that Dobbins has written a pamphlet (136 pages) called “The Case Against Atheism” which is available from Amazon for 99c for the kindle version. He also has a forthcoming one called “Atheism as a Religion,” which I predict will be pretty horrible. If these are anything at all like his blog post, I can make two general statements:
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<li>He fancies himself a “new” apologist, a counterweight to the new atheists‘ forcefulness, and to this end he employs more bluster than substance. </li>
<li>If he’s at all indicative of the “new” apologetics, I think they are already sunk.</li>
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Quixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03126711689901268060noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9212346.post-74272446497461300922013-08-12T22:39:00.000-07:002014-08-16T22:42:40.960-07:00A Review of “Spirit of Talk Talk” (Various Artists)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Unlike most other musical groups of the period, I can actually recall my first experience of Talk Talk. It was the video for their song, “<i>Life’s What You Make It</i>” from their 1986 album, <b><i>The Colour of Spring</i></b>. In it, footage of the band playing the song in the middle of the woods at night is interspersed with fleeting images of various forest animals all scurrying or slithering about —spiders, centipedes, foxes, frogs—a celebration of life in the shadows. The metaphor made an impression on me for some reason. The deceptively simple three-note bassline, obstinately repeating under a shifting harmonic context. I dug it.
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Unbeknownst to me, they had already released a series of records before that one. In fact, <b><i>The Colour of Spring</i></b> was a turning point in their artistic trajectory, the sign of things to come. The artistic growth spurt would last for half a decade. Both of the band’s subsequent albums: <b><i>The Spirit of Eden</i></b> (1988) and <b><i>Laughing Stock</i></b> (1991), would turn out to be among the most beautiful albums of the rock era (in my opinion). This was my point of entry, though. I would eventually go on to retroactively seek out their pre-<i>Colour</i> work, but it didn’t quite measure up to these two albums, which for me still hold up as some of the most sublime music ever recorded. Their earlier albums seemed to me to adhere much too closely to new wave pop formulae. I think that their label had been trying to ride in the wake of the then-supremely-popular Duran Duran (who they opened for in a 1982 tour). Their music was thus fairly derivative. </div>
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That gravy train wasn’t meant to last, however. <i>Spring</i><span style="text-indent: 0.33in;"> was a </span><span style="text-indent: 0.33in;">commercial success</span><span style="text-indent: 0.33in;">, but then came came </span><i style="text-indent: 0.33in;">Spirit of Eden</i><span style="text-indent: 0.33in;">. This album was a complete departure, bearing very little resemblance to anything they had previously done. In fact, it bore very little resemblance even to pop music itself. It was such a radical anomaly that the label had no idea what to do with it. Owing as much to modern jazz and </span><i style="text-indent: 0.33in;">avant garde</i><span style="text-indent: 0.33in;"> chamber music as to rock music, it was an album which defied categorization (it still does). Naturally, their label was less than happy, even after (or, rather, <i>because</i>) <i>Spirit</i> was followed by </span><i style="text-indent: 0.33in;">Laughing Stock</i><span style="text-indent: 0.33in;">, which was even bolder in its iconoclastic conception. It was even starker than its predecessor. The record label by this point protested the group’s artistic liberation every step of the way. Lawsuits and much public rancor ensued, hastening the group’s demise. They officially disbanded in 1992.<br /><br />. . . . . . . . . . . .</span><br />
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Now here we are more than twenty years later and a tribute album has now been released. It went completely unnoticed by me until very recently. It features many artists that the band has inspired over the years.
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I doubt that I am the only person that cringes a bit when he hears about a new tribute album. I generally try to avoid tribute albums. The artist being celebrated almost doesn’t matter. Almost. But, of course, just because it is a Talk Talk tribute album, though, <i>I had to</i> listen to this one at least once, but I have to confess that my expectations were very low. Granted, a tribute album is an enormous expression of love and respect by definition, I realize that, but a tribute album always risks becoming a mere maudlin emulation of something, a facsimile of an object of adoration. They usually seem forced and cold to me. Some ambitious executive producer farms out individual songs to contemporary groups, and inspiration winds up taking a back seat to production. There have been exceptions to this tendency, of course. The series of tribute albums by Hal Willner to Nino Rota (<b><i>Amarcord</i></b> - '81), to Thelonious Monk (<b><i>That's the Way I Feel Now</i></b> - '84), to Kurt Weill (<b><i>Lost in the Stars</i></b> - '85), to Disney film music (<b><i>Stay Awake</i></b> - '88), and to Charles Mingus (<b><i>Weird Nightmare</i></b> - '92) stand out for me as tribute albums that were exceptional musical productions, they are examples of the genre at its best, and I think that they succeeded as standalone works largely because they celebrated the pioneering/experimental spirit of their respective subjects more than their individual styles. In Hal Willner’s records, the notes on the staff paper are almost (but not quite …) an afterthought. In the passionate fumblings and stumblings, in the audacity of experimentation, in the plottings of all the possible vectors of exploration in real-time, once-or-twice-removed from their original form and function … in <i>that</i> moment lies the deeper beauty and mystery of music for a musician. That’s where the essence is, in the spirit of the <i>process</i> of making music out of thin air. It is a wise producer who pays more attention to the <span style="text-indent: 0.33in;">sympathetic </span><span style="text-indent: 0.33in;">“magic” aspects of a performance than to the technical recreation of any planned idea.</span></div>
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As listeners and lovers of songs, we are privy to the eventual results of the methods that musicians use, but not to all of the calculus involved, those hermetic negotiations that songs are subjected to on the way to becoming finished songs, way before tape starts rolling. As listeners we experience songs already framed into forms. We may vicariously feel some of that overflowing spirit that willed a song to exist in the first place, of course, but a song is more than the sum of the notes comprising it.
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In the case of arranging Talk Talk music for a tribute, one may as well try to arrange for wind chimes. That is to say, you gotta let the music just be, in a Cageian sense. Talk Talk's music is an uncaged, serendipitous beauty. It is the simple beauty of animals in a forest, a beauty ultimately beyond method—beyond will. Could a tribute album do this band justice? I kind of expected a Talk Talk tribute to consist of over-produced, No-Doubt-y “<i>It’s My Life</i>”s.
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Thankfully, this is not the case. This may be no Hal Willner tribute album <span style="text-indent: 0.33in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.33in;">(which are generally more cohesive and unified works)</span><span style="text-indent: 0.33in;">, but, in fact, I was quite pleasantly surprised at how much I actually wound up liking this record. The collection is titled “</span><b style="text-indent: 0.33in;"><i>The Spirit of Talk Talk</i></b><span style="text-indent: 0.33in;">,” which is an allusion to Talk Talk’s </span><i style="text-indent: 0.33in;">Spirit of Eden</i><span style="text-indent: 0.33in;"> album title, obviously, but it is aptly named on yet another level. As in the Hal Willner productions I mentioned above, it is the </span><i style="text-indent: 0.33in;"><b>spirit </b></i><span style="text-indent: 0.33in;">of the music that is being celebrated here, rather than a rock band. It’s the spirit within the songcraft that comes through on almost every performance. That's the essential point. “Spirit” thus makes a perfect working title, a pretty good metaphor to use for this anthology.</span></div>
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This spiritual aspect is evident from the first acapella phrase of “<i>Wealth</i>,” which opens the first disc (performed by Lone Wolf). It is an invitation, a direct appeal to Spirit to come and …
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<b><i>“Create upon my flesh …”
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Nice. <br />
This version of the song evokes the talcum-suspended-in-midair approach to arrangement that late Talk Talk originally did so beautifully, without trying to emulate it overtly. It takes a certain amount of restraint to cull such beauty from such simplicity: an organ note here; a guitar counterpoint there. This minimalist approach is taken by most of the artists featured, resulting at times in very evocative and beautiful music in its own right.
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Zero 7 adds a hint of a pulse and some subtle electronic treatments to Mark Hollis’ “<i>The Colour of Spring</i>” (the song from his solo album), both of which add an exotic flavor to the originally sparse solo-piano accompaniment.
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“<i>Dum Dum Girl</i>,” one of my favorite early-period Talk Talk songs, is still recognizable as a pop tune almost thirty years after the original, but listening to Recoil’s version made me realize one of the reasons that Talk Talk’s work probably had to metamorphose in the way that it did from new wave synth-heavy music to all-acoustic tone poems. The electronic technology available to musicians in the early eighties was very crude. MIDI was still relatively new and unexplored ground. Nuance and any sense of timbral control was therefore hard to achieve in real-time on those old electronic instruments. Consequently, there was a certain monotone homogeneity to the overall sound and style of most new wave artists. They were handicapped, so to speak,<span style="text-indent: 0.33in;"> by the tools that were available at the time.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.33in;"> I’m almost certain that this limitation is one of the primary reasons for the transformation the band experienced. Hollis’ songs began to become more introspective. They required intimacy, and instead of trying to make synthesizers sound more human, it was a lot easier (and infinitely more musical) to simply use traditional orchestral textures in new contexts. Had early-80s synths been capable of this requisite nuance, Talk Talk might have stayed rooted in them. It’s just a speculation, but the 2012 synth sounds on Recoil’s version of “</span><i style="text-indent: 0.33in;">Dum Dum Girl</i><span style="text-indent: 0.33in;">” on this album make me wonder how much warmer those early tunes might have sounded if Talk Talk (and many other new wave bands) had had modern touch-sensitive instruments and personal computers at hand.</span></div>
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After Duncan Sheik’s laid back version of “<i>Life’s What You Make It</i>,” an understated interpretation of the song which uses a hammer dulcimer in place of the original guitar riff to good effect, we come to one of the album’s most elaborate and original arrangements, Fyfe Dangerfield‘s version of “<i>The Rainbow</i>.” Sharing almost nothing but the melodic outline and general form with the original rendition, his performance is rich in orchestral and choral textures. Dangerfield retains the song’s urgency and feeling of desolation despite it being completely different clay in his hands. I swear there's a ghost in that track somewhere. It is quite a lovely and unique expression. Curiously, this same song appears unexpectedly just a few songs later (on the same disc, even, which is surely intentional), this time a very loose and stark plodding performance by Zelienople. The repetition makes for an interesting synoptic contrast. Personally, I find the former to be more musically satisfying, but that's just me. </div>
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I won’t go on describing each tune in this album. Get it. There are two CD's worth of gorgeous interpretations here. It would take thousands of words. I might as well try to describe a sunset (as one reviewer of Talk Talk's Laughing Stock once poetically put it). Suffice it to say that it was an unexpected joy to come across this tribute all these years after Talk Talk had an enormous effect on me. Apparently, they had a similar effect on many other musicians. This is a great tribute to one of the most underrated yet most creative bands of the late twentieth century. <b><i>Spirit of Talk Talk</i></b> is infused with spirit from beginning to end.
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Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px; line-height: 17.91193199157715px;">☆ (4 of 5 stars)</span></div>
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</div>Quixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03126711689901268060noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9212346.post-51019024999324430142013-05-27T14:31:00.000-07:002014-08-16T22:41:51.157-07:00GºMark as Midrash and Mimesis During the course of a recent discussion regarding my review of Ehrman's book on mythicism, I made the following comment, <b>"<i>Every single episode of the narrative of Jesus' life in the gospels has a counterpart (i.e. is a re-run) in the O.T.</i>"</b><br />
<br />
A recent commenter who seems to be pretty convinced of Jesus' historicity responded with the proverbial raised eyebrow, <b>"<i>Really? I know that a lot of the stories are indeed copied from (or built upon) the OT but every single episode?</i>"</b>
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<br />
Like most people, I'm prone to exaggerate now and then in the heat of discourse. But in this case, although it <b><i>is</i></b> a slight exaggeration, it's really not far from the actual truth of the matter, and I think that this is fairly easy to demonstrable. But lest this become too gargantuan a task to tackle in a blog, however, I'm going to limit the discussion to only the Gospel of Mark, the shortest gospel, for the sake of coherency and brevity (and my sanity). The contents of the Markan narrative are to a great extent determined, both materially and verbally, by a desire to show fulfillment. As with Mark, so with the others, though. If it can be shown that Mark, the primary model for all the subsequent gospels is but a midrash on the Jewish Bible, then it follows that this aspect is inherited by the rest. After all, 85% of GMark is embedded in GMatthew practically word for word. (Even GJohn follows its basic narrative/chronological structure.) <br />
<br />
So … after almost a week of bible-geeking, I present the following outline. It is basically a pericope-by-pericope analysis of the Gospel of Mark, outlining and highlighting the tendentious nature of the author's sculpting the story of Jesus out of Old Testament clay—with a good sprinkling of Cynic ideology for spice. It will be by no means a complete or exhaustive analysis— just a mere outline, in fact— but I think that even my cursory reading will suffice for the intended purpose.<br />
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So here we go …<br />
Let us open our Bibles to the Gospel of Mark <span style="font-size: x-large;">…</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><u>The Gospel of Mark</u>: </span><span style="font-size: large;">(</span><b>its use of the Old Testament and other mythic sources</b><span style="font-size: large;">)</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">For the sake of space and organization, I formatted the scrollable window with an accompanying color code legend right next to it, so that it will be easy to reference my notation at any time.</span> </div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Mark 1</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 1:1–8 •</b> <b>John the Baptist announces the coming of Jesus</b><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :2 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Isa 40:9, Exo 23:20, Mal 3:1 (<span style="font-size: x-small;">reference to Elijah - see parallel in </span>Mal 4:5)<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :3 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Isa 40:3<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :5 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">The Jordan continues the typology of the Elijah-Elisha cycle from </span>2 Kings 2 <span style="font-size: x-small;">and</span> 2 Kings 5<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :6 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">John</span> <span style="font-size: large;">ß</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> as an Elijah figure … </span>Zech 13:4, 2Kings 1:8,<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Reflects </span>Exodus<span style="font-size: x-small;"> typology … </span>Hosea 2:14?, 12:9?, <span style="font-size: x-small;">and </span>Isaiah 40–51?<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :8 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Isa 61:1<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">II</span> <b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 1:9–11 </b>• <b>John Baptizes Jesus</b><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :10 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Isa 64:1?<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :11 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Psalm 2:7, Isa 42:1, Gen 22:12, 2 Sam 7:14, Eze 1:1<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :11 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">The voice from the skies was a traditional Jewish way to describe public communication from God.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">III</span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 1:12–13</b> • <b>Satan tempts Jesus in the wilderness</b><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :12–13 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">A period of forty days was traditional in </span>O.T. <span style="font-size: x-small;">biblical stories to mark significant transitions </span>(<span style="font-size: x-small;">e.g. Noah’s rain in </span>Genesis 7, <span style="font-size: x-small;">Elijah’s flight in </span>1 Kings 19,<span style="font-size: x-small;"> and cf. the forty years of Israel’s wondering in the </span>Exodus).<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :13 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Elijah type continues …</span> 1Kings 19:5–8, … Isa 11:6–9?, Exo 23:20?<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">IV</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 1:14–15 </b> • <b>Gospel of the kingdom …</b> <span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: yellow;">•</span><span style="color: orange;">•</span><span style="color: red;">•</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">A vivid summary of the main themes in the story of Jesus he is telling. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :14 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Mark usually begins a new episode with a brief mention of place or time </span>(<span style="font-size: x-small;">other examples from this chapter</span>: 1:16, 1:21, 1:29, 1:32, 1:35). <span style="font-size: x-small;">With brief comments such as these, the narrator skillfully moves from one scene to another, which suggests that the author used the technique as a way to combine stories that earlier had been told separately.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">V</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 1:16–20</b> • <b>Jesus calls Peter, Andrew, James, and John </b> <span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">µ</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :16 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Jer 16:16<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :16–20 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - 1Kings 19:19–21<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :<span style="color: lime;"><b>17</b></span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">"fishing" was a common symbolic theme in the well-known mysteries of Orpheus.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b><span style="color: magenta;">:16–20</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">there is also the problem of verisimilitude here: They simply dropped what they were doing —working—(oh …and dropped their families too!) because Jesus—a total stranger!— said “follow me“? This is a hero myth, not a biography. Of these, only three disciples out of “the twelve” have any significant role in the story at all. Well … make that four … Judas.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">VI</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 1:21–28 </b> • <b>Jesus exorcises demons <span style="font-size: x-small;">in a</span> synagogue<span style="font-size: x-small;"> in </span>Galilee</b> <span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">µ</span><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :22 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Jer 8:8–9<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :24 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - 1 Kings17:18 (Elijah’s first appearance in Writ)<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b><span style="color: magenta;">:21–28</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">The fact that there is a dearth of evidence of Pharisaim and/or synagogues in Galilee region until after 70 C.E. brings up problems with historical verisimilitude </span><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">All three exorcisms in </span>Mark (cf. 5:1–20, and 9:25–27) <span style="font-size: x-small;">have the same formal pattern … suggesting a compositional doubling rather than historical basis. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">VII</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 1:29–34 </b>• <b>Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law</b> <span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">µ</span><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: lime;">:29–34</span></b> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Hellenic </span>Asclepius <span style="font-size: x-small;">features</span><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Likewise (see previous pericope), all healings in Mark have the same tri-partite formal pattern … suggesting a compositional rather than historical basis. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">VIII</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>•<b> 1:35–39</b> • <b>Tour of Galilee</b> <span style="color: yellow; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: orange; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">•</span><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">transitional narrative</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">IX</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 1:40–45</b> • <b>Jesus heals a leper</b> <span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">µ</span><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :40 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - 2Kings 5<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">enter the theme of the “Messianic Secret” </span>(Dan 12:4?, 12:10?)<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b><span style="color: magenta;">:40–45</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">the writer of Mark uses the messianic secret to explain why nobody knew who Jesus was. Such a position amounts to a confession that no one had ever heard of Jesus in the writer's own time. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Mark 2</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">X</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 2:1–12</b> • <b>Jesus heals a paralytic lowered through the roof </b> <span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">µ</span><span style="color: #a64d79; font-size: large;">X</span><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :1–12 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - 2Kings 1:2–17<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: lime;">:5–10</span></b> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">cynic </span>Chreia?<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">the idea of illness as punishment for sin traces back to </span>Job<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">this passage introduces the title “Son of Man" (Son of Adam, more precisely), a title which Paul never uses, and so is likely a Markan borrowing of </span>Daniel 7 <span style="font-size: x-small;">and/or </span>1 Enoch <span style="font-size: x-small;">for the sake of messianic thematic development</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">XI</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 2:13–17 </b> • <b>Jesus calls Levi the tax collector</b> <span style="color: #a64d79; font-size: large;">X</span><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :13–17 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">doublet of the calling of Peter, Andrew, James, and John … </span>1Kings 19:19–21<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Jesus in this passage is prone to interactions with sundry impure people, sinners and undesirables, calling into question his religious observance, which is a skillful segue into the next pericope …</span><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: lime;">:17</span></b> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Jesus uses a well-known proverb to compare his action to the work of a doctor. This is an example in Mark of how Jesus closes off debate with a striking word or pithy statement. His opponents are given no further chance to respond (this makes historicity questionable). Indeed the whole scene seems to have the function of setting up the punch line. The next two episodes</span>—2:18–22, <span style="font-size: x-small;">and</span> 2:23–28—<span style="font-size: x-small;">are further instances of this formal type, which scholars have variously labeled “chreia” or “pronouncement story” or “apophthegm.” </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">XII</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 2:18–22 •</b> <b>Fasting/bridegroom saying</b> <span style="color: #a64d79; font-size: large;">X</span><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :19–20 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Isa 61:10?, Isa 62:5?,<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span style="color: lime;"><b>:22</b></span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">two parallels from the </span>Mishnah (Aboth 4:20)*<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Job 32:18–19<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">XIII</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 2:23–28 •</b> <b>Conflict about plucking grain <span style="font-size: x-small;">on the </span>Sabbath</b> <span style="color: #a64d79; font-size: large;">X</span><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">the theme of carelessness regarding Sabbath observances is introduced …</span><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :23–26 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - 1 Sam 21:3 (<span style="font-size: x-small;">from this cited passage comes also the “five loaves” used in a later pericope … the hypertextual relations throughout the Gospel of Mark is strong evidence of an advanced literary mind at work</span>)<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="color: magenta; font-size: x-small;"><b>Jesus gets the name of the High Priest wrong</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Mark 3</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">XIV</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 3:1–6 •</b> <b>Jesus heals a man with a withered hand</b> <span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">µ</span><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :2 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - 1Enoch?<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :1–5 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - 1Kings 13:4–6<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">XV</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 3:7–12 </b>• <b>Crowds follow Jesus</b> <span style="color: yellow; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: orange; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">•</span><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: magenta;"> :7–12</span></b> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">transitional passage - - huge multitudes? - - if he attracted this many people, why did no one mention ever meeting him? Problem with verisimilitude</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">XVI</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 3:13–19 •</b> <b>Jesus appoints the twelve</b><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :13–19 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Exodus 18:2–26<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Joshua 4:1–8<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">XVII<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><b>• 3:20–30 </b>• <b>Beelzebub/house divided/strong man bound </b><span style="color: #a64d79; font-size: large;">X</span><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :21 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Zech 13:3<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :22 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - 2 Kings 1 (<span style="font-size: x-small;">a passage Mark has already paralleled twice, in the opening account of John the Baptist, who resembled Elijah, and in the story of the paralytic in </span>Mark 2)<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">XVIII</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 3:31–35 • Who is my family?</b> <span style="color: #a64d79; font-size: large;">X</span><br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :31–32 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Psalm 39:9 (<span style="font-size: x-small;">LXX</span>)<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: lime;">:35</span></b> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">This is also a </span>Cynic <span style="font-size: x-small;">citation</span>. <span style="font-size: x-small;">For example, when Alexander, the king of Macedonians, was asked by someone where he kept his treasure, he said: "In these!" pointing to his friends. </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Theon of Alexandria, Progymnasmata: Chreia 158-161<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Mark 4</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XIX</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 4:1–2 • Teaching in parables</b></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> </span> :2<span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span>- -<span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span>Ezekiel 17:2, 20:49; 24:3</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XX</span><b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 4:3–9 • Parable of the sower (the first parable) </b></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> </span>:3–8<span style="font-size: x-small;"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - </span>Isa 40:24<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (same metaphor, different context), </span>61:11?</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><b><span style="color: lime;">:3–9</span></b><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - </span>Seneca<span style="font-size: x-small;"> - "Words should be scattered like seed; no matter how small the seed may be, if it once has </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">found favorable ground, it unfolds its strength, and from an insignificant thing spreads to its </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">greatest </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">growth."(</span>Epistles, 38:2<span style="font-size: x-small;">, cited in Mack 1988,p159) (cf. the mustard seed parable </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">- </span>Mark 4:31<span style="font-size: x-small;">)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> </span>:9<span style="font-size: x-small;"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - </span>Isa 32:3, Psalm 135:17?, Proverbs 20:12?, Isa 30:21?</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XXI</span><b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 4:10–12 • Purpose of parables</b></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> </span>:11–12<span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">- - </span>Isa 6:9<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (LXX) a favorite early Christian quote to explain why Jews didn’t convert … in other words, only the insiders got the teachings regarding the kingdom of God … but then, which insider left any kind of record? </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XXII</span><b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 4:13–20 • Parable of the sower explained … </b><span style="color: yellow; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: orange; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">•</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <b><span style="color: magenta;">… to “insiders” who still don’t get it </span></b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - transitional passage to keep the reader up to speed </div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XXIII</span><b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 4:21–25 • Lamp sayings</b></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> </span> :21<span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">- - </span>2Kings 8:19?, 2Chron 21:7?</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> </span> :23 <span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">- - </span>Isa 32:3</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XXIV </span><b>• 4:26–29 • The kingdom is like seed scattered </b> <span style="color: #a64d79; font-size: large;">X</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> </span>:26–29<span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">- - </span>Hosea 2:21–23</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - </span>Psalm 125:5–6?</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> </span>:29<span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">- - </span> Joel 3:13</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - the passage highlights the common contrast between unpromising beginnings and great endings. It is a literary construct.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XXV</span><b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 4:30–32 • Parable of the mustard seed</b></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> </span>:30 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Isa 40:18</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: lime;">:31</span></b> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Seneca <span style="font-size: x-small;">again … **see above - </span>Mark 4:3–8</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> </span>:31–32<span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">- - </span>Ezekiel 17:23, Daniel 4:12, 20–22</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :32 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Ezekiel 17:23 … Ezek 17<span style="font-size: x-small;"> in general talks about a tree that represents the kingdom - v. 24</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span>- -<span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span>Daniel 4:19–21</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XXVI</span><b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 4:33–34 • Use of parables </b><span style="color: yellow; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: orange; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">•</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - echo of Mark 10:12 to transition from the parable cluster to the nature-miracle.</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XXVII</span><b> • 4:35–41 • Jesus stills a storm </b><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">µ</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> </span>:37 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Jonah 1:4?</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :38 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Jonah 1:5 …<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (like Jonah, Jesus is sleeping) … the frightened disciples awaken him with words reserved for God in </span>Psalm 44:23</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Mark, who is careless with the geography of Judea, erroneously refers to the Galilee as a “the sea” (Luke correctly calls it a lake) … this makes historicity questionable </div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> </span>:39<span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">- - supernatural stilling of wind, as if wind were the product of a demon</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span>- -<span style="font-size: x-small;"> This miracle is based on Jonah, which is in turn based on </span>Psalm 107:25–30</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <b><span style="color: lime;">:35–41</span></b></span> </span>- -<span style="font-size: x-small;"> Dennis McDonald argues in “The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark” that this passage is </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">originally based on Odysseus' experience with the bag of winds, with which it has several parallels.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Mark 5</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XXVIII </span><b>• 5:1–20 • The Gerasene demoniac</b> <span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">µ</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="color: magenta; font-size: x-small;"><b>problem with Mark’s sense of the geography of Judea</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :2–5 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
- - Isa 65:1–7</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> <b><span style="color: lime;">:1–20</span></b> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Macdonald argues that this scene is based on the story of Polyphemus the one-eyed giant from the Odyssey … and the story of Circe, who turns Odysseus' men into pigs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XXIX</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 5:21–43 • Jarius’ daughter and the bleeding woman</b> <span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">µ</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="color: magenta; font-size: x-small;"><b>The dearth of evidence regarding synagogues in the Galilee before 70 raises the question of verisimilitude.</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :22 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Jarius’ name means “he will awaken” or “he will enlighten”, both of which would be appropriate for a leader of a synagogue, and which also suggests a literary maneuver</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :25 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Lev 12:7?</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :27 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Ezek 44:19</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :21–43 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - 2Kings 4:8–37</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Mark 6<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XXX</span><b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 6:1–6 • Jesus is rejected at home </b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: lime;">:4</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">rejected prophets in the </span>OT <span style="font-size: x-small;">are paralleled in Hellenistic culture as well …</span>Dio Chrysostom, <span style="font-size: x-small;">in </span>Discourses (47.6), <span style="font-size: x-small;">says "it is the opinion of all philosophers that life is difficult in their native land." </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Suffering Servant in </span>Isaiah 53:3 (<span style="font-size: x-small;">LXX</span>) <span style="font-size: x-small;">is also “without honor”</span> (<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">atimos</span></i>)</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XXXI</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 6:7–13 • Jesus sends out apostles</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :7<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Deut 19:15?, Num 35:30?</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - 1Cor 9:2–6?</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">The later rabbinical tradition is full of itinerant rabbis operating in pairs as well</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: lime;">:8–10</span></b> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">This is textbook Cynicism</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">The stress on poverty and simplicity is also reminiscent of </span>Socrates’ trial.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: magenta;">:13</span></b> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Disciples effectively use the power bestowed on them by Jesus, but a little while later they doubt and don’t understand his power? They were just using it! Verisimilitude?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XXXII<b> </b></span><b>• 6:14–29 • Herod executes John the Baptist</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :22 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">a parody of </span>Esther</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :23 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Herod, as Roman client, has no power to subdivide his kingdom. Verisimilitude?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :14–29 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">parallels story of Elijah, Ahab, and Jezebel in </span>2 Kings 17:22</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b><span style="color: lime;">:14–29</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">this scene is punctuated with the typical motifs of folktale: (the comely dancing girl, the extravagant oath, the scheming wife). </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XXXIII</span> <b>• 6:30–44 • Feeding of the 5000 </b> <span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">µ</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :34 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Num 27:15–18</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Ezek 34:1–10 (<span style="font-size: x-small;">note “son of man”</span>)</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Zech 10:2</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :38 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Num 21:17</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :30–44 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - 2Kings 4:38–44</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">The scene evokes God’s care for the starving Israelites during the Exodus. The allusion is strengthened by Jesus’ command to have the people arranged in groups of hundreds and fifties, reminiscent of the wanderings of the people of God in the desert. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XXXIV</span><b> • 6:45–56 • Jesus walks on water </b> <span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">µ</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: magenta;">:48</span></b> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">“fourth watch” - The Romans divided the night into four watches; the Jews into three. Verisimilitude?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: magenta;">:51–52</span></b> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">They are astonished even though they’ve already seen this miracle before— the pericope is a doublet of Mark 4:35–51, which is in turn based on</span> Jonah</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XXXV</span><b> • 6:53–56 • Sick healed in Genneraset </b><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">µ</span> <span style="color: yellow; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: orange; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">•</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">transitional passage describing healings in very general terms, reminds me of old-time movies where a map appears on the screen and there's a thick line representing the traveling protagonist moving across it …</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XXXVI</span><b> • 7:1–23 • Pharisees criticize disciples for eating with unclean hands</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: magenta;">:1</span></b> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Evidence of any Pharisaic presence in Galilee prior to 70 C.E. is scant.</span> </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: magenta;">:2–3</span></b> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Anachronism: such purity was only required for holy things during this period.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :3–4 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">This is clear evidence that Mark was writing for an audience that had very little knowledge of standard Judaisms. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :6–8 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Isa 29:13–18 (<span style="font-size: x-small;">Paul cites </span>29:14 in 1Cor1:19… <span style="font-size: x-small;">this text was of import to early Christians</span>)</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :6, 19, 21 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">the word for “heart” derives from this same Isaiah passage</span>.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :10 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Exod 22:12, 21:17 (<span style="font-size: x-small;">LXX</span>)</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: lime;">:13</span></b> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Rabbinic texts suggest that vows may be broken for issues like Korban</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :14 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - 2Sam 20:16?, Isa 6:9?, Macc 2:65?</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: magenta;">:19</span></b> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Anachronism: food issues were still extremely divisive later - see </span>1Cor - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Why, if Jesus had already ruled on this?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">verisimilitude?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XXXVII</span><b> • 7:24–30 • The Syro-Phoenician woman </b> <span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">µ</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: magenta;">:27</span></b> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">This saying is likely anachronistic, dating to a time after the “parting of the ways.”</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :28 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Tendentious wordplay, betrays compositional, rather than verbal/anecdotal aspect.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :25–30 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Elijah/Elisha narrative cycle </span>1Kings 17: 8–24</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - 2 Kings 4:18–37</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: magenta;">:31</span></b> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Mark’s sense of geography is confused again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XXXVIII<b> </b></span><b> • 7:31–37 • Stammering deaf man healed</b> <span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">µ</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :32 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Isa 35:3–6</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :37 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Isa 42:18–19</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> <b><span style="color: lime;">:</span></b></span><b><span style="color: lime;">31–37</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">techniques of magical or folk healing in antiquity: touching the ailing part, use of spit, command in an exotic language (exotic to Mark’s audience, at least, who were demonstrably not Jews). </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XXXIX </span><b>• 8:1–10 • Feeding of the 4000 (this time) </b> <span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">µ</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: magenta;">:10</span></b> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Dalmanoutha - no one knows what this is.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :1–13 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - 2Kings 4:38–44 (<span style="font-size: x-small;">again, the Elijah/Elisha cycle</span>)</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">a doublet of </span>Mark 6:30–44</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XL</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 8:11–13 • Refusal to give a sign</b> <span style="color: yellow; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: orange; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">•</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">a transitional passage that closes the second feeding story and sets up the warning that follows</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span> <b style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: magenta;">:11–13</span></b> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span>- - No signs! - <span style="font-size: x-small;">except signs are given all along </span>(!)<span style="font-size: x-small;"> Verisimilitude?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :12 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">compare with </span>1 Cor 1:22–23</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XLI</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 8:14–21 • Leaven of Herod and the Pharisees</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :15 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Exod 12:18, <span style="font-size: x-small;">compare with </span>1 Cor 5:8</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :17–18 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Isa 6:10</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Deut 29:2–4</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">compare with </span>1 Cor 2:9?</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :18 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Jeremiah 5:21</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">this pericope is based on fictional events in </span>Mark 6</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XLII</span><b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> • 8:22–26 • Jesus heals the blind man </b> <span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">µ</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :22–26 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">parallels </span>Mark 7:31–37, <span style="font-size: x-small;">which parallels</span>, Isa 35:5–6</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b><span style="color: lime;">:22–26</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">there exists an inscription to the Greek healing god Asclepius at Epidarus </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">which says that after a certain Alcetas of Halice was cured of blindness the first thing he saw were trees. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XLIII</span><b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 8:27–30 • Jesus fesses up</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :27–33 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;"> parallels the Sanhedrin trial at </span>Mark 14:53–65</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b><span style="color: lime;">:27–33</span> </b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">the scene has elements of </span>Greek drama (the recognition motif) … literary device</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XLIV</span><b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 8:31–32a • Predicts resurrection 8:31-32 </b> <span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">µ </span> <span style="color: yellow; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: orange; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">•?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">supernatural foresight </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">this is the middle meat in a "markan sandwich" structure, or chiasmus … if pericopes 43–45 are recombined into a single pericope (as scholars like to do—pericope and even verse numbers are arbitrary to begin with—… hell, early manuscripts didn't even separate words!), then the parallels with Mark 14 is the link to the O.T.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">XLV<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><b> </b></span></span><b>• 8:32b–33 • Get thee behind me Satan! </b> </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :33 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">compositional relation to </span>Mark 4:14–15 (<span style="font-size: x-small;">it closes out the supernatural prediction</span>)</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XLVI</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b> • 8:34–38 • “Deny self and take up your cross!”</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: lime;">:34</span></b> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Epictetus the Cynic philosopher (50-125): <span style="font-size: x-small;">"If you want to be crucified, just wait. The cross will come. If it seems reasonable to comply, and the circumstances are right, then it's to be carried through, and your integrity maintained." </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b><span style="color: lime;">:34–38</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">classic </span>Cynic<span style="font-size: x-small;">and </span>Stoic<span style="font-size: x-small;"> positions</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b><span style="color: lime;">:34–38</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">echoes of the death of Socrates </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">as well</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - 2 Mac 6:18-31?, 4 Mac 5:4? 2 Mac 6:19, 23, 28?</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Lev 16:29</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: lime;">:35–37</span></b> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Epictetus: <span style="font-size: x-small;">"Socrates cannot be preserved by an act that is shameful...It is dying that preserves him, not fleeing."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :38 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Deut 32:5</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :38 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Rebuking God’s people as adulterous and sinful is a theme of biblical prophets going back to Hosea, who charged that Israel’s “going after other gods” was tantamount to committing adultery. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XLVII</span> <b>• 9:1–4 • Transfiguration (w/Moses & Elijah)</b> <span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">µ</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :2<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Exodus 24:13-18</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :4<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Moses and Elijah appear, one or both of whom some people expected to return at the end of days (Moses’ burial place was never found and Elijah ascended to heaven without dying, so they were both, in a sense, still alive).</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XLVIII</span> <b>• 9:5–8 • Peter’s mistake</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :4–13<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - 2Kings 1</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XLIX</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 9:9–13 • Question about Elijah</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :9<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">supernatural prediction of resurrection </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :11–13<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Mal 4: 5–6</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :11–12<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - c<span style="font-size: x-small;">ompare with Romans </span>11:2–3</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">L</span><b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 9:14–29 • Jesus heals epileptic that disciples had failed to heal</b> <span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">µ</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: magenta;">:14</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Where do the scribes suddenly disappear off to?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :17 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - 2Kings 4</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :19 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Deut 32:5</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LI</span><b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 9:30–32 • Jesus’ second passion prediction </b><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">µ</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :30–32 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Isaiah 53 (<span style="font-size: x-small;">LXX</span>)</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Dan 7:25, 12:2</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">supernatural</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LII</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b> • 9:33–37 • Be like children </b> <span style="color: yellow; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: orange; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">•</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="color: magenta;">contradicts Paul? — response to Paul?</span> … Compare to 1 Cor 13:11</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LIII</span><b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 9:38–41 • Whoever is not against us is with us … </b> <span style="color: #a64d79; font-size: large;">X</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :38–40 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Numbers 11:26–29</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: lime;">:40</span></b> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Cicero Speeches 41: <span style="font-size: x-small;">"For us, all are opponents except for those who are with us; for Caesar, all are his own in so far as they are not against him."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: magenta;">:41</span></b> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">anachronism - refers to future Christians</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LIV</span><b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 9:42–50 • If your hand offends you, cut it off; salted with fire …</b> <span style="color: #a64d79; font-size: large;">X</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span style="color: magenta;">:<strike>44, 46</strike> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">spurious</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :43–47 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">compare with</span> 1Cor 12:48</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :48 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Isa 66:24</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :50 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Lev 2:13?, Numbers 18:19?</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LV </span><b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 10:1–12 • Teaching on divorce</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: magenta;">:1</span></b> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">geographical error - also … verisimilitude? (huge crowds)</span></div>
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <b><span style="color: magenta;">:3 </span></b></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">- - Moses didn't leave any explicit command regarding divorce; in Deut 24:1-4 the right of divorce is already recognized </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">by that time</span><span style="font-size: x-small;">.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :4 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Deut 24:3</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :6 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Genesis 2</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :7 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - (<span style="font-size: x-small;">"and be joined to be his wife" is missing from many manuscripts</span>)</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: magenta;">:12</span></b> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">anachronism </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="color: magenta;">no one challenges Jesus’ extreme (mis)-Judaism(!) here.</span></b> Historicity is doubtful. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LVI</span><b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 10:13–16 • Kingdom belongs to children … </b><span style="color: #a64d79; font-size: large;">X</span><b> </b><span style="color: yellow; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: orange; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">•</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b><span style="color: lime;">:13–16</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Chreia <span style="font-size: x-small;">within Markan forms is maintained</span>.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">compare to</span> Mark 9:33–37</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LVII</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 10:17–31 • fat man through the eye of a needle … </b> <span style="color: #a64d79; font-size: large;">X</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: magenta;">:19</span></b> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">“Do not defraud” is not a commandment. Again, the fact that no one challenges him indicates ahistoricity.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :27 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Zechariah 8:6 (<span style="font-size: x-small;">LXX</span>)</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :28–31 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">parallels </span>Mark 3:31–35</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LVIII</span><b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 10:32–34 • Jesus’ third passion prediction</b> <span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">µ</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">this enigmatic transitional passage, a supernatural prediction, is obviously not historical. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LIX</span><b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 10:35–45 • James and John wish to be on Jesus’ right hand side</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :35–37 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Psalm 110:1–2?</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">compare with </span>1Cor 6:1–3</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: magenta;">:38</span></b> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">with its reference to the later martyrdom of James, is clearly unhistorical, for it is either an anachronism or supernatural prophecy.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Psalm 11:5–7</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :42–45 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Isaiah 11:10 (LXX)</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: lime;">:45</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Dio Cassius <span style="font-size: x-small;">attributed a similar saying to Otho: "I shall free myself [that is, take my own life], that all may learn from the deed that you chose for your emperor one who would not give you up to save himself, but rather himself to save you."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b><span style="color: lime;">:35–45</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">The Roman armies are said to have had a practice called devotio in which a single individual offered up their life to the gods during a battle. The sacrifice was made to both friendly and enemy gods, in the hope of impressing them and gaining their favor. Decius Mus was the most famous example. Examples of life-offerings as ransom from Jewish history are also known.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b><span style="color: lime;">:35–45</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Cynic overtones throughout. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <b><span style="color: magenta;">anachronism:</span></b> <span style="font-size: x-small;">there is an awareness of subsequent traditions of persecution here which signals that there is no support for historicity in this pericope</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LX</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 10:46–52 • Healing blind Bar-Timaeus the beggar </b> <span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">µ</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Bar-Timaeus means “son of poverty” or “son of the unclean” . . . compare to Jarius’ daughter’s pericope.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: lime;">:47</span></b> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Testament of Solomon 20:1</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :51 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Isa 29:18?, 35:5–6?, 61:1? (LXX)</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :52 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">parallels </span>Mark 5:21–43</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: lime;">:46–52</span></b> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Timaeus<span style="font-size: x-small;"> is the title of a well known dialogue of </span>Plato, <span style="font-size: x-small;">in which a discourse on vision is featured. There’s a clear parallel here.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LXI</span><b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 11:1–11 • Jesus enters Jerusalem as Messiah</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :1–6 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Mark 11:1-6 <span style="font-size: x-small;">is a doublet of </span>Mark 14:13-16</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :1<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Zech 14:4</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :2–7 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Zech 9:9</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :2<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - 1 Kings 1:33-48</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: lime;">:3</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Targum Onqelos <span style="font-size: x-small;">speaks of the Messiah and of his people's building the Temple, with righteousness round about him and doers of the Law through his doctrine. </span>The pseudo-Jonathan Targum <span style="font-size: x-small;">speaks of the Messiah who girds his loins and arrays the battle against his adversaries. Improbably the ass is his war-horse, as it were. He cannot look at anything unclean... </span>The Neofiti Targum <span style="font-size: x-small;">is similarly un-Christian. The fragmentary Targum says the king Messiah will bind his loins and go forth to war against those that hate him. The targumic evidence is no doubt the most impressive: that is what the Synagogue heard on the Sabbath. From ancient times the "colt tied to the vine" symbolized the Messiah's style of warfare, and we can surmise that anyone tying up a colt, if he is addicted to messianism, hopes that the Messiah's outriders will come and untie it -no casual event for them, as Burkitt and Lightfoot imagined"(J. Duncan and M. Derrett [2001] p128-9).</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :8<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">The scene as presented is historically implausible.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :8<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - 1 Macc 13:51–52</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :9<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Psalm 117:25 (<span style="font-size: x-small;">LXX</span>), 148 (<span style="font-size: x-small;">Masoretic</span>)</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :7–10<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - 2 Kings 9:13</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :11<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - 2 Kings 9:14-21</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :1–11<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - 1 Sam 9:3–6, 1 Sam 10:2–7</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: lime;"> :1–11</span></b><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">The scene may also represent a common convention of </span>Greek drama, the hyporcheme, <span style="font-size: x-small;">as proposed by </span>Bilezekian (1977): <span style="font-size: x-small;">"The hyporcheme was a well-known dramatic convention practiced especially by Sophocles. It consisted of a joyful scene that involves the chorus and sometimes other characters; takes the form of a dance, procession, or lyrics expressing confidence and happiness; and occurs just before the catastrophic climax of the play. The hyporcheme emphasizes, by way of contrast, the crushing impact of the tragic incident."(p127)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LXII</span><b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> • 11:12–14 • Jesus curses the fig tree</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :13<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Micah 7:1, Psalm 37:35-6?, Hosea 9:15-6?, Jeremiah 8:13?, 29:14?, Joel 1:7?</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: lime;">:12–1</span></b><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">The most venerated object in Rome was a huge fig tree that, according to tradition, was as old as the city itself, having sheltered its founder Romulus and his brother Remus when they were infants. </span>Tacitus <span style="font-size: x-small;">reports that in 58 A.D. this tree suddenly began to wither </span>(Annals XIII.58), <span style="font-size: x-small;">causing widespread consternation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LXIII</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-weight: bold; white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 11:15–19 • Jesus cleanses the temple </b><span style="color: #a64d79; font-size: large;">X</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :15<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Nehemiah 13:8-9, Mal 3:1, Hosea 9:15?</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :16<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Nehemiah 13:8-9</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :16<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">This story also has an interesting parallel in 2 Maccabees. There the story is told of the high priest Onias III, revered by the Jews for his righteousness. In </span>2 Macc 4:32-4 <span style="font-size: x-small;">Onias attempts to prevent Menelaus from stealing vessels from the Temple. Later Onias is killed after being tricked into leaving his sanctuary near Antioch. After his death, in </span>2 Macc 15:11-16, <span style="font-size: x-small;">he visits the Jewish leader Judas Maccabeaus in a dream. Like Jesus, he saved the Temple vessels from being plundered, was betrayed and killed, and then appeared to his followers after his death. Strangely, Josephus informs us that his brother's name was Jesus (later Jason). </span>Daniel 9:26,<span style="font-size: x-small;"> the famous passage where the messiah is "cut off," is generally held to refer to Onias III.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: lime;">:16</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Josephus (Against Apion, 2.8.106) <span style="font-size: x-small;">writes: “Lastly, it is not so much as lawful to carry any vessel into the holy house; nor is there any thing therein, but the altar [of incense], the table [of shew-bread], the censer, and the candlestick, which are all written in the law; for there is nothing further there, nor are there any mysteries performed that may not be spoken of; nor is there any feasting within the place.”</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :17<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Isa 56, Jeremiah 7:11</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: magenta;">:17</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">historically untenable</span> … chreia form </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :17<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Malachi 3:1, Hosea 9:15, Zechariah 14:21</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">The story parallels the </span>Elijah-Elisha cycle in Kings</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LXIV</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 11:20–25 • Fig tree reprise </b> <span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">µ</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :23<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">compare with</span> 1 Cor 13:2</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">The idea of forgiveness of trespasses was a common one in antiquity. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LXV</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 11:27–28 • Objections raised by the Sanhedrin </b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: magenta;">:27</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">How plausible is it to be walking the temple right after one has trashed it? </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">The anecdote is literary in form.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LXVI</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 11:29–33 •</b> <b>Sources of authority/baptism from God? </b><span style="color: yellow; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: orange; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">•</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Socratic method employed by Jesus. </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">The analysis of the two choices: “authority from heaven” versus “authority from man” in his opponents' minds (first-person style), reflects the passage’s literary character. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LXVII</span><b> • 12:1–12 • Parable of the tenants</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :1<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Isaiah 5:1–2</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :6<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">A supernatural prophecy of Jesus' death</span>.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :10–11<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Psalm 118</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :12<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - 2 Kings 9:22-10:27</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">parallel to the </span>Eljah-Elisha Cycle:<span style="font-size: x-small;"> the Markan narrative makes the chief priests and scribes the equal of the priests of Ba'al or the 70 sons of Ahab.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LXVIII</span> <b>• 12:13–17 • Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :13–17<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">In the usual Markan fashion, Jesus' adversaries do not press him for an elaboration, nor, despite being experienced quibblers and wits themselves, do they take a quill from their own quiver and direct it at Jesus. <b><span style="color: magenta;">The depiction of the Pharisees in Mark is historically implausible.</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :17<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">compare with </span>Romans 13:1-7</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :17<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Eccl 8:2?</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LXIX</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 12:18–27 • Sadducees ask about marriage after resurrection</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :20–21<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Sarah in the Book of </span>Tobit, <span style="font-size: x-small;">who also had seven husbands who had died</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :25<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">compare with </span>1 Cor 15:35-50</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :26<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Jesus quotes </span>Exodus 3:6</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LXX<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><b>• 12:28–34 • What is the greatest commandment?</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :29–30<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Deut 6:4</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :31<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Lev 19:18</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: lime;">:31</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">this was a thought common in antiquity in many cultures. The followers of </span>Pythagoras, <span style="font-size: x-small;">who transmitted dozens of sayings, some of which resemble those of early Christianity, had perhaps the most beautiful formulation: </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">"What is a friend? Another I."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :33<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Hosea 6:6, 1 Sam 15:22</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LXXI</span><b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 12:35–37 • David’s son</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: magenta;"> :35</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Jesus just trashed the Temple, and now he is sitting in it, teaching, surrounded by a great throng. Yeah, right.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: magenta;"> :36–37</span></b><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Psalm 110 (109 <span style="font-size: x-small;">LXX</span>) … <span style="font-size: x-small;">no one thinks to correct or question Jesus’ audacious assertion</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="color: magenta; font-size: x-small;"><b>Mark does not agree with the tradition that Jesus was a son of David</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LXXII</span><b> • 12:38–40 • Denouncing the scribes</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Jeremiah-like exortation</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: magenta;">:39</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">anachronism</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LXXIII</span> <b>• 12:41–44 • Poor widow gives all to the temple</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :42–44<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Elijah-Elisha Cycle in 2 Kings … </span>2 Kings 12:5-17</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: lime;">:42</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">this story has parallels in the rabbinic literature, ancient Greek writings, and Buddhist tradition</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LXXIV</span><b> • 13:1–2 • Temple destruction predicted </b> <span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">µ</span>?</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :2<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Micah 3:13?, Jeremiah 26:18?</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :2–14 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - 2 Kings 10:26-28 (Elijah/Elisha cycle)</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LXXV </span><b>• 13:3–27 • Sign O’ the Times</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :3<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">on a mount facing the Temple mount … this opposition recalls</span> Zechariah 14, Joel 3, and Ezekiel 38-9</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :4<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Daniel 12:6</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :7<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Daniel 2:28</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :8<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Isa 19:2 and/or 2 Chronicles 15:6</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :8<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Zech 114:5</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :12<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Micah 7:6, or 4 Ezra 6:24</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :14<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Daniel 9:7, 12:11, Genesis 19:17, 1 Macc 1:54, 1 Macc 6:7, 1 Macc 2:28</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :19<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Daniel 12:1</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :22<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Deut 13:2–4</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :24<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Isa. 13:10</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :25<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Isaiah 34:4</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :26<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Daniel 7:13</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :27<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Zech 2:10, Deut 30:4, Zech 2:6</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LXXVI</span><b> • 13:28–31 • Lesson of the fig tree</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :28<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Isaiah 34:4</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :31<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;"> combines </span>Isaiah 51:6 and 40:8</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LXXVII</span> <b> • 13:32–37 • Parable of the watcher</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :32<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Zech 14:7</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :35—37<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">the Watchers from</span> 1Enoch?</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">literary construct.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Mark 14<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LXXVIII</span><b> • 14:1–2 • Plot of the Sanhedrin </b> <span style="color: yellow; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: orange; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">•</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">transitional passage</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> …<span style="font-size: x-small;"> "meanwhile, back at the ranch"…</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LXXIX </span><b>• 14:3–9 • Jesus is anointed</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :3<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Psalm 133:2</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :7<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Deut:15:1-11</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :1–10<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - 2 Kings 9:1-13 </div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LXXX<b> </b></span><b>• 14:10–11 • Judas agrees to betray Jesus</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: magenta;">:10–11</span></b> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - (<span style="font-size: x-small;">Judas’ betrayal is likely to be a fictional markan construct for many reasons to be detailed on request. It's a fascinating complex having to do with the role of a scapegoat in atonement. This is very much an ancient concept in Judea <b><i>and </i></b>in the neighboring tribes.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LXXXI</span> <b>• 14:12–16 • Last supper preparation </b> <span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">µ</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: magenta;">:12</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">confused understanding of Jewish practices.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :13–16 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">doublet of </span>Mark 11:1-6</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :12<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>–25<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - 1 Samuel 10:1-7</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">supernatural foreknowledge</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LXXXII</span> <b>• 14:17–21 • Prediction of betrayal </b> <span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">µ</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :17–31<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">supernatural prophecy / not historical</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :20<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Psalm 41:9 (<span style="font-size: x-small;">LXX </span>40:5), Psalm 55?</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LXXXIII</span> <b>• 14:22–26 • Institution of Lord’s supper</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :22–24<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">compare with </span>1 Cor 11:23-25</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Mark's use of this cultic tradition is strong evidence of his acquaintance with Hellenistic Christianity (aka Pauline)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :24<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Exodus 24:8, Zech 9:11, Jeremiah 31:31 Psalm 23:5?</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: magenta;">:24</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">“has been poured out”? … Even though he hasn’t been killed yet?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :25<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Isaiah 25:6</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :26<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Zech 14:4</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LXXXIV</span> <b>• 14:27–31 • Jesus predicts Peter’s betrayal </b> <span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">µ</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :27<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Zech 13:7</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: magenta;">:28</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">This prediction of an appearance in Galilee is a strong indicator that the current ending of Mark is truncated.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">supernatural foreknowledge surrounds all three prophecies </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LXXXV</span> <b>• 14:32–42 • Garden of Gethsemane</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :33<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Psalm 55?</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :33<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Parallels the transfiguration</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :34<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Jonah 4:9 (<span style="font-size: x-small;">LXX</span>) , Ps 42:6,12; Psalm 42:50 (<span style="font-size: x-small;">LXX</span>)</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: lime;">:34</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">“interior monologue” literary technique often employed by Greeks and Romans</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> - - <span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="color: magenta;">Mark lets us in on Jesus’ inner thoughts … </span></b>verisimilitude?<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :37<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Jonah 1:6</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :38<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Psalm 51:12?</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :38<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">parallel with</span> Mark 13:34-37</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :32–42<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Once again the Elijah/Elisha cycle forms the skeleton of this narrative - </span>1 Kings 19:1-5</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LXXXVI</span> <b>• 14:43–50 • Jesus is arrested</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :43–44 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - 2 Sam 20: 9-10</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: lime;">:32–52</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - 2 Sam 15-16</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">another possible parallel is a first century Jewish document, the </span>Wisdom of Solomon 2:12–24. <span style="font-size: x-small;">Even if the writer of Mark did not use it as a source, it illustrates some of the currents in Jewish traditions at the time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LXXXVII</span> <b>• 14:51–52 • The young man who fled naked </b> <span style="color: yellow; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: orange; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">•</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">will be echoed at the empty tomb in </span>Mark 16 … <span style="font-size: x-small;">is it just a setup for that punch line? … this scene continues to confound readers, who are given no information about this enigmatic symbol ('<b>Secret Mark</b>' notwithstanding)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LXXXVIII</span> <b>• 14:53–65 • Jesus is tried before the Sanhedrin</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: magenta;">:53</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="color: magenta; font-size: x-small;"><b>many historical verisimilitude problems here</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :53<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Psalm 22</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :54<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Psalm 38:11</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :55<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Daniel 6:4</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :56<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Psalm 27:12</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :57<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Psalm 35:11</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :58<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Isaiah 40-60, Ezekiel 40-48</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :58<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">compare with </span>1 Cor 3:16-7</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :61–62<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Daniel 7:14 and Psalm 110:1</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :61<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Psalm 38:13-4?, 39:9? <span style="font-size: x-small;">… doubled in </span>Mark 15:5. <span style="font-size: x-small;">May also be influenced by </span>Lam 3:28-30</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: lime;">:61</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Jesus’ death also fulfills </span>Cynic and Stoic<span style="font-size: x-small;"> ideals and models of the proper way to die</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :62<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Book of Watchers (3rd century BCE)</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :62<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Psalm 110:1, <span style="font-size: x-small;"> also cited in</span> Mk 12:36</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :63<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - 2 Kings 11:14, 18:37, 19:1 … <span style="font-size: x-small;">There is no question that the writer of Mark is intimately familiar with the text of Kings and has used it throughout his gospel. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: magenta;">:64</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">anachronistic misunderstanding of the concept of blasphemy?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: lime;">:64</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">parallels between the trial of Zachariah, son of Baruch, described in </span>Josephus' The Jewish War</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :65<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Isaiah 50:6, 1 Kings 22</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :53–65 <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">doublet of the interrogation by Pilate in </span>Mark 15:1-20</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="color: magenta; font-size: x-small;"><b>It is difficult to reconcile Mark’s picture (i.e. secret court sessions, at night, with trumped-up and contradictory evidence) with known Jewish judicial procedures. </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">LXXXIX</span> <b>• 14:66–72 • Peter’s denial </b> <span style="color: yellow; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: orange; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">•?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :66–72<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">The scene represents supernatural prophecy fulfillment. Note the beautifully ironic touch of Jesus' prophecy of Peter's denial coming true even at the very moment when Jesus is being mocked for being a false prophet. This is literary, not historical. Also … Paul makes no mention of this event in his epistles, despite his clashes with Peter. As the “bread part” of a chiasmus, this scene’s form is just literary (and is tied to the O.T. if the pericope is recombined as a single chiasmus).</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Mark 15</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XC</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 15:1 • Jesus before Sanhedrin</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :1<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Isaiah 3:10 (<span style="font-size: x-small;">LXX</span>), Isaiah 53:6, 12 (<span style="font-size: x-small;">LXX</span>), Psalm 27:12 (<span style="font-size: x-small;">LXX</span>)</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XCI </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 15:2–15 • Jesus before Pilate</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: magenta;">:2–15</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">the Pilate interrogation is necessarily fictional - due to the fact that it appears to be a private affair, and Jesus would die soon after . . . giving no interviews in the interim in which to describe the banter they may have shared</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :5<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Isaiah 53:7</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :5<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Psalm 38:11–14</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :5<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Pilate functions as an effective double of King Herod in </span>Mark 6:14-29</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: magenta;">:6–7</span></b> <span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Barabbas story … very likely fictional … many historical verisimilitude problems</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :6–7<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> - - <span style="font-size: x-small;"> thematically linked to </span>Esther (<span style="font-size: x-small;">Jesus and BarAbbas in the roles of Mordecai and Haman</span>)</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: magenta;">:7</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">"who had committed murder in the insurrection." — What murder? What insurrection? Knowing which insurrection the writer referred to would also enable exegetes to refine their estimates of the dating of these events. … that potentially useful bit appears to have been cut from the script, however</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :10<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Wis 2:24 (<span style="font-size: x-small;">pthonos</span>)</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :14<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">echoing</span> Isaiah 53:9</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: lime;">:2–15</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Josephus, Book VI of Wars</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XCII </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 15:16–20 • Mockery of the soldiers</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :1–20<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Mark 15:1-20<span style="font-size: x-small;"> is essentially a doublet of </span>Mark 14:53-65</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: magenta;">:17</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">problems with historical verisimilitude</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :19<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Isaiah 50:6 … <span style="font-size: x-small;">fulfillment of the supernatural prophecy given in</span> Mark 10:33-4</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :19<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - 1 Kings 22:24-27?</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">the overall frame of this chapter and the next </span>(15 & 16) <span style="font-size: x-small;">is</span> Daniel 6</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">The trial before Pilate was necessary simply because historical credibility demanded it. The Romans, rather than the Jews, executed criminals by means of Crucifixion, which was the specific method cited by Paul earlier, so being stoned by the Jews themselves for some ambiguous blasphemies at the novel’s climax wasn’t really an option. It would have made no sense.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="color: lime;"><b>:16–20</b></span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Philo's Flaccus, Book VI:36–39</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b style="color: lime;">:16–20</b><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">folk </span>Rei Momo motif (<span style="font-size: x-small;">the “mock” king is dead</span>)</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XCIII</span> <b>• 15:21 • Simon of Cyrene </b> <span style="color: yellow; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: orange; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">•</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span> <b style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: magenta;">:21</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">problems with historical verisimilitude: would soldiers really force someone to do this on a sabbath/holiday?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XCIV</span> <b> • 15:22–23 • Wine refused</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :23<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Proverbs 31:6-7?</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :23<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Psalm 69:22</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XCV</span> <b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>• 15:24 • Dividing Jesus’ garments</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :24<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Psalm 22:18</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :24<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Zech 12:10</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XCVI</span> <b>• 15:25–26 • INRI </b> </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :25<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">compare to</span> 1 Cor 5:7</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span> :25<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">a not-so-oblique reference to Jesus 'messiahship'</span> (<span style="font-size: x-small;">Davidic or otherwise</span>)<span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">XCVII </span><b>• 15:27–28 • Two thieves</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :27<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;"> a chiasmic echo of </span>Mark 10:40</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XCVIII </span><b>• 15:29–32 • Mockery</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :29–32<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Psalm 22:8</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :30<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">this mockery completes a tryptich in which Jesus is mocked by Jewish guards as a prophet </span>(14:65), <span style="font-size: x-small;">Roman guards as a King </span>(15:16-20), <span style="font-size: x-small;">and Jewish onlookers as Messiah. It is therefore a deliberate literary tactic.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">XCIX</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 15:33–37 • Jesus dies</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :33<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Amos 8:9, Exodus 10:21-23?, Jeremiah 15:9?</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: lime;">:33</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">Darkness is frequently associated with the deaths of heroes in antiquity. Even certain famous rabbis had their deaths embellished in this way</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">consistent three-hour segments throughout the passion narrative suggest literary intention</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :34<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Psalm 22:1</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :36<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Psalm 69:21</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :37<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">This verse is most probably theological in origin, since breath and spirit were associated across the ancient world … Judea too</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :37<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Psalm 18?</div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">C</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> <b> </b></span><b>• 15:38 • Temple veil torn </b> <span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">µ</span>?</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :38<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">echo of </span>Mark 1 <span style="font-size: x-small;">baptism scene … literary device</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: magenta;"> :38</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">not historical; Josephus would have mentioned it</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">CI</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> <b> </b></span><b>• 15:39 • Centurion’s declaration </b> <span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">µ</span>?</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :39<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">this recognition is most probably fictional, for it completes a doublet that may well be the highest level framework for the Gospel of Mark, and it occurs at the crucifixion scene, which no disciples attended, and could not report on</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">CII</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 15:40–41 • Women Watched</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span style="color: magenta;">why do these women suddenly appear out of nowhere?</span></b> Like Joseph of Arimathea, were they edited out of the story until the very end? As with Joseph, what was Jesus’ relation to them?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :40<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Psalm 38.11 LXX</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: lime;">:40–41</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">In </span>The Iliad <span style="font-size: x-small;">three women lament from the walls of Troy as Hector is slain, watching from afar.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">CIII</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>• 15:42–47 • Jesus’ Burial</b></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :42<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">the writer makes a basic error of Jewish tradition at this point</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <b><span style="color: lime;">:43</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Josephus, Life 76 ?</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :43<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - 2 Chronicles</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :46<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Isaiah 22:16</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :47<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">redactional, since it is necessary for the women to know where Jesus is laid so they can visit him to anoint him</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :47<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - Isaiah 53:9</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">In this scene Mark skillfully establishes: 1)that Jesus really died, 2) that he died a quick death ,and 3) that the women knew where he was buried, all three of which could otherwise have been questioned by those doubting the reports of Jesus’ crucifixion. Very skillful literary feature.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">Mark 16</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">CIV</span><b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">• 16:</span>1–8 • Angelic appearance to Mary Magdalen</b><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">µ</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span>:1<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">- - problems with historical verisimilitude … e.g. <b><span style="color: magenta;">“bought” spices? On Passover weekend? Before dawn?</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span>:2<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">- - </span>Hosea 6:1-2?, 2 Kings 2:17, and Jonah</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span>:3<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">- - </span>Gen 29:3</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span>:5<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">- - </span>Tobit 5:14</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span>:5<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">- - </span>2 Macc 3:26?</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><b><span style="color: lime;">:5</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">- - Empty tomb and resurrection stories abound in the </span>Hellenistic milieu: Chaereas and Callirhoe, Xenophon's Ephesian Tale, Leucippe and Clitophon, Daphnis and Chloe, Heliodorus' Ethiopian Story, The Story of Apollonius, King of Tyre, Iamblichus' Babylonian Story, and in places in Apuleius' The Golden Ass.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> :7<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span>- - <span style="font-size: x-small;">doubles</span> Mark 14:28</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><b style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: lime;">:7</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">- - </span>Gold Leaf of Hipparion</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><b style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: lime;">:8</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">- - </span>The Satyricon by Petronius - section 140.frg2</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><b style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: lime;">:8</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">- - Similarly, </span>Plutarch<span style="font-size: x-small;"> relates a spoof of the motif in popular theatre, where a performing dog acts out its death and resurrection on stage to the delight of the emperor Vespasian </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">(</span>"On the Cleverness of Animals," Moralia 973e-974a<span style="font-size: x-small;">). In order to have something to spoof, the motif must predate the year 80.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> :6–8</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">- - </span>2 Kgs 13: 20-1<span style="font-size: x-small;"> … the Elijah/Elisha cycle</span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> entire passion </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">- - </span>Daniel 6</div>
<div style="font-size: small;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: small;">
<br /></div>
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-size: small; white-space: pre;"> -</span>fin-<br />
<div style="font-size: small;">
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</td><td width="150"><div style="margin-left: .2in;">
<b>Legend<span style="font-size: large;">:</span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">.</span><br />
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">µ</span> = <span style="font-size: x-small;">miracle story</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">.</span><br />
<span style="color: #a64d79; font-size: large;">X</span> = <span style="font-size: x-small;">chreia </span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">.</span><br />
<span style="color: lime;"><b>Pagan or apocryphal precedent </b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">.</span><br />
<span style="color: yellow; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: orange; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">•</span> = <span style="font-size: x-small;">no O.T. and/or Pagan precedent</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">.</span><br />
<span style="color: magenta;"><b>Incongruity</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">.</span></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Whew!<br />
O.K. … in addition to noting the places that have no literary/folkloric precedent, I also mapped out some places where miracle stories, apophthegms, and incongruities occur in the narrative. These serve as a reminder of the very literary character of the Gospel of Mark. The higher criticism has revealed that this gospel, rather than being a haphazard collection of remembered sayings and deeds of Jesus transmitted orally (per James Dunn) or the written down memoirs of a companion of Cephas (per Papias), is actually a carefully constructed composition, one which employs many detectable strategic literary techniques (inclusio, chiasmus, cliff-hangers, etc) to tell its story. This is no memoir, this is an aretology. The gospels are myth historicied, not the other way around.<br />
<br />
But I digress …<br />
<br />
Anyway …<br />
I divided the gospel of Mark into 104 pericopes (although this numbering is arbitrary, it is a convention I'll use for the sake of convenience), marked by large ascending Roman numerals on the left hand side, at the start of each pericope. When this symbol (<span style="color: yellow; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: orange; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">•</span>) appears, it means that I could not link any O.T. or other literary precedent in antiquity to that particular pericope.<br />
Out of the 104 pericopes, fifteen are <span style="color: yellow; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: orange; font-size: x-large;">•</span><span style="color: red; font-size: x-large;">•</span>'s<span style="font-size: large;">.</span><br />
<br />
'Aha<span style="font-size: large;">!</span>' — The shrewd reader will say.<br />
'There you go … not "<b><i>every single episode</i></b>", like you said, is such a counterpart. <br />
<br />
Not so fast, though … I invite the reader to look closely at those pericopes.<br />
They are pericopes 4, 8, 15, 22, 26, 35, 40, 44*, 52†, 56†, 66, 78, 87, 89*, and 93†. You'll notice that these pericopes are transitional in nature. That is, though not entirely tangential, they serve merely to facilitate the flow of the story as interludes and segues from one episode to the next. <br />
<br />
Notable exceptions to this trend are pericopes 52 & 56 (which deal with a single theme: i.e. children), and pericope 93, which is part of the crucifixion scene (where Simon the Cyrene carries Jesus' cross for him—a single verse). This last incongruous bit is more likely a sign of the author's creative invention than a historical report, however. Mark's is in fact the earliest narrative there is about the crucifixion of Jesus. I think it is a Markan fabrication (prompted by Paul's virtual silence on the matter?). The children-themed bits are kind of a novelty, though. Regardless, this essentially leaves us with about 2% of the pericopes which have no O.T. or other literary or folkloric precedent. This demands some sober reflection.<br />
<br />
And so, while I may be slightly exaggerating when I say that "every single episode" in the gospels (please note that a pericope is not necessarily an "episode," btw) is derived from the sort of 'quote-mining' that I described … the person who would claim that this practice is found only "here and there" in the gospel … that is, the person that thinks that this practice is <i><b>not </b></i>normative …<br />
<br />
… <b><i>that </i></b>person is just wrong.<br />
<br />
Given the above outlined analysis, certain truths and patterns regarding GMark are clearly discernable:<br />
<ol style="margin-right: 1in;">
<li><b>The events of Jesus' life in Mark are drawn primarily from the Old Testament, but also from Jewish writings, popular philosophies of the Roman empire, and similar sources. </b></li>
<li><b>From this O.T. typological perspective, the writer has Jesus cross Palestine as Elijah, and then get arrested and crucified as David and Daniel. </b></li>
</ol>
I'll close with a quote from Robert Price which puts the matter quite succinctly:<br />
<div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-right: 1in;">
<i><b>"Earlier scholars (e.g., John Wick Bowman), as many today (e.g., J. Duncan M. Derrett), saw gospel echoes of the ancient scriptures in secondary coloring here or redactional juxtaposition of traditional Jesus stories there. But the more recent scrutiny of John Dominic Crossan, Randel Helms, Dale and Patricia Miller, and Thomas L. Brodie has made it inescapably clear that virtually the entirety of the gospel narratives and much of the Acts are wholly the product of haggadic midrash upon previous scripture." </b></i></blockquote>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Ó</b></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #ffe599; font-size: xx-small;">.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #ffe599; font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>postscript:</i></span></div>
<div>
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">— Add to all of the above the author's copious use of hypertextual formatting and cross referencing within its scriptural matrix, and there's just no denying that Mark is </span><b>not </b><span style="font-size: x-small;">a loose collection of oral traditions, but a tendentious and ambitious literary creation.</span></i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmwrpxLM0RliqfUYAnQ0m3Acai4Css1O6dCbasQ3SlvgQ-yOmcdrXsVtEIlovqrcSly37LdvF_c4cFRypBvy3iEok4_VddDndfxZSgcWxWXGfZFQzcOYkmXDjdSr_sN84wbcMVMw/s1600/mark-lion-720x220.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmwrpxLM0RliqfUYAnQ0m3Acai4Css1O6dCbasQ3SlvgQ-yOmcdrXsVtEIlovqrcSly37LdvF_c4cFRypBvy3iEok4_VddDndfxZSgcWxWXGfZFQzcOYkmXDjdSr_sN84wbcMVMw/s400/mark-lion-720x220.jpg" /></a></div>Quixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03126711689901268060noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9212346.post-3316356868428018662013-03-24T17:57:00.000-07:002014-08-11T19:56:31.216-07:00Musing on the Historical Kaldi …<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhYAC6iessjGO1tyeSiOevuFq4dcF7ftGAUpeyaHZzzkOKN4n14BapLDNCftVaMuRxuaDpLVhP17klgmIxO5D9aAy4kCkUY4KzC-R9J8bQFs7Pam1XrETsZIrTJzHgKIjDUPWw9A/s1600/kaldi-full.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhYAC6iessjGO1tyeSiOevuFq4dcF7ftGAUpeyaHZzzkOKN4n14BapLDNCftVaMuRxuaDpLVhP17klgmIxO5D9aAy4kCkUY4KzC-R9J8bQFs7Pam1XrETsZIrTJzHgKIjDUPWw9A/s200/kaldi-full.jpg" height="156" width="200" /></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">It was in a cute little local coffee shop in Atlanta that I first heard of the legend of Kaldi and his dancing goats. I was standing in line waiting for the very </span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">pretty</span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;"> halfway</span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">-to-hippy barista girl to make my </span><i style="text-indent: 0.2in;">café americano</i></span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> —with a shot of caramel syrup. A colorful display by the register told the legend of the origin of coffee with a stylized graphic of some goats dancing around Kaldi, a medieval Ethiopian goat herder. </span><br /><br />The story: … </span><br />
<span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">… Kaldi started to notice that his goats were becoming rather excited and animated after grazing on the berries from a certain patch of bushes. His goats would "dance around." He had no idea why. On a hunch that he might be similarly affected, he tried the berries for himself. (Presumably, Kaldi fancied himself a dancer.)</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
Wowee! Those goats weren't kidding. What a rush!<br />
After working in the fields, he stayed up the rest of that day and into the evening. Good thing that his wife was a heavy sleeper, because that night, he just could not sleep, so he did some stuff he had been meaning to do for a while. Might as well be useful, right? First he organized his sock drawer, then he fixed the squeaky gate hinge, then he weeded and pruned the front garden, then he <span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">wrote a three-act ballet.</span><sup style="color: red; text-indent: 0.2in;">1</sup><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;"> A</span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">ll before sunrise(!) </span><br />
<span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">This flurry of activity was so out of the ordinary for Kaldi that it scared him. He decided to bring these curious berries to the attention of his local Imam, who </span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">indeed reinforced Kaldi's growing alarm. It was pretty clear that this state of being amped-up like this surely </span><b style="text-indent: 0.2in;"><i>could </i></b><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">not be a good thing. Could it? It </span><i style="text-indent: 0.2in;">must </i><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">be an evil thing. This would not do. So, by the power vested in him, the imam </span><span style="text-indent: 19.200000762939453px;">indignantly</span><span style="text-indent: 19.200000762939453px;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">threw the rest of Kaldi's beans into the fire … where they would have turned to charcoal and ash, too, but for the peculiar aroma that soon began to emanate from their roasting. It was so distinctive, so delicately alluring to everyone present that they decided to rescue the beans from the flames. After thus salvaging them, they ground them up, dissolved them in hot water, and collectively enjoyed the first cup of joe. … (How they decided on that particular method of preparation —roasting, grinding, steeping— we can only speculate about.) </span><br />
<span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">Now …<br />This is probably not a true story.</span></div>
<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
But whether the dancing goats are apocryphal or not, our culture now practically revolves around this substance we now call caffeine.<br />
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIJbnPvXNCLbZaCeSexQGjieOoxaoRE-caa9ImEV0M6TliQntm-x6yaajtzKrzQqa5TNqlogmThsYw1MsNbqS8I1x4kjjtWK4A45rE2vY5XIpAp7iq_q-zOpeuGVATJugl5Xk8eg/s1600/dancing-goats-original.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIJbnPvXNCLbZaCeSexQGjieOoxaoRE-caa9ImEV0M6TliQntm-x6yaajtzKrzQqa5TNqlogmThsYw1MsNbqS8I1x4kjjtWK4A45rE2vY5XIpAp7iq_q-zOpeuGVATJugl5Xk8eg/s200/dancing-goats-original.jpg" height="200" width="200" /></a>That makes Kaldi some kind of prophet of the present day world.<br />
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Can I get an amen?<br />
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(<span style="font-size: x-small;">Trolls please be advised that the above is a joke.</span>)<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Ó</b></span></div>
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<br />
<blockquote>
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<sup style="color: red;">1</sup> <i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Okay, okay … my recreation of the legend is a bit Dada. I'm obviously making shit up. Everybody knows that Ethiopians were not rightly introduced to the rich nuances of European ballet until much later, when Mussolini forcibly staged <b>The Nutcracker</b> in Addis Ababa on Haille Selassie's birthday. (</span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><b>Okay, you got me … I made that up too ;) … Isn't mythology fun? </b></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> ) … Redaction in action, baby!<br /> <b>:-)</b></span></i>Quixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03126711689901268060noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9212346.post-71797938241341770762012-09-11T20:21:00.000-07:002014-08-11T01:14:52.693-07:00Wm. Craig's "Four Facts" are Desperate and Downright Silly … (revisiting a post) <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnY3ijGDz_vXbu9vYsDiP8ArxL_3LNFoP128wN9J_-U_Bkc6FqNLikAtPzCDn6iG-vG7nlzAjpAqf3XkFs5UVel-24SXw-wWgkzwMazWYKMjRUYKke99ejDiyYqV2mU4kMWWLA0w/s1600/the-empty-tomb-jesus-resurrection.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnY3ijGDz_vXbu9vYsDiP8ArxL_3LNFoP128wN9J_-U_Bkc6FqNLikAtPzCDn6iG-vG7nlzAjpAqf3XkFs5UVel-24SXw-wWgkzwMazWYKMjRUYKke99ejDiyYqV2mU4kMWWLA0w/s320/the-empty-tomb-jesus-resurrection.jpg" width="262" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;">W</span>illiam Lane Craig is famous in Christian apologetic circles. Amazingly prolific, he is the darling of evangelical congregations that seek empirical validation for their doctrinal tenets, particularly in the United States. A fixture in all sorts of formal debates organized by such congregations, he is in high demand and is championed as a kind of "ringer" at such events and has thus gained a reputation as one of the great apologists of our time. See his website <a href="http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/" target="outre"> here</a> for yourself.<br />
<br />
In the last decade, in the course of my study of the historical Jesus and of the origins of the movement which claims to be a direct result of his life and influence, I have watched or listened to (or read the transcript of) about a dozen debates between Dr. Craig and various people. These debates usually revolve around three distinct but related topics: the historicity of the New Testament resurrection accounts, the plausibility of the existence of God, or the more simply phrased question, "is Christianity true?". The same basic arguments are consistently repeated in all of his debates. I am invariably struck and surprised by the weight given his arguments by these credulous evangelical groups because, in his rhetoric, I find all sorts of erroneous or spurious assertions which even I, a simple musician and auto-didact following along, am able to easily point out. In this essay, I'll directly challenge the validity of what he offers up as empirical "evidence".<br />
<br />
<h1>
<u>¿Resurrection as history?</u></h1>
<br />
Dr. Craig usually begins his defense of the historicity of the Gospel accounts of the literal bodily resurrection of Jesus with an appeal to what he calls "the four irrefutable facts" that are supposedly accepted by a vast consensus of New Testament scholarship today (it used to be three facts, but he has since expanded his list). He claims that any explanation of the emergence of belief in Jesus' resurrection must account for these "facts".<br />
These four "undisputable" facts, according to him, are: <br />
<blockquote>
<b>fact 1</b> - After his crucifixion, Jesus was buried by Joseph of Arimathea in his own personal tomb.<br />
<b>fact 2</b> - On the Sunday following the crucifixion, the tomb of Jesus was found empty by a group of his women followers.<br />
<b>fact 3</b> - On multiple occasions and under various circumstances, different individuals and groups of people experienced appearances of Jesus alive from the dead.<br />
<b>fact 4</b> - The original disciples believed that Jesus had risen from the dead despite their having every reason not to.<br />
<small> **(quoted from "Will the Real Jesus Please Stand" up by Craig, Crossan, Miller, Blomberg, Borg, and Witherington, pp. 26-28)</small></blockquote>
<br />
<br />
Before I address each of these individually, I'd like to make a couple of preliminary points regarding his claim to such a "vast" scholarly consensus for the historicity of these articles of faith:<br />
<br />
first -<br />
<br />
That it is somewhat misleading to refer to some consensus among New Testament scholars as conclusive regarding the historical authenticity of the events the texts describe if only because the vast majority of New Testament scholars are in fact practicing Christians to begin with and thus "have a horse in the race", so to speak, and,<br />
<br />
second -<br />
<br />
That his assertion that the unanimous consensus view in scholarship is that these are irrefutable "facts" is just so much hyperbole.<br />
<br />
<br />
This became obviously clear to me when I came across a series of lists in Allan Powell's "<u>Jesus as Figure in History</u>", pp.117,153). These lists are of "bare minimum" facts that are sometimes compiled by contemporary scholars as a teaching aid and put forth as being the most certain things we "know" about Jesus' life and ministry. In this particular case the lists are those of N.T. Wright and E. P. Sanders, respectively.<br />
<br />
<br />
If this overwhelming consensus was in fact the case, one would expect these four "facts" to be included in all (or at least the vast majority) of the lists of these "bare minimum" facts as compiled by the most eminent of scholars.<br />
Yet . . .<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Neither E. P. Sanders nor N. T. Wright include fact 1 in their lists.</li>
<li>Neither includes fact 2.</li>
<li>Sanders does not include fact 3, and Wright phrases the "fact" in a less certain light than does Craig:<blockquote>
"[...]was reported (<i>my emphasis</i>) by his followers to have been raised from the dead".</blockquote>
</li>
<li>And, finally, fact 4 is just a derivate of fact 3 which neither mentions on his list.</li>
</ul>
<br />
Now, I realize that such lists don't really determine much one way or another. N.T. Wright, for instance, believes that every single line in the New Testament occured exactly as written, so any such listing by him is but the roughest of thumbnail sketches, but these lists DO serve to illustrate the exaggerated nature of Craig's claims of near-universal consensus. <br />
<br />
A crucial preliminary question raises itself: If two of the most renowned NT scholars (and of these, N.T. Wright could arguably be classified as one of the more conservative scholars in the field) don't include these four "facts" in their lists, by what justification does Dr. Craig assert that the universal academic view is that these are irrefutable? This deserves more than a glossing over, and I'm amazed that his opponents don't call him on it.<br />
<br />
I have sometimes wondered, as I listen to these debates, why someone doesn't just refute these assertions of his outright. I suspect that the reasons vary from opponent to opponent; some may feel that to engage his assertions may be to give audience to an argument that is erroneous from the starting gate (I tend to agree with this notion, but then I have no station to defend), and instead choose to focus on what they think the importance of the resurrection holds for them; some may just be sticking to their own semi-scripted approach to the debate - this possibility reveals much of what is wrong with the "sport" of debate. People tend to develop habits of style and form. Having chosen a prescribed fighting strategy, experienced debaters tend to stick to it, despite what their opponent might bring. At best, this makes for a silly ballet of evasive obstinacy; at worst, the two contenders are not even listening to each other.<br />
<br />
Now, I am not an academic in this discipline - I am just a layman fascinated by recent work in this field who has studied the matter at length, independent of any institution, but I feel that Dr. Craig's "four-irrefutable-fact" axiom is very easily refuted.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijITVcHVS-rqQ03TtORgg3KYL6rqSJyipHngide5fO7jJ5YfmRVpXAs88_ingXQdbrl-2bXDFImnFZj8uSJApfH5gNaFSdszuJGl78vNmc9t2G49a1DBGXj9762IoJXmI737tUqg/s1600/0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijITVcHVS-rqQ03TtORgg3KYL6rqSJyipHngide5fO7jJ5YfmRVpXAs88_ingXQdbrl-2bXDFImnFZj8uSJApfH5gNaFSdszuJGl78vNmc9t2G49a1DBGXj9762IoJXmI737tUqg/s200/0.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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All that being said, I'll now examine the evidence that he presents in defense of these assertions of irrefutability (in italics), and then I'll present my own objections to this so-called evidence, step by step and as objectively as I can:<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: 0pt;">
<big><b>On fact #1: Joseph of Arimathea</b></big><br />
<big><b><br /></b></big></div>
<ul>
<li><i>- a - Jesus' burial is attested in the very old tradition quoted by Paul in 1Cor. 15:4.</i></li>
</ul>
While it is true that Paul explicitly mentions a burial, there's no mention at all of where or by whom he was buried. As far as we know, Paul has never heard of JoA. One can, of course, make the claim that Joseph's involvement in the passion story was well known to Paul's audience and that therefore it was unnecessary to mention him. If so, however, how does one explain the very detailed list of appearances to specific people that immediately follows? Would the people that Jesus appeared to after his resurrection not have been common knowledge as well to Paul's readers?<br />
Sorry, but you cannot cite any Pauline letter to lend valifity to the JoA story. Toss exhibit <i>A</i> right out.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><i>- b - The burial story is part of very old source material used by Mark in writing his gospel.</i></li>
</ul>
Whereas I concede that there's some indication that 1Cor. 15 reflects some kind of primitive creed that pre-dates Paul's writing it down, I find no reason to state with any kind of certainty that Mark's account of Joseph is particularly "very old". In fact, Mark's gospel contains the very earliest mention of Joseph of Arimathea that we have, and it can therefore be traced no earlier than that without reliance on conjecture.<br />
I ask myself two questions then:<br />
1- Did the author of Mark invent J of A in order to make sense of the proto-creed espoused by Paul in 1 Cor. 15 (if Mark wrote down his gospel in Rome - as is traditionally held - near the year 70 C.E., then surely he would have been familiar with that city's best-known martyr's ministry and plight)?<br />
or<br />
2 -Was Joseph part of older source material which he incorporated into his narrative?<br />
Though I lean toward the former, I'm open to the possibility of either one, but there is no reason to take it as a given that such "very old source material" existed without textual evidence to back the claim up. Just saying it doesn't make it so, I'm afraid.<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><i>- c - As a member of the Jewish court that condemned Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea is unlikely to be a Christian invention.</i></li>
</ul>
If the community held the belief that Jesus had been "raised", then it logically follows that he must have first been buried. The problem, though, is that it is really difficult to imagine how Jesus' body could have been buried, considering the manner in which he was executed. A Roman crucifixion served a couple of purposes. Its primary function was obviously to dispose of the convicted felon, but this sentence, by virtue of being especially sadistic and cruel, also served to discourage future would-be insurrectionists by adding insult to injury, so to speak. That was part of the <i>raison d'etre</i> of having seditionists crucified publicly - that is, to humiliate them, to deny them any semblance of dignity. The decaying body was usually left on the cross as a warning to others, a grotesque deterrent. It was as inconceivable to Mark as it is to us that Pilate would have granted any request to take Jesus' body down from his cross for honorable burial to either his disciples or to his family. The former he might have arrested as fellow conspirators, perhaps, and the latter he would have laughed out of his courtyard, if not flogged. Pilate, we know from other sources, was no philanthropist. The historical record paints him as a shrewd and decidedly cruel governor. <br />
The Judean historian Josephus tells a story about his coming upon some crucified men on the road to Jerusalem one day. He was terrified to recognize three of them as acquaintances of his, so he requested that they be brought down from their crosses, and he says that he was granted the request (although only one of the convicts actually survived the trauma of crucifixion, according to him), but then Josephus was part of a wealthy and powerful aristocratic family, so he had some pull, so to speak. Just as it does in today's world, money talked back then. Nevertheless, the norm was to let the victim rot up there, or to throw his corpse in a common grave. In my view, it seems that in order to make sense of the resurrection story, Mark saw the need to invent a powerful wealthy character that would have had some influence on the authorities. A Roman aristocrat was certainly not a likely candidate. Therefore, although it seems rather bizarre and controversial that a member of the Sanhedrin who had been a secret admirer of Jesus could have performed this act of respect and kindness, Mark could see no other choice.<br />
<br />
I mean . . . Who <i>else</i> was there to do it?<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><i>- d - The burial story itself lacks any traces of legendary development.</i></li>
</ul>
This to me supports the proposition that Mark <b>did</b> indeed invent Joseph of Arimathea out of whole cloth. The oral tradition (i.e. "legend") before Mark wrote his gospel was simply that Jesus had been buried and was subsequently raised. The evangelist saw the problem inherent in this simple dictum he had inherited (i.e. "he was buried" - by whom?), and skillfully constructed a brilliant solution, one which established in one stroke both that Jesus had really died and that the women knew where he was buried.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><i>- e - No competing burial story exists.</i></li>
</ul>
Indeed, I don't think that any other burial story was even possible (or at least any tenable one). -- (see point c above)<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: 0pt;">
<big><b>On fact #2: The Empty Tomb</b></big><br />
<big><b><br /></b></big></div>
<ul>
<li><i>- a - The empty tomb story is part of the very old source material used by Mark.</i></li>
</ul>
This is not evidence. This is an assertion. Once again, I ask Dr. Craig to produce textual evidence that would indicate how old the material is (he says it's "very old" - how old? - more importantly, By what criteria is he basing this guess?). The empty tomb, it seems to me, is but the natural postulation that resulted from a misunderstanding of a difficult metaphor (i.e. the resurrection). That is, once the belief in a physical raising started to spread within the growing communities of gentile converts (who were not unfamiliar with rising gods, by the way), then, an empty tomb was necessary to fill in the gaps in the story.<br />
How old is the tradition? It's hard to say, but I think it does not go back very far beyond Mark. Paul (who perhaps either had a hand in developing, or otherwise rightly understood, the metaphor of the resurrection) does not mention any empty tomb.<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><i>- b - The old tradition cited by Paul in 1 Cor. 15: 3-5 implies the empty tomb.</i></li>
</ul>
On the surface, this seems like a logical conclusion upon hearing that a historical figure was "raised up", but only if Paul was referring to an actual physical bodily resuscitation, which I'm not convinced (and neither are many eminent scholars) is what he meant by it. (*see 2a above)<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><i>- c - The story is simple and lacks any sign of legendary embellishment.</i></li>
</ul>
I think it's a little humorous to say that a story about a group of women coming to a tomb, finding the stone rolled away (supernaturally?), stepping inside, seeing an angelic figure in radiant white clothing (Was it a disciple? Why not name him? Why is he specifically seated on the "right"? Why does he specifically wear bright white? - Symbolic language is obviously being used here) who speaks to them and causes them to run away in terror lacks signs of legendary embellishment (and this is only to mention Mark's version). To not see the symbolic language used here is to be in denial of some sort.<br />
Brevity is not synonymous with simplicity.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><i>- d - The fact that women's testimony was considered worthless in first-century Palestine counts in favor of the historicity of the women's discovering the empty tomb.</i></li>
</ul>
Is this statement a "fact"? Was the testimony of women really worthless in Judea and the Galilee?<br />
<br />
<br />
Certainly, life in Judea in the first century was patriarchal and androcentric (what contemporaneous culture wasn't?). However, while social roles and responsibilities did differ for women and men, there is no reason to believe that second-temple Judaism, in all its various forms, epitomized misogynism in such an extreme way. While Josephus (<small>Antiquities iv. 8. 15</small>) does expressly say that women should not be allowed to testify in court, the Pentateuch says not a word about the exclusion of women as witnesses. Moreover, a study of rabbinic law concerning divorce shows that there were certain conditions (<small>see Miriam Peskowitz, Stories About Spinners and Weavers: Gendering the Everyday in Roman-period Judaism</small>) under which a man was obligated by the court to grant a woman a divorce and to pay her a divorce settlement. My question here then is: How is this possible if she is not allowed to testify in court?<br />
<br />
This is all really beside the point, however, since the women's claim to witnessing the empty tomb is not legal testimony. Was everything that women said not believed simply because they were women? Are we to believe that Jewish men in first-century Judea didn't believe a word that women said? What were the limits to this mass misogynous incredulity?<br />
<br />
I think that any attempt at negatively highlighting some imagined radical misogyny as somehow being intrinsic to the Judaism of the time is simply unsupported by historical evidence.<br />
<br />
<br />
It is simply bad history and bad theology. I would even say that it is a shameful practice, revealing an endemic anti-semitism (whether conscious or sub-conscious I cannot say).<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><i>- e - The early Jewish allegation that the disciples had stolen Jesus' body presupposes that the body was in fact missing from the tomb.</i></li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
What early Jewish allegation? Is he referring to Matt. 28?<br />
<br />
In my view, citing Matt. 28 as evidence of early Jewish gossip is spurious from the git go because it is circular, self-referential.<br />
<br />
Also, when Matthew wrote his gospel (the current scholarly consensus is circa 80-85 C.E.), Jews may very well have countered the resurrection claim by claiming that the body must have been stolen, but by that time Jews neither knew (nor probably cared) where Jesus had been buried. If they heard claims of Jesus' resurrection, it was only natural that they would counter with an accusation of exhumation by his followers.<br />
<br />
Tertullian wrote a short passage (De Speculatis, 100.30) in which he describes Jewish mockery of the Christians and of Jesus. Much of what Tertullian accuses the Jews of saying and doing is taken straight out of the NT, though there is some additional material which reflects what would later be found in a sixth century polemical Jewish text called the Toledoh Yeshu (in this work, the body is even found!). Tertullian wrote the passage sometime in the late second century. Thus, this is not an "early" Jewish allegation at all.<br />
<br />
<small>(I'd like to add here that the modern term "Jewish" is an anachronism in this context, but I won't belabor the point further.)</small><br />
<small><br /></small>
<br />
<div style="text-indent: 0pt;">
<big><b>On fact #3: Appearances</b></big><br />
<big><b><br /></b></big></div>
<ul>
<li><i>- b - The Gospel traditions provide multiple, independent attestations of these appearances.</i></li>
</ul>
(I have reversed the order of these first two pieces of evidence posited by Dr. Craig for the sake of exposition and clarity.)<br />
<br />
Are there really multiple independent attestations of the different post-Easter appearances?<br />
<br />
As I survey contemporary scholarship, to my eyes it seems pretty clear that the consensus view overwhelmingly favors not only Marcan priority, that is, the fact that Mark's gospel was the first to be composed, but it is also almost unanymously accepted that this gospel was subsequently used by the later evangelists ( i.e. the authors of Matthew and Luke) as a model both for the form and the content of the story they tell. If this is so, then what were once thought to be three independent attestations in the synoptics is now reduced to one evolving tradition. Furthermore, though admittedly not as overwhelmingly a consensus view (currently right about about 50%-50% ), it is probable that the fourth evangelist also knew of and used the synoptic tradition in composing his own gospel (I think he did). If this is so, then what we have are variants of one single evolving tradition.<br />
<br />
<br />
This leaves us with only two "independent" attestations, then. Namely, that contained in the gospels and the one in 1 Cor. 15.<br />
And these two traditions tell different stories. The synoptics say he appeared to Mary and some women first. Paul says he appeared to Cephas.<br />
No multiple attestation here.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><i>- a - The list of eyewitnesses to Jesus' post-resurrection appearances which is quoted by Paul (1Cor. 15: 5-7) and vouchsafed by his personal acquaintance with the people involved guarantees that these appearances occurred.</i></li>
</ul>
The proto-creed contained in 1Cor. 15 includes what presumes to be a list of the earliest of these appearances. He appeared to Simon Cephas and then to the twelve (the twelve what? - I am not being facetious here; my point is that I think "the twelve" is a post-Easter construct), and then to a bunch of people (presumably on Pentecost?), and then to Upright Jacob ("James the Lesser"), and then to "all" the apostles (Who were they?), and then, finally, last but not least, to Saul of Tarsus.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
This list is problematic because, if the story of the physical bodily resurrection is historical, that is, if Mary of Magdalá came to the tomb and was the first to see the risen Jesus, then why has Paul, who knows of all the other earliest appearances, never heard of the appearance to her? Perhaps a better way to put it is: If it happened as literally described in the canonical gospels, why didn't that crucial piece of information make it to the creed which Paul is so intent of handing down to the Corinthians? Conversely, if Mary played no such crucial role in the passion story, then why did the evangelists, writing a generation after Paul, unanimously insist that she <b>did</b>, despite Paul's blaring omission (more than an omission, this is a downright contradiction). It makes more sense to me to posit that the author of Mark's gospel had to put Mary at the scene of the crucifixion and also at the tomb to solve the problem I mentioned in 1c above. I must say that despite his limitations in the written Greek language, Mark was a very astute and creative writer in this regard.<br />
<br />
Moreover, it has always seemed strange to me that Paul would use the exact same language to describe the apparitions to Simon and to Jacob and to the others that he applies to his own vision of Jesus. If Paul's is a "vision" then I see no reason to conclude that the other appearances were of a different nature or category.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><i>- c - Researches have noticed signs of historical credibility in specific appearances -- for example, the unexpected activity of the disciples' fishing prior to Jesus' appearance by the Lake of Tiberias, and the otherwise inexplicable conversion of James, Jesus' younger brother.</i></li>
</ul>
It is unclear to me what he means by the first example. What's so unexpected about their fishing? They were fishermen; that's what they did most of the time. No?<br />
As far as James' conversion goes, though, it seems pretty clear to me, from my reading of the NT and Josephus, that Jacob was held in very high esteem by the Jerusalem community (not just the proto-Christians) as a leader and as a man of high moral convictions. He was, in other words, a good Jew. To posit a Jacobean conversion is to beg the question: Where is his conversion mentioned in any of the texts (unless, of course, you include late works such as the Gospel of Phillip as one of your sources)? 1Cor. 15 merely describes a vision to Jacob, who we know from Josephus died an esteemed and good Jew circa 62 C.E. <br />
I don't think it is possible to argue for such a conversion from Paul's description of his first trip to Jerusalem (seeking to placate the "three pillars" who by now had heard of his bizarre teachings), and I don't think it is correct to transfer Paul's christological constructs to Jacob just because Paul says they shook hands at the end of their meeting. In fact, I think that Paul was being a bit disingenuous (I am not saying that Paul lied - just stacking the deck in his favor is more like it - e.g. "I sure told them!") in his recounting of what really happened in Jerusalem during that first visit to see Jacob.<br />
<br />
<br />
In my reading of the material, the first proto-Christian community was simply a sub-sect of highly pious, Torah-observing, temple-worshiping Judeans who were strongly devoted to preserving the memory of (and to applying the teachings of) their departed beloved master and teacher, Jesus, and who were led by his younger brother after his crucifixion. Jacob became the leader of the nascent community not only by virtue of his familial relation to their master, but also by that of his own well-attested piety and righteousness.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: 0pt;">
<big><b>On fact #4: ¿Raised?</b></big><br />
<big><b><br /></b></big></div>
<ul>
<li><i>- a - Their leader was dead. And Jews had no belief in a dying, much less a rising, Messiah.</i></li>
</ul>
That first-century Jews had no such belief may or may not be true. However, since we have no real substantial verifiable information regarding the practices and beliefs of pre-rabbinical Pharisaism, the assertion is just a speculation based on his theological convictions. It is historically unsupported and, as such, it is just another case of begging the question.<br />
<br />
Also, physical bodily resurrections may or may not be attested to in what we know about Second-Temple Judaism, but this sort of thing DOES have parallels in various Pagan legends and religious practices, a fact that supports my opinion that the belief in physical bodily resurrection stems from a misunderstanding of Paul's metaphorical language that was later interpolated into the mix by the gentile converts of the Diaspora rather than in the Judean community.<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><i>b - According to Jewish law, Jesus' execution as a criminal showed him to be a heretic, a man literally under the curse of God.</i></li>
</ul>
A heretic? (oy vey!) I find myself wondering why Dr Craig would use the word "heretic" here. Makes one wonder if Dr. Craig knows what the word heretic means. Well, at least the "cursed" part is partly appropriate, but it has no bearing on the argument for the reason that if christology is a gentile-convert construct (as I believe it is - see 4a above), then such a curse would only apply to the Jerusalem community's continuing commemoration of Jesus' teaching and <b>not</b> to the fast-growing movement of hellenic Jesus worshippers.<br />
Also, Jesus was not the only murdered would-be savior of his day; John the Baptizer had been executed as well, yet his memory inspired and nurtured many devoted disciples well into the fourth century (in fact, Josephus says a lot more about John than about Jesus). My point is that their respective memories did not become somehow "taboo" just because they had been executed. All that such an assertion (and the above one about women's testimony) shows is Dr. Craig's misreading of Jewish culture.<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><i>- c - Jewish beliefs about the afterlife precluded anyone's rising from the dead before the general resurrection at the end of the world.</i></li>
</ul>
see <b>4a</b> above.<br />
<br />
Am I to believe that someone who clearly and repeatedly misinterprets first-century Jewish culture can say anything about what it does or does not preclude?<br />
<br />
A bit tangentially, I'd like to add a brief note about citing the phenomenon of martyrs in one's apologetics. It's not part of the "four fact" axiom, but he does appeal to the blood of the martyrs inevitably in his debates regarding the ressurection. Simply put, I think that even today there would probably be many (if not millions) of people who would gladly be martyred given a choice between that option and recounting their faith in Jesus. Yet, these contemporary people obviously have not personally witnessed the bodily risen Jesus (whatever the nature of their experience might be - my guess being that it is essentially a psychological phenomenon).<br />
After all, there have been plenty of Muslim, Buddhist and even Mormon martyrdoms recorded in our history. Hell, even heretics were martyred (in fact, it was a Montanist ideal!) Is Dr. Craig prepared to concede the historicity of their traditions as readily as he does the orthodox Christian one? If not, I wonder what distinguishes these Christians martyrs as more credible than the others? <br />
Here, finally, I'd like to say something about what I think is the fatal flaw in Dr. Craig's rhetorical technique, namely, his predilection to rely on rhetorical fallacies to make his case.<br />
<br />
Some of these include:<br />
<blockquote>
<b>Band wagon appeals</b> - e.g. - "all scholars agree"<br />
<b>Either/Or arguments which ignore other possibilities</b> (where's the grey?) - e.g. - "Jesus was the Messiah like he claimed, or else he was either a liar or a madman" (C.S. Lewis' famous example)<br />
<b>Sentimental appeals</b> - e.g. - Dr. Craig often closes a debate with one of these.<br />
<b>Appeals to authority</b> - e.g. - Norman Perrin said "xyz", therefore it must be true.<br />
<b>Making hasty generalizations or misrepresentations of his opponent's position</b> - e.g. - His insistence on substituting the word "hallucination" for his opponent's "vision", even after he has been corrected.<br />
<b>Begging the question</b> - e.g. - see 1b above for an example.</blockquote>
His favorite one of these techniques seems to be to argue from some authority whom he believes has the last word somehow. He does it so often, in fact, that it was this frequent practice of his, specifically, which ultimately compelled me to write this critique. Every time I hear him do it, I shudder and cringe a little. It's bad enough that his arguments are historically unsupported, but for him to repeatedly engage in such rhetorical fallacies and sophistry to reinforce his case - well ... it simply begs correction.<br />
<br />
<br />
I think that Dr. Craig's insistence on arguing for a literal reading of the bodily resurrection accounts is based on a theological need for biblical inerrancy and on a theological need to rule out the possibility that the story of the resurrection might be a parable <b>about</b> Jesus (to borrow a phrase from J.D. Crossan). Such a mythological interpretation seems to somehow threaten Dr. Craig's - and many other evangelists'- Christian faith (an irrational and unfounded fear, in my opinion). They won't have it. This insistence on literalism (and, I'm sad to say, a lot of NT scholarship that I've encountered) belongs to the category which I call "theology disguised as history".<br />
Finally, it might be wise for Dr. Craig to keep in mind the point of the parable of the doubting Thomas, which can be interpreted as, essentially, a warning against the folly of looking for empirical evidence for the physical resurrection of the body of Jesus. Or, how about the warning that the angelic figure at the tomb asks the women:<br />
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<i>Why do you seek him here?</i></blockquote>
</blockquote>
Not only do I think that to insist on a literal reading is to miss the point of these stories, but I also think that the fact that these stories are empirically indefensible makes an apologist essentially into a fideist who insists he is not one. I find this to be a fascinating kind of state of denial.<br />
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Originally posted on<br />
18 Jan 2007 C.E.<br />
Tempe, AZ<br />
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Quixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03126711689901268060noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9212346.post-23288220604477722622012-08-26T20:29:00.000-07:002014-08-12T05:19:34.573-07:00The Arts as Religion Fades …<span style="color: #4c1130;">.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0ms3cHvpbZnyOyNBs9OA6H8bVxpzZ_KZhP7CR0RDj2VeIbajQN8228EPAJuXA6U73NChA6bKSCSIeS_wo6lY3VPO5iTJnyl9fXOmTMuVu8RAh6wSJMPNOTlUmXMULKx7orZY52A/s1600/CholaSacredBronze.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0ms3cHvpbZnyOyNBs9OA6H8bVxpzZ_KZhP7CR0RDj2VeIbajQN8228EPAJuXA6U73NChA6bKSCSIeS_wo6lY3VPO5iTJnyl9fXOmTMuVu8RAh6wSJMPNOTlUmXMULKx7orZY52A/s200/CholaSacredBronze.jpg" height="200" width="176" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chola bronze — Dance of Shiva</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;">A</span> friend recently suggested in a conversation that if it weren't for religion we wouldn't have the arts. After giving it some thought, I don't believe that's true at all. I think religion's appetite for the arts <i>did </i>have some role in facilitating their progress in those societies in which Christianity took hold, but ultimately I believe art would still be in our lives with or without religion. Let's not forget that the relationship between religion and the arts is rather symbiotic, a two-way street. That is to say, without art, Christianity (<span style="font-size: xx-small;">here I will pick on Xstianity b/c my friend is Xstian</span>) would be a lot harder to sell to the masses. Mere mystery is not enough without the accompanying visual and aural aides and symbols with which to navigate it. For the bulk of the Church's history (universal literacy is a fairly recent development) the people were forced to meditate on a story sung to them in a language which they probably didn't understand, through picture-book stained glass, painted, and sculpted images, depictions of key gospel passages, that were all around them in church while the well-rehearsed choir filled every nook and cranny in the place with a grandiose import that the congregants could get nowhere else. It's easy to forget that the overwhelming majority of people (certainly the lay people) had no way to ponder the mystery except through the sights and sounds of the liturgy. It was the only game in town. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz6To6EsdykWncqg5FNjNje-E8KXW-FyF-p4gOWaOJ-2dqfiUlcWeNjULD4UNlu57Riby0L2fNU1PEwK-jvLvswPBfPFp90EZthgoGD482e6gFbl6Z62qruHmKyK42sj61n989eg/s1600/PurisimaAltar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz6To6EsdykWncqg5FNjNje-E8KXW-FyF-p4gOWaOJ-2dqfiUlcWeNjULD4UNlu57Riby0L2fNU1PEwK-jvLvswPBfPFp90EZthgoGD482e6gFbl6Z62qruHmKyK42sj61n989eg/s200/PurisimaAltar.jpg" height="200" width="149" /></a><br />
Yes, I think we can say that art springs from that intangible domain that we call the spiritual, the numinous, and I think we can say that the first songs were probably prayers, and I think we can even say that religion in this perennial, <span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">metaphysical</span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;"> sense has always been reflected in art and will continue to be. </span></div>
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The mystical beasts on the walls of the caves of Altamira are informed less by zoological or morphological concerns of their hunters than they are by the perceived interrelation they fancied they had with these phantastic creatures. Gods have always been great springboards for riffing. </div>
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The thousands of altars strewn across the Mediterranean basin, all devoted to the pantheon of Greek deities attest to this human proclivity. Poseidon standing nine meters tall in bronze, trident in hand, poised to strike. Athena in armor.
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When Constantine decreed the primacy of Christianity for the empire, the Church ran with this, blossomed, and eventually became a regal entity which gloried in highly adorned and elaborate artistic professions of faith, and would pay handsomely at times for them. They filled the temples with rows and rows of rococo excess. So artists followed the money to the great cathedrals and they painted there. The great ones fluorished. <i>You want John the Baptizer in furs? <b>Sure!</b> Saint Joseph with his lillied staff? <b>Certainly!</b> </i>The church was a godsend to art. Bach set his experience with his scriptures to a music so sublime that it will likely survive the ages of man. (I could be wrong. :) The high standard that Christianity inspired in the arts is undeniable. El Greco's reverence to this tradition is expressed wonderfully in the radiant elasticity of his religious figures. And it's as if Rembrandt mixed light itself with his colors to achieve the transcendence in <b><i>his</i></b>. The influence of the artist's devotion to the subject matter is undeniable in the great art of recent centuries. </div>
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<span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">But people have become progressively less religious. This is also undeniable, and since the days of the Enlightenment, instead of doctrinal exhortations to submission to authority, it has been scientific discovery and technological advancement which more and more have become the determinants of our sense of social history and of the idioms appropriate to expressing that history. </span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">In an increasingly secular society, where we no longer have need of the god hypothesis (as La Place once called it), a hypothesis on which we once relied so heavily, the art produced reflects this rate of change.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;"> </span></div>
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<span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">Once we dispensed with the sacred, what was once profane seems to have thrived. </span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">It was a gradual process. Almost innocuous at first. Leonardo's most iconic piece is not religious at all (and yet it 'passed'). Vermeer's mastery was religion-less as well. By the time that the impressionists opened the turn of the 20th century up to the open light, religion had all but fallen completely out of view in the visual arts, a field which it had once all but monopolized. It would never regain this primacy again. Art has abandoned the Church, never to return. What's more, the reactionary irreverence and boldness that are part and parcel of the artistic personality deepened, sometimes into explorations of form and composition, sometimes into a deliberate scorn. This has happened at an exponential rate, and now we find ourselves in an age where "Piss Christ" can be defended as genuine artistic expression. I see no end in the recent future for shock as a valued aesthetic component in art. The postmorderns asked: <b><i>Beauty? What's that? </i></b></span></div>
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After such a severance, a progressively secular society will inevitably come up with its own existential concerns to depict and exploit. Some memes will be more useful than others and will multiply. And rightly so. It doesn't mean that people should just abandon hope and optimism and the mythical-artistic imagination. J<span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">ust because people decide there's no god doesn't mean that they won't keep asking all those unanswerable questions that people as an altruistic social simian species seem to be wired to ask.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;"> '</span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">Atheism' (a term I don't like much) can itself engender moral discipline and altruism and surely art as well. Human exultation, anguish and jubilation, love and hatred, these don't end with the death of god, they will forever continue to demand shaped expression wherever human beings live together. That's just the way it is. What is different now is that this position inevitably imposes on the artist or the thinker a solitude more austere than previously realized. An added sense of futility. The storm which we sail under turns out to be windier than we previously thought; life is nasty, brutish, short, and only once, so people paint according to this new-found sense of desolation. A high and advanced art is not precluded by this lessening bond between Church and an ambivalent congregation's lack of devotion, though. But the very function and definition of art have been completely redefined in the paradigm shift that has ensued since the church lost sole control of the arts. Surely, despite the death of God in our history, there will be artists who will be energized by their own personal existential concerns into creating works to rival the dimensions, the transcendental strengths of those inspired by the Christian <i>kerygma </i>in the age which preceded this one. At any rate, it would be impertinent to rule out the possibility of art in the coming secular age (an ironically neo-pagan one, but that's for another rant). Or to deny a fascination. </span></div>
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Quixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03126711689901268060noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9212346.post-14762151962900291792012-07-05T04:02:00.003-07:002014-08-12T05:20:12.151-07:00Quixie Reviews a Homeopath<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The following is in response to <a href="http://dialecticalohmeopathy.wordpress.com/">a blog post</a> on Chandran Nambiar’s blog devoted to homeopathy.
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It was suggested that I read this blog post in order to have a better understanding of the theoretical aspects of homeopathy from a viewpoint other than “new age wackos.”
Here goes …
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A metaphor that came to my mind while reading Chandran Nambiar’s apology for homeopathy is that of a Trojan Horse. The article begins as a call to modern homeopaths to amend the outmoded paradigm which relegates the active component of homeopathic treatments to the realm of the intangible and unexplained/unexplainable, and to take a more rigorous scientific approach to the discipline, so that it may be taken seriously and finally incorporated into general medical practice without the sarcasm and mockery which it is frequently subjected to from this establishment, both currently and in the past. This seems like a noble goal. As such, I found myself cheering him on in the first few paragraphs of the piece, where he chastises his fellow practitioners for the gaping lapses in the theoretical scientific formulations of the practice. In one of the opening paragraphs, he states:
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Studies of homeopathic practice have been largely negative or inconclusive. No scientific basis for homeopathic principles has been substantiated”.
For the last 250 years since its inception, homeopathic theoreticians were trying to explain the ‘modus operandi’ of potentized homeopathic medicines using one or other hypotheses available or evolved by them. They go on spinning diverse types of fanciful ‘theories’ using ‘ultra-scientific’ jargons, that make homeopathy a piece of unending mockery before the scientific community. Actually, nobody could so far even propose a scientifically viable ‘working hypothesis’ about homeopathy, that could be presented as a reasonable candidate for verifications according to scientific methods.
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Like the proverbial Trojan horse, Nambiar’s article is impressive in magnitude, massive even (33,000 + words, in fact). It is without a doubt the most erudite (copious typos notwithstanding) and exhaustive attempt at a defense of homeopathy that I have read to date. But while it certainly is ambitious in its stated goal, instead of logical cogency, his arguments depend more on verisimilitude, and thus fall flat of being at all persuasive. In the end, his is nothing but a specious “fanciful theory” that is unsupported by research, using much “ultra-scientific jargon” in order to seem more “<i>sciency</i>” than the homeopathic theory of old. By the time one reaches the midpoint of the extremely long blog post, in fact, it is quite clear that Mr. Nambiar is no different from those whom he condemns in his introductory caveat. Nambiar’s Trojan horse purports to be a corrective measure against homeopathy’s intangible, mystical past, but it only succeeds in slipping in a few more layers of nonsense to its already over-burdened and tenuous “theory.” To his credit, though, I will say that at least he is aware of traditional homeopathy’s failings, and he is at least trying to address them by formulating a working hypothesis, which is more than can be said of any other homeopathic apologist that I have come across. </div>
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But his fundamentally apologetic tendencies are hard to conceal despite his posturing as a defender of science. A sentence like:
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"Such a fundamental re-building shall obviously help in enthroning homeopathy on its rightful status of the most advanced branch of modern medical science, unfairly denied for more than last two hundred years." </blockquote>
betrays the ultimately ideological modus of his thinking. Or, try this sentence:
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"We repeatedly hear about ‘successful” attempts by its opponents, to ‘disprove’ it ‘scientifically’, and time and again declaring it a ‘fraud, placebo, or pseudoscience’. In spite of all these scorns, ridicules and ‘witch hunts’, homeopathy still exists and thrives all over the continents, alleviating pain and sufferings of millions. The rising acceptance of homeopathy not only by the millions of lay public, but by the heads of states, members of royal families and many other dignitaries all over the world, has produced a state of dilemma in the world of medicine. Either all of these millions had fallen victims to a successful global scale ‘medical hoax’, or the ‘learned scientists’ striving to disprove homeopathy, are being proved themselves wrong."
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Or …
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"They miserably failed to comprehend the revolutionary content and epoch-making relevance of Hahnemann’s findings. "<br />
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Or …
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"The principle of ‘Similia Similibus Curenter’ has sufficiently proved its ‘right of existence’ through thousands and thousands of miraculous cures by homeopaths all over the world."<br />
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Or …
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"The sarcastic comments of our opponents that ‘homeo medicines act only as placebos’ may be dismissed as expressions of their arrogance resulting from ‘scientific ignorance’ regarding matters happening outside the dominion of their comprehension."<br />
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Not only are these the words of a man with a horse in the race, of an impassioned apologist, these are the words of a man who is obviously presuming that which he is supposedly trying to prove, namely, that homeopathy is a demonstrably efficient technique. (As a trained scientist—before I became a lowly musician, my formal education was in chemical engineering — I take some slight offense at that last sentence of his, by the way.)
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So much for his being a detached and objective observer and champion of science.
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Anyway, after summarizing the fundamental axioms of homeopathic practice that we all have heard before he eventually gets to making his main point, which is the only one that is pertinent to my focus. His novel idea is not that hard to encapsulate, actually. Basically he has learned about and has become excited by recent discoveries in polymer chemistry, specifically something called ‘molecular imprinting in polymers’ (MIP). This is a process by which chains of polymers seem to exhibit a kind of ‘memory’ at a molecular level.
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From the article:
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This technology involves the imprinting of synthetic polymer substances using enzymes or such macromolecules as ‘guest’ molecules. As a result of imprinting, nanocavities with 3-d spacial [sic] configurations complementary to the ‘guest’ molecules will be created in the interaction surfaces of the polymers. These imprinted polymers, by virtue of the nanocavities they contain can be used to bind molecules with configurational similarity to ‘guest’ molecules. They are at present widely used in various laboratory assays as powerful adsorption surfaces and molecular sensors. MIPs are also found to be of much practical use in various areas of science and technology.
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He then takes a bold step in suggesting that a similar phenomenon might be at work in the water/alcohol substrate which every homeopathic remedy is “prepared” in. He formulates the problem in the following way:
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"What is the exact character and dynamics of this physical transformations occurring in the alcohol-water mixture during potentization? How is the information regarding the medicinal properties of drug molecules encoded into these physical formations, and preserved even without the presence of a single original drug molecule? What is the exact molecular dynamics of therapeutic action of these highly diluted preparations? How they interfere in the bio-chemic interactions of an organism, thereby removing the specific pathologic molecular inhibitions? The future of homeopathy and medical sciences at large, depends on the answers we provide for these fundamental questions. With apology, the author dares to delve into the depth of these vital issues, equipped with his very limited resources."</blockquote>
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Since he already presupposes that homeopathy works, he thinks it completely plausible to posit this analogue between polymers and water. Now, if this were so, it could very well account for the alleviation of symptoms that one might experience from a homeopathic tincture which statistically has been diluted well beyond the likelihood of there being any molecules of the corresponding substance in the solution. He well knows of this conundrum. Imprinting in water would be a brilliant solution to the problem. That would rock. The trouble is that water and polymers are not much alike. We have no reason to make such a comparison between apples and pineapples. It is a completely unwarranted step.
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Why?</div>
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Well, to illustrate this equivocation, we need to go a bit into the definition and attributes of polymers. Simply stated a polymer is the result of molecules uniting with other molecules to form a chain. In a sense, polymers are the organic analogue of mineral crystallization, where a matrix (lattice) is established according to the spatial and ionic configuration of the molecules involved. Nambiar’s own discussion of protein polymerization is not inaccurate, in fact:
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Proteins are a class of highly complex nitrogen-containing bio-molecules, functioning as the primary carriers of all the bio-chemic processes underlying the phenomenon of life. There exist millions of protein molecules belonging to thousands of protein types in a living organism. Each protein molecule is formed by the polymerization of monomers called amino acids, in different proportions and sequences. Each protein type has its own specific role in the bio-chemic interactions in an organism. Most of the amino acids necessary for the synthesis of proteins are themselves synthesized from their molecular precursers [sic] inside the body. A few types of amino acids cannot be synthesized inside the body, and have to be made available through food. These are called essential amino acids. There are specific protein molecules assigned for each bio-chemic process that take place in the body. Various proteins play different types of roles, like biological catalysts or enzymes, molecular receptors, transport molecules, hormones and antibodies. Some proteins function as specialized molecular switches, systematically switching on and off of specific bio-chemic pathways. Proteins are synthesized from amino acids, in conformity with the neucleotide [sic] sequences of concerned genes, with the help of enzymes, which are themselves proteins. ‘Protein synthesis’ and ‘genetic expression’ are very important part of vital process. It may be said that genes are molecular moulds for synthesizing proteins. There are specific genes, bearing appropriate molecular codes of information necessary for synthesizing each type of protein molecule. Even the synthesis of these genes happens with the help of various enzymes, which are protein molecules. There is no any single bio-molecular process in the living organism, which does not require an active participation of a protein molecule of any kind.
The most important factor we have to understand while discussing proteins is the role of their three-dimensional spacial [sic] organization evolving from peculiar di-sulphide bonds and hydrogen bonds. Water plays a vital role in maintaining the three dimensional organization of proteins intact, thereby keeping them efficient to participate in the diverse biochemical processes. Proteins exhibits different levels of molecular organization: primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary. It is this peculiar three dimensional structure that decides the specific bio-chemic role of a given protein molecule. More over, co-enzymes and co-factors such as metal ions and vitamins play an important role in keeping up this three-dimensional structure of protein molecules intact, thereby activating them for their specific functions.</blockquote>
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This is all true. Unfortunately for his argument, water has none of the “chains of proteins in specific configurations” properties that would make it an analogue to polymers. Water is a dipolar molecular fluid, a solvent, where polymers are not. It has unique properties of cohesion and adhesion which affect things like its relatively high freezing and melting points and rate of evaporation, but it is otherwise a fairly simple fluid. In order for Nambiar’s hypothesis to bear out, he would have to posit (and he does) that water has the ability to retain a three-dimensional negative image of whatever “guest” particle is in suspension. In other words, he would have to posit that water has “memory.”
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Is there research that Nambiar can appeal to in this regard?
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Well, there was a paper in 1988 from a man named Jacques Benveniste (1935–2004), who essentially claimed that he has observed such a phenomenon (i.e. the memory of water), but subsequent rigorous experiments failed to repeat the results reported in his original paper, and the idea was pretty much discredited. Nambiar, of course, needs “memory of water” for his idea to work, and so, he laments the discrediting of the paper and thinks that it was the arrogance of the establishment that was to blame for suppressing a great discovery:
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"He suspected that the molecular memory of the antibodies which was imprinted in water during dilution is responsible for this peculiar phenomenon. But the sad part of this story is that he failed to prove his arguments in the repeated experiments which were conducted in an atmosphere of absolute hostility, under the supervision of experts who were inimical to him, whose sole aim was to disprove him."
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Why is it sad that the experiment wasn’t able to be replicated? Oh yeah, I remember, because Nambiar needs this to be really real. But if the phenomenon which he discovered were in fact real, experiment would have revealed them to be so, whether there was hostility or not, right. Yet, despite the general discrediting of Benevite’s assumptions, Nambiar proceeds to use them as though they were in fact verified to be true and useful. This is the point at which Nambiar’s train of thought completely derails and he is revealed to be a shark-jumper.
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"<b><i>Obviously</i></b> [<i>my emphasis</i>], hydration shells assume an internal spacial arrangement exactly fitting to the 3-dimensional spacial configuration of the foreign molecule entrapped in them. If we could devise some technique to remove the entrapped ‘guest’ molecules from these hydration shells, without disturbing the hydrogen bonds between the constituent water molecules, these hydration shells can still retain the molecular memory of the molecular configurations of the removed ‘guest’ molecules. This rarely studied phenomenon is known as ‘molecular memory of water’."
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"<b><i>It has been well proven</i></b> that these hydration shells later show a peculiar capability to differentially recognize the original ‘guest’ molecules which were responsible for their formation." …
"Even if the ‘host’ molecules are removed from clathrates, the network of water molecules <b><i>have been found</i></b> to remain intact. " [<i>again, my emphases</i>]
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No footnotes or references to the research involved in either of these statements. Just bald assertions filled with certitude, which the reader should just take as a factually true. Right? Needless to say, this is embarrassing and shameful.
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Probably realizing that he doesn’t have any support anywhere for his “memory of water” assertions, he reaches deep into the absurd:
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"We all know that water exists as ice crystals in its solid form. But it has been recently observed that water can exist even in its liquid form in crystals. In reality, water formed by melting of ice is in a state of liquid crystals. " </blockquote>
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Even if this were true; would it be relevant? Has anyone ever heard of homeopathic remedies being prepared in water which is in a state of either melting or freezing? That one is just desperate flailing, if you ask me. Yet, despite all of this nonsense, he insists in portraying himself as a maverick in the field:
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"I am well aware that these revolutionary concepts may not be so easily welcomed by the mainstream homeopathic profession, conditioned by education and experience of long years into dogmatic concepts and fixed mindsets on these issues. I may be running into a major controversy due to my theoretical interventions and revisionist concepts. But somebody has to come forward and ‘bell the cat’, and open up a discussion on scientific re-building of homeopathy, at any point of time. Once my assumption that the secret of potentization lies in the phenomenon of ‘molecular imprinting’ is experimentally proved to be correct, my suggestions may become more relevant and acceptable."
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If he were standing before me, I would like to ask him, “What, pray tell, sir, are you doing toward this end? — Have you tried research?”
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The Achilles’ heel in his house of cards can be pinpointed with one final quotation from this blog post:
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"It is in the phenomenon of ‘molecular memory of water’ itself that we naturally land on when we attempt to scientifically explain the homeopathic potentisation of drugs. We have already seen that the alcohol–water molecules contained in the medium used for potentization, arrange themselves around the drug molecules, and form hydration shells. The drug molecules entrapped in the hydration shells are systematically removed as a result of serial dilutions and shaking, done as part of potentization. Empty hydration shells or ‘hydrosomes’ remain. These ‘hydrosomes’ are nano-cavities, imprinted with the three-dimensional ‘finger print’ of drug molecules used as ‘guest’ molecules. [my emphasis] This phenomenon may be called as ‘molecular imprinting in water’. These ‘hydrosomes’ are the real active principles of homeopathic medicines, potentized above 30C."
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The idea that water molecules, connected by hydrogen bonds that last for only about a picosecond (that’s 10<sup>-12</sup> ) before breaking and reforming, could somehow cluster into long-lived mimics of an antibody in suspension within their proximity is simply absurd on the face of it. Add to this nonsense the idea that the guest molecules somehow fall out of place and leave an imprint, as if that is how dilution of aqueous solutions works . . . . .
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I think I'll stop right here, actually. </div>
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I’ve tried to retain some semblance of civility while reviewing this man’s writing.
It hasn't been easy. </div>
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Quixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03126711689901268060noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9212346.post-47704513513136048042012-05-13T19:56:00.002-07:002014-08-28T14:05:01.954-07:00Review of Bart Ehrman's "Did Jesus Exist"<span style="color: #0c343d; font-size: xx-small;">.
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Bart Ehrman is a rock star. Well … as close to a rock star as a geeky Ivy League academic with tenure can get, anyway. After a long industrious, prolific, and distinguished career teaching the historical Jesus, he now finds himself in a most enviable position, one that other lesser-known New Testament scholars drooly aspire to. He is without question the best-selling author in the field of New Testament studies today, penning one successful (and usually provocative—at least to the evangelical mindset) book on Christian origins after another. His is an impressive (and lucrative) streak. Well-known among scholars, he's also become an ubiquitous presence in the talk-show circuit, in book-signing tours, on the radio, in documentaries that profile the latest reconstruction(s) of Jesus, and in all manner of media. He's big time<span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">, a go-to "professional expert", </span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">as ubiquitous now as Bishop Spong, Elaine Pagels, Dom Crossan, and N.T. Wright have been for a while. </span></div>
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His latest work is titled <b style="text-indent: 0.2in;">Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth</b><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">. Its purported subject is mythicism, that is, the notion that the legend of Jesus might be just that, </span><i style="text-indent: 0.2in;">legendary</i><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">, not based on a real historical personality, but instead on an essentially fictional character. Simply put (<i>too</i> simply, in my opinion): the notion that Jesus did not really exist. </span>
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I'd read several of his previous books before — <b>Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet …</b>, <b>Misquoting Jesus</b>, and <b>Forged</b>. — so I am familiar with his general take on the historical Jesus. He subscribes to the failed apocalyptic millennial prophet model which Schweitzer had espoused at the turn of the twentieth century. I am also familiar with his narrative style, which I have always found, I must confess, to be excessively confident and a bit prosaic. This general rhetorical bent is continued in <b style="text-indent: 0.2in;">Did Jesus Exist</b><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">.</span></div>
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Several highly critical reviews of this book have already appeared in the blogosphere, one of the most damning being <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/1026">that of Richard Carrier on his blog</a>, which (rightly) focuses on the copious —the blatantly obvious, and even sophomoric— errors in the book, errors which only a very sloppy writer with little regard for accuracy would make. I won't rehash those here, but I recommend Carrier's review very much. Instead, I would like to highlight an aspect of Ehrman's book which I feel has been overlooked by many critics. </div>
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From the very start, Ehrman readily admits that he is writing not for those who might find the Christ Myth theory tenable (he dismisses such people categorically as obstinate and beyond persuasion in the book's introduction). He writes instead for all those who are "seeking the truth" in these matters. Bracket for the moment the polemical presumptuousness and circularity of this preliminary statement of his intention (<i>i.e.</i> mythicists are not truth seekers or else they wouldn't be mythicists, right?). What I find troubling about this opening move is that it is an indirect admission on his part that he has no intention of being thorough in his critique of mythicism. This is also evident in the length of his book (369 pages), the briefness of which is certainly not enough by itself to warrant condemnation; after all, John Dominic Crossan managed to skillfully demolish the gist of Raymond Brown's 1600+ page (two hefty volumes) opus, <b>The Death of the Messiah</b>, in less than 300 pages (in his <b>Who Killed Jesus</b>). Brevity is thus not <i>necessarily </i>a liability, but I am afraid that in the case of Ehrman's book, the length reflects<span style="text-indent: 0.2in;"> his biased selectivity and subsequent methodological cavalierness,</span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;"> his predilection to dismiss mythicism uncritically as so much "conspiracy" mongering, picking and choosing only some issues</span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">from the mythicist literature </span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">that he can deal with in a superficial and dismissive manner. After all, a conspiracist is a conspiracist, right? Granted, there have been many self-professed mythicists who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground, but then there are those who are quite versed in the materials pertaining to Christian origins and are very incisive and insightful. Ehrman does seem to make some kind of distinction between these, but only superficially, it turns out, for, as one reads his assessments of scholars such as Wells and Price, one finds him using the same derisive undertones that he also uses on less-credible work (</span><i style="text-indent: 0.2in;">e.g.</i><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;"> Freke-Gandy, </span><i style="text-indent: 0.2in;">et al</i><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">). He even treats Earl Doherty, the author of probably the most thorough and cogent argument for a Christ Myth theory in existence with disdain. Worse, he (intentionally?) misrepresents and mischaracterizes many of Doherty's positions in this book. Anyone who has read Doherty's own writing must conclude that Ehrman simply <i>didn't</i>, that he probably relied instead on time-saving synopses of it. Or, if he </span><i style="text-indent: 0.2in;">did </i><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">read it, it must have been whilst preparing his taxes, mowing the lawn, watching a movie or something as distracting. Again, I won't rehash his mischaracterizations of Doherty in this review (Neil Godfrey has already done a much better job of analyzing them in detail than I could on his blog — </span><a href="http://vridar.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/bart-ehrmans-false-or-careless-assertions-and-quotations-concerning-earl-doherty/" style="text-indent: 0.2in;">here</a><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">, </span><a href="http://vridar.wordpress.com/2012/03/29/another-bart-ehrman-mis-reading-of-earl-dohertys-book/" style="text-indent: 0.2in;">here</a><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">, </span><a href="http://vridar.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/ehrman-hides-the-facts-about-dohertys-argument-part-1/" style="text-indent: 0.2in;">here</a><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">, </span><a href="http://vridar.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/ehrman-suppresses-the-facts-while-falsely-accusing-doherty-part-2/" style="text-indent: 0.2in;">here</a><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">, </span><a href="http://vridar.wordpress.com/2012/03/31/devious-doherty-or-erring-ehrman/" style="text-indent: 0.2in;">here</a><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">, </span><a href="http://vridar.wordpress.com/2012/04/02/ehrmans-most-bizarre-criticism-of-all-against-doherty/" style="text-indent: 0.2in;">here</a><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">, and </span><a href="http://vridar.wordpress.com/2012/04/03/did-bart-ehrman-not-even-read-the-cover-of-earl-dohertys-book/" style="text-indent: 0.2in;">here</a><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;"> — that Godfrey sure is prolific ;).</span></div>
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Ehrman also explicitly states that he is not writing a "scholarly" work, that his aim is a book that will be accessible more to a general (pop) audience, dealing not with minutia but with general claims. This directly contradicts his publisher's misleading description of the book on Amazon's Kindle store, which reads: " […]<i>Ehrman demolishes both the scholarly and popular mythicist arguments against the existence of Jesus </i> […] ".</div>
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Wait a minute, Ehrman <i><b>demolishes</b></i> the scholarly arguments<b>?</b>
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Hell, as anyone who has extensively read the literature of The Tübingen School and read the Dutch Radicals (who had a profound influence on what would eventually become mythicism — Ehrman doesn't mention them except for Bruno Bauer in passing) and read the turn-of-the-century and newer wave of skeptics will realize, Ehrman doesn't even <b><i>address</i></b> the scholarly arguments! Of course, his intended audience, unfamiliar as they are with the pertinent materials, will casually assume that Ehrman <i>has</i> done the leg work necessary to make his case thoroughly. '<i>He <b>is</b> Bart Ehrman, after all. He <b>must</b> know what he's talking about</i>.' It's shameful.</div>
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But put even <i>that</i> failure aside for the moment. <b>Did Jesus Exist</b>'s main fault is prior to all of this and more simply stated. The Achilles' heel, to my eyes, the thing that makes me raise my eyebrow regarding this little book, the most puzzling thing of all, is Ehrman's decision to do a pop book rather than a scholarly one. Logic dictates that the latter type is required first in order to lend credence to the former type. <span style="text-indent: 0.2in;"> H</span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">e's got it bass-akwards. How can one distribute authorative information to the masses, when one has not bothered to do a thorough review of the material in question first? </span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">He presents himself as authoritative but only reveals his laziness on this one. This could have been a great book.</span><br />
<span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">As it is, it sucks. </span></div>
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This really has me scratching my head. Why has Bart Ehrman done such an irresponsible hack job at this stage in his career? Maybe his new-found rock star status has gone to his head?</div>
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Needless to say, I think that this is arguably Ehrman's worst effort to date.
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I'm sure that it will do very well, though. </div>
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Given all that I have said above, I suggest that future editions of the book replace both the title and the cover with ones that are more appropriate to this book's actual content:
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Like practically everyone else in the English-speaking world, I had to read several Shakespeare plays when I was in high school: <b>Julius Caesar</b>, <b>Henry IV</b> (Pt1), <b>Macbeth</b>. Some time later I would eventually also read <b>A Midsummer Night's Dream</b>, <b>Romeo and Juliet</b>, <b>King Lear</b>, and <b>Hamlet</b>. Although I have found his archaic language to be somewhat of a challenge (given that I spoke Spanish exclusively until I was twelve years of age), the universality of Shakespeare's stories and characters <span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">always</span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.2in;">shines through, allowing me to find the beauty within the tales. </span></div>
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Fast forward to last Thursday, when I was hanging out with my friend Frank, who suggested that we go see a movie at the Camelview Cinema. I said, "sure, what do you wanna see?" He said that he had listened to a review of a new film called Corolianus on NPR, and that he was eager to see it. "What is it about?" I asked. He said it was a modern rendition of a Shakespearean play. "Which one?" — "<b>Coriolanus</b>." — "That's a Shakespeare play?" — "Yes." — "I never heard of that one." — "Neither had I until today."
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We were on our way to see a Shakespeare play that neither of us had ever heard about.
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In a nutshell, <b>Coriolanus</b> is the story of a ruthless Roman general who returns home from a successful campaign against an insurrection (the Volscians) against Rome. The people heap much adulation upon him as a military hero at first, only to turn on him at the instigation of the senators who, because they fear that he may become powerful beyond their ability to control him, conspire to denounce him as a hyper-ambitious tyrant-in-waiting. The mob flip flops. The citizens go from bestowing a consulship on Coriolanus to taking it away and banishing him all within a couple of minutes in the film. The change of heart happens so fast it almost gave me whiplash. Exiled, his glory and honor stripped away, Coriolanus makes his way to the Volscians he once fought so fiercely, this time to join them in laying siege to Rome, thus exacting revenge on those who ruined his life. Fortunately (for Rome), Coriolanus' mother is a die-hard Roman patriot. She comes to see him (with his wife and child in tow) and shames him into signing a peace treaty. He goes to Rome, signs it, and upon his return he is murdered by the Volscians who feel betrayed by this turncoat mercenary. Fin.
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Because I had never heard of this Shakespeare play before seeing this film, I looked it up in my <i>The Complete Works of William Shakespeare</i> when I got home. Sure enough, there is was. Why hadn't I known of this play before? It's funny how we miss so many details in the things around us. Reading the original, it was interesting to note the way that it had been edited for the screen. One aspect that made the film version particularly fascinating is the anachronistic use of Elizabethan English in an early twenti-first century setting. This superimposition lends the piece a surreal lyrical quality that would not ordinarily be there in a mainstream war movie. It is simultaneously essential to the story's flow <i>and </i>a bit distracting, which is to say that I still have difficulty with the archaic language and meter of Shakespearean dialogue, I guess.
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All that aside, what is my take on the play?
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I find that, unlike the other Shakespeare plays that I have read, this one has no clear hero or villain. Both sides of the conflict are equally despicable — Coriolanus in his aristocratic sense of entitlement and his obvious contempt for the common people, and the scheming tribunes who take advantage of their credulity and simple-mindedness and who manipulate them for their own greed and lust for power. A pox on both their houses! I could not help but be reminded of the cruel and dirty business of the politics of government, and of why I detest nationalism in any form. Extreme patriotism is the refuge of scoundrels (who was it that said that?).
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The play is new to me, but once again I find that Shakespeare skillfully wove a timeless tale that faithfully reflects the nuanced frailty of the human condition in his inimitable fashion.
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Quixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03126711689901268060noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9212346.post-27484694083521791292012-01-19T16:46:00.000-08:002014-08-13T18:29:15.864-07:00an end of theism …<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
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I came across this video series yesterday and I found it such a fair and honest treatment of the subject it deals with that I thought I would share it here.
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It's quite brilliant.
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Quixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03126711689901268060noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9212346.post-76801424427944807142011-03-25T05:41:00.000-07:002014-10-28T10:23:17.114-07:00baby step trepidation …<div style="text-indent: .2in;">
I recently played my first church gig. That first gig later led to singing at a memorial service, after which I was invited to attend a meeting, a screening and interactive discussion of the <b>Living the Questions</b> DVD series. I knew of this series from my previous exposure to AzFCT. It features some renowned scholars and theologians espousing a very inclusive, pluralistic, positive gospel message. It includes the ubiquitous Dom Crossan in his flowy Irish cadence, Marcus Borg in his sleepy blue-eyed myst, Bishop Spong, all casual in a baseball cap speaking his trans-Christian message of love. What's not to like? So I attended two of these meeting/screenings. The second one was devoted to the topic of the pre/post-Easter Jesus dichotomy. The historical Jesus contrasted with the Christ of faith. </div>
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What I didn't realize is that this was to be the introduction to this kind of post-Bultman mythologized historical Jesus for many of the congregants in attendance. In a way I feel privileged to have witnessed their very first baby steps into a higher-critical analysis of the New Testament. As one who has been exploring Christian origins for over a decade from a historiographic areligious angle, watching average folk dipping their toe into unfathomed water, not knowing how cold or deep it goes, I found the whole experience amusing and simultaneously frustrating in that I could not really participate in the discussion. For fear of <b><i>really </i></b>blowing people's minds, I bit my lip throughout. </div>
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Still, I wish I could describe the look on the faces on some of the people gathered as they listened to Marcus Borg explain that his Christian faith does not depend on any physical resurrection, that insisting on such a literal interpretation is not a necessary component of faith for him. This concept is a very challenging one for a laity raised on imperative literalisms and biblicisms to wrap their head around when they first hear it. It was worth the price of admission just to be able to watch people wrestle with their sacred cows in such an open and vulnerable way.</div>
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During one of the breaks, one woman asked about the role of God's spirit in the conception of Jesus. It was as though she somehow needed Jesus to be conceived of the Holy Spirit in a virgin womb. She looked a bit sad when the pastor —who I must give a lot of credit to for being so honest in his answers to her awkward question— rightly explained to her that birth narratives appear in only two gospels and that the earliest gospel we have, that according to Mark, actually pinpoints the moment of Jesus' acquiring his spirit-divinity as the moment of his baptism, not his conception. He went on to show that the gospels that Matthew and Luke pinpoint the moment as his conception/birth as the crucial moment, and John later pushes Jesus' divine status even further back in time, ascribing eternal coexistence with G-sh to this Jesus guy. The pastor is conversant with the main trends in mainstream historical Jesus studies. It is clear that Christianity for him is not so much about historical veracity as it is about a mundane call to "live the questions" that this DVD series tries to focus on. The stunned woman exuded a certain mournful vibe when faced with the prospect that the birth narratives are essentially mythical language after all. It was a poignant moment. I felt the pastor's pain. </div>
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The DVD itself is a visually dynamic stream of bite-sized morsels of insight, strung one after another. Key phrases are stressed and highlighted. Grunge fonts abound. The layout and design tends toward the cut and paste post-MTV variety of semi-chaotic direction and editing. Seeking impact through digital manipulation of forms, through bold use of color, through subtle echoed repetitions, it is a fine, visually.striking production. Unfortunately, the flashy, piecemeal style of the presentation, perfect for the short attention span of the modern North American lifestyle, does no justice to the profundity of the subject matter. Instead, at times it feels more like a teen ministry show than a useful learning tool. It <i>is </i>somewhat systematic, though. I'll give it that. It's sequenced and paced. Programmed. At distinct points in the show, one is prompted to pause the DVD, and folks are asked to reflect on what they've just seen and heard. Printouts contain questions to use as springboards for discussion. Given the reactions I witnessed, even though I think it is overly minimalistic in scope and content, it is probably all that some of the laity can take anyway. As dreadfully cursory as the series is, if it was any deeper, I'm sure some would be too horrified by it. I mean, if they have a hard time doubting the virgin birth, wait 'til they hear what Strauss and Bauer and Loisy have to say about all the nooks and crannies in the puzzle that is the New Testament. </div>
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Anyway, I felt like documenting this episode.</div>
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Quixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03126711689901268060noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9212346.post-84550284060615155792011-03-06T19:51:00.000-08:002011-03-06T19:51:03.088-08:00Dan Dennett: A rebuttal to Rick Warren<iframe width="425" height="344" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/DTepA-WV_oE?fs=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><br /><br /><p style="text-indent: .2in"></p><p style="text-indent: .2in"></p><p style="text-indent: .2in"></p><p style="text-indent: .2in"></p><p style="text-indent: .2in"></p><p></p><blockquote></blockquote><p></p>Quixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03126711689901268060noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9212346.post-48556118735265031722011-02-28T09:57:00.000-08:002011-02-28T21:45:35.590-08:00JHC still online . . . .<div style="text-indent: .2in;">I had posted these articles before, but the links were all broken. I am posting them again here. They present some of the Tübingen and Dutch Radical arguments for the spuriousness of the Pauline corpus:<br /></div><div style="text-indent: .2in;"></div><div style="text-indent: .2in;"></div><div style="text-indent: .2in;"></div><div style="text-indent: .2in;"></div><br /><p></p><ul><li>Hermann Detering - <a href="http://www.depts.drew.edu/jhc/detering.html">The Dutch Radical Approach to the Pauline Epistles</a><br /></li><li>Darrell J. Doughty - <a href="http://www.depts.drew.edu/jhc/PaulineParadigms.html">Pauline Paradigms and Pauline Authenticity</a><br /></li><li>Robert M. Price - <a href="http://www.depts.drew.edu/jhc/Rpcanon.html">The Evolution of the Pauline Canon</a><br /></li><li>G. A. van den Bergh van Eysinga - <a href="http://www.depts.drew.edu/jhc/eysingsp.html">The Spuriousness of the Pauline Epistles</a>.<br /></li><li>Thomas Whittaker - <a href="http://www.depts.drew.edu/jhc/vmanrom.html">An Exposition of Van Manen's Analysis of the Epistle to the Romans</a><br /></li><li>W. C. Van Manen - <a href="http://www.depts.drew.edu/jhc/vanpaul.html">The Pauline Writings</a><br /></li><li>F. C. Baur - <a href="http://www.depts.drew.edu/jhc/baurphil.html">The Epistle to the Philippians</a></li></ul><p>They are really very well researched and well argued essays. I highly recommend them.</p><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;">Ó</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 51, 0);font-size:78%;">.</span><br /><br /><blockquote></blockquote>Quixiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03126711689901268060noreply@blogger.com0