Three Things Thursday
1) I love Napster. I have rediscovered this album from the New Bomb Turks. This is simply the best punk band I've ever seen live; I saw them, three, maybe four times in tiny clubs in the mid 90's, and every time they howled. For several years working out at the gym almost very day (mostly the inglorious stairmaster back then) was what kept the daggers of my violent depression and obsessions out of my skin. During those glory days this album was one half of my well-used work out tape; the other side had Bikini Kill's first two albums. BK was like a support meeting set to punk. I saw then only once with Mike D. but what a show. I know at least twice I gave the BK album to a girl I was dating to see what she thought; insane, maybe immature, I know, but one girl loved it, her name was Steph, and we got married. I still think for raw work out music these albums are tough to beat (though I've had Vegas on my discman for a while now).
2) Once again, Bruggemann's reading of Joshua as a nationalistic war-text redacted and embellished during the Exile to highlight purity and separation concerns make sense to me. The alternative is YWHW as jihad slaughter-god. Not to say that the ancient Israelites, as most ancient people, may not have done their share of invasive killing. I simply find it hard to believe God judges nations by butchering all the individuals in them (as opposed to the perennial: "our god(s) told us to come here and kill you all and take your stuff;" an idea which crosses cultures and millenia). Could I be wrong? Am I reading as a modern post-Christian reader? Yes, but the revisionist perspective is compelling for the moment.
3) While I want to believe the significant supernatural element in the gospel accounts is plausibly historical, is not intentional midrash or creative fiction, this is not the same as faith in Jesus. Many intelligent people have been led away from anything resembling orthodoxy, from faith in Christ as resurrected son-of-God-savior, by revisionists from Feuerbach and Strauss to Crossan and Mack, as well as the scores of current authors, professionial and amatuer, who honestly assure us of their belief in the gospels' largely fictitious nature. I need to know as much as I can about the historical origins of my faith, yes. But there is no doubt that, even empirically, existentially, my faith is not just about the book.
It is so very hard to find any objective writing about the gospels because one has to either reject or accept the miraculous and most authors, because of their preconceptions of Jesus, seem to choose a path before they begin regardless of what they say to the contrary. If one accepts any of the miraculous at all, the Message, the Personality, the Voice so vibrantly and clearly presented in all four gospels has to be reckoned with on a new level. And that is a bitch. Yet some of us have found bowing before that Voice to be Life itself. Others have found it necessary to reconstruct Jesus in personal ways to fit their world view. Still others, like Ehrman, seem to have simply fallen away as they look closer and closer at the texts (expecting perfection perhaps, and apart from getting to know the living Christ, it would seem). I honestly want to approach the text objectively even at the risk of my own fragile faith; I have an intensely critical personality and a head full of good straw. But I admit at the outset I can't be purely objective. I'm convinced even my doubt is driven, in part, by emotional issues unrelated to reason.
Finally, after reading most of Mark again last night, I find the message is so plainly supernatural it will take some work to show otherwise. Sure I can buy supernatural insertions into the OT material (and I could be wrong), but that was after centuries and centuries of growing tradition and reflection; most of those miraculous events (all of Genesis, the Exodus and Joshua) took place in a culture without a written language. In Mark's final redaction, at most forty or fifty years after the events, Jesus rips out miracle after miracle; while many try to find OT parallels to the things Jesus does, like feeding the multitude or walking on water or healing (and hence show these events are Mark's creation to support his theological agenda) none of it seems a direct fit with OT precedents. The individual events even seem to derive from more than one source. Again, we'll see. I'm approaching the text in faith but also with an open mind. As I said, my faith isn't all about the book, though it's true the gospels played a large part getting me there.
Love and peace to all. My time is so taken these days I hardly have a blog anymore, but when I get to share up here I do love it. Thanks to friends who read.
2) Once again, Bruggemann's reading of Joshua as a nationalistic war-text redacted and embellished during the Exile to highlight purity and separation concerns make sense to me. The alternative is YWHW as jihad slaughter-god. Not to say that the ancient Israelites, as most ancient people, may not have done their share of invasive killing. I simply find it hard to believe God judges nations by butchering all the individuals in them (as opposed to the perennial: "our god(s) told us to come here and kill you all and take your stuff;" an idea which crosses cultures and millenia). Could I be wrong? Am I reading as a modern post-Christian reader? Yes, but the revisionist perspective is compelling for the moment.
3) While I want to believe the significant supernatural element in the gospel accounts is plausibly historical, is not intentional midrash or creative fiction, this is not the same as faith in Jesus. Many intelligent people have been led away from anything resembling orthodoxy, from faith in Christ as resurrected son-of-God-savior, by revisionists from Feuerbach and Strauss to Crossan and Mack, as well as the scores of current authors, professionial and amatuer, who honestly assure us of their belief in the gospels' largely fictitious nature. I need to know as much as I can about the historical origins of my faith, yes. But there is no doubt that, even empirically, existentially, my faith is not just about the book.
It is so very hard to find any objective writing about the gospels because one has to either reject or accept the miraculous and most authors, because of their preconceptions of Jesus, seem to choose a path before they begin regardless of what they say to the contrary. If one accepts any of the miraculous at all, the Message, the Personality, the Voice so vibrantly and clearly presented in all four gospels has to be reckoned with on a new level. And that is a bitch. Yet some of us have found bowing before that Voice to be Life itself. Others have found it necessary to reconstruct Jesus in personal ways to fit their world view. Still others, like Ehrman, seem to have simply fallen away as they look closer and closer at the texts (expecting perfection perhaps, and apart from getting to know the living Christ, it would seem). I honestly want to approach the text objectively even at the risk of my own fragile faith; I have an intensely critical personality and a head full of good straw. But I admit at the outset I can't be purely objective. I'm convinced even my doubt is driven, in part, by emotional issues unrelated to reason.
Finally, after reading most of Mark again last night, I find the message is so plainly supernatural it will take some work to show otherwise. Sure I can buy supernatural insertions into the OT material (and I could be wrong), but that was after centuries and centuries of growing tradition and reflection; most of those miraculous events (all of Genesis, the Exodus and Joshua) took place in a culture without a written language. In Mark's final redaction, at most forty or fifty years after the events, Jesus rips out miracle after miracle; while many try to find OT parallels to the things Jesus does, like feeding the multitude or walking on water or healing (and hence show these events are Mark's creation to support his theological agenda) none of it seems a direct fit with OT precedents. The individual events even seem to derive from more than one source. Again, we'll see. I'm approaching the text in faith but also with an open mind. As I said, my faith isn't all about the book, though it's true the gospels played a large part getting me there.
Love and peace to all. My time is so taken these days I hardly have a blog anymore, but when I get to share up here I do love it. Thanks to friends who read.
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