Reflections on Saturday
This is one of those times I feel I don't have much to say but want to write anyway.
Steph is away at Reggae on the River until Monday; Mikey is at a friend's. I've been home alone (just me and the dogs) since Thursday night. I feel it. I really feel it. I was left home alone a lot as a child, or with one parent at work and one sleeping (they worked opposite shifts, day and graveyard or swing, all the years they were married). I'm not a helpless child now, but I feel the absence of my family.
I am fortunate to have them, as much as I wrestle with feeling close to them. Mikey and I are doing better (he's now 14) as his hormones dump-truck through his veins; I am learning not to see his individuation and anger as personal attacks on my authority (they're surely not). Steph and I continue to grow, and as always, I must continue my exposure work to depress the force of my ocd. It works, but it's hard to do. Surviving can be comfortable; thriving takes work.
Since we found out how much moving into another house would cause our mortgage to rise, we've slowed down a bit. The realtor fee alone would buy a new car. Astounding. The California real estate mania. Our 1700 square feet of mountain house has nearly doubled in market value in five years. I'm glad it did, or we could never afford to buy anywhere else in California!
***
Wright's book, People of God continues to impress. He really is looking closer, or trying hard. Judaism has been understood in fairly simple terms by most Christians, certainly by me, for a long time. Luther's reading of the NT continues to dominate most of Protestantism: Law and Grace, in Luther's understanding of the terms. But so far, Wright's first-century scene-setting (and it's sinking in so deep it's scary; I begin to feel I am time-traveling) gels completely with the literature I've read from the OT. You can feel it: God gave us this land, why aren't we in it anymore? What happened to the promises to Abraham? All that. National identity, temple, torah, the land. I don't have the energy for a full-post right now (staining those bookcases I built after I assembled them, oops) but it's almost unnerving.
For surely the world-view Wright is unpacking influenced Jesus as he grew and lived in it. I used to imagine Jesus walked around with full god-consciousness, all the information in the universe at ready access, the thoughts of God in the body of a man. No one can read the mind of any person, let alone one who lived 2000 years ago and left no self-written record (if Jesus came now, would he blog?). But surely Jesus had a human brain, a human mind, was born an infant and raised as a child and young adult in a particular culture, place and time. The old idea that the spirit inhabited the body like a hand in a glove (Plato's idea, or his analogy at least) and that the spirit/mind was completely distinct from the body no longer makes sense. We may have spirits or souls, but surely we have brains and Jesus had one also. I assume he could not have held God's distinct mind in a human body. Does this mean Jesus was not divine? I have no idea. I worship him. I believe he was God's unique historical messenger and God raised him from the dead. That's quite enough, I think. Jesus makes statements which seem to imply special knowledge, foreknowledge, on his part and at least one famous one where he says the father knows something he doesn't.
Simply: I'm realizing I'm such a newbie at NT history I'm laying lower as I try to learn. The old categories have been too simple. The question of Jesus becomes much more complex when I assume he's not a purely divine mouthpiece; though the church has long asserted (long) that Jesus was both human and divine, Christians tend to think of his sayings as the Alpha and Omega speaking without interference or human filter. I believe Raymond Brown was the first commentator I read who said that even Jesus' statements need to be understood as influenced/limited by cultural context and contemporary world-view. Again, some of the things Jesus says clearly imply special knowledge, but this doesn't mean he still wasn't the Son of Man.
The Mind of Christ. Looking at the sayings in the gospels, that must have been quite a place.
I believe Wright, drawing on narrative theory (meaning exists in story; this idea is hot in psychology, theology, etc.), modern literary theory, and the enormous work of Sanders and others who have looked much closer at second-Temple Judaism than anyone looked before...Wright is synthesizing all this into a remarkable and history-making revolution in Christian studies. He surely is. His books will be read for many years after other current bestsellers in NT studies are relegated to minor shelves. He may well surpass the influence of Bultmann. I don't know how NTW finds time to eat his porridge, or whatever Brits each for breakfast. It's not just the contentious 'New Perspective' on Paul; he is attempting historical explication at a new level. Whether he can bypass his own presuppositions I don't yet know. He seems to be genuinely trying. Here's to hoping I can see my own.
So many brilliant minds write apologetics heavily bolstered with one perspective: the Bible is a divine book and its authority, verse by verse, must be assumed and upheld (at the same time). This is a tragic error. I don't believe this is Wright's view, but I haven't finished and moved on to his second book. I just read a definition of the Bible at Sandalstraps: "(the Bible) is not a single book, but rather a collection of many separate books composed at different times in different places, and compiled into not one but three major canons representing two distinct religions." This is an excellent definition of the texts we now possess. How the Divine inhabits this text, if it in fact inhabits it at all, is a potent question (it is possible the human/divine interaction occured, historically, outside the textual composition process, that we can see it by looking through rather than in the text itself). In fact how could the Divine inhabit any text? The human/divine inteaction occurs when the text is read, and surely not every time it's read by every person.
Forget revelation and human reason alone. Those who exalt in the glory and ability of human beings need to reflect on the dark size of this universe, the fragile and mortal nature of our bodies, the imperfections in our mind. We sometimes feel our reason is majestic and inviolate, but read Bacon's Four Idols as a starting point for the struggle which the search for truth has always been.
May Christ redeem and restore this entire race. Some believe he will.
What do we have in the meantime? Faith, love and hope. Our minds and hearts. Above all, the ability to make choices. May God help me trust him and choose well.
Steph is away at Reggae on the River until Monday; Mikey is at a friend's. I've been home alone (just me and the dogs) since Thursday night. I feel it. I really feel it. I was left home alone a lot as a child, or with one parent at work and one sleeping (they worked opposite shifts, day and graveyard or swing, all the years they were married). I'm not a helpless child now, but I feel the absence of my family.
I am fortunate to have them, as much as I wrestle with feeling close to them. Mikey and I are doing better (he's now 14) as his hormones dump-truck through his veins; I am learning not to see his individuation and anger as personal attacks on my authority (they're surely not). Steph and I continue to grow, and as always, I must continue my exposure work to depress the force of my ocd. It works, but it's hard to do. Surviving can be comfortable; thriving takes work.
Since we found out how much moving into another house would cause our mortgage to rise, we've slowed down a bit. The realtor fee alone would buy a new car. Astounding. The California real estate mania. Our 1700 square feet of mountain house has nearly doubled in market value in five years. I'm glad it did, or we could never afford to buy anywhere else in California!
***
Wright's book, People of God continues to impress. He really is looking closer, or trying hard. Judaism has been understood in fairly simple terms by most Christians, certainly by me, for a long time. Luther's reading of the NT continues to dominate most of Protestantism: Law and Grace, in Luther's understanding of the terms. But so far, Wright's first-century scene-setting (and it's sinking in so deep it's scary; I begin to feel I am time-traveling) gels completely with the literature I've read from the OT. You can feel it: God gave us this land, why aren't we in it anymore? What happened to the promises to Abraham? All that. National identity, temple, torah, the land. I don't have the energy for a full-post right now (staining those bookcases I built after I assembled them, oops) but it's almost unnerving.
For surely the world-view Wright is unpacking influenced Jesus as he grew and lived in it. I used to imagine Jesus walked around with full god-consciousness, all the information in the universe at ready access, the thoughts of God in the body of a man. No one can read the mind of any person, let alone one who lived 2000 years ago and left no self-written record (if Jesus came now, would he blog?). But surely Jesus had a human brain, a human mind, was born an infant and raised as a child and young adult in a particular culture, place and time. The old idea that the spirit inhabited the body like a hand in a glove (Plato's idea, or his analogy at least) and that the spirit/mind was completely distinct from the body no longer makes sense. We may have spirits or souls, but surely we have brains and Jesus had one also. I assume he could not have held God's distinct mind in a human body. Does this mean Jesus was not divine? I have no idea. I worship him. I believe he was God's unique historical messenger and God raised him from the dead. That's quite enough, I think. Jesus makes statements which seem to imply special knowledge, foreknowledge, on his part and at least one famous one where he says the father knows something he doesn't.
Simply: I'm realizing I'm such a newbie at NT history I'm laying lower as I try to learn. The old categories have been too simple. The question of Jesus becomes much more complex when I assume he's not a purely divine mouthpiece; though the church has long asserted (long) that Jesus was both human and divine, Christians tend to think of his sayings as the Alpha and Omega speaking without interference or human filter. I believe Raymond Brown was the first commentator I read who said that even Jesus' statements need to be understood as influenced/limited by cultural context and contemporary world-view. Again, some of the things Jesus says clearly imply special knowledge, but this doesn't mean he still wasn't the Son of Man.
The Mind of Christ. Looking at the sayings in the gospels, that must have been quite a place.
I believe Wright, drawing on narrative theory (meaning exists in story; this idea is hot in psychology, theology, etc.), modern literary theory, and the enormous work of Sanders and others who have looked much closer at second-Temple Judaism than anyone looked before...Wright is synthesizing all this into a remarkable and history-making revolution in Christian studies. He surely is. His books will be read for many years after other current bestsellers in NT studies are relegated to minor shelves. He may well surpass the influence of Bultmann. I don't know how NTW finds time to eat his porridge, or whatever Brits each for breakfast. It's not just the contentious 'New Perspective' on Paul; he is attempting historical explication at a new level. Whether he can bypass his own presuppositions I don't yet know. He seems to be genuinely trying. Here's to hoping I can see my own.
So many brilliant minds write apologetics heavily bolstered with one perspective: the Bible is a divine book and its authority, verse by verse, must be assumed and upheld (at the same time). This is a tragic error. I don't believe this is Wright's view, but I haven't finished and moved on to his second book. I just read a definition of the Bible at Sandalstraps: "(the Bible) is not a single book, but rather a collection of many separate books composed at different times in different places, and compiled into not one but three major canons representing two distinct religions." This is an excellent definition of the texts we now possess. How the Divine inhabits this text, if it in fact inhabits it at all, is a potent question (it is possible the human/divine interaction occured, historically, outside the textual composition process, that we can see it by looking through rather than in the text itself). In fact how could the Divine inhabit any text? The human/divine inteaction occurs when the text is read, and surely not every time it's read by every person.
Forget revelation and human reason alone. Those who exalt in the glory and ability of human beings need to reflect on the dark size of this universe, the fragile and mortal nature of our bodies, the imperfections in our mind. We sometimes feel our reason is majestic and inviolate, but read Bacon's Four Idols as a starting point for the struggle which the search for truth has always been.
May Christ redeem and restore this entire race. Some believe he will.
What do we have in the meantime? Faith, love and hope. Our minds and hearts. Above all, the ability to make choices. May God help me trust him and choose well.
Comments
But I thought you might be interested in a new book that has come out by renowned scientist and former head of The Human Genome Project. It is called The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence For Belief by Francis Collins. He also appeared last week on Talk of the Nation's Science Friday under the title of "Must We Have Separation of Church and Science?" The discussion of how Collins, a world class scientist, conflates these two viewpoints (usually presented to be at odds with each other) is very thought-provoking.
I remember listening to Francis Collins give a similar kind of talk when I was under his spell at the University of Michigan as a young medical researcher. His approach and rationale was very appealing. I thought it took a lot of courage to "walk into the lion's den" among the hardcore at U of M and deliver that talk. However, he went a long way to illustrating how one's faith in God does not have to be at odds with scientific findings. It was a very rational approach. I was ready to spit hate bullets at him, but I found that what he said was not objectionable at all and probably not objectionable to any "believer" sitting next to me either.
It sounds to me like this may not be territory that you want to explore right now, but it might provide insight into how an eminent man keeps his faith and his rationality alive without completely abandoning either.
it is so good to hear from you. I was actually driving home today thinking...I need to add Victor's blog to my list of blogs (badly in need of updating). And here you are.
Actually, I would like to read this book. The detailed questions are important...NT criticism and the like...but the larger question of god and science is critically important. Science provides at least some epistemologically certain knowledge about the world, or epistemically human...as close as we can get! And its findings, believe it or not, have a big impact on the way I think. The way I read the Bible (especially the OT), but much of my faith struggle is actually trying to integrate the biology of the world as we know it with Christian theism. So far the struggle continues.
And I know my blog has drifted off into NT theory, but it's where my head is at.
Peace, brother. Will I see you on campus this term? I hope so.
t
I just got back from my vacation last night, and boy am I whipped. To use an abused cliche, I need a vacation from my vacation. As such, I don't have the energy to write as full of a comment as I sometimes do. So, instead, after this intro, I'll just write three little comments masquerading as a single comment:
1. Excellent post. Very thoughtful. Well done. I love the way in which you continually wrestle with the tennants of your faith. Far from being threatened by such depth, I suspect God is more than a little bit pleased. But who am I to speak for God?
2. You asked how could the Divine inhabit any text? I loved your answer. God does not have to "inhabit" a particular text to speak through that text in such a profound way that the text is seen by those who read it in a community of faith as the very Word of God.
3. Finally, I loved your reflections on Jesus, especially dealing with how his inherited cultural world-view might have impacted his own thought. It reminded me of a conversation I had last night with an old friend. We talked about how the church often reads Jesus into the Tanakh, which we call the Old Testament, as though it served only to point to him, finding no meaning in it except as it relates to him.
This method of reading scripture, while so popular among Christians, misses the point entirely. Not only does it fail to respect Judaism as a religion complete in itself, it also fails to understand Jesus. The Tanakh, and particularly the later Septuagint, shaped Jesus and the earliest commentators on Jesus, not the other way around.
To put it another way, the stories that we have of Jesus, our precious cannonical Gospels, are products of people who grew up reading and hearing either the Tanakh or the Septuagint. Their work is steeped in Biblical images. The Bible as they knew it was the lens through which they viewed the life and ministry of Jesus. To understand, then, how they saw Jesus, we have to understand the Bible as they might have understood it, rather than reading our own theology and Christology into both their works and the works which shaped the cultural and theoretical framework within which they shaped their own Christology.
Anyway, keep up the good work!