Raymond Brown on theologians

To the jaundiced eye of a biblical scholar it often seems as if theologians phrase their theories of inspiration by reflecting on books like Genesis, the Gospels, and Romans; they might do better by trying their theories out on the first nine chapters of 1 Chronicles!

Raymond E. Brown, The Critical Meaning of the Bible, p.7.

The Apostle Paul hits a SNAG

What to do, what to do with 1 Corinthians 11...

I want you to know, however, that Christ is the head of every man, man is the head of woman, and God is the head of Christ.  Every man that prays, or speaks under inspiration, with his head veiled brings shame on his head.  Every woman that prays, or speaks under inspiration, with her head unveiled brings shame on her head.  It really amounts to the same thing as shaving her head.  If a woman does not veil herself, then she should shave her head.  But if it is a mark of infamy for a woman to shave her head or cut her hair short, she should wear a veil.  A man, indeed, has no duty to veil his head, because he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man.  Why?  Because man did not spring from woman, but woman from man.  The man, in fact, was created not for the woman's sake, but the woman for the man's sake.  This is why the women should have a symbol of authority on their head, out of respect for the angels.  (1 Cor. 11: 3-10)

Say what?!

There is just so much wrong with this passage, no wonder it's an embarrassment.  Something's gotta be fishy here, right?  Paul can't have meant what he seems to have said...  Just as well Alan G. Padgett is there to ride in to the rescue on behalf of evangelical Sensitive New Age Guys (SNAGs) everywhere.

On his blog Tim Henderson draws attention to Padgett's worthy strainings in a two-part review of an about-to-be-released book.  'Paul [according to Padgett] is not saying that it is wrong for men to cover their heads while praying or for women to pray with their heads uncovered, quite the opposite. “His ultimate purpose is to reject the custom he is describing”... '

Huh?  Hang on, back to 1 Corinthians...

Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a woman to pray unveiled to God?  Does not nature itself teach you that for a man to wear his hair long is an ignominy for him, and that for a woman to wear her hair long is a glory for her, because her hair was given to her as a covering?  But if anyone wants to pick flaws in my argument, neither we nor the congregations of God have any such custom.  (v. 13-16)

Tim Henderson lays out Padgett's logic, such as it is, himself commenting: "If Paul thought women could wear their hair/head coverings in whatever manner they wished, why did he insist that men “ought not” to have this same freedom but must pray with their heads uncovered? This is left unexplained."

Padgett concludes by highlighting the fact that his reading “is much more in keeping with everything we know about Paul, his theology, his common practice, and his ethical thinking” from elsewhere in his letters (124). I will leave it to readers to decide for themselves the merits of this claim.

Yes indeed.  The simple truth is most of us are willing to tactfully overlook Paul's misogyny.  He was, after all, a "warts and all" child of his own times, and nobody's idea of a SNAG.  Why would anyone feel the need to reconstruct his whole argument and turn it inside out.  How honest is it to give the opinionated apostle a trendily moderating makeover.

There's a strong case for scrapping the really offensive stuff in the context of readings in church services, which is why the lectionary in more traditional denominations wisely leaves out such chaff (the only section of 1 Cor. 11 to make the cut in the Revised Common Lectionary is v. 23-26 on the eucharist).  You've got to worry, though, when people go through all kinds of contortions to try and "clean up" the scriptures themselves, all the better - one suspects - to preserve the illusion that these are something other than the human, highly errant documents that they are.  Their function is to point beyond themselves.  Is it even faintly credible to imagine that Paul in 1 Cor. 11 is actually saying, in effect, "hey, whatever!"  Padgett is dreaming.


(The quotations from 1 Corinthians come from a newly acquired - but not 'new' - translation.  Any guesses?  You'll need to think beyond the obvious.  There's a CD recording of the Hovhaness: Guitar Concerto No. 2for the first correct response.)

Passionate Uncertainty

International Investment Banker Robert Lawrence Kuhn is one smart pilgrim.  The host of Closer to Truth who is sometimes described as a "public intellectual", goes looking for 'elusive answers' to 'timeless truths' about cosmos, consciousness and God.  In a recent episode ("Does God Make Sense?") he quizzes a range of thinkers: Richard Swinburne, Alvin Plantinga, Daniel Dennett, Huston Smith, Michael Shermer and representatives of Hindu and Islamic perspectives (Varadaraja Raman and Seyyed Hossein Nasr.)  It's quite a cast (though somebody should really tell him about Don Cupitt...)

Who'd have thought that this one-time protégé of windbag Bible preacher Herbert W. Armstrong, and assistant to his jet-setting son Garner Ted Armstrong, would end up with a sophisticated personal credo of "passionate uncertainty"?  This is the man who co-wrote the 1970s 'brain/mind' articles in the Plain Truth, and went on to then run the PT newsstand programme! It just goes to show that we can all outgrow our youthful follies, I guess.

My only question now though is, all considered, how come he left Mike Feazell's name off his list of latter-day luminaries?

Climbing the "Cold Case" Scaffold

TVNZ tonight aired a two-hour special, Jesus: The Cold Case.  It will be interesting to hear the screams from conservative church leaders and fundamentalists as they beat their breasts over the next few days and cast imprecations at presenter Bryan Bruce.

Of course there were one or two clangers in the script, though not nearly as many as I feared.  Poor old Marcion, who may well have been Jewish himself, gets accused of anti-Semitism yet again, and Constantine is unjustly credited with making Christianity the official faith of the Empire.  But overall it was well researched, given that its approach was necessarily popular rather than academic, and drew on some undoubted talents, including Dom Crossan, Geza Vermes, Lloyd Geering and Elaine Pagels.

The thrust of the programme was to debunk the old blood libel that the Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus, a worthy motive quite powerfully conveyed.  For anyone who has studied New Testament in any formal way, there could be little surprising or new in the 'case' Bruce made.  If the faithful who still sit in the pews are offended or scandalised to hear that the nativity and passion stories are largely fictive, they have no-one to blame other than themselves, or perhaps their clergy, for being kept in the dark.  This is, after all, 2011 and not 1611.

'Popular' shouldn't be a pejorative word. Programmes like this are invaluable in providing scaffolding (in the educational sense of that term) for interested, intelligent laypeople to go deeper, and for that reason alone Jesus: The Cold Case should provide a fantastic opportunity for those privileged to work in the field of biblical studies to 'come clean' in a more academically rigorous way.  And yet I suspect there will be a number who, if not merely sniffing disdainfully, will line up with the apologists to cast stones instead.

Deane Galbraith asks, and it's a great question, "Where are the current and most recent experts on the issue: Maurice Casey? Dale Allison? Roger Aus?"  The answer could be fairly simple.  By and large these scholars have not engaged those issues outside the academic establishment.  The great shakers and movers, whatever their fallibilities, have always been willing and able to communicate with a wider audience, not restricting themselves to jargon-heavy academic tomes.  Dale Allison certainly comes close, but Aus?

And wouldn't it be tremendous to see Maurice Casey 'sent to the scaffold'... so to speak.


Addendum: a thorough review from the keyboard of Deane Galbraith is now up on ROG.

Why it's hard to be a Unitarian

Ponsonby's distinctive Unitarian church

The Unitarian faith seems the ideal fit for a post-Christian world. Inclusive to a fault; no creeds, no dogma, no barriers to participation.

And yet they're in decline, losing 85% their young people.

In the US the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) turns 50 this year, though the separate strands that led to the merger in 1961 go back hundreds of years.

Unitarians were once a much greater force in New Zealand too, being one of the founding members of the (now defunct) National Council of Churches in 1941.  (Alan Brash, a high profile Presbyterian minister and father of current Act Party leader Don Brash, served as General Secretary of the NCC for seventeen years.)  Today most New Zealanders would know nothing about Unitarians. The only church left in the country is an old wooden structure in the well-heeled Auckland suburb of Ponsonby, now oversize for its small congregation.  Small fellowship groups still meet in rented rooms in three other centres.

An article by Daniel Burke on RNS offers some observations on why this most liberal of faiths is failing to retain traction in these most liberal of times, and asks if they'll still be around in another fifty years.

Parasites of Ill Fortune

Petra: wanna house swap Christchurch for this?

Though Christchurch remains a shattered city months after the earthquakes, 'Cantabs' are a hardy breed, as witnessed by their continued prowess on the rugby field.  In trying circumstances most have elected to 'stay put' and are, as people do in situations like this, getting on with their lives.

My old bete noire Bob Thiel rattled his keyboard over Christchurch recently.  Bob, a California alternative health practitioner and self anointed apologist for Roderick Meredith's version of Armstrongism, is a prophecy buff.  In fact he's even self-published a book on "2012".

Here's what Bob has to say about Christchurch.

New Zealanders are still rattled by earthquakes... Well, Jesus, of course, warned about a time with such issues... The Bible repeatedly indicates that “natural disasters” are intended to get people (and nations) to repent... Yet, the idea of national repentance does not seem to have gotten much press coverage over there... There will be other problems in New Zealand and elsewhere. The beginning of sorrows is not yet over, and the time of Jacob’s trouble (Jeremiah 30:7), AKA the Great Tribulation, will follow it. Whether or not your nation repents, you can personally. There is a Place of Safety for the Philadelphians and it may Be Petra.

Yep, the solution to earthquakes, my fellow Kiwis, is 'national repentence', the Trib is barrelling down on us, but as national repentance is unlikely you, if you are a 'Philadelphian' (part of the 'Philadelphia era' of the church which Bob thinks is described in the seven letters section of Revelation), can be 'spared' by joining the Meredith sect.  Do that and you'll be flown away on the wings of an eagle (jet planes, not the Darby rapture) to a prophesied 'Place of Safety' while all your dear friends and family go to hell in a hand cart. Bob hints heavily that this hidey hole is Petra, the famous tourist destination in the Jordanian desert.

Well, well...

The ethics of this kind of fear-religion are subnormal.  Parasites prey on people's uncertainties and tragedy, throw around a few proof texts with no regard to their context, historical setting or genre, prescribe the appeasement  of a foul-tempered god of their own imagination, and then toss out moronic speculation (parading as 'bible truth') about just how the divine deliverance will be, um, delivered.

I guess even on his death bed, hopefully at a ripe old age, Bob will still be spouting this nonsense.  No worse than Hal Lindsey, Harold Camping or Tim LaHaye.  But certainly no better.

Prophecy buffs or prophecy buffoons?

If it's good enough for Alvin...

If it's good enough for Alvin... he's smart.

Scott Bailey has an illuminating, if somewhat jaw-dropping, quote from Alvin Plantinga regarding historical criticism of the Bible.

There is no compelling or even reasonably decent argument for supposing the procedures and assumptions of historical biblical criticism are to be preferred to those of traditional biblical commentary.

Theological flat-earthers like Plantinga tend to make statements like that, and all the apologetic hounds lift their noses to the skies and bay in chorus.

Of course that's his opinion, and he's welcome to it, but it's not written as an opinion, nor received by the long-eared pack as one. It's written as a clear statement of fact, and on that basis it's... rubbish.

Bailey comments: "It seems I keep hearing “thinkers” all across the ideological spectrum who are encouraging people not to think! Whatever you do: do not look at the evidence."

No, take it on 'faith'... my faith.  Take my word for it. Don't you worry your silly little head about it; just go back to sleep and let me do all the thinking for you.

Is treating the 'laity' as children - fostering their dependence, and whispering reassuring lies in their ears - half-baked opinions parading as fact - even ethical?  Is this scholarship?  

Thanks Alvin, but no thanks.