Pope Lenny in Waiting?

According to a posting on Gary Leonard's blog, the Living Church of God (LCG) has a new heir apparent, and it's no longer Rod Meredith's brother-in-law Richard Ames.

In what seems to be a scoop that beats LCG's ponderous PR machine to the punch, Gary reveals the new anointed one as Gerald Weston.

Ames, it seems, is suffering health problems and Meredith, himself weighed down with the infirmities of age, has felt the need to designate a new successor. If you were expecting the elevation of Jim Meredith or one of the second-stringers on the Tomorrow's World telecast you'd be disappointed. The Weston decision was rubber stamped at a recent meeting of LCG's Council of Elders and the dauphin is reportedly now in the process of relocating to the sect HQ in Charlotte, NC.

A shudder should be running up the collective LCG spine. Weston is, according to Gary, well known as a conservative hardliner in a church that is already somewhat to the right of Attila the Hun.

If Weston ascends to the Throne of Roderick what can we expect?

First, every new broom sweeps clean. While heavily emphasizing continuity, you can be sure that Gerry the Unready will want to make his mark swiftly. Already the soon to be announced dauphin will have his little list conveniently tucked into a jacket pocket. Those who are offside with the boss-in-waiting should be afraid, very afraid.

Second, LCG has a surfeit - a veritable glut - of ministers with an abundant sense of self entitlement, many of whom will consider themselves far more suitable for the task. Weston will not ascend to the pontificate without cost. Initially things may seem fine on the surface, but the currents of ambition run deep in hierarchical organizations as we've seen demonstrated again and again. Expect a blood-letting without months, perhaps weeks of the transition (and you couldn't entirely rule out days and hours).

There are even suggestions that Weston may be enthroned before Meredith shucks off this mortal coil, leaving the fomer Presiding Evangelist in an emeritus role. In Rome they locked away Benedict so he couldn't interfere in his successor's pontificate. Somehow, given Meredith's personality and history, this doesn't seem even remotely likely.

Finally, how will we cope with two COG prima donna leaders named Gerald? Gerry Weston or Gerry Flurry? What is clearly needed is a respectful and affectionate pet name for the new dauphin. In the comments section of Gary's blog there are a couple of possibilities. I admit that I had to google "Snidely Whiplash" to appreciate the reference - thanks for that image Douglas. Perhaps more telling is this recollection from Byker Bob.

During the years that I was at AC, Gerald Weston worked as a student custodian. He had a diminutive sidekick, and they had the type of friendship where they joked back and forth and had their own special sayings as they went through their work hours doing their jobs. 

Years later, when LaVerne and Shirley became a popular TV program, the first time I saw Lenny and Squiggy, I immediately thought of Gerald. Lenny looked very much like him. Of course, the similarity in appearance, and the jovial nature were where the comparison ended. Gerald seemed to be fairly intelligent, and was serious about his studies. The stuff that has happened over the decades within the Armstrong movement has been so surreal, that there is no way any of us back then could have mentally fast-forwarded the tape and anticipated the current state of affairs.

Lenny? Whataya think?

Mind you, there's many a slip between the announcement of an heir and the actual placement of the crown on their sacred bonce. But isn't it nice to know that the soap opera, with a longevity greater than The Simpsons, still hasn't completely played itself out? Fun times ahead!

(In 2013 I posted on the problems of Meredith's departure in a piece called The Irreplaceable Mr Meredith. Whether those comments need revision remains to be seen.)

Guerrilla Bible?

Tim Bulkeley has a brief but intriguing teaser up on his excellent Sansblogue blog.

The battle for the Bible was over before war was even declared. Modernity won the battle, and people today (both Christians and Atheists) read Scripture using modern categories and methods. It is a history book, a manual, a book of poetry, full of myths and legends… all categories modernity imposed on Bible readers. 

But there is another way, guerilla reading. Reading the Bible as it was meant to be read. The Bible is God’s love letter to humanity. Along the way it tells the story of his dealings with a chosen people, his entry into human life in the child born at Christmas, his death on the cross and triumphant rising to new life as the Spirit of God filled the church…

I enjoy Tim's postings, even those that raise my eyebrows, as did this one. I really doubt that the Good Book can be described as "God's love letter to humanity", or that an escape into fictive and triumphalist heilsgeschichte is anything other than compounding the problems and then multiplying them by 10. Ye olde Grand Narrative seems to me to be an even more artificial construct than anything using modern categories and methods; more Magilla Gorilla than guerrilla.

But it seems Tim might have something deeper in mind. He continues.

This series will teach you to read the Bible as it was meant to be read, to discover God through the ancient words of Scripture and to apply that knowledge today. 

If you have read this far how does this sound as the sales pitch for a simple how-to series on reading the Bible? Does it claim too much? Is it too warlike? Or just fun?

So there's a series on the way (or is that a series on the Che?) Again, once bitten twice shy, my first thought was an image of the thrice-cursed Ambassador College Bible Correspondence Course which, as I recollect, promised much the same thing. Can there even be such a thing as "a simple how-to series on reading the Bible"? So yup, the alarm bells went off immediately. Hardly fair, as Tim is a good guy and an informed, progressive and thoughtful bloke not given to proof-texting.

My answers to Tim's questions are therefore 'yes' (not a good thing), 'yes', 'no' (though I'm not sure what he means by 'warlike') and 'you must be kidding'.

But, as they say, watch this space.

Mythmaker: The Stephen Story

Stephen is the first Christian martyr. But is the account in Acts 7 reliable? Hyam Maccoby thinks not. The problem lies with the attribution of this execution to the Sanhedrin.

"The Sanhedrin was a dignified body that had rules of procedure, and did not act like a lynch mob. It would not suddenly switch the charges against a defendant, or drag him out for execution without even pronouncing sentence or formulating what he had been found guilty of."

The charge brought against Stephen - the same one that was brought against Jesus - was speaking against the temple. In fact Maccoby asserts that the Stephen account "is simply a double or repetition" of the earlier account. Both in Stephen's trial and in Jesus' this charge "is forgotten when the defendant bursts out during the trial with what is regarded as a blasphemous statement."

"Formal procedures are then thrown to the winds and the defendant is found guilty of an alleged crime committed during the trial itself, and different from the crime for which he was brought to trial in the first instance. This travesty of legal procedure in a body like the Sanhedrin... is clearly fictional."

What about the division scholars find between the Hellenistic faction, represented by Stephen, and the Jewish faction led by James and Peter? Maccoby is having none of it. This is simply a case of which language was spoken. The Hellenists were Greek speakers. The real division was between the 'activist' Nazarenes - the anti-Roman faction - and the quietist Nazarenes - those content to wait and hope for their lord's return without upsetting apple-carts in the here and now.

So what really happened? Maccoby is of the opinion that the story is not in fact created out of the whole cloth, and attempts to reconstruct the actual event. Paul was indeed involved in the execution of the radicalized Stephen, but was acting as an extra-juridical enforcer for the High Priest, a Roman collaborator. In this reading Stephen was seen as "a dangerous anti-Roman agitator." This seems to me a step too far into speculation, but does not undercut the critique that has already been offered. The Sanhedrin/Pharisee connection does indeed seem highly problematic.

(This is the ninth part of a review of Hyam Maccoby's 1986 book Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity.)

Jesus - Refugee Messiah

There's a lot of truth to this billboard graphic, posted outside St. Luke's Presbyterian Church in Auckland (report here). It's being described as 'controversial', though it's hard to see what could possibly be controversial in a Christian community drawing the public's attention to an issue related to the core values that Christians are supposed to uphold.

Jesus' family were, lest we forget, once refugees themselves, according to a literal reading of the gospel narratives. Fleeing from Herod, they moved to Egypt for sanctuary. I briefly commented on this in a letter submitted to the upcoming issue of The Journal: News of the Churches of God, where such an act of compassion is apparently anathema to a large number of readers (see an earlier post here).

Bitter irony too in the Australian government's use of a distant locale known as "Christmas Island" as a detention centre for refugees.

(A nod of the noodle to the person, who I believe wishes to remain anonymous, who drew the billboard to my attention.)

Mythmaker: Paul's un-Pharisaic writings

(This is the eighth part of a review of Hyam Maccoby's 1986 book Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity.)

Chapter seven sets out to deal to the portrayal of Paul's writings as bearing the influence of pharisaism. Maccoby begins by reiterating the problem of Christology.

[The] idea of 'being in Christ', which occurs frequently in Paul's letters, is entirely without parallel in Jewish literature ... this concept involves a relationship to the Divine that is alien to Judaism... The idea of 'being in Christ', however, can be paralleled without difficulty in the mystery cults.

To apply the name kurios or Lord in its divine sense to a human being who had recently lived and died on Earth would have seemed... sheer blasphemy. However, to the recipients of Paul's letters, the use of the term 'Lord' for Jesus would not have seemed shocking at all, for this was the regular term for deities in the mystery cults...

So on what basis is the claim made that Paul thinks and writes as a trained Pharisee? For Maccoby the answer is clear, the claim is specious.

Though many authors confidently assert that Paul's Epistles are full of Pharisaic expressions and arguments, few authors have made a serious attempt to substantiate this... it may safely be said that if people had not already been convinced that Paul was a Pharisee... no one would have thought of calling him a Pharisee or a person of 'rabbinic' cast of mind simply from a study of the Epistles.

Two pieces of evidence are often offered in support of Paul's Pharisee background. These are his qal-va-homer (a fortiori) arguments, and his use of midrash. Maccoby refutes both, referring to passages in Romans 5 and 11.

Paul, in his Epistles, is quite fond of using the a fortiori argument, and this has been regarded as incontrovertible proof of his Pharisee training... [however] Paul had no idea of the validity of this type of argument [in Jewish discourse]... Hellenistic writers, on the other hand, often used a fortiori reasoning, but only in a loose, rhetorical way... This is just the way that Paul uses such arguments.

Midrash is equally problematic, and Maccoby focuses on Galatians 3:13 and Romans 7:1-6 to illustrate the point.

The idea [in Galatians 3:13] that anyone hanged on a gibbet is under a curse was entirely alien to Pharisee thought, and the Pharisee teachers did not interpret the verse in Deuteronomy [21:23] in this way. Many highly respected members of the Pharisee movement were crucified by the Romans... [and] they were regarded as martyrs.

In Pharisee thought "the curse was placed not on the executed person, but on the people responsible for subjecting the corpse to indignity."

Referring to the verses in Romans 7, Maccoby is scathing.

... Paul is here trying to sound like a trained Pharisee. He announces in a somewhat portentous way that what he is going to say will be understood only by those who have 'some knowledge of law', and he is clearly intending to display legal expertise... In the event, he has produced a ludicrous travesty of Pharisee thinking. In the whole of Pharisee literature, there is nothing to parallel such an exhibition of lame reasoning.

Maccoby rounds of the chapter by noting that Paul, unlike any known Pharisee, is dependent on the Greek Bible, the Septuagint.

The indications from Paul's writings are that he knew very little Hebrew. His quotations from the Bible (which number about 160) are from the Greek translation... wherever the text of the Hebrew Bible differs from that of the Greek, Paul always quotes the text found in the Greek.

Which is an especially strange thing for someone with a Pharisee background to have done, as the Hebrew text was the only one regarded as authoritative. Maccoby concludes: "the allegedly profound Pharisaic style and atmosphere of Paul's writings is itself a legend."

San Bernardino live

With today's chaos (still unresolved) in San Bernardino it seems incredible to someone of my generation, living half a world away, just how connected we all can be to unfolding events - especially those in other developed nations. With an appropriate app some random guy (yours truly) in a small town south of Auckland can follow rolling LA news coverage direct on ABC7 in real time on their home TV screen.

Even for those of us who are 'news junkies' there seems a fine line between taking the pulse of a live event and simple voyeurism. On November 13 the world was likewise able to follow the terrible events in Paris on France 24, unfiltered by the parochialism of national news sources.

The world is in so many ways a smaller place than it has ever been before. Take your pick of international news channels that are free-to-air to anyone with some fairly minimal technology. It blows my mind to think that youngsters growing up today will take all of this for granted.

We can only hope that the current situation will be brought to the best possible conclusion as soon as possible.

Mythmaker: Paul & Gamaliel

(This is the seventh part of a review of Hyam Maccoby's 1986 book Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity.)

"Saint" Gamaliel

Significant to Maccoby's argument is the figure of Gamaliel, the leading Pharisee of his day.

"[There is a] failure of the narrative in Acts to make clear just how important a Pharisee Gamaliel was. It calls him 'a Pharisee called Gamaliel, a teacher of the law held in high regard by all the people', but it does not make clear that he was the Pharisee leader of his generation, a vital link in the chain of Jewish tradition, one of the veritable Fathers of Judaism. To say that he was a secret Christian, in the sense meant, is like saying that Saint Thomas Aquinas was a secret Hindu."

The account referred to is in Acts 5. There are problems with the text, particularly the reference to Theudas who is anachronistic - his rebellion is too late (circa 45 CE) to be part of any speech of this sort. Allowing for this, Gamaliel's portrayal still seems a tolerant one toward Peter, reflecting a historical reality.

"... Gamaliel does not in any way condemn the apostles as heretics or rebels against the Jewish religion. He regards them instead as members of a Messianic movement directed against Rome." (Author's emphasis)

Gamaliel is an inconvenient character in the gospel narratives demonstrating, as Maccoby argues it, that the relations between the Nazarenes and their Pharisee brethren were benign. (The Catholic church later canonized Gamaliel. If you believe the legends, both he and his son were later baptized by Peter and John and his body, which miraculously came to light in the fifth century, is now resting in Pisa, Italy!) However for Maccoby it isn't 'Saint' Gamaliel who is the odd man out, it is Paul. This mutual tolerance between Pharisees and Nazarenes will all change as Paul steers Christianity in new directions.

"Paul's new scenario, in which the Jews no longer had a great role to play, and had indeed sunk to the role of the enemies of God, would have filled Jesus with horror and dismay." 

"According to the Ebionites, Saul was not a Pharisee and not even a Jew by birth. His parents in Tarsus were Gentiles, and he himself had become a convert and had thereupon journeyed to the Holy Land, where he found employment in the service of the High Priest."

Maccoby will flesh all this out later in the book. He rejects any attempts to see tell-tale indicators of a rabbinical approach in Paul's writings.

"The style of argument and thought in the Epistles of Paul, we have been repeatedly told, is rabbinical; Paul, though putting forward views and arguments which 'go far beyond' rabbinical thinking, uses rabbinical logic and methods of biblical exegesis in such a way that his education as a Pharisee is manifest. Beloved as this view is of scholars, it is entirely wrong, being based on ignorance or misunderstanding of rabbinical exegesis and logic."

It is to this point that Maccoby returns in chapter seven.