About "The" Book, Part Seven

 

Earlier this year, a lifelong friend of mine commented on Facebook that "the Bible is meant to be studied, not read."

Being acutely aware that brevity is not my strength, I felt a bit jealous that she was able to summarize such a profound truth in so few words!

And this month I was reminded of her comment while reading (yes, only reading) the Gospel of Luke.

*     *     *     *     *

The books of the Bible contain many passages that seem odd, counter-intuitive, and headache-inducing when you're reading them in English and wondering exactly what point the author was trying to make to his original audience. Luke 16 offers up a sterling example with the parable of the dishonest manager (or as it is sometimes called, with a dash more poetry, the parable of the unjust steward).

If you're not familiar with the parable, the gist is that a rich man is told that a manager who works for him is "wasting his possessions," so he fires him and tells him to "turn in the account of your management." With unemployment looming and him being too weak "to dig" and too proud "to beg," the manager devises a scheme to get into people's good graces so that they might "receive" him in his hour of need -- specifically, he conspires with each of his master's debtors and cooks the books to make it appear that they owe far less than they really do.

As stories go, that is straightforward. But some of the words Jesus speaks immediately after telling it are puzzling, starting with his statement that "the master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness." While that makes sense from the perspective of grudging admiration, it seems more than a little strange to hear Jesus talk about a "dishonest manager" being "commended" for a specific dishonesty and not talk about him suffering any consequences for it.

As he continues, he says "I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into eternal dwellings."

Come again? To modern ears, this sounds like the savior of the world is telling us to engage in underhanded behavior in order to be rewarded in Heaven. But if you are even modestly familiar with his overall teachings, you instinctively know he can't be telling us that. So what gives?

It could be that "unrighteous wealth" (which is sometimes rendered as "worldly wealth") was a contemporaneous term for any assets that were material rather than spiritual. Since material assets are what get used in human commerce, Jesus might be telling us to use them to create relationships that can be cultivated to seek God and achieve something greater.

Or as explained here, it could be that "unrighteous wealth" (mammona adikia in the original Greek) really was intended to mean assets unfairly obtained -- with Jesus wanting us to make things right by giving those assets away (if possible, to those from whom they were taken) with the understanding that we will be honored with heavenly rewards.

Or, it could be that "unrighteous wealth" was at that time intended to mean something else I haven't thought of.

The thing is, most people have no (or little) experience reading the Bible and little knowledge of actual Christian teaching, so if they were to read this passage they might come away thinking it means the very opposite of what it means -- and you can be confident that opponents of the Christian faith will use this passage to claim that God condones immoral behavior.

*     *     *     *     *

The same gospel serves up another seemingly unclear sequence a bit later, in chapters 22 and 23.

After Jesus is arrested, he gets taken before the Jewish religious leaders and Luke 22:70 tells us: And they all said, "Are you the Son of God, then?" And he said to them, 'You say that I am." To our ears that answer is neither yes nor no... but to their first century Jewish ears it was an unambiguous "yes," so they hauled him off to be tried by Pontius Pilate.

Then Luke 23:3 tells us: And Pilate asked him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" And he answered him, "You have said so." Once again, to our ears Jesus is giving an answer that is neither yes nor no... but to Pilate's first century Roman ears, it was a "no."

So the Jews and Pilate listened to the same approximate phrase coming from the exact same lips and interpreted it oppositely. The "chief priests and scribes" heard it as a confession to a capital crime, whereas Pilate heard it and, according to Luke 23:4, "said to the chief priests and the crowds, 'I find no guilt in this man.'"

Although most Americans know that Jesus's arrest and trial resulted in him being executed, most of them haven't actually read the Gospel of Luke. So if they were to open it up and peruse it for the first time, they would probably think something along the lines of "What? I don't get it, that doesn't make any sense" -- and you can be confident that opponents of the Christian faith will use those verses to claim that biblical stories don't add up.

After reading Luke 23:3, most Americans probably wouldn't spend much time pondering why Pilate interpreted Jesus's words as a non-confession to a crime that doesn't seem to warrant execution anyway. But after reading Luke 22:70, most of them probably would wonder why the religious leaders interpreted Jesus saying "you say that I am" identically to him saying "yes I am."

The answer lies in the fact that Jesus was a rabbi who in Luke 22:70 was speaking to rabbis. Therefore he responded to them in the rabbinic style, by which, according to these pulpit commentaries at biblehub.com, "such an answer (means) the one interrogated accepts as his own affirmation the question put to him in its entirety."

But to learn that you must (gasp!) look outside of the Bible, and this is just one drop in a sea full of examples that require you to look outside of its text to understand what is being communicated inside its text.

*     *     *     *     *

So, yes, the Bible is meant to be studied not read.

And unless you're some kind of prodigy, studying it is going to involve looking beyond its pages.

This is why I think telling people to "read the Bible" is not always good advice.

To be continued...

If you care to read the previous installments in this post, they are here: Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, and Six.

A Christmas Miracle

 I published this post 13 years ago and it feels right to do it  again:

My grandfather passed away two months ago.  

I have wanted to write a post about him ever since, and there are a thousand things I want to say in that post, yet it remains unwritten for one very unmovable reason:  I have no idea where or how to start saying those thousand things.  When a man lives 81 years, has 39 direct descendants, and impacts not only his family but countless other people as well, how can you sum up his life in a handful of paragraphs?  You can’t. 

But I do not have that problem when it comes to writing about Granddaddy and Christmas, after the way they converged three years ago. 

Granddaddy’s love of God, family, and country; his zeal when talking about those things to anybody with whom he came into contact; his faith in the perfectibility of man; his irrepressible Scotch-Irish mischief; his unsurpassed diligence in everything to which he set his mind or his hands – those qualities will all be written about in time, but for the purposes of this post, suffice it to say that in the last few years of his life they were cruelly stolen by Alzheimer’s disease. 

His mental sharpness started to dull about five years ago.  In 2005 his memory faded as well, and the fading was fast.  He carried on conversations with Nana without realizing it was her.  Remembering how she looked in their youth but not in the here and now, he said things like “I wonder when Peggy’s going to come home” while looking into her very eyes. 

When he and Nana arrived at our family’s 2005 Christmas Eve party, nobody expected to be recognized by him.  Because I did not want to confuse him by addressing him in a way that would suggest he was speaking to his grandson, and because I knew his recollections of battling the Nazis remained vivid, that night I simply called him “Corporal.” 

He asked if I was in the Army like he had been, and I told him I was not because of my diabetes. I told him that we nonetheless had some similarities, because just like him, my last name was Stanton and my blood carried Scotch-Irish genes.  He nodded and said it was good to meet me.  He said I should come around again sometime. 

Everyone at the party walked a tightrope, balancing holiday cheer on one hand with the sadness of loss on the other.  The man we loved, who had known each of us by name just a year earlier, had for all intents and purposes ceased to exist. 

But as the night started to grow long, something sparked inside Granddaddy’s mind.  When most of us were assembled in and around the kitchen, he “addressed the room” and said it was great that we were there.  He did not specifically acknowledge that we were all family; however, when he looked at my Aunt Sharon, the third of his five children, a glint appeared in his eyes and he spoke the word “daughter.” 

He and Nana stood on the driveway as the party wound down.  I stood there too, as did several others, hoping to give Nana some sense of normalcy.  But it turned out that our presence was not needed, for while Venus shone brightly like the Star of Bethlehem, Granddaddy came back as if by magic.  Looking up at the Milky Way, he spoke to Nana by name and said:  “Peggy, I’m trying to remember the night we got married.”  Some minutes later, when he said goodbye to each of us, his face bore a look of recognition and for that moment it no longer seemed that there was a stranger trapped in his body. 

As his wife of 59 years drove him back to the house they had called home for 53 years, they talked about their life and their family and it was as if the dementia had never been.  After finishing that 45-mile excursion from rural Hernando County to urban Tampa, they sat up late into the night conversing and reminiscing and sharing life’s small but inimitable joys.  They lay down in bed like they had done so many times through the years, and for that one holy night Granddaddy was Granddaddy again:  John Stanton, Jr., child of the Great Depression, survivor of the Battle of the Bulge, husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, pastor, proud but humble, flawed but good.

When the sun rose, the dementia was back and my grandmother's husband, as she knew him, never returned.  But they had gotten that one last night together on Christmas Eve, and had gotten it after everyone assumed it was not possible.  As Nana said:  “That was my Christmas miracle.”

A Carol Born

When it comes to carols, I have always found “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” to be especially poignant (if you're not familiar with it, you can listen to it here.)

It did not begin as a song, but as a poem written on Christmas morning by America’s greatest poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, more than 150 Christmases ago. At that moment in time America was torn apart and battling itself in the Civil War – a war that still stands as the one in which more Americans died than in any other.

When dawn broke that morning, Longfellow was despondent. During the war his son Charles had been horrifically wounded when a bullet passed through part of his spine, leading to a long and excruciating recovery. And as if that wasn’t dark enough, his wife Frances had died as a result of burns sustained when her clothes were set on fire by dripping sealing wax, which she was melting with the intention of using it to preserve some of their daughter’s trimmed curls.

But despite that sorrowful backdrop, as Longfellow sat in his Massachusetts home on Christmas and heard the ringing of local church bells, his faith in divine promise started to stir and he was moved to put pen to paper. The resulting poem was transformed into a hymn nine years later, when John Baptiste Calkin composed the music to which it was set.

The poem’s words absolutely speak for themselves. Since some of them are excluded from the carol we normally hear this time of year, here they are in their entirety:

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”

The Real Saint Nick

History provides many examples of actual people who have, over time, become so melded into the popular imagination that we tend to forget they were real. Saint Nicholas is one of them.

Born sometime around 280 A.D. in the town of Patara, in what was then part of Greece but is now part of Turkey, Nicholas was the son of wealthy parents who died when he was young. Having been raised as a devoted Christian, he spent his life using his inheritance to help those in need, and in addition to his charity he became known for harboring great concern for children and sailors.

Down through history, one particular story about his generosity has persisted. In those days, women whose families could not pay a dowry were more likely to die as spinsters than to get married. It is said that when Nicholas learned of a poor man who was worried about his daughters’ fates because he lacked money for their dowries, Nicholas surreptitiously tossed gold into the man’s home through an open window, and the gold landed in stockings that were drying by the fire. Much later, this 1,700-year-old story inspired the modern tradition of hanging stockings by the chimney to receive gifts from Santa on Christmas Eve.

Nicholas became Bishop of Myra and was imprisoned during the anti-Christian persecutions carried out by the Roman Emperor Diocletian. Based on the stories of his life, Catholic tradition considers him a patron saint of children, orphans, sailors, travelers, the wrongly imprisoned, and many other categories of people. Churches were constructed in his honor as early as the sixth century A.D. Today, his remains are buried in Bari, Italy.

For generations now, kids and adults alike have used the names Santa Claus, Saint Nicholas, and Saint Nick interchangeably, without giving it a second thought. But there was an actual Saint Nicholas, a decent man who is obscured by commercial renderings of Christmas. We should not allow that fact to be forgotten, regardless of whether or not we are Catholic (and for the record, I am not).

Winter Solstice

Here are some thoughts about the year’s coldest season on this, its first day:

I love how it begins with evergreen boughs on mantles, lighted trees in village squares, carols on the radio, and people knowing that life’s greatest joys come from giving rather than receiving.

I love its chilly mornings when fog clings to the surfaces of ponds.

I love sitting outside on those mornings drinking hot black coffee.

I love watching Sarah try to catch snowflakes on her tongue during our winter vacation.

I love driving across California’s High Sierra between snow drifts so deep they soar above cars and turn roadways into tunnels of white.

I love walking through Appalachian forests that are barren of leaves but laden with snow, and therefore have the appearance of black-and-white photos come to life.

And finally, I love that I can spend a whole day outside in Florida without feeling the need to shower every hour.

So for those who curse the cold: Remember that every season brings beauty, so long as we stop to notice it.

About "The" Book, Part Six

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him." (Matthew 2:1-2)

When you look at those two verses, you will see that they are contained within what is really just one sentence -- a sentence that evokes some of the largest and most important mysteries in all of history.

We are accustomed to nativity scenes showing the Magi as three wise men positioned near Mary and Joseph, gazing down upon the infant Jesus. A famous carol describes them in the first person: "We three kings of Orient are / bearing gifts we traverse afar / field and fountain, moor and mountain / following yonder star."

But nowhere in the Bible does it say there were three of them. What it says is that when the Magi arrived where Jesus was, they "presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh." This mention of three gifts apparently gave rise to the notion that they must have been three men.

The image of the Magi seeing Jesus as an infant is almost certainly wrong, for the Bible says "the star went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was." (emphasis mine)

A fair reading of the biblical text is that the Star of Bethlehem, whatever is was, appeared in the sky when Mary gave birth to Jesus; that some men in "the east" saw it and were aware of what it signified; that they then traveled a great distance, using the star as a kind of celestial guidepost; and they finally arrived to see Jesus after so much time had passed that the word "baby" no longer applied.

However, the specific number of Magi and specific age of the young Jesus are but piddling curiosities compared to the larger mysteries.

*     *     *     *     *

Who were the Magi and where did they come from?

They were obviously wise, for they knew the meaning of the star. But how did they know it?

They were evidently not Jewish, so why did they grasp the meaning of the star and actual Jews did not?

Was the star even visible to anyone else, or was it revealed only to the eyes of the Magi? And if it was revealed only to them, we are back to asking: Why them?

And where exactly in "the east" were the Magi's homes, for it seems like they came not from just on the other side of the Dead Sea, but from way to the east. Many scholars believe the Magi hailed from Persia (approximately 850 miles away) and many believe that at least one of them hailed from Piravom, India (more than 4,000 miles away). Doesn't this make the question loom even larger: How did they know what the Star of Bethlehem was, and why were they looking for it?

And by the way, what exactly was the Star of Bethlehem? Was it a comet? A supernova? An alignment of Jupiter and Saturn, or Jupiter and Venus? None of the above?

I get the impression that most people think it was some sort of heavenly body whose position in the sky shifted somewhat from night to night -- as is the case with all heavenly bodies other than the North Star -- however my take is different. To my ears, a "star" appearing at an appointed time and going "ahead" of the Magi to guide them sounds like a carbon copy (if not an outright recurrence) of the pillar of fire from Exodus 13:21, which had previously led the Hebrews by night during their long journey from Egypt 1,300 years before. I am shocked that I never hear this speculated about, but surely I'm not the only person to notice the parallel.

*     *     *     *     *

Judaism and Christianity both hold that the god of the Bible, aka the god of Israel, is the one true god. His name was revealed to Moses as four ancient Hebrew consonants, YHWH, and its pronunciation/spelling in English has been handed down as Yahweh.

Belief in a Messiah flows from multiple Old Testament verses. Intriguingly, a similar belief is also visible if you glimpse through the lenses of Hinduism (which talks of a final avatar descending to the material world) and Buddhism (which talks of various bodhisattvahs opting to reincarnate in the material world until they have accomplished their goal of helping others attain nirvana).

Christianity holds that Yahweh is a trinity, meaning he is one deity who acts through three distinct personas: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Son is manifested by Yahweh entering the material world in human form, which he did 2,000 years ago when he took the name Jesus and presented himself as the promised Messiah.

Christianity further claims that Jesus's appearance as the Messiah cemented God's offer of salvation to all of humankind, and that Jesus will return again at some point in the future.

Christianity affirms that Jesus's divinity was proved by him accepting the most excruciating punishment imaginable, that of death by scourging and crucifixion -- the very word "excruciating" is derived from "cruc," which is Latin for cross -- and coming back to life in the same human body three days later.

*     *     *     *     *

Based on reason combined with historical evidence, I believe that the resurrection of Jesus did take place. But opining about that topic is not the purpose of this post, so for right now I am simply going to toss out the name Dennis Prager and then turn to some interesting passages from the Bible.

Prager is a devout Jew. Although he does not believe in the divinity of Jesus, he is a big fan of Christianity and describes it as "a divinely inspired religion to lead people to the god of Israel." I am an American mutt who does believe in the divinity of Jesus, and I wholeheartedly agree with Prager's assessment of my faith.

It is true that, in Deuteronomy, God tells the Hebrews they are "chosen" by him from among "all the peoples on the face of the earth." 

It is also true that in Genesis, when speaking to Noah, God refers to "the covenant I have established between me and all life on earth." Also in Genesis, he tells Abraham that "all peoples on earth will be blessed." (emphasis mine)

Much later in history, in Isaiah, God tells the Hebrews that they are to be "a light for the Gentiles" and that "my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations."

Although the Egyptians enslave the Hebrews, that does not stop God from assisting the Egyptians in Genesis by warning Pharaoh of the coming famine, so that they can prepare for it during the preceding years of plenty. Nor does it stop God, in Isaiah, from calling the Egyptians "my people" and vowing to "bless" them.

God refers to Cyrus II, the pagan king of Persia, as his "anointed."

The Assyrians of Nineveh were behaving wickedly, and God was so concerned for them that he ordered Jonah to travel there and minister to them.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus tells the disciples: "I am the good shepherd...I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen."

And that passage about different sheep from different pens seems all the more tantalizing when you consider another account, one which appears in the gospels of both Mark and Luke. In that account, the disciples are troubled to see a stranger performing exorcisms in Jesus's name. That must have seemed sacrilegious to them, so they attempted to stop him; but when they reported this to Jesus himself, they were surprised to hear him respond by saying "do not stop him." Jesus proceeded to explain that "whoever is not against us is for us," and "anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to the Messiah will surely not lose their reward."

*     *     *     *     *

No, God is not an ethnocentrist. He is not some petty bureaucrat dispensing benefits based on demographic bean-counting. He does not bestow favors on any group(s) of humans at the expense of any other group(s) of humans.

God's hand is always outstretched to all, waiting for us to accept it by extending our own and putting our fears aside.

Many twenty-first century ears automatically and unthinkingly misinterpret such terms as "chosen," "saved," and "damned." They misinterpret them by filtering them though the cracked prism of contemporary Western culture. That prism is blemished by suffocating self-focus and superficial identity politics. It fails to place words in the proper contexts of when they were written and spoken, and to whom they were immediately addressed. Filtering everything through this cracked prism is, shall we say, not always a positive.

Christmas is a season of hope and promise for everybody. That is just as true in 2021 -- when so many people remain addled by anxiety over politics and Covid, whether rightly or wrongly -- as it has been ever since Jesus was born in Bethlehem two millennia ago.

My prayer is that we reflect on the true meaning and basis for this season and that do it openly and lovingly, with neither embarrassment nor shame.

Merry Christmas.

Note: While I am publishing this post today because it fits right into my "About 'The' Book" series that I started in August, I must admit that it is a tweaked and very slightly revised copy-and-paste of one I published last year under the headline "Yuletide Wonderings." Lately I have had very little time to write, but the "About 'The' Book" series will resume soon, probably in January. If you have any interest in reading it, the first five posts are here, here, here, here, and here, respectively.

Never Forget

Today is the 80th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, so let us all pause and recall what happened eight decades ago.

The day after the bombing, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed Congress on December 8, 1941, to request a formal declaration of war. His speech was simulcast to the country at large via the radio. In it, he said:

Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that nation, and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our secretary of state a formal reply to a recent American message. While this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or armed attack…

Yesterday the Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya.

Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.

Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam.

Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.

Last night Japanese forces attacked Wake Island.

And this morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island…

Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves…

Always will be remembered the character of this onslaught against us.

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory…

With confidence in our armed forces – with the unbounding determination of our people – we will gain the inevitable triumph – so help us God.

Pearl Harbor was attacked because it was where the U.S. Navy’s Pacific fleet was headquartered. The bombing, which killed more than 2,400 people, began shortly before 8:00 on a Sunday morning.

Five of our eight battleships were sunk, the other three were badly damaged, and multiple other naval vessels were destroyed.

The majority of the American war planes based in Hawaii were destroyed as they sat on the ground.

In addition, most of the American air forces based in the Philippines were destroyed during the nighttime attack on that nation, which FDR also mentioned in his speech.

By crippling our Pacific defenses, the December 7th attack left us extremely vulnerable in the face of an aggressive enemy to our West – an enemy that had signaled its intent to rule the entire Pacific basin by subjugating other nations to its will.

This came at a time when we had not responded to the fact that Nazi Germany to our East had already declared war against us, had already brought most of Europe under its thumb, and had signaled its own intention to rule the world by way of an Aryan resurrection of the old Roman Empire.

Such circumstances would have spelled doom for the vast majority of countries throughout the course of history. With their foundations based on the accidents of ethnicity and geography, most countries would have simply surrendered; or, in a distinction without a difference, entered into “peace” negotiations under which they would have to accept the aggressor’s terms and after which the lives of their citizens would most certainly change for the worst.

But the United States is a nation based on ideals. Our foundation springs from the knowledge that there are things greater than us, things which are greater than the transient circumstances which exist on any given day. We have always found strength in the conviction that our nation exists to support and advance those greater things, to the benefit of people all over the world, and this sets the United States apart from all other nations in all other times.

Taking heed from FDR’s appeal to “righteous might,” reflecting what Abraham Lincoln earlier referred to as the “faith that right makes might,” the American people of 1941 summoned the invincible courage to rebuild and fight at the same time they were under fearsome siege. They did this despite the fact they were still suffering through an unprecedented economic depression that had started more than a decade before.

Let us pray that those qualities – that will to power and that unwavering belief in the sanctity of human freedom – have not been lost as new generations of Americans take the baton from the great ones which came before. For as has been said, those who forget the past will be forced to repeat it.

It would be shameful if history were to record that we squandered what was handed down to us by people like Larry Perry, and as a result we failed to transfer freedom’s blessings to our descendants... And since you probably don't know who Larry Perry is, I recommend you look here and find out.