Jesus, Interrupted

Recently finished Bart Ehrman's excellent Jesus, Interrupted which gives an interesting and accessible overview of the current state of scholarly opinion on the origins and development of the New Testament. The entire thing is highly quotable, but I particularly like his summation:

It would be impossible, I should think, to argue that the Bible is a unified whole, inerrant in all its parts, inspired by God in every way. It can't be that. There are too many divergences, discrepancies, contradictions; too many alternative ways of looking at the same issue, alternatives that often are at odds with one another. The Bible is not a unity, it is a massive plurality. God did not write the Bible, people did. Many of these people were inspired in the sense that they wrote works that can inspire others to think great and important thoughts and to do great and important deeds. But they were not inspired in the sense that God somehow guided them to write what they wrote.

This from a graduate of Moody Bible Institute and Wheaton College. Highly recommended for anyone interested in (to use Ehrman's terms) a historical-critical review of the New Testament as opposed to the more common (and far less intellectually rigorous) devotional view predominant among practicing Christians.

The Year of Living Biblically, 2

A nice idea from the book:

I'm still agnostic. But in the words of Elton Richards, I'm now a reverent agnostic. Which isn't an oxymoron, I swear. I now believe that whether or not there's a God, there is such a thing as sacredness. Life is sacred. The Sabbath can be a sacred day. Prayer can be a sacred ritual. There is something transcendent, beyond the everyday. It's possible that humans created this sacredness ourselves, but that doesn't take away from its power or importance.

I've been noticing the sacred (sacred to me, anyway) in my life a lot more recently. When you grow up immersed in religion, it's easy to make the mistake of equating the sacred with the divine in such a way that the loss of the divine necessarily results in the loss of the sacred. It's nice to be reminded that one can recognize and appreciate the sacred in the absence of any particular divine sanction.

The Year of Living Biblically, 1

Reading The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs, I was really taken with the following quotation:

Love...keeps no record of wrongs.

It's taken from the following longer passage:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

"...always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." Isn't that beautiful? It's I Corinthians 13:4-7 from the NIV. I was wondering why I'd never noticed that passage before, so I looked it up in the only version of the Bible I have, the King James Version, the version on which I was raised. There the same passage reads:

Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

Blech. No wonder I never noticed it. What a remarkable difference. The NIV translation is stunning.

The Age of Reason, 15

...and I moreover believe that any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child cannot be a true system.

Christianity's success and staying power owe a lot to the consistent willingness of its practitioners to shock the minds of children; to frighten them into belief. It was fear that led me and my childhood friends through the rites of salvation. Fear of eternal damnation. Fear of separation from our parents. Fear of demonic attack. Always fear.

Fear wasn't the only thing taught in Sunday school; it wasn't even the major part. But it was always there, and it was always the most effective (and often the only effective) persuader.

The only thing that made me believe was fear of the consequences of disbelief. It wasn't a belief in God's love that inspired my loyalty; it was fear of his wrath. It's taken many years of intense, concerted effort to overcome that fear. I'm certain many children of the church are never able to break free from the fear.

Truth–clear, demonstrable truth–doesn't need fear as its agent.

The Age of Reason, 14

If the belief of errors not morally bad did no mischief, it would make no part of the moral duty of man to oppose and remove them. There was no moral ill in believing the earth was flat like a trencher, any more than there was moral virtue in believing it was round like a globe; neither was there any moral ill in believing that the Creator made no other world than this, any more than there was moral virtue in believing that he made millions, and that the infinity of space is filled with worlds.

But when a system of religion is made to grow out of a supposed system of creation that is not true, and to unite itself therewith in a manner almost inseparable therefrom, the case assumes an entirely different ground. It is then that errors, not morally bad, become fraught with the same mischiefs as if they were. It is then that the truth, though otherwise indifferent itself, becomes an essential, by becoming the criterion that either confirms by corresponding evidence, or denies by contradictory evidence, the reality of the religion itself.

In this view of the case it is the moral duty of man to obtain every possible evidence that the structure of the heavens, or any other part of creation affords, with respect to systems of religion. But this, the supporters or partizans of the christian system, as if dreading the result, incessantly opposed, and not only rejected the sciences, but persecuted the professors.

Winter

There's one thing I want to say so I'll be brave
You were what I wanted, I gave what I gave
I'm not sorry I met you
I'm not sorry it's over
I'm not sorry there's nothing to say

Your Ex-Lover Is Dead – Stars

Autumn

Used to be one of the rotten ones and I liked you for that
Used to be one of the rotten ones and I liked you for that
Used to be one of the rotten ones and I liked you for that
Now you're all gone got your make-up on and you're not coming back (Can't you come back?)

Bleaching your teeth, smiling flash, talking trash, under your breath
Bleaching your teeth, smiling flash, talking trash, under your breath
Bleaching your teeth, smiling flash, talking trash, under your breath
Bleaching your teeth, smiling flash, talking trash, under my window

Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me
Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me
Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me
Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me

Used to be one of the rotten ones and I liked you for that
Now you're all gone got your make-up on and you're not coming back

Anthems For A Seventeen Year Old Girl – Broken Social Scene

Summer

How the heart bends, and summer she sends
a sky that refuses to die.
With weeds of the sea that wrap round our knees
and a sun too hot to go down.
You come around, you come around, you come around...

What the Snowman Learned About Love – Stars

Spring

Fifth time in your bedroom
And finally, we rested
And you leaned upon your elbow
And began to speak to me

But you stopped yourself and kissed me
And I grabbed your wrist and told you
I know, I know, I know
I feel the same as you

The First Five Times – Stars

Of Hermits and Loneliness

From Walter Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz:

"If he's lonely, why does he insist on living like a hermit?"
"To escape loneliness–in a young world."
"An interesting madness."
"I'm not so sure he's mad, Father. Just devious in his sanity."

I love that. It's edited from a longer passage, but this is the part that made me smile. The fewer people I have around me, the less alone I feel. It's hard to find someone who understands that; who doesn't casually dismiss a person like me as damaged in some way. In fact, I've yet to find anyone. Miller must have had that understanding. I don't see how he could have written that passage otherwise.