coffee Time
The two saltines were stale, but the Skippy super-chunk was fine, and I’m still sipping excellent hot & black from the monster mug of September edition club coffee.
Light enough out here on 7H porch, a pleasantly cool autumn morning, full moon, clear, 68°F 83% wind NE 8 mph. Sound of a train locomotive, that I’ve not heard from here for ages. The raucous squawk of a wading bird followed by a dog barking, 3:38 AM is early for barking dogs at HV.
Why up so early? IDK, it was 2:14 then back up to stay at 2:3X. Sudden aching neck heralds arrival of a touch of carb coma from the PB & saltines. Maybe it will send me back to bed to finish my night’s sleep, eh? Linda says we need seven to eight hours of sleep - - bedtime is 9:00 PM, but last night Spider Solitaire had me dozing at 8:30, so I was in bed asleep at 8:45, six hours, so can look forward to resuming sleep with a pleasant nap starting maybe about daybreak.
Completed the card game easily this morning.
What does an overweight but otherwise reasonably healthy man in extreme old age think about, how does he engage his Time? A favorite for me is Bible contemplation. Maybe I’m neither spiritual nor very religious, but watching university professors who are Bible scholars lecture on Bible topics is a fascination. Ten lectures in Bart Ehrman’s live online NINT* symposium last Saturday and Sunday, each lecturer fascinating and each lecture spectacular for an oddball like me who’s interested, going back during this week to pick up the lectures and Q&A periods I missed.
One lecture focused on scholars' question of the importance of a gospel writer’s intent, based on the story of The Woman Caught in Adultery that appears in later manuscripts of John’s gospel, but not in extant earliest manuscripts. What’s going on? Did Gospel John know that story? Would Gospel John have wanted that story in his gospel? Is the story a later addition that was part of earliest oral tradition but omitted, so an editor, or the early church later stuck in John’s gospel? Or was it possibly original but deleted because of ambiguity, the question of Jesus saying adultery was to be forgiven? But why John’s gospel and not, say, Luke’ gospel? Well, there is at least one later manuscript that in fact does have it in Luke’s gospel, what happened there? And, it’s a great oral tradition story, but did the event really happen? If so, where’s the adulterous male, he also would have been brought to the trial and stoning. And what about Jesus the construction worker writing in the dirt, wasn’t he likely to have been illiterate? At any event, what was Jesus writing in the dirt? What’s the point of the story, is it, ambiguously again, about the woman, that adultery is not to be condemned? Or is it about the men, that anyone who has sinned, which is all of us, has no moral right to condemn and reject other sinners? Or is it that everyone, all of us sinners, are acceptable to the Lord? Or, ...
The scholar giving the lecture concluded that we can never know the answers to all those questions, especially questions about the original author's intent; but that as a practical matter it doesn’t really matter anyway. The story is in our canon now. We can only speculate about the gospel writer’s original intent. This is a beloved story that’s part of the tradition that was early on added to the gospel, and it isn’t going anywhere. The questions only matter to scholars and Bble students who love to explore these things, so settle down, accept and enjoy the story (or ignore it, if you consider it not a valid part of the Bible).
A similar point goes, and the lecturing scholar discussed several things besides that one story, for the opening of Mark’s gospel where he writes, "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God," where earliest manuscripts do not have “the Son of God,” when was that phrase added? Would Mark have approved of its being added? There’s no way to know! It’s a scholarly question about an added phrase that fits perfectly into Mark’s story, that someone, editor or church, added later and it’s now part of the tradition. It’s there on the page: if we like it, great; if we don’t like it, ignore it. It’s our tradition, we can do as we please.
As for the importance of what the gospel writers originally intended, saying that the stories are for us, today, the lecturer pointed to what Christians do with the Christmas story as a modern-day example of humans tampering with the Bible: joining Luke’s nativity narrative with Matthew’s nativity narrative, that creates an entirely new story. The lecturing scholar, a Baptist who made her teenage sons take part in her church’s Christmas pageant one year when there was a snowstorm and the other children didn’t show up, is a very practical person who appreciates the fun of all this exploration, searching, and discussion; but says that we are human, and the stories are ours, and for us, and we change things to suit us; and while she recognizes the value of all the professional scholarship that explores many questions, her theme turned out to be that it does not at all destroy or diminish our wonderful traditions that are ours to enjoy as we will. That was brilliant!
Friday begins with a harvest moon in the west and Venus in the east.
RSF&PTL
T88&c
* NINT New Insights into the New Testament