Back of the Envelope

I received an interesting e-mail from a reader that I thought I would share. It started:

i (and millions of others) found your site when i googled "christian webcomics."

That's not exactly true, as I'm not quite in the millions yet, but I've gotten a good number of hits from people running Google searches of "Christian webcomics." It led to this post, where I wrote:

I'll admit that I didn't come up with this topic on my own. I noticed that one of the Google searches which led people to my blog was "Christian webcomics." Now, I am a Christian, and I do read webcomics, which explains how that search led here, but are any of the webcomics that I read explicitly Christian? Some of them are written by Christians. Some of them have Christian characters. Some of them deal with Christian themes. But I don't think any of them are explicitly Christian.

The reader, kiran-fai, continues:

you mentioned that some webcomics may be written by christians and/or have christian themes, but may not be explicitly christian. my theology on this has evolved lately into thinking that anything that is true and good is indeed explicitly christian.

ie: god created mathematics which states that 2 + 2 = 4. this makes mathmatics a christian concept because it is a truth forged by god.

I'm not sure I'd put it quite that way. I don't have any dispute with the assertion that mathematics comes from God, although I tend to think of it less as a creation of God than a reflection of his nature. (I think the same thing about love, incidentally. It's not that God created love, but it is an inseparable part of his nature. God is love.) However, I don't think the idea of everything good being explicitly Christian really fits the defintition of "explicity."

I agree with the rest of the e-mail in its entirety:

when a believer applies this theology to as many areas of his life as possible, two things happen: one, god gets real big, real quick. he is no longer confined to live within the walls of "religious things" (church, the bible, hymns), but he is loosed to take proper authority over ALL THINGS. two, the foolish idea of a "secular" world and a "sacred" world gets shattered in a hurry. there is only one world and it all belongs to god.

this allows me to say things like, "some of tom petty's music is explicitly christian (ie: won't back down), but a lot of 'christian' music fails to paint a realistic picture of what it means to live life as a true believer" and "the precious moments figurines mock the biblical existence of angels, but the recent film constantine portrays spiritual warfare in a believeable way."

i look forward to yor response and you may feel free to use this letter in any way you see fit.

A Christian's faith should be reflected in all he does, and it doesn't necessarily have to tell the Gospel message aloud in order for it to contain a bit of the good news.

Incidentally, two of the webcomics I mentioned in my previous post have gotten a lot more explicit recently. In General Protection Fault, Trudy just heard the Gospel message, while in College Roomies from Hell!!!, Dave's just received what looks like divine help.

The latest Christian Carnival, number sixty-three, is up at Weapons of Mass Distraction.

Morgan Evans at jediphilosopher has been debating with me about Terri Schiavo. Recently, he posted on a slightly different topic:

Several changes in thought topic later, I was thinking about the differences between Philosophically supporting something, and practically supporting something. Now, philosophically I support several ideas that would probably be quite unpopular to a good deal of people. However, I also recognize that they would not work well in this world with humans the way they are, and do not support them as practical ideas.

I started to wonder about this. Just what is the difference between a philosophically good idea and a practically good idea? Can something that is right and good, that is in accord with God's will, be a bad thing when put into practice in our world? Can something that is not right, that goes against God, be justified?

While part of me wants to say that of course this cannot be, there is evidence to the contrary. The early church, we are lead to believe, practiced something similar to communism. It seems a good idea in theory. Yet put into practice in our modern world, the results have been universally a failure.

This is an interesting question, and worth some thought, but I believe the simple answer is that there are a lot of things that are good in theory, but that don't work well in practice. Now, as an engineer, I design things, and while I can sometimes try to make use of a new theory (I spent years working on a specific type of qubit, with moderate success), for the most part I extrapolate from what I know to work. You have to know the limitations and flaws of the available technology, and adapt your designs to them. The same goes, to some degree, to political systems. The American political system was desgined with the assumption that mankind was fallen and that power corrupts, and thus it was designed to distribute and limit power, preventing any person or group from accumulating too much power, and protecting those who had none. (I worry that the system is not working as well as it should, as the judiciary, which was supposed to be the weakest of the government branches, has become the most powerful, and there is precious little to limit them.) The fallen nature of man has to be taken into account in any system.

Fortunately, Christianity does indeed take that into account. It is, in fact, targeted at addressing exactly that point. And while Christians are redeemed, their faith acknowledges that being redeemed is far from being perfected, and calls on Christians to hold one another accountable. Now, I'm not going to call Christianity as practiced a perfect system, not even as practiced by the early church, but I tend to believe that it's been far more successful than it is usually given credit, but like any good system, it also needs to acknowledge its mistakes and its need for improvement and correction.

This is a continuation of the previous post on the Harmony of the Gospels, specifically as it refers to the resurrection. There I quoted from all the gospels, here I talk about the differences.

You'll note that there are differences between the gospel accounts. In my younger days, this troubled me a lot. I've had twenty years now to think on this, but while I won't claim to have fully figured it out (although I do have some thoughts I'll share in a moment), I have learned that the weight of the evidence is convincing, even if my belief in the Gospels' inerrancy remains troubled. Before I discuss some possible interpretations, it's fair to ask whether it's worth the effort. Lee Strobel in The Case for Christ rightly points out that there is enough agreement that the essential story is clear, and enough differences to indicate that the four accounts came from different sources. C.S. Lewis in Miracles (Chapter 16) points out that there's more to the Resurrection than the first morning:

When modern writers talk about the Resurrection they usually mean one particular moment--the discovery of the Empty Tomb and the appearance of Jesus a few yards away from it. The story of that moment is what Christian apologists now chiefly try to support and sceptics chiefly try to impugn. But this almost exclusive concentration on the first five minutes or so of the Resurrection would have astonished the earliest Christian teachers. In claiming to have seen the Resurrection they were not necessarily claiming to have seen that. Some of them had, some of them had not. It had no more importance than any of the other appearances of the risen Jesus--apart from the poetic and dramatic importance which the beginnings of things must always have. What they were claiming was that they had all, at one time or another, met Jesus during the six or seven weeks that had followed His death. Sometimes they seem to have been alone when they did so, but on one occasion twelve of them saw Him together [by twelve here C.S. Lewis (and Paul) means the Twelve, who in fact were only eleven by that point], and on another occasion about five hundred of them. St. Paul says that the majority of the five hundred were still alive when he wrote the First Letter to the Corinthians, i.e. about 55 A.D.

The "Resurrection" to which they bore witness was, in fact, not the action of rising from the dead but the state of being risen; a state, as they held, attested by intermittent meetings during a limited period (except for the special, and in some ways different, meeting vouchsafed to St. Paul).

The actual events of Resurrection Sunday are, for the most part, skimmed over very briefly in the first three gospels. Why? One reason is pointed out by C.S. Lewis--those events were actually a very minor part of the Resurrection story. The apostles themselves didn't see any of it, and the story told by the women didn't convince them. Women, after all, were not considered reliable witnesses in first century Judea, which may be another reason that their involvement wasn't dwelt upon. There are a few other points to keep in mind, which have more to do with the nature of ancient histories and biographies than the gospels themselves. The first is that chronology was never considered terribly important in ancient histories: the point is to tell the events, not necessarily to get them in an exact order. The second is that quotes are not full quotes. Go ahead and read the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). I doubt it will take you more than fifteen minutes. Yet Jesus usually taught for hours on end. None of the sermons we have are full transcripts; they are all highly abridged, and that likely applies to all quotes found in ancient writings. Some commentators argue that all the quotes are paraphrased; they are at the least translations, as Greek, the language in which the gospels were written, was not the spoken language of Judea at this time. There are some scholars who believe that no quotation used by ancient writers is even meant to be exact, simply what the writers think the speaker should have said. I don't subscribe to that theory myself. The third and final point is that when listing people present, writers usually just listed the important people, leaving an assumed "and others." If you want more on the nature of ancient histories and the reliability of the gospels, I recommend F.F. Bruce's The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?

Since John is the most clearly different, and the most detailed of the accounts, we'll start with his gospel account and build on that. Clearly, John was telling the story of Mary Magdalene, so the focus is on her, and the other women aren't even mentioned. According to Luke, there were at least five of them there: he lists three, and then says there were other women (plural). Of these, four are named in the Gospels: Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, Salome, and Joanna (I suppose it's possible that Salome and Joanna are two names for the same woman--I don't really know). The exact time is around dawn. John says that it was still dark, Mark says that it was "when the sun had risen." I'll admit that this bothered me at one point, but I don't remember why. It can be pretty dark just as the sun is rising, and I imagine the episode--travelling to the tomb, arriving, witnessing, then leaving--took long enough that it was dark when it began and light when it was over. In any case, Mary Magdalene arrives, sees the tomb is empty, then runs to get Peter and the other disciple (John, who carefully avoided naming himself throughout the gospel). There's no account of angels or Jesus yet in John. Of course, there's no mention of the other women either, and I wonder what they were doing. Did they go with Mary, or did they remain there? One possibility, which is one I've never heard mentioned in any commentary I've read, is that they split up. When they found the tomb empty, Mary went back to find Peter and John--perhaps alone, perhaps with some of the others--while the others remained there. There they saw the angels. This, then, could be the main source of the discrepancy between the gospels. If the other women remained while Mary went to get Peter, then perhaps there are two encounters with the angels, one by these women and one by Mary Magdalene, and perhaps, although I'm less certain of this, two encounters with Jesus. Jesus and the angels were, after all, in the area. Jesus would be meeting with lots of people that day, including some of his disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:12-32), and the apostles that evening (Luke 24:33-49). 1 Corinthians 15:5 tells us that he met with Peter before the apostles, although we're not told exactly when (he may have been one of the disciples on the road to Emmaus).

This resolves most of the difficulties involved, except for a couple of details. First off, how many angels were there? At least two. There could have been a whole choir involved in this event (I imagine there wasn't any lack of volunteers). All the accounts except Matthew's mention two, but Matthew's is the only one which has an angel doing more than talking to the women. After doing all the hard work of subduing the guards and moving the stone, before the women arrived it appears, this angel gets top billing in doing the actual speaking. Where were the angels? While Matthew's active angel was sitting on the stone at one point, there's no reason to assume he was still there when the women arrived. Who reported to the disciples? All of the women, apparently, but it seems that it was Mary's report, when there were still very few facts, that got Peter to go and look, as recorded in Luke and John.

This is clearly not the only possible explanation for the differences, and I make no claim that it is the correct explanation. It's simply the one that makes the most sense to me, but I've been convinced that the weight of evidence is such that the exact details are less important than I once thought.

I posted these two posts on Easter Sunday last year, and I thought I'd repost them today. As on good Friday, all posts today will be Easter themed.

From Matthew:

Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave. And behold, a severe earthquake had occurred, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it. And his appearance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow. The guards shook for fear of him and became like dead men. The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid; for I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified. He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said. Come, see the place where He was lying. Go quickly and tell His disciples that He has risen from the dead; and behold, He is going ahead of you into Galilee, there you will see Him; behold, I have told you."

And they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy and ran to report it to His disciples. And behold, Jesus met them and greeted them. And they came up and took hold of His feet and worshiped Him. Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid; go and take word to My brethren to leave for Galilee, and there they will see Me."

(Matthew 28:1-10)

From Mark:

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, bought spices, so that they might come and anoint Him. Very early on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen. They were saying to one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?" Looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled away, although it was extremely large. Entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting at the right, wearing a white robe; and they were amazed. And he said to them, "Do not be amazed; you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who has been crucified. He has risen; He is not here; behold, here is the place where they laid Him. But go, tell His disciples and Peter, 'He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see Him, just as He told you.' " They went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had gripped them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

(Mark 16:1-8)

From Luke:

But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling clothing; and as the women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, "Why do you seek the living One among the dead? He is not here, but He has risen. Remember how He spoke to you while He was still in Galilee, saying that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again."

And they remembered His words, and returned from the tomb and reported all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. Now they were Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James; also the other women with them were telling these things to the apostles. But these words appeared to them as nonsense, and they would not believe them. But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings only; and he went away to his home, marveling at what had happened.

(Luke 24:1-12)

From John:

Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb, while it was still dark, and saw the stone already taken away from the tomb. So she ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him." So Peter and the other disciple went forth, and they were going to the tomb. The two were running together; and the other disciple ran ahead faster than Peter and came to the tomb first; and stooping and looking in, he saw the linen wrappings lying there; but he did not go in. And so Simon Peter also came, following him, and entered the tomb; and he saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the face-cloth which had been on His head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself. So the other disciple who had first come to the tomb then also entered, and he saw and believed. For as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead. So the disciples went away again to their own homes.

But Mary was standing outside the tomb weeping; and so, as she wept, she stooped and looked into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been lying. And they said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him."

When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?" Supposing Him to be the gardener, she said to Him, "Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away." Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to Him in Hebrew, "Rabboni!" (which means, Teacher). Jesus said to her, "Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, 'I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.' "

Mary Magdalene came, announcing to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord," and that He had said these things to her.

(John 20:1-18)

More later.

He is Risen indeed!

Happy Easter! As Good Friday is the most solemn of Christian Holy Days, Easter Sunday is the most joyous. This is in stark contrast to the first Easter itself, which was marked by fear and confusion. I'm not advocating that for today, mind, but sometimes I think modern Christians could do with a bit more awe in their faith. I'll have some more Easter posts up later today.

This is a repost of the post I wrote on Good Friday last year. As this is the most solemn of Christian Holy Days, it will be the only post today.

As you probably know, today is Good Friday. It is not a day of celebration, but of solemn remembrance of Jesus's suffering and death, so it is appropriate to ask why this day is called "Good." The first thing to remember is that Jesus's death was not an accident. He went to the cross willingly, knowing what was coming. As Jesus himself said:

"I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father."

(John 10:14-18)

Furthermore, his death has a purpose, and indeed had a purpose hundreds of years before it happened:

Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty That we should look upon Him, Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth. By oppression and judgment He was taken away; And as for His generation, who considered That He was cut off out of the land of the living For the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due? His grave was assigned with wicked men, Yet He was with a rich man in His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was there any deceit in His mouth.

(Isaiah 53:1-9)

His death was not a meaningless tragedy, but a purposeful sacrifice on our behalf. There was more to his sacrifice than the physical sacrifice, however. He suffered our punishment, not just death, but abandonment by God.

About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, eli, lama sabachthani?" that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

(Matthew 27:46)

Christians believe that these words are not merely a cry of desperation, quoting Psalm 22:1, but that it is the literal truth that Jesus was abandoned by God, who turned his face from his own Son when he became sin for our sake. In so doing he not only made forgiveness possible, he made it possible for us to be a part of the relationship he and the Father once shared and would share again:

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

(John 1:12-13)

So, while this is a day to mourn what Jesus suffered, to mourn that our condition made it necessary for him to suffer in this way, Good Friday is good because the greatest good came out of Jesus's death. This is what redemption is all about, when God makes what is bad, even evil, good, by buying it back and making it his own again. I'll conclude with Matthew's account of Jesus's death, part of which I've already quoted:

Now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour. About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, eli, lama sabachthani?" that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And some of those who were standing there, when they heard it, began saying, "This man is calling for Elijah." Immediately one of them ran, and taking a sponge, he filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed, and gave Him a drink. But the rest of them said, "Let us see whether Elijah will come to save Him." And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth shook and the rocks were split. The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many. Now the centurion, and those who were with him keeping guard over Jesus, when they saw the earthquake and the things that were happening, became very frightened and said, "Truly this was the Son of God!"

(Matthew 27:45-54)

It is an occasion for solemnity, but also an occasion to remember that God brings good out of evil.

I received an interesting comment last night. I responded to it in my comments, but after some thought, I decided to put it on the main page as well. Here is what TrueViews said:

It amazes me how so many people in this country are unwilling to face death with courage. In a ways, many people fight to keep Terri alive because the protestors themselves have such issues with dying. I actually gave too much credit to those using religious reasons for keeping Terri alive. It is a major part of most religions to live for the day that you die. It is arrogant of ANYONE to decide for Terri whether or not it's time to die. While not all doctors agree on whether or not Terri will recover, they ALL agree that she is in pain. Have any of you considered what would happen if Terri were to recover? Do you understand the additional pain she will have to suffer due to the fact that her muscles are in atrophy from the last 15 years of inactivity? She will have to endure intense physical therapy. PLUS....no one every TRULY recovers from brain damage. ONCE IT IS SUSTAINED, it is a permanent, irreversible reality that the victim has to live with for the rest of her life. And yes, I do consider people who suffer from brain damage VICTIMS. YOU don't live with brain damage, SHE does. IS THIS THE WAY ANYONE WOULD WANT TO LIVE?! I'm not saying they you have to be completely ok with letting her die. Dying is a painful process for EVERYONE involved. BUT that is part of the lives that we have been blessed with. I AM saying that everyone has to able to admit that if Terri were to die right now, her pain and state of mental disability would be washed away and replaced with peace of being finally released from her damaged, physical body. Yes, she has to endure dying of starvation, but that is MOMENTARY compared to the last 15 years and MORE if her feeding tube is reinserted. Instead of being there for her as she journeys on the path towards His light, we're holding her back in her broken body, not only expecting her to deal with her current pain and suffering, but also expecting her to deal with even more pain and suffering IF (AND IT'S ONLY AND IF) she were to recover. You are blinding yourselves to what death really is. So many of you see dying as some horrible thing. It's not a horrible thing to die. It's a horrible thing to put OTHERS through a torture device you ALL KNOW NOTHING ABOUT.

This is the response that I gave:

Curious. So are you saying that even if she could recover, could learn to walk and speak again, it'd still be better to put her to death? Because it would be hard? Because life would never be as good as it was before? Does this apply to everyone who's had a crippling injury? Or just those brain damaged?

If you're right and it's arrogant to make the decision for her, how is it less arrogant to decide that she would rather die than it is to decide that she would rather live? Is this because you would rather die in this situation? How do you know, if you haven't been in it? Why don't you ask someone who has lived through it? This woman, for instance. I can't say that Terri would make the same decision. We can't ask her. Her husband says she would choose to die, based on a chance remark he remembers her making years before this happened, but if, as you're saying, we don't know without going through it ourselves, then her opinion before she ended up in this state doesn't count.

My religion instructs me that no one has the authority to end an innocent life. That is God's prerogative, and it is arrogant of me to say that any life is no longer worth living. I dare not even say that about my own life. That would be telling God that I am useless, when I know that God does the most amazing things through the people everyone believes to be useless.

I wish I could have corrected the typos in my comment section, as I did here.

Nick Queen has another crop of Christian bloggers up, this time with Cognitively Dissonant, Espresso Roast, and The Christian Soldier being highlighted. I took the time to look over each of them, and they're all worth reading. Not all of these blogs are prolific, but they all have interesting things to say.

I'm really beginning to regret not making the Os Guinness talk, even if it was nigh impossible for me to get there. The folks at Letters from Babylon have a lot of good stuff to say about it. Josh tells us what he took away from the talk:

...We must recognize, Guinness said, that we are just as capable of evil as those--terrorists, Nazis, communists--whose atrocities we are quick to denounce.

What of this hypocrisy, though? Does it render us unqualified to identify and respond to evil? Does it render the very concept of evil incoherent? Not so, says, Guinness. Indeed, those nations, he argued, that aspire to virtue (e.g., the United States and Great Britain) are far more susceptible to hypocrisy than a nation like France that is much more equivocal on the issue. But this fact does not make us unqualified to judge evil, nor does it render the notion of evil incoherent; rather, it is a warning that those who would seek to combat evil are in greater danger of doing evil themselves than those content to ignore it. This calls for vigilance, but not abandonment of the quest for virtue.

To which, John Zimmer adds:

During his Cambridge Forum address on Wednesday, Os Guinness noted, as Josh pointed out earlier, that those who fight for the sake of something good, like freedom, are liable to commit evil in the process. Guinness suggested one reason for this propensity is that people who are acting nobly—genuinely seeking to end oppression, for example—unconsciously fall prey to a sort of dualism. That is, they tend to behave like the righteous crusader who can do no wrong in his fight against the roaring dragon, who can do no right. Under this rubric, the crusader can do no wrong and the dragon no right by definition. If the crusader, fighting for something unarguably good, does it, then it must be good. Likewise, if the dragon, the enemy of something unarguably good, does it, then it must be bad. The fallacy in this logic is clear. It extends the crusader’s correctness on one moral stance to all his moral stances by default, judging the others by the presumed flawless content of the crusader’s character rather than by weighing the stances themselves according to universal principles of right and wrong. The crusader himself becomes the standard. Not surprisingly, such a mistaken view leads to disappointment and to evil, precisely because no one—individual, group, or government—is free of the capacity to do evil. Now, not only does our dualism cause us to fail to denounce evil as evil (Abu Ghraib), it also leads us to call evil good.

Read them both.

This is the third and final post based on the notes from last week's Thursday night Bible study. Next week, maybe I'll post the notes from this week's Bible study.

---

One of the societal relationships that contributed to the stability of the society was the patron-client relationship. "It's not what you know, but who you know"

Think of mob movies - I do this for you, you don't do this for me? No laws, but a code of sorts.

Patronage was expected and publicized - Seneca said that the giving and receiving of favors was the practice that constituted the chief bond of human society.

In the world of the NT, it was essential for acquiring access to certain out of the ordinary goods, employment and advancement.

"For anything outside the ordinary the person sought out the individual who possessed or controlled access to what the person needed and received it as a favor."

• money to start a business
• appointment to political office
• advancement of some sort
• citizenship (access to Emperor, etc)

If the patron granted the petition, the petitioner would become a client and a long-term relationship would begin.

Mutual exchange of good/services

• patron available for assistance
• client doing everything to enhance the patron's fame and honor (publicize the benefits, showing respect, remaining loyal and ready to help if needed
• client available for assistance

Big Gift - access and influence with another patron who had power over the sought benefit

Patron 2: Trajan - Roman Emperor
Patron 1/Broker: Pliny - governor of Bithynia
Client: Voconius - petitions for senatorial appointment

Pliny offers his own character as a guarantee of his client's character - he vouches for him. Trajan's favorable judgment of Pliny is the basis for Trajan granting this favor. Voconius becomes indebted to both. Pliny becomes further indebted to Trajan.

Client indebted to both patron and broker

In a relationship among persons with unequal social status:

1. the patron provides material gifts or opportunities for advancement
2. the client contributes to the patron's reputation and power base

Another name for a broker is a 'mediator' - Jesus is a broker/mediator for God's favor (though this does not exhaust his relationship, of course)

Reciprocal relationship - not law based/enforced but enforced by honor/shame values. Client clearly refers to patron as patron, but not reverse to avoid mention of inferiority

Social equals can engage in the same - 'friendships' still have reciprocity and mutual fidelity as bedrock
Farmer who does more favors than he receives becomes a local patron of sorts

Public Benefaction - wealthy benefactors gave public entertainments (feasts, festivals, etc) and civic improvements (temples, theaters, etc) to the city. Also they would supply aid in times of crisis. There was public indebtedness to the benefactor but no personal relationships formed

• public honors like crowning at a festival, special seating at games, honorary inscriptions, statues
• extreme form of response is the offering of worship

The Social Context of Grace

These make up the social context of 'grace'

1. The willingness of a patron to grant some benefit to another person or group
   • favor or favorable disposition
   • Aristotle quote
2. Denotes the gift itself, the result of the giver's beneficent actions
3. The response to a benefactor - aka gratitude

Grace can be used to speak of both the act and response. Grace must be met with grace in the "dance of grace"

Code of conduct for the giver: (guidelines that sought to preserve the nobility of the generous act)

Motive - the giver must act not in self-interest, but in the interest of the recipient. If the motive is primarily self-interest, the sense of 'favor' is nullified and any deep feelings of gratitude and obligation are negated
Aristotle quote from Rhetoric 1385a35-1385b3

Wrong - Not out of the virtue of generosity, but anticipation of profit

Eg: Do not give to an elderly person to get into their will

This is a continuation of Brian's notes from last week's Bible Study. Once again, this is a rough draft.

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"The one firm conviction from which we move to the proof of other points is this: that which is honorable is held dear for no other reason than because it is honorable."
Seneca (De Ben. 4.16.2)

Honor and Shame - these are the core values in the Mediterranean world, including the world of the Bible. The concept of honor is fundamental to the thinking of these people.

Honor - a claim to worth that is publicly acknowledged by the relevant group of 'significant others'
To "have honor" is to have publicly acknowledged worth. It is a group-given value, not just internal. This is contrast to self-respect. One's self-respect could be high, but honor low.

Shame - generally, a claim to worth that is publicly denied

To "be shamed" is negative, meaning to be denied or diminished on honor.

However - To "have shame" is positive, meaning to be sensitive to one's honor and behavior that could damage it. This is a secondary meaning. For now think of shame as dishonor.

A man born in these cultures is to seek honor and avoid dishonor (disgrace, shame of the negative sort). Honor comes form the affirmation of a person's worth by peers and society, awarded on the basis of the individual's ability to embody the virtues and attributes the society values. Women have different 'rules' - generally they have honor and are expected to keep it by remaining sexually pure until marriage.

Two ways of getting honor:

• ascribed honor - given, not earned (birth/adoption into a powerful family, ethnicity, political appointments)
• acquired/achieved honor - performing actions that earn honor (virtues such as piety, courage, reliability, military prowess in waging war)

The honor/shame dynamic allows for group stability - to reward group-approved behavior with honor and to bring deviants back in line through the threat of dishonor helps to prohibit socially destructive behaviors.

Courage in battle wins honor, because it contributes to the good of the group. Cowardice and fleeing means dishonor, because it places the interests of the individual above the group.

shaming tactics - range from mild scorn to physical assault and execution

What exactly constitutes things that are honorable is culturally dependent. Education in Torah (the Jewish law) is honorable among the Jews, but irrelevant among Gentiles.

It is essential to define who are the 'significant others' (the court of reputation) and to insulate group members from concern about the honor/dishonor they receive from people outside the group. "They don't matter because they are ignorant." This is very important for minority cultures. "We are not the deviants even though we are a minority. We have a higher court of reputation." A group can offset minority status by claiming God/reason/nature agrees with the minority. Also available are ancestors in the faith and the angels in the court of God.

Hebrews 12:1

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, we must get rid of every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and run with endurance the race set out for us

Challenge-Riposte - this a very significant means of achieving honor

1. challenge
• positive challenges (eg. gifts, compliments) leave one indebted if accepted, response is required
• negative challenges (eg. insults, challenge questions) cause loss of honor if not responded to adequately
2. perception of the challenge
   • by the person challenged
   • by the public (the judges who determine who gains/loses honor)
3. riposte - response by the challenged
   • positive rejection - if the challenger is inferior, the correct response is a rejection of the challenge (scorn)
   • negative rejection - cowardice results in dishonor
   • accepting the challenge requires a response that meets or exceeds the challenge
   • failure by offering an inadequate response is less dishonoring than not responding (cowardice)
4. public verdict by the observers

Arenas for Challenge-Riposte game

Within a grouping/family one ethic applies - the individual's honor is embedded in the group so there's no competitive honor challenges within the group. Brothers don't try to take honor from each other since this doesn't increase the honor of the group.

Between groups - social equals interact in a zero-sum game and 'public opinion' is determinative.

The Challenge-Riposte game is played between equals. A social superior wouldn't bother to challenge an inferior. If an inferior tried to challenge a social superior, the social superior would just punish the insubordination. This would be one form of 'positive rejection'.

Also, the game is played by males. It falls to the males to defend and increase the family's honor, so they are the ones that engage in this risk-taking game.

Turning Dishonor into Honor

As part of the task of helping believers make sense of their dishonor in the eyes of nonbelievers, the NT authors show that the experiences of dishonor are actually marks of honor in the sight of God, the true court of reputation.

1 Peter 4:13-16

But rejoice in the degree that you have shared in the sufferings of Christ, so that when his glory is revealed you may also rejoice and be glad. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory, who is the Spirit of God, rests on you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer or thief or criminal or as a troublemaker. But if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but glorify God that you bear such a name.

Noble Contest - Hardships are turned into an opportunity to manifest the virtues of courage and endurance. The hostility of the world is the challenge over which the believer can win an honorable victory and show their loyalty. It's easy to just say you have loyalty to someone, it's another to show it during times of testing. The metaphor of an athletic contest is used often in Jewish literature and in the NT.

Hebrews 12:1-2

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, we must get rid of every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and run with endurance the race set out for us, keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy set out for him he endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

These are notes on last week's Thursday Night Bible study, written by the group leader, Brian Bucher, then cleaned up by myself. Brian warns that these are a rough draft, and may be replaced later.

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High context situation/society- people are assumed to be familiar with the relevant context
Low context situation/society - people are not assumed to be familiar with the relevant context

Quiz: You walk into the home of someone in the ancient Near East (ANE). He says, "You have honored me by coming into my home. I am not worthy of it. This house is yours. You may burn it if you wish." What is your reaction?

1. Leave quickly because he's gone nuts.
2. Woo hoo! Free house!
3. Reply, "I am unworthy of your honor and of being a guest in your home."

People in that society were expected to recognize this use of language as literary and not 'literal'. Someone who is unfamiliar with such language might well be confused.

The New Testament was written in what anthropologists call a "high-context" society. People who communicate with each other in high-context societies presume a broadly shared, well-understood knowledge of the context of anything referred to in conversation or in writing. For example, everyone in ancient Mediterranean villages would have had a clear and concrete knowledge of what sowing entailed,largely because the skills involved were shared by most (male) members of that society. no writer would need to explain. Thus writers in such societies usually produce sketchy and impressionistic writings, leaving much to the reader's or hearer's imagination. They also encode much information in widely known symbolic or stereotypical statements. In this way, they require the reader to fill in large gaps in the unwritten portion of the writing. All readers are expected to know the context and therefore to understand the references in question." [Malina and Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, pg 11.]

Low context readers often assume that they are free to fill in the gaps (read between the lines) of the New Testament from their own experience. When our modern context doesn't match the ancient Near East context, we fill in the gaps with ideas that are different from theirs. This causes problems. Here are some examples:

Luke 14:25-26

Now large crowds were accompanying Jesus, and turning to them he said, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, and wife and children, and brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple."

I have to hate my own family? When one isn't used to the type of extremist (hyperbolic) language used so commonly in the ANE, then one might think one is literally to 'hate' his family and not recognize that the meaning is just to 'love less' things other than Jesus.

Lev 13:9-13

When someone has a diseased infection, he must be brought to the priest. The priest will then examine it, and if a white swelling is on the skin, it has turned the hair white, and there is raw flesh in the swelling, it is a chronic disease on the skin of his body, so the priest is to pronounce him unclean. The priest must not merely quarantine him, for he is unclean. If, however, the disease breaks out on the skin so that the disease covers all the skin of the person with the infection from his head to his feet, as far as the priest can see, the priest must then examine it, and if the disease covers his whole body, he is to pronounce the person with the infection clean. He has
turned all white, so he is clean.

Hmmm, so

1. If he has a skin disease he's unclean.
2. If the skin disease covers the whole person he's clean.

HUH?

This is another example of where we fill in the gap of 'clean/unclean' with our own context. Is it the right context? We'll see in the next biblestudy. :)

Recontextualization - putting a text back into the correct context

This is what we do to understand what the text means. We begin to fill in the gaps with the right context instead of our own experience.

Group-oriented culture versus Individual-oriented culture

Question: What makes a person?

One of the major differences between our modern Western society and the societies of the ANE is the difference in how people understood themselves in relation to the rest of society.

Modern peoples in the 'West' are individual-oriented:
We are persons with identities independent of our family group. They do not define who we are. We are supposed to form our own opinions. My behavior reflects on me and should not be considered to reflect on whatever group I belong to.

Ancient peoples were group-oriented, or 'collectivistic':
A person is embedded in others and his identity defined in relation to the group(s) in which he belonged. Groups included ethnicity, citizenship, nation/clan/family with kinship (family) generally being the most important.

We are not independent of our family group. What one member is, all members are. We are expected to adopt the opinions of others, especially those in high esteem. My behavior reflects on my group.

Individuals depend on others for:

• sense of identity
• understanding of status and role in society
• understanding of duties and rights they have
• understanding what is honorable and shameful behavior

They will internalize the expectations of the group and consider themselves successful when they fulfill them.

Acts 21:37-39

As the soldiers were about to take Paul into the barracks, he asked the commander, "May I say something to you?"

"Do you speak Greek?" he replied. "Aren't you the Egyptian who started a revolt and led four thousand terrorists out into the desert some time ago?"

Paul answered, "I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no ordinary city. Please let me speak to the people."

Paul is saying in effect "I am from Tarsus, so you should accord me the credibility that is given to all citizens of Tarsus."

Phil 3:4-5

If someone thinks he has good reasons to put confidence in human credentials, I have more: I was circumcised on the eighth day, from the people of Israel and the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews. I lived according to the law as a Pharisee.

Paul has great 'human credentials' because of which groups he belongs to.

Because one's identity is embedded in the group, groups and group stability were of the highest importance. Societal/group stability was extremely important because of the tenuous nature of life. People were a lot closer to disaster and death than those of us in the modern west. Instability for us means losing one of our cars. For them instability means death.

A high value was placed on structure in society because structure contributes and provides for stability. This is like a company where good structure is necessary for stability. One 'president' and ten thousand workers without any chain of command would be chaos.

Question: How does one promote social stability and retard social deviancy?

Next time: Honor and Shame, Patronage and Reciprocity

If you can, get Honor, Patronage, Kinship & Purity by David Desilva. It's a great (and inexpensive) introduction to these four core concepts in the ancient Near East.

Other good ones:
Handbook of Biblical Social Values by Pilch and Malina
Honor and Shame in the Gospel of Matthew by Jerome Neyrey

John Zimmer has more to say on Experience and Doctrine:

"Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father."

Jesus is clearly telling us here that works (experiences) can speak for themselves and testify of God. Indeed, I think many modern Christians have forgotten this fact and tend to relegate contemporary reports of miraculous `works' to the trash heap of hype, emotionalism, and charlatanry.

He also links to my previous post on this subject. Thanks, John!

The latest Christian Carnival is up at Crossroads. Aside from my post on Humanism and human rights, there are 48 other submissions on a variety of Christian topics.

Last Friday, I didn't have any posts up because I was at a Bible study. This Friday, I'll see if I can post some of what we discussed during last week's Bible study so you'll see why I like it better than blogging. I intend to cut and paste from the notes the leader e-mailed out, so I'll have to ask his permission first. For the moment I'll just post a fun excerpt:

Quiz: You walk into the home of someone in the ancient Near East (ANE). He says, "You have honored me by coming into my home. I am not worthy of it. This house is yours. You may burn it if you wish." What is your reaction?

1. Leave quickly because he's gone nuts.
2. Woo hoo! Free house!
3. Reply, "I am unworthy of your honor and of being a guest in your home."

I like option 2. I'm creating a new category for these posts, called Bible study notes.

Cynthia Lo has had a lot to say about religion lately. She's talking about Jewish perspectives, both on women in ministry and the sacrifice of Isaac (although what she means by the Jewish perspective is different in each case). Go see what she has to say. One thing she's appeared to have overlooked is that there were, in fact, deaconesses in the first century church. Both Paul's letters (Romans 16:1) and outside sources (Pliny) attest to that.