Sunday, June 12, 2011

Liveblogging the Bible: Galatians

1:3 Grace, when used by Paul, is more than a customary greeting. It is loaded with theological implications.

1:15 For example, here it clearly carries hints of predestination. If others, like Paul, were set apart before birth, I ask again what good it is to proselytize.

2:1 Quite a jump in the timeline here. The fact that he skips directly to his visits to Jerusalem is surely no accident, and must relate to his message to the Galatians.

2:2 And I think we get a hint of it here, in his repeated reference to the other Apostles. On the surface he is bolstering his own credentials, but in light of the context, he may well be trying to bolster theirs. He even claims to have compared his version of the gospel with theirs, just to verify what he received by inspiration.

2:6 This verse has grave implications. Does he mean to indicate that those who questioned his fitness in Acts were false apostles?

2:10 Didn't he earlier claim not to have met any of the other apostles beside James and Peter? Shall we add John here to the list, or was this not a direct meeting? And of all the things to ask him for, they only were concerned with money?

2:11 Oh, Peter. You're just a mess sometimes.

2:16 He hits this so briefly, it takes on the flavor of established theology. Certainly not a new argument to his audience.

3:2 Neither option seems very convincing . . .

3:10 Although Paul is clearly leaning toward the latter choice. This is a nice interpretation, of the Law as well. Any law, by extension, that includes a curse to those who do not follow it perfectly, by Paul's reasoning here curses those who accept it as well.

3:17 Quite a lovely argument. Paul establishes God's promise to bless the nations through Abraham as a sort of legal precedent after which the Mosaic Law was invalid, in a way.

3:25 To what extent is this true? The central hole in the argument for faith is that then no line is ever drawn.

4:1 A nice continuation of the metaphor. The Mosaic Law in this framework is just the executor of the Abrahamic Covenant, until the beneficiaries are of age.

4:10 How do the Witnesses not fixate on this scripture in their argument against the celebration of holidays? It seems that it would give more strength to their argument than all the other justifications they use combined.

4:13 Is he referring to his eyesight here? If so, in what way did it put the Galatians to the test?

4:17 although the referent of "They" here is no doubt clear to the Galatians, it is a mystery to the modern reader.

4:21 It is clear exactly what the nature of their mistake is. Will the specter of the Mosaic Law never leave?

5:3 Another convincing argument. Who would want to be held to the entire Law? Then why be held to a part of it?

5:12 A strong and fitting curse.

5:22 I am more accustomed to the translation "faith" than "faithfulness", but the NRSV usage here makes sense. After all, according to Paul, faith is a source of spirit, rather than a result of it.

6:8 And here is Paul's other quibble with the Galatians: that they are behaving physically, which is not independent of their silly subscription to circumcision.

6:12 a connection that does not escape Paul, of course.

6:15 The Witness' proscription of blood transfusions really has no solid Biblical basis, as far as I can tell, but I have always considered it rather a good idea from their perspective. It serves to separate them from others, to distinguish them in a way that reminds them of their identity. From a organizational, if not from a theological standpoint, it's a good idea. But Paul here is cautioning against such physical determinations. It is indeed a fleshly concern, whether one receives blood or not, and as such should be beneath those whose spirits are sufficiently advanced.

Saturday, June 04, 2011

Liveblogging the Bible: 2nd Corinthians

In my convalescence, I wonder if it possible to finish the project I began years ago . . .

1:1 I wonder what part Timothy played in the composition of this epistle. I would say he was an amanuensis, except that Sosthenes in 1 Cor. had the same mention, and was not the scribe.

1:10 Except that He will manifestly not rescue Paul indefinitely . . .

1:12 a suitable boast--rather than boast of his gifts of wisdom, prophecy, tongues, Apostlehood, and the like, he boasts merely of his frankness.

2:1 In what way would his visit have been painful?

2:5 Evidently there was some antagonism toward Paul on his last visit . . .

2:7 I feel left out of the import here, but the principle is clear: as in his previous letter, he insists that the virtuous path os to let oneself be wronged rather than to insist on one's rights

3:5 Yet he did indeed claim his own authority for certain suggestions in his first letter.

3:7, 12 Paul would probably not write this way to the Hebrews. "The Ministry of Death" is certainly a harsh word for the Mosaic Law.

3:18 But is this mirror darkened, as in 1 Cor 13? So far Paul has struck an entirely different tone and message from his first letter.

4:4 Paul opens a dangerous line of reasoning here. In his first letter 8:2 he proclaims that if one claims to understand, he does not really. Here he says that one who does not understand is being pruposefully prevented from such understanding. Damned if you do, so to speak . . .

4:18 This lends weight to the argument that Paul's affliction was related to his sight.

5:13 Perhaps this rather confusing chapter falls into the former category--being in an ecstatic state, so to speak, while his first letter was firmly in the latter, more scrutable category.

5:16 Yes, this letter certainly has the flavor of a transformation of Paul's perspective. When he knew Christ from a human point of view, he believed a certain way, that understanding was the goal. Now, in his age and blindness, he is considerably more metaphysical--almost visionary.

6:11 Again Paul falls back on his frankness, which endears me to him. Frankness is among my favorite virtues, and among the most underappreciated I think..

6:14 This also seems to represent an evolution of Paul's belief as found in 1 Cor 7:12, although the two are reconcilable in a way.

6:16-18 It's times like this that I miss the New World Translation's habit of glossing all seeming quotations, for I would love to know Paul's source here. Often it is not to be found anywhere in the Bible as received.

7:8 Ah, here seems to be the crux of this letter: they do not seem to have responded well to his first one--which I loved.

7:11 Funny, I don't remember his rebukes being quite so sound as to warrant this gnaching of the teeth.

8:7 Haha a classic guilt trip. . .

8:16 I am beginning to be intrigued by this Titus fellow. I look forward to reading the book named for him.

9:1 A code word for what nowadays goes by "stewardship", but which might as well be called "finances".

10:1 Is he still going on about this?

10:10 I find this ill at odds with my conception of Paul, whom I imagine to have been a powerful public speaker, as well as a writer. How else could he have accomplished all he did? Is it possible that he faded later in life, and it is this physically unimposing Paul that writes now?

11:6 This is a terribly disingenuous statement of Paul to make. He was surely well-trained in speech at the Sanhedrin.

11:14 Again, this is at odds with 1 Cor 8:2. Is it possible that Paul has been by this point disabused of an earlier notion, and realizes that things are not as flowery as he imagined?

11:33 Paul may be excused for getting a bit carried away here, for his anxiety over the Corinthian congregation is palpable. There must have been somebody quite charismatic undercutting him for him to react this way.

12:2 Hold on a minute: what is the world does he mean by this? The third heaven? Is there a hierarchy? Was there an unrecorded assumption of some sort? Is he referring to Christ? The timing doesn't match up for that. This hints at a Metaphysical goldmine . . .

12:7 A goldmine that Paul is content merely to hint at though . . .

And he leaves it at that. I would love to be a fly on the wall when he did arrive--no doubt he diffused a tense meeting with that delightful blend of humility and frankness that I would so love to imitate.

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Liveblogging The Bible: 1st Corinthians

1:1 It's no doubt fruitless to wonder about such men as Sosthenes--here presumably Paul's amanuensis--but wonder I do.

1:4 a couple of troubling thoughts about translation and petty modifiers:
  • "my God" in stead of "God" is a superficially petty distinction, but the theological implications are profound. The original text no doubt makes it difficult, if not impossible, to choose from these two potential translations. "My God" makes the text a personal affirmation, but also leaves open the possibility of other gods beside this one. An unmodified "God" is more authoritative, but correspondingly offhanded. The worst thing about questions like this is that there can be no answer.
  • giving thanks "for you", in common usage, signifies "because of you", but here seems to mean "in your behalf", acceptable grammatically, but a strange usage--and one with theological ramifications. Is it possible to act as a thanksgiving proxy? If so, what would be the point? It is possible, that the original meaning is closer to a combination of the two denotations, something like "I give thanks that you are so blessed".
These are just two examples of why close readings of The Bible are two-edged swords: they yield thought-provoking discourse, but to one for whom each word is of crucial significance, theological self-destruction is inevitable. Mercifully, my approach to the Bible is considerably more macrocosmic.

I don't have much to say on any particular verse in this chapter, because I find the whole thing quite brilliant. Paul masterfully transforms a question of sectarianism among the Corinthians into a soaring discourse on the relationship between power and wisdom. In v. 17 he (perhaps disingenuously) decries his own wisdom, and leverages this bit of self-deprecation into a unavoidable focus on the message of Christ. By the end of the chapter, the writer has disappeared completely, and the reader has forgotten everything but the message. Brilliant.

2:6 Paul cannot deny for long, of course, that there is real wisdom to be had in the message of Christ. His distinction is the means by which is it gained: by revelation, and not by reason.

2:11 I'm not sure what to make of this verse, but I love it.

3:2 and he then uses this to bait his audience a bit, reminding them that as long as they are arguing over fleshly things, the real wisdom of God will not be revealed to them.

3:12-15 I consider this to be a misstep, a bit. It feels like Paul got carried away with his metaphor, and took it down a path that doesn't really relate to his subject. Mercifully, he catches himself quickly.

4:5 He seems to be setting up his next step, namely a rebuke of certain behaviors.

4:14 Yes, this whole chapter is definitely ground work for what comes next.

5:3 This seems to contradict his caution against judgement in 4:3-5, and he also seems to be making a rather striking claim of prescience. Is he claiming some sort of astral travel, or merely speaking metaphorically?

5:12 It is probably fair for Paul to claim the right of judgement here, it just seems to go against his own theology.

6:2 This verse is commonly used as justification for the despicable practice of handling such matters as pedophilia internally without informing secular authorities. I think the presence of the word "trivial" in the description should take the power out of that argument though.

6:7 This is the natural extension of Paul's argument in ch.1, that the highest virtue is to allow oneself to be wronged in the service of the higher good. One has to wonder where the line is drawn, though. At murder? Pedophilia? Petty theft? Purely civil matters?

6:9 In this context, the implication is that sin is its own punishment, rather than all such ones should be judged by the congregation.

6:12 an elegant transition into a larger point, one that I can get on board with--as weighty as it is.

7:4 This may be the only authority Paul grants to a woman in his entire ouvre.

7:7 And what gift may it be that Paul has? Extraordinary self-control? That seems unlikely, in light of other statements he makes. What could it be, other than that certain things do not tempt him? And considering the context, what could that be but certain sexual temptations?

7:10 does this represent a typo on Paul's part, one that without the benefit of an eraser he had to amend? Furthermore, what does the slip represent? Does the command come by divine inspiration, or by virtue of his apostolic authority?

7:12 Aah, perhaps not a typo after all, but a setup for the next statement. Nicely done, Paul.

7:14 In what sense are they made holy? In that they are converted, or in that they are grandfathered in, so to speak?

7:17 Leading the life to which God has called you could take many forms. Paul has already allowed concessions for certain personal defects, such as the lack of self-control. What if one was born with a natural attraction for members fo the same sex?

7:21 As tempting as it is to rebuke Paul for his endorsement of slavery, it is a consistent and natural extension of his command to let yourself be wronged. In the broader scheme, what difference does it make, slave or free?

7:25 again, Paul inserts his own opinion, a bald admission that all of the Bible is not inspired by God.

7:29 Is this inconsistent with v.3? Or is it more metaphorical?

Paul spends quite a bit of time on the question of whether or not to have sex. Is this a preoccupation on his part, or a response to a preoccupation on the part of his audience?

8:2 Beautifully consistent with more Eastern thought.

8:9 A running theme in this book. I really like it. Really.

9:4,5 Now wait a minute. Is Paul willing to follow his own counsel here, and allow himself to be wronged?

9:12 Evidently so. Still, he seems to leave certain loopholes for the other Apostles.

9:15 Though for dubious reasons--surely this is not his real motivation.

10:1 Certainly not "under a cloud" in the sense that we would expect.

10:6-13 These verses change the tone of the book, from one of gentle and reasonable suggestion, to intense and urgent command.

10:29 This question, which seems to contradict his point, is promptly answered by the most utilitarian of arguments, "For the Lord," AKA "Cuz I said so."

11:2-15 This seems out of place to me. He has spent so much time dealing with weighty matters, why does he now devote an entire chapter to what he admits are mere customs? Especially one so seemingly trivial as how long one's hair should be? I wonder what the background situation was such that he felt it of such import?

11:20 I don't see how to reconcile this with the Witness' insistence that the Lord's Supper take place only annually. "When you come together" certainly seems to apply to more than an annual occurrence.

11:27 And what would constitute and " an unworthy manner"? To excess? In a morally unclean state?

11:34 This seems to argue for the former.

12:3 This is a rather convenient way for "false" prophets to establish some credibility.

12:11 The Spirit here certainly has agency, as though an individual, rather than a mute force.

12:24 In what way? Paul may be belaboring the metaphor here. To pick it apart:
  • What are the more honorable members of the literal body? One would imagine the head and the heart, while the more dishonorable members are the feet or the pudendum.
  • In what way to the feet get more honor than the head? In that they are clothed?
  • In what way does the pudendum get more honor than the heart? In that it is secreted?
  • This seems to connect to his discussion of hair in ch.11: That the head recieves its own glorious apparel, and it is shameful to cover it.
12:28 Interesting that the seemingly most desirable of gifts--tongues and healing--are the lowest ranking.

CH 13 Perhaps one of the most famous and widely memorized of chapters in the entire Bible, and for good reason. I can't think of much to add--other than that he has what amounts to a pronoun referent problem: What is it that will signify the end of these things? "The Complete" is certainly an intriguing appellation. I see no clue here even.

14: Now, how exactly is one supposed to strive for gifts of prophesy when the assignation of such things is purely arbitrary, as determined by spirit?

14:2 The Witnesses often claim that The Complete that Paul references in ch.13 has already come, and that correspondingly all such gifts have disappeared, and that all who seem to exhibit such gifts are either fraudulent or influenced by Demons. They say that the early Christians' gifts of tongues were in actual tongues, known languages, and modern speaking in tongues is mere babble--not from spirit. This verse contradicts that claim--clearly at least some speaking in tongues was incoherent. Furthermore, their assertion does not seem possible under Paul's theology in 12:3.

14:13 The power to speak in tongues is lower in the hierarchy than the gift of prophesy or interpretation for a very good reason.

14:18 If Paul's gift is one of tongues, does that mean that he is lower in authority? Does he ever actually claim the gift of Prophecy? It is convenient that he has put the gift of Apostlehood first in 12:28.

14:26 I love this model of worship. I have often wanted to have a group of friends that I could do this with--void of pedagogy or dogma, free from instruction of all sorts--a simple sharing of love and inspiration.

14:34 Is a woman not permitted the gifts of prophecy then? Or tongues? This is manifestly untrue. So where are these gifts to be shared, if not in the church?

15:1 So it's time for a little pure theology, rather than applied . . .

15:10 Paul doesn't ever shy away from truths--pleasant or un.

15:29 People often laughingly criticize the LDS for this very practice, but there seems to be a clear precedent.

15:32 My sentiments exactly, at one poiont in life. Nowadays, however, I feel that if the dead are not raised, let us be all the more virtuous--for its own sake, not that of a reward.

15:52 Not a common justification for the doctrine of the Rapture, but certainly in support of that belief.

16:21 Not true of every letter of his--worthy of note. What part did Sosthenes play in this letter then?

Friday, May 27, 2011

Umberto Eco: The Name of The Rose

This book was not what I expected. I expected something more meta-literate from the hands of Eco, a noted semiotician. Which is not to say it was illiterate--some of my favorite moments came from his references to Boethius or Apuleius, and I confess to a little pride in having read the referenced works. In spite of its pleasures, the book never really seemed to reach beyond its own pages. It made gestures in the direction of certain worthy themes, the interreliance of books upon each other, etc. But I was dissapointed to realize at the close that Eco had written only what he had set out to write: a novel.

Monday, March 21, 2011

G.K. Chesterton: The Man Who Was Thursday and Seven Suspects

I have already said much that I have to say about Chesterton in general upon reading Selected Father Brown Stories, to wit: That he is a much better philospher than detective writer. The books are filled with little errors in judgement, of the sort that one sees in amateurish Hollywood blockbusters---nothing terrible, just occassionally forgetting to tell us something, or omitting some detail that would have made the scene easier to track. Jarring at most, as if the cinematographer had mistaken the line of sight and confused the audience about who was speaking to whom for a moment.

As I have mentioned elsewhere, it is just as well that his prose is not airtight, for his stories are never really detective stories at all. They are always philisophical, almost religious, in bent, and the crime is mere bait or frosting, depending on his intent. I had forgotten this as I began to read The Man Who Was Thursday, so it was only natural that his implausible dialogue, his seeming misrememberance of earlier established facts, were vexing at first. It was only after I remembered that it is folly to read Chesterton as fiction that I began to truly enjoy this remarkable novella. What he offers is not a detective story at all, but an allegory that offers all the pleasures of allegory--the fine, confluent detail, the overlapping and interlocking symbolism--without much of its didacticism. I can't help but feel that it would have been better undisguised.

The stories in Seven Suspects are a little more passable, and one could almost overlook the mysticism if careless. After reading Thursday, however, my pump was primed, and I sought it everywhere. Nor was I dissapointed. A passage that still brings chills, even upon multiple readings:

Do you remember when we last met at that theatre and I told you that I always liked the picture on the curtain as much as the scenes of the play. . . from any other angle I should see that it was only a painted rag. That is how I feel about this world, as i see it from this mountain. Not that it is not beautiful, for after all a curtain can be beautiful. Not even that it is unreal, for after all a curtain is real. But only that it is thin, and that the things behind it are the real drama" (The Tower of Treason).

How perfectly this parallels my own thinking lately. Taken literally, all that we seem to perceive is but a trick of light. The space between particles of matter is so much exponentially bigger than the matter itself, we may as well be looking at an image projected onto a cloud or water vapor. And if we allow it to, the light is constantly altering what we seem to see, as a shadow falls across it, or as our eyes change their focus, or as the light itself changes. Every visual image we have is quite literally a trick of the light, an optical illusion. It has no reality, and is rather more like Chesterton's theater curtain than anything else. Better yet, perhaps it is more like a scrim, that peculiar sort of theater screen that is opaque when lit from the front, but translucent lit from behind. If the light hits it just right, all that we seem to perceive could instantly disappear to reveal something else, something that may or may not be more real, but would at least be different.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Catching up . . .

Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid's Tale

It has been so long since I updated this blog, due to a combination of computer failure and motivation failure, that I have forgotten most of what I meant to say about this book. To remind myself what I thought, I went back to see what pages were dogeared, and found only one. Not surprisingly, it was the most meta passage in the book:

"This is a reconsctruction. All of it is a reconstruction. It's a reconstruction now, in my head, as I lie flat on my single bed rehearsing what I should or shouldn't have said, what I should or shouldn't have done, how I should have played it."

Atwood's narrator further bemoans the difficulty of ever communicating events as they really happened. No matter what, our stories are always many times removed from reality--and perhaps removed the furthest by our own capacity to edit.

I myself am fascinated by this phenomenon, though unlike Atwood's narrator, I don't regret the fact. I relish my editorial post in this life--the trick is not to believe your own story, to be cognizant of its inherent falsehood. The future is a lie. It will never happen. It is fine to lie alone in our beds and write stories about it, but we must never make the mistake of believing those stories, building expectations or anxieties. The past, too, may well have never happened. It most certainly did not happen the way we remember it. We lay in our solitude and return, replay, regret, but it is never more than an illusion projected onto a cloud.

Which brings me to:

Robert Schwartz: Courageous Souls

Recommended to me by my dear friend 주협, this book did not disappoint. The above reminders inspired by Atwood, are an especially appropriate framework in which to discuss it for two reasons: firstly, the central idea is that our stories are one step further removed from reality than Atwood implied: that every event upon which our stories were based is in fact an expression of something unseen, something that happened before we were born even. The way in which the author outlines that idea is rather involved, and I will not go into it here. He does a good job of outlining it, but it is important to remember that this too, is just a story. It is a story about stories, in fact, about how we construct and conceal them. It is helpful, and even healing to read, but it would be a mistake to take it as reality.

C.S. Forester: Mr. Midshipman Hornblower

I can't find a single dogeared page in this book, so I guess there was no particular passage that I wanted to remember or quote verbatim. Instead, I want to read every other volume in the series. It was fresh and engaging, serious without being ponderous, exactly the sort of thing I should read more of.