Wednesday, July 07, 2010

613 >> 10

There are three places in the Book which mention the Hebrew words עשרת הדברים (roughly, Aseret ha-Dvarîm, or 'ten words'). The Greek translation of this is δεκάλογος (mostly transliterated 'decalogue'). For some reason, ever since the English got their hands on the Bible, these phrases have been translated 'The Ten Commandments'.

The problem, of course, is that these ten words are not numbered explicitly anywhere in the Bible. In fact, there is considerable dispute about what the Ten Commandments are supposed to be. Catholics, Protestants and Jews all count them differently, with most Orthodox agreeing with the Protestant stand. A summary of the whole mess can be found here.

One thing is for sure though. There are certainly more than ten commandments in the long form of the law laid down from the holy mountain by God. The full list, or 613 mitzvot, can be found here.

The account given in the Bible about the writing of these commandments is also quite interesting. Nowhere does it say that Moses wrote only ten words. In fact, by Exodus 24, it is already 'The Book of the Covenant' that Moses reads to the people after transcribing all God's words. And in Exodus 31:18, it is the finger of God that has engraved all of the Testimony (which would be every commandment given from Exodus 20 to Exodus 31) on two tablets of stone (traditionally, each tablet would have a complete set for legal purposes).

But in Exodus 32, the Israelites make a golden calf, and this angers God (32:7-10), who had just told Moses that one of the ten points of the covenant was not to make idols. Moses begs God to reconsider and God relents completely (32:11-14).

Then the unthinkable happens. Moses descends the mountain with the two copies of the Law in his hands, and then he completely loses his temper. He smashes the tablets and orders the deaths of 3000 people, saying that this is what God wants (although God says nothing of the sort).

In the aftermath (Exodus 34), Moses is commanded to receive another set of tablets, again engraved by God. It takes forty days and forty nights (34:27-28), during which God actually tells Moses to do some writing. This is certainly more than ten words. It is the entirety of the Law.

When Jesus, in the New Testament, refers to the Law, he means the complete set of 613 commandments. The ten words that start the set are a kind of summary, the main headings, so to speak. A careful reading of the sections of Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy that follow the 'ten words' will show that the rest of the Law is the main body. Jesus, an assiduous scholar of the Law, knew every bit of it.

So for those who like quoting the Ten Commandments as if they are all of the Law, I'd like to challenge you to do the full set of 613. And if you can't, remember the grace of God is mighty indeed.

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Saturday, April 03, 2010

Simplified

'Simplify me when I'm dead,' go the words in one particularly memorable modern poem (which I've appended at the bottom of this post). At this time of year I think of the two-way simplification of the man named Jesus, son of God, son of Man.

There are indeed at least two ways to look at the person of Jesus Christ. The first is "Time's wrong-way telescope", which makes him look smaller, less distinct, a vague image which is conveniently distant and far from us all; the second is the simplification of death and aftermath, a cold but dynamic logic given to us by Paul the apostle.

In the first, we find it convenient to distance him by virtue of alien experience. He died for the sins of all the world, a thought so large that we can run around saying that we are too small, that it is so big, that we are not worthy, that there must be some sort of calculus that is beyond us. So we put it far away from us, and we bow down and sing hymns, and because of that well-known phenomenon called 'diminished responsibility (or sense of moral agency) due to being in a large group', we feel a lot better, marvelling from afar.

The second is terribly inconvenient. If the Christ is not dead and risen again, then you are still in your sins. If it didn't happen, you are pitiful because you believe it did. If Christ is not risen, your faith is in vain. And in this second model, the Christ walks up to you and very inconveniently tells you, as one man to another, "Do not be faithless, but believe.' Having provided the physical proof to Thomas the apostle, he turns round and says, "Because you have seen me (and stuck your hand into this big hole in my ribs), you have believed; blessed are those who haven't and yet believe."

It's easier to surrender far away from the battlefield, as it were. It is easy to sing hymns once a year, remember the death on Friday and the resurrection on Sunday. That can be a good thing. It's not so easy though to be forever standing witness (in all our own fallen glory of fallibility and shame) to something that you have not much rational evidence for. But there it is. Simplify your choice.

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Simplify Me When I'm Dead

Remember me when I am dead
Simplify me when I am dead.

As the process of earth
strip off the colour and the skin
take the brown hair and the blue eye

and leave me simpler than at birth,
when hairless I came howling in
as the moon came in the cold sky.

Of my skeleton perhaps
so stripped, a learned man may say
"He was of such a type and intelligence," no more.

Thus when in a year collapse
particular memories, you may
deduce from the long pain I bore

the opinion I held, who was my foe
and what I left, even my appearance
but incidents will be no guide.

Time's wrong way telescope will show
a minute man the years hence
and by distance simplified.

Through the lens see if I seem
substance or nothing: of the world
deserving mention or charitable oblivion

not by momentary spleen
or love into decision hurled
leisurely arrive at an opinion.

Remember me when I am dead
and simplify me when I am dead.

Keith Douglas
(died in France, 9th June 1944, under enemy mortar fire)

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Friday, February 26, 2010

The Tax-Collector's Gospel

It is some accident of history, if such are the narratives you believe in, that the first gospel of Jesus Christ is the one attributed to one Matthew, a tax-collector by profession. About thirteen years ago, I remember preaching about what this Matthew said about what his master said not. Here is what I found when I was reading up for it:

By taking a quick look at the verses which are designated to be Matthew 5:17, 9:13, 10:34, and 20:28, we learn that Jesus’ own words tell us about why He did not come, before he tells us why He did.
  • “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them.”
  • “But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
  • “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”
  • “...the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”
If you read these lines, and the context in which Matthew embedded them, the conclusion is inescapable. The Jesus many Christians think about is not the Jesus that the Christian Bible actually says he is. You have to tread very carefully indeed, to avoid the many traps that a person might fall into while making odd claims about Jesus.

For Matthew was a tax-collector, a professional at the art of extracting coinage from those who sought to hide it. He knew what words meant, and kept his meaning plain. If you trust the integrity of his text, you should read Matthew 10 before you talk about the Great Commission (a phrase not found in the original text) or anything else which might stir you to action in the world around you.

Thirteen years later, I have to remind myself about such things again.

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Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Adventure

The sense of the word 'adventure' has changed over the years. Originally meaning 'the prospect of something about to happen', it became 'the chance of something happening', and then 'hazarding or risking the future'. It slowly mutated into 'a perilous undertaking' (around 1314!) and then 'a novel or exciting incident' (around 1570!) before becoming what it is today, a literary genre, a detour that brings entertainment to our boring lives.

It's the same thing with the word 'emergency'. Originally meaning 'something rising (from a liquid medium)' and related to 'submerge' (to place below the surface of a liquid) and 'merge' (to blend into a liquid), it became 'something happening in a fluid situation' ('emergent' appears around 1450) and then 'an unforeseen occurrence'. Now it connotes disaster and danger, having blended in our minds with 'urgency'.

But looking forward and backward, as a social historian is wont to do, one sees things sometimes a little differently. Whether or not you believe in the theological claims of Jesus Christ, something emerged about 2000 years ago. Its advent was apparently prophesied, and at the very least it was keenly anticipated. Out of Bethlehem, that phenomenon would come to change the world.

Such change phenomena always have their detractors. But the change they inspire is incontrovertible. The reason that many have come to suspect others of thinking that President-elect Obama is like a messiah is a simple one. He has campaigned on a message of 'change that you can believe in' and 'the audacity of hope'. It is a timeless message, and one that appeals to all kinds of humans. Not all who believe are uncritical, swept up by the audacity of hopeful change. Many see the possibilities of the adventure, and are glad that it has come in their time.

Me, I'm just looking forward to seeing people this December who I've not seen for a while. I wonder what it's like for those who are not coming home, and those who are coming home after their first extended period of being away from home. I wonder about those who have no homes to return too. I wonder as I wander.

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Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Random Encounters

I used to live for random encounters. You travel from place to place. You roll a d100. BAM: 1-4 crocodiles, estuarine, giant. You fight, pointlessly and amusingly. You survive. You keep going. It was all wonderful, pointless fun. Then one day, I got to be management. I could look at a roll of 76 (turtle, snapping, colossal) and turn it into a beach barbecue not to be forgotten, as the island sunset turns into an island which is not amused at having its shell decorated with chicken bones.

It has always been fun to be management. But the cardinal rule is: never forget when you were a worker; better still, never forget what it's like to be a client. It makes things so much more fun. I will never forget the day I caught those scouts attempting to forage under the back gate. In my head, the memory of self as a guy who crawled under the athletic field's fence, warring with the concept of crime and requisite punishment.

But some people seem never to have had childhoods, or earnestly put all childish things behind in a literal sense. They would never be caught doing childish things, or thinking childish thoughts – and at some point, the restriction becomes 'I will never be a child in any way'. And then they are caught anyway, caught by that very interesting statement of the Messiah in one of those chapters of Matthew's gospel that serious people sometimes oddly forget to read.

Here it is:

And he called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them;
And said, "Truly I say unto you, unless you are changed, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
"Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
"And whosoever shall receive one such little child in my name also receives me.
"But whosoever shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
"Woe unto the world because of offences! For it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!"

Yes, that's it. Along with the injunctions for fathers not to frustrate their children and such, there's this section about how moral offences against children are dire indeed. Sure, the old part of the Good Book also says that sparing the rod leads to spoiling the child, and hence recommends the precise use of the rod as a corrective; but it doesn't say that children in general must get the stick stuck to them unless there is good reason.

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Friday, December 21, 2007

Isn't This The Carpenter?

The Christmas season is a time for reflection. I don't mind reflecting about the Christ as a baby in a manger, but I am inevitably led down the corridors of thought towards His life and work. I wrote this short piece a while ago, immersed in the ideas of work and professionalism.

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There are lots of modern professions mentioned in the gospels: tax collecting, law, carpentry, building, teaching and money-changing are some of them. Most of us, if asked to talk about what professional qualifications Jesus had, would talk about Jesus the carpenter – but that’s not the whole story.

The only verse which mentions this is Mark 6:3. Matthew 13:55 has the people referring to Jesus as “the carpenter’s son”. We should probably draw the conclusion that Jesus, as Joseph’s legal son, was an apprentice carpenter. Being the sort of person he was, he would have been a good one. Yet, the whole New Testament doesn’t say anything else about carpentry, and Jesus the carpenter is someone we can only make assumptions about.

Perhaps Jesus the lawyer also comes to mind – Jesus, conducting brilliant defences and legal expositions against repeated accusations and traps made by Pharisees. The questions he tackled are relevant to us today: Matthew 12:1-14/Mark 2:23-28; 3:1-6/Luke 6:1-11 and Luke 14:1-6 have questions regarding the extent to which the law should control our behaviour; Matthew 19:1-12/Mark 10:1-12 are about divorce; and Matthew 22:15-22/Mark 12:13-17/Luke 20:20-26 are about taxation (a topic on everybody’s mind these days, which means that you should read what Jesus had to say about it).

Among the many professions though, Jesus was first of all a teacher. There are almost 90 verses in the Gospels which refer to Jesus as teacher. When he was in Jerusalem, he taught every day (Matthew 26:55, Mark 14:49, Luke 21:37). As in everything else, Jesus was good at teaching. He taught with amazing authority and gave good answers. Other so-called teachers of the law hated him and denounced him, but even then, some gave him positive reviews (see Mark 12:28-34 for one occasion). Mark 12:37 says “the large crowd listened to him with delight”.

This, then, is one reason why I am a teacher. Although I’m no master of the Law, I can learn many things about being a professional from Jesus. Like others who are lawyers and practitioners of healing arts, I can look in the gospels for concrete examples of how I should work while carrying out my professional duties. How to use a good analogy without carrying it too far, how to focus attention with a single statement, provoke listeners to think, make sure they remember, motivate an audience, give a well-structured lesson — all these things are found in courses taught at Institutes of Education; but they were also demonstrated long ago by the Master.

Professional attitude, professional conduct, professional lessons. As my grandfather once told me, “If you’re going to do anything, ask yourself this question: How would He have done it?” There are lots of books on how people should teach. If you want to read them, go ahead – but never forget that Jesus was a teacher too.

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Friday, April 06, 2007

Belief

It has always struck me that the Easter week fills the role of 'pagan fertility rite' very well. It is uncannily resonant (if not downright consonant in parts) with Robert Burns's version of the old British folksong, John Barleycorn, for example.

I have seen many movies of the crucifixion before, some compassionate, some agonized (or agonizing), some artistic, and some all of the above. To me, the best representations are those that don't highlight the gore and bloodshed. They cut to the essence of it; the sacrifice of the holy for the unhallowed.

I have good historical reasons for feeling this way. If we were to be historically accurate (for example) about pre-industrial England, we'd have to put more horseshit on the ground than can be found in any film. You wouldn't be able to see Sherlock and Watson in the London fog. And Arthur's brave defence of Celtic Britain would be bogged down by poor equine breeding stock. The story of the Christ doesn't need historical accuracy because no matter how much gore we put in (yes, we know about Roman crucifixions) the blood on-screen cannot sanctify the story any more than it is already sanctified.

John's gospel puts in succinctly. At the end of John's account of the latter part of Easter week, he says that what has been written is 'that you might believe.' That is all there is; the crucifixion and burial occupy a scant, terse 26 verses or so. Read the account yourself to see the difference between Bible and Hollywood.

Hence I am going to go out on the limb of a tree and say this: the accounts given are terse for a reason. They do not sensationalise because of two reasons: 1) it is not necessary to do so - the story speaks for itself; 2) it is not possible to deliver the true impact of Jesus' death and its aftermath, no matter how hard you try. Emotional impact, yes. Spiritual impact, no. The problem is that the former can act as a counterfeit for the latter, and it often does.

So away with all these gloomy meditations on the death of Jesus of Nazareth. "He is not here; He is risen!" says the Good Book. It is a time of joy. With the brethren of the Eastern Churches, we should greet each other thus:

"Χριστος ἀνεστη !"
Christ is risen!

And the response is "Ἀληθως ἀνεστη !"
In truth, (He is) risen.

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Thursday, March 29, 2007

Fellowship

The word translated 'fellowship' in the New Testament is the Greek word koinonia. It can also mean community, commonality, or commonwealth. The funny thing is that this word, around which many things have been built, is not mentioned once in the Gospels. Jesus did things with his friends and colleagues; he did not have anything as abstract as koinonia with them.

That's the thing: Jesus was master and friend, but never a fellow as in, "Hail, fellow! Well-met!" I'm sure he was good company - too good, said the Pharisees. But he was a one-off. Unique. For what fellowship can light have with darkness?

I guess what subsequently boggles my mind is that he went all over the country with his friends. He slept, ate, drank, and had late-evening suppers with them. He visited their in-laws and their outlaws. He attended wedding dinners. Well, there you go. Amazing person, as a person goes. I'm not being flippant here. I am in awe of the whole idea, that light can indeed fellowship with darkness, and best of all, not 'take back the land from the darkness' but 'bring the light into the darkness'.

And that is why in the end, the dark will not understand nor withstand the light – because there is nothing which darkness can define; rather, light defines darkness by absence.

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