Thursday, 27 August 2020
The Journey (Ruth)
A refugee journey
(Based on the Bible book of Ruth, an ancestor of Jesus)
No rain. No rain. Still no rain.
Harvests failed. Hunger drove us out. We crossed borders looking for relief. We wanted only the simple dignity of earning a day's wage, of feeding our families. We trekked, dusty and worn.
I am Naomi. In my own language my name means joy. What irony that was to become.
Now I am weary and full of years, but at that time we were young and willing. We worked hard. We worked long hours doing the jobs they didn't want. We learned their language and customs. We made a home and a life. The day came when could arrange marriages for our sons. What a proud day. What a happy day.
Then the sickness came to our village. My husband's body, weak with hard labour, was quickly overcome. We wept deeply for our loss.
Our sons worked even harder. Their future was my hope. We kept saving for the weddings. We kept our heads high. More people died. Labour shortages. Work was harder but wages rose. Then disaster again knocked at our door. One son after the other was taken sick and died.
We were now 3 widows in one household. How could I, broken in health and heart, produce more sons to honour our promise to those two young women? I revoked their contract and gave them freedom to find new husbands. I decided to return to the land of my birth. Though little more than a beggar I needed to be among my own.
I sold what we had left to pay safe passage with a trading caravan. Well, I say safe. How safe has it ever been for women travelling alone? But it was a risk I had to take.
I said goodbye to the girls but they wouldn't let me go. Finally one agreed to return to her parents but Ruth held on to me. Stubbornly she begged me, "I will go with you. Your people will become my people, your God will become my God."
In my grey mood I said some hard things to her. I told her there would be only shame waiting for us, returning with no working men and no foreign money. But still she came. She hung on to this dried up depressed shell of a woman. She made me eat when food felt like dust in my mouth. She made me walk when all I wanted was to curl up and die too. She trusted in my God, whose very name I was cursing in my despair.
We came to the land of my ancestors. Old friends and family shook their heads when they saw me. When they greeted us I said "Don't call me Naomi, joy. My new name is Mara, bitterness. I have gone sour with grief." There was no welcome party. We had brought no honour in our homecoming.
According to the customs of my land, laid down by our God in his laws, the poor must be provided for. They harvest round field edges, grain left standing for this purpose. We call our God "The Living God" because although we have times and places for meeting him, we can't confine him to them. He hates when the weak are neglected and oppressed. He shows himself to be full of grace and compassion, slow to anger and completely reliable in his love. He gives legal rights even to women, foreigners and those in need, a rarity in my day and age.
So Ruth went to work in the field of a relative of my late husband. Being a good man, Boaz instructed his workers to leave her extra grain, to make sure she was unharmed and to give food to her. In time, in order to provide for us fully he negotiated to take her as his wife. I could give him no bridal gift but according to our laws if she marries a family member he can take over some ancestral land in my late husband's name so we brought him a blessing and our honour was restored.
Now, finally settled in her new land, Ruth gave birth to a son. More honour. I had not smiled since my loss in that distant place. I had journeyed in deep depression. When dear Ruth put the baby in my arms, at long last I laughed and sobbed all at once. I was flooded with joy and hope for the future. Our God had rescued me from distress and shame through the faithfulness of this young woman. May his name be praised.
Friday, 21 August 2020
Review : Revelation, Ian Paul
Revelation: An Introduction And Commentary (Tyndale New Testament Commentary Book 0)
by
For me this is the straight forward, down to earth, no
nonsense approach I was looking for. It is what one would expect from a
mathematician, which was Ian Paul's line of study I believe before
becoming a theologian. It did make me think a little of reading the book
on poetry by Steven Fry, but a commentary should dissect, and dissect
Ian Paul does, whilst also giving a refreshing overview of the whole,
and communicating his own sense of worship and awe that the text
inspires.
I am now reconciled to number significance and word counting in particular. In the past I'd encountered it more as superstition - 3 means this - (er, says who?) but here it is shown to be part of a literary language used consciously by the writer, much like the composer of the sonnet or ode is not only transported in wonder at their subject matter but mathematically works out the stanza lengths and rhyme locations to carry the content, adding extra layers to the meaning for those in the know. It seems it was a Jewish literary device to use certain words a set number of times in a text. And what a relief to find that 666 would have been quite clear to the initial hearers and was probably never intended to have the magical terror with which it has been imbued in our popular culture, at least according to this author, although the message was still a very serious warning not to be taken lightly.
I think one of the author's aims may have been to reduce the superstition and misplaced anxiety often linked with this book of the Bible (I have a vivid memory of coming in one evening to find my normally very level headed room-mate at university sitting on the edge of her bed in tears of fear having read Hal Lindsey). For me this was successful. I was struck by the repeated reminders that this work was probably intended to be comforting as well as a warning to the initial hearers, the opposite of the anxiogenic use it has been put to.
I still don't like the word eschatological and not just because it accumulates too many consonants at the front of the word which feels like having to walk barefoot over shingle before finally getting to the sea, but because of the association with all sorts of whacky theology. I think we need to start afresh with a simpler word phrase with less history and overtones, using translated not transliterated words like last, end, far or final.
As far as judgment goes he underlines God's characteristic approach to justice which he calls "lex talionis" which he defines as :"He gives to people only what they have given to others" and "God only gives to others what they deserve if they refuse the gift they do not deserve." An eminently sensible approach not matched in some more classic views of hell and judgement as defined, I discovered latterly, by Greek and Norse concepts of an afterlife torture for the wicked and as portrayed on the Medieval frieze on my beloved Lincoln Cathedral West Front with the torturer being the very one who Revelation says will be destroyed.
I found his regular references to genre helpful. Having recently watched almost all the 'making of' videos of Game of Thrones out of curiosity to see what all of the fuss was about, the great throne room setting for the large part of the action in Revelation was particularly vivid. I was happily led on a Google rabbit hole exploration about angels after his fairly brief but clear description of their role and found myself reading up about stock characters and plot devices in Greek plays (which he then gets on to, but I was inordinately satisfied to have found out for myself lol) and lo and behold there are the messengers (angels, which I would have preferred to not have been transliterated, can't have everything) and heralds (trumpets) along with letters (scrolls), and we all know about ancient Greek pottery so the bowls seem pretty logical too, all being as familiar to audiences at the time as the staff and equipment in the bar at The Queen Vic is to modern soap watchers or the language of sleuths, witnesses, clues to adepts of the murder mystery genre.
He then draws out layer after layer of allusion to the then current cultural references of Roman myths, along with a good dose of Roman Empire and Emperor cult language. Then there's the Old Testament references which come in nearly every verse, - very familiar to anyone raised in a Jewish environment, a closed book to outsiders readers and thus ideal for communicating the subversive message i.e. The Emperor isn't the real overlord, Jesus is; The Emperor can't come up with the goods on his promises, he has neither the power nor the niceness to do it, so don't be seduced into compromising with him.
That said, Ian Paul does not tie Revelation to just being a political cartoon/religious coded message against The Empire of the time but as he says in his introduction :"Although there are clear connexions made with the specific realities of Roman imperial power, the metaphorical description that John offers us provides a critique of all human imperial aspiration." (p34)
I liked his tables comparing groups of words, and the helpful summaries of what he thinks Revelation is also not saying for words and concepts like Satan, the Millennium, Beast etc etc Obviously he can't recapitulate on all the vast literature around and he has taken a particular line that not everyone will agree with but given the nature of the task I think this was always going to be inevitable. In my opinion he's made a readable book of it, that is accessible as a go to first source for the serious Bible reader and balanced jump off point to more detailed researches.
I am now reconciled to number significance and word counting in particular. In the past I'd encountered it more as superstition - 3 means this - (er, says who?) but here it is shown to be part of a literary language used consciously by the writer, much like the composer of the sonnet or ode is not only transported in wonder at their subject matter but mathematically works out the stanza lengths and rhyme locations to carry the content, adding extra layers to the meaning for those in the know. It seems it was a Jewish literary device to use certain words a set number of times in a text. And what a relief to find that 666 would have been quite clear to the initial hearers and was probably never intended to have the magical terror with which it has been imbued in our popular culture, at least according to this author, although the message was still a very serious warning not to be taken lightly.
I think one of the author's aims may have been to reduce the superstition and misplaced anxiety often linked with this book of the Bible (I have a vivid memory of coming in one evening to find my normally very level headed room-mate at university sitting on the edge of her bed in tears of fear having read Hal Lindsey). For me this was successful. I was struck by the repeated reminders that this work was probably intended to be comforting as well as a warning to the initial hearers, the opposite of the anxiogenic use it has been put to.
I still don't like the word eschatological and not just because it accumulates too many consonants at the front of the word which feels like having to walk barefoot over shingle before finally getting to the sea, but because of the association with all sorts of whacky theology. I think we need to start afresh with a simpler word phrase with less history and overtones, using translated not transliterated words like last, end, far or final.
As far as judgment goes he underlines God's characteristic approach to justice which he calls "lex talionis" which he defines as :"He gives to people only what they have given to others" and "God only gives to others what they deserve if they refuse the gift they do not deserve." An eminently sensible approach not matched in some more classic views of hell and judgement as defined, I discovered latterly, by Greek and Norse concepts of an afterlife torture for the wicked and as portrayed on the Medieval frieze on my beloved Lincoln Cathedral West Front with the torturer being the very one who Revelation says will be destroyed.
I found his regular references to genre helpful. Having recently watched almost all the 'making of' videos of Game of Thrones out of curiosity to see what all of the fuss was about, the great throne room setting for the large part of the action in Revelation was particularly vivid. I was happily led on a Google rabbit hole exploration about angels after his fairly brief but clear description of their role and found myself reading up about stock characters and plot devices in Greek plays (which he then gets on to, but I was inordinately satisfied to have found out for myself lol) and lo and behold there are the messengers (angels, which I would have preferred to not have been transliterated, can't have everything) and heralds (trumpets) along with letters (scrolls), and we all know about ancient Greek pottery so the bowls seem pretty logical too, all being as familiar to audiences at the time as the staff and equipment in the bar at The Queen Vic is to modern soap watchers or the language of sleuths, witnesses, clues to adepts of the murder mystery genre.
He then draws out layer after layer of allusion to the then current cultural references of Roman myths, along with a good dose of Roman Empire and Emperor cult language. Then there's the Old Testament references which come in nearly every verse, - very familiar to anyone raised in a Jewish environment, a closed book to outsiders readers and thus ideal for communicating the subversive message i.e. The Emperor isn't the real overlord, Jesus is; The Emperor can't come up with the goods on his promises, he has neither the power nor the niceness to do it, so don't be seduced into compromising with him.
That said, Ian Paul does not tie Revelation to just being a political cartoon/religious coded message against The Empire of the time but as he says in his introduction :"Although there are clear connexions made with the specific realities of Roman imperial power, the metaphorical description that John offers us provides a critique of all human imperial aspiration." (p34)
I liked his tables comparing groups of words, and the helpful summaries of what he thinks Revelation is also not saying for words and concepts like Satan, the Millennium, Beast etc etc Obviously he can't recapitulate on all the vast literature around and he has taken a particular line that not everyone will agree with but given the nature of the task I think this was always going to be inevitable. In my opinion he's made a readable book of it, that is accessible as a go to first source for the serious Bible reader and balanced jump off point to more detailed researches.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3496750000
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