‘Take and read…’

     Do head over to A Thinking Reed, where Lee offers a most fruitful set of posts on Anselm’s much maligned Cur Deus Homo. 

Persian Madness

     As usual, I nearly fell over laughing as I read Spengler rip the Persians.  I love this declaration from the Iranian embassy in France over the movie 300:  ‘Throughout history, the Iranian culture has always advocated peace . . . .’  Well, if by peace you mean the forced stasis brought about through conquest and empire, then, yeah, the Iranians [read, Persians] have ‘always advocated peace’.  What’s more, they are once again pursuing their policy of peace and tolerance toward all mankind with great vigor.  Indeed, they seem determined this time to bring peace to Great Britain, or at least the British Navy.  It’s good to see ‘em embracing their history. 

A Little Reconsideration…

     I took a look at the stuff on Mark and decided that calling ‘em ‘Reflections’ was a bit pretentious.  It seemed better to called ‘em ‘Notes’ and strip ‘em down a bit.  These are, if you will, gestures toward some future reflection using Mark as its basis.  For now, it’s simply a delight, and as such a restorative, to give the text such close attention. 

Notes for Reflections on Mark’s Gospel, part 1

     Mark 1.15, wherein we hear the first public proclamation of Jesus himself, is a key to the more neglected of the Gospels.  Here ’tis:

1.15a  peplerotai ho kairos                             the hour/time has been fulfilled
1.15b  kai engiken he basileia tou theou     and the kingdom of God has come near
1.15c  metanoeite                                           repent
1.15d  kai pisteuete en to euangelion          and believe in the Good News/Gospel

First, I cry you mercy because I can’t make the little diacritical marks for the Greek.  Second, do observe the parallel structure.  Joel Marcus lays it out like so:

the time has been fulfilled           and           the KOG has come near
OLD AGE                                                        New AGE
repent                                            and           believe in the Gospel
TURN AWAY                                                 TURN TO.

So, we hear in the first proclamation of Jesus in Mark’s Gospel a call to turn from the Old and embrace the New.  There are many parallels to this throughout the New Testament.  For instance, we hear in Colossians 12.13 that we have been ‘rescued from the dominion of darkness’ and ‘transferred’ into the Kingdom of the beloved Son Jesus.  Romans 13.12 reminds us that ‘The night is far gone, the day has drawn near [engiken]; let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, let us put on the weapons of light’.  There are further parallels in 1 Thessalonians 5.5-6 and Acts 26.18.  Now, such passages are often classified as fragments from baptismal liturgies because of their hymnic qualities.  Whatever the truth of that hypothesis, the baptismal character and content of these passages is clear.  Just compare, for instance, the argument in Romans 6.1-14.  Clearly, baptism is the key to just how one turns away from the Old and embraces the New
     To get to that, we must first take a detour back to the opening verses of Mark’s work.  Recall that it says,

‘The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ [the Son of God]
[As it is written in Isaiah the prophet:  "Look!  I send my messenger [ton angellon mou] before your face who will set your way in order.  A voice crying in the wilderness:  ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight his paths!”]’

This is a tissue of allusions.  First, we have Exodus 23.20 [LXX]:  ‘Look, I myself am sending my messenger before your face to guard you on your way’.  This is conflated with Malachi 3.1, and may reflect a sort of ‘Isaian’ catena of texts relating to the forerunner of the Messiah [here I compress several pages from a couple different commentaries - the answer to this question is marginal to my concerns].  In any event, this forerunner, the one whose voice cries in the wilderness, is Elijah, who according to Malachi 4.5 was to appear ‘before the great and terrible day of the LORD’.  Elijah, the forerunner, comes according to Mark, to ’set your way in order’ [kataskeuasei], a riff on the Isaiah/Malachi conflation, wherein we hear that Elijah will come to ‘clear a way before [the Lord's] face’ or ‘examine a way before [the Lord's] face’.  We shall see just what this looks like in Mark’s Gospel in a moment. 
     To continue with the opening verses, we hear next that the voice in the wilderness of the one sent to set our way in order declares, following the LXX version of Isaiah 40.3, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths’.  The passage in Isaiah, of course, refers most immediately to that ‘royal road’ paved by God himself through the instrument Cyrus, who did indeed conquer Babylon and make possible the return of the Israelites to the Land of Promise.  This rather mundane tale of a straggling bunch of Israelites limping home signifies, however, the return of YHWH to his holy mountain in Zion and the eschatological gathering of Israel and the Gentiles around him in worship and peace on ‘the great and terrible day of YHWH’.  
     What we find in Mark is a curious, subversive reworking of this proclamation of the Way of the Lord:  throughout the Gospel the Way of the Lord is the path taken by Jesus up to Jerusalem to meet his death on the cross in the fullness of time.  So, the return of YHWH to Zion as prophesied in Isaiah is indeed Jesus, YHWH in the flesh, making his way to Jerusalem to be killed outside the gate ’for the sins of many’.  This is, of course, getting a bit ahead of ourselves, but it’s only fair to say that we can never lose sight of this fact that the Way of YHWH as found in Isaiah/Malachi is in fact the Way of the Cross [Via crucis] of Jesus himself without denuding Mark’s Gospel of its edge.  What’s more, this is essential to grasping the call to turn away from the present, evil, Old Age and embrace the New. 

technological bluffs…

     No, this isn’t a post about Jacques Ellul [let the reader understand].  John H left a kind comment wherein he asked me to eliminate something called a ’snap extention’.  I have no idea what that is, so a little help would not go unsomethingorother…
     Peace out.

Romans!

     Our good friend J Random Hermeneut is about to leap into action with a series of rapid fire posts on Romans.  As he writes, ‘Romans as introduction to the entire Old Testament – hey, I consider that a challenge’. 

The End of Study

     Yes, this exam just looks cool.  I would fail horribly, by the way.
     [My thanks to Wyclif.]

changes and more changes…

     Welcome to the erstwhile ‘Endlessly Rocking Redux’.  Upon reflection, it seemed meet and right that we make some radical changes around here, beginning with the title.  I’m not sure about the new one.  It comes from George Herbert’s ‘Holy Scripture II’:  ‘Oh that I knew how all thy lights combine/ And the configurations of their glorie’.  The alternative was The Holdfast, obviously referring to Herbert’s poem:

I threatened to observe the strict decree
     Of my deare God with all my power and might:
     But I was told by one, it could not be;
Yet I might trust in God to be my light.
Then will I trust, said I, in him alone.
     Nay, ev’n to trust in him, was also his:
     We must confesse, that nothing is our own.
Then I confesse that he my succour is:
But to have naught is ours, not to confesse
     That we have naught.  I stood amaz’d at this,
     Much troubled, till I heard a friend expresse,
That all things were more ours by being his.
     What Adam had, and forfeited for all,
     Christ keepeth now, who cannot fail or fall.

As you can see, Herbert is one of the, if you will, Patron Saints of the new venture.  In any case, I plan to fiddle with the site a bit more in the coming days and weeks, so just remember, the title may change, but the link remains the same.
     Peace out.

A sort of new start…

     He enters his new digs, looks around in the fading light of dusk, and sighs. 
     Welcome to the new Endlessly Rocking Redux.  For those who remember Endlessly Rocking over on Blog-City, this will be, well, as unfamiliar to you as it is to me.  Do be patient – the new place needs a bit of spackle, some paint, and that wall over there has got to go.  I sure hope it’s not load bearing…
     Peace out.