D

His comment that Joseph saying to Mary about the child Christ: "We can't let him leave the house anymore, too many people are getting hurt," (his paraphrase) is almost straight from the back story in a super-hero comic book, was the funniest thing I've heard in a long time.

(I apologize if that was shallow, crass or rude.)(But not in a really heartfelt way.)

*gasp* *choke* *faint*

He does some great infant miracles too -- raising a dead schoolfriend from the dead to let everyone know that it wasn't Jesus but another kid who had pushed him off a roof is another great bit.

Neil: Just so. It makes me wonder whether exegetical criticism wouldn't have come along far more rapidly if only the people doing it had read enough comic books. They'd have learned to spot that moment when the narrative leaves the path of strict rectitude, and wanders off into "Wouldn't it be cool if ...?"

The things that people think and the ways they think about them are complicated enough; but the world inside one's head isn't nearly as gnarly and complex as the world outside it, and the difference shows.

Then there are the great copyediting mistakes of the Bible, the best of which IMHO was dropping the story of Lilith from Genesis, but then forgetting to cut the subsequent referrence (Isiah 34:14)

Bizarro Jesus changes wine into water: hey, I can do that! Well, beer into urine. Does that make me the Bizarro Christ, or the Anti-Christ, or what?

Bizarro Jesus makes fig trees thrive.

Bizarro Jesus' disciples stick needles through the eye of a camel, to prove they're going to heaven. And they do -- right away, once the poor blind camel catches them.

Bizarro Jesus tried to escape the Man at Gethsemane by substituting a fake 'Jesus' made of bread and wine. "No, no, THAT my body! Me just loaf of bread, jug of wine -- and thou."

Bizarro Jesus rode into Jerusalem on his ass...tearing hell out of his robe, and he couldn't sit for a week, not to mention the rope burns.

/mildly offensive free-associating

Patrick used to do a great riff on how the Bizarro universe functioned as a refutation of the dialectical analysis of historic processes by demonstrating that "opposite" is an inherently arbitrary choice. In the Bizarro universe, do they stop for green traffic lights and zoom off when they turn red? Do they ignore traffic lights, since we observe them, or congratulate and reward their citizens who break the traffic laws? Or do they not have traffic signals at all, in opposition to our having them?

Re Bizarro "opposites," yep to all that. My Bizarro stuff was intended purely for amusement.

What, in your opinion, is the most egregious copyediting mistake in Genesis? And the Bible as a whole?

I'm fond of the Lilith story, simply because when "you hear the voice of Lilith screaming in the night," what she has to be screaming is "You cut my scene!"

A common feature of settlements in what we call the inter-testamental period were the Mikvah, the ceremonial baths. Frequently they were large and elaborate and this in an arid land. Ceremonial cleanliness was very important to these people and you must grasp that this is a much different concept than the idea of sin or the absence of sin.

The Gospel of Mary has a story that is one of my favorites: the mid-wife who delivers Jesus is amazed to discover that Mary is still a virgin after she has delivered. She reaches out her hand to touch and confirm what she sees and it is burned off because of her unbelief.

The whole virgin Mary business grows out of the fact that the Jews in Alexandria who translated the Hebrew bible to create the Septuagint translated the Hebrew word almah (Isiah 7:14, meaning young woman) with the Greek word parthenos (meaning virgin). This was used as the proof text by the gospel writers that the mesiach (the annointed one) would be borne by a virgin.

One of the ironies of New Testament exegesis is that fact that great efforts are made to show that Jesus is a Davidic (military) messiah when he clearly is not. He is much more convincing as a Mosaic (prophetic) messiah. The messianic expectations of first century Jews were much more complex than the New Testament does justice to.

First century Jewish and early Christian exegesis was much more free-style and metaphorical than later more logical approaches to the bible. Look at the leaps of logic that Paul makes.

Teresa,

I would love to get you into a discussion with my daughter (working on her PhD at Harvard) the bible scholar. She can read the texts in their original languages. I can see how she is constrained in what she can see in the text by the hermanutic she has absorbed during her education.

She spends so much time down at the lowest level of examining the text that she has a hard time seeing the forest for the trees. At the same time there is much to criticize about Wellinghaus and the documentary hypothesis as it is frequently applied to biblical scholarship. Yet, as you point out, even someone reading the bible in translation can sense the discrepancies in the narrative.

Apocrypha: [Greek: apokrupto = "to hide away"]: although technically the
term for false, doubtful, spurious editions withheld from
circulation, Jerome (5th Century) incorrectly applied the term to the
non-canonical books of the Old Testament (i.e. the Septuagint and the
Vulgate) which were not included in the Protestant editions of the
Bible; the 1539 Bible said that was "because they were wont to be read
not openly" -- which is absurd; the Authorized Version of 1611 did
include the Apocrypha; which consist of:
* I Esdras, II Esdras
* Tobit
* Judith
* additional verses of Esther
* the Wisdom of Solomon
* Ecclesiastes
* Baruch
* some of the Epistle of Jeremiah
* the Song of the Three Holy Children
* the History of Susanna
* Bel and the Dragon [of special interest to Fantasy readers]
* the Prayer of Manasses
* I Maccabees, II Maccabees
There are also New Testament Apocryphal Gospels, including:
* Acts and Teachings of the Apostles
* Epistles
* Apocalypses
* the Acts of Pilate
* Protavengelium
* Pseudoepigraphia

This is an example of an encylcopedia entry which I throw in as I write them, since my tech is pre-blogular, but I add to my domain almost every day. I often stick them in the middle of a list of authors, alphabtically, to make browsing more fun. The above quote was buried in:

http://www.magicdragon.com/UltimateSF/authorsA.html#Ap

And I'm still curious. Footnote please? :->