Jesus' Wound a "Vagina" - Heresy or Legitimate Academic Inquiry?
Worshipers at Trinity College chapel, University of Cambridge,
were treated to a "sermon" that claimed that Jesus’ side wound in
Renaissance and Medieval paintings of the crucifixion can be likened to a
vagina, suggesting Jesus could have been transgender.
The wound in Christ's side "takes on a decidedly vaginal
appearance" worshippers at Evensong were informed. Junior research fellow Joshua
Heath, continued, “In Christ's simultaneously masculine and feminine body in
these works, if the body of Christ as these works suggest the body of all
bodies, then his body is also the trans body.”
The Dean of Trinity College, Michael Banner, defended the heresy,
saying, "For
myself, I think that speculation was legitimate, whether or not you or I or
anyone else disagrees with the interpretation, says something else about that
artistic tradition, or resists its application to contemporary questions around
transsexualism.”
A spokesperson for Trinity College
said:
“The College would like to make
clear the following:
“Neither the Dean of Trinity College nor the
researcher giving the sermon suggested Jesus was transgender.
“The sermon addressed the image of Christ depicted
in art and various interpretations of those artistic portrayals.
“The sermon’s exploration of the nature of
religious art, in the spirit of thought-provoking academic inquiry, was in
keeping with open debate and dialogue at the University of Cambridge.”
At
an Evensong worship service?
When was a vagina ever located in somebody's ribcage? They are just extracting the urine now.
ReplyDeleteIt makes one pause. This "homily" was given during the traditional Anglican service of Evensong.
DeleteWhat weasley words by Trinity College.
ReplyDeleteYou have to possess a Theology degree to invent an idea this stupid.
ReplyDeleteHeath's Ph.D. was supervised by the former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.
DeleteOne member of the congregation wrote to the Dean stating:
"I am contemptuous of the idea that by cutting a hole in a man, through which he can be penetrated, he can become a woman. I am especially contemptuous of such imagery when it is applied to our Lord, from the pulpit, at Evensong. I am contemptuous of the notion that we should be invited to contemplate the martyrdom of a ‘trans Christ,’ a new heresy for our age.”
You would think someone would stop to consider the shape of a Roman spearhead. I dunno. Maybe I'm overthinking it. I don't have a Theology degree after all.
DeleteAhem ... you mean a Roman pilum.
DeleteHere's how ridiculous it all is. Heath supported his position by claiming that "non-erotic portrayals of Jesus’ penis" in historical paintings “urge a welcoming rather than hostile response towards the raised voices of trans people,”
DeleteOr lancea (from λόγχη, the word used by St John).
DeleteJack is just winding Carl up.
DeletePubcrawler is right, the Vulgate says lancea (from longche), which was different from the pilum.
DeleteThe preacher is still a sex-obsessed clot.
University chapels, in my experience, often have trouble differentiating between a sermon and a lecture. This sort of thing is a side effect of over-emphasising the academic in religion - when it's more important for a pastor to have a PhD than to live a holy life. Most of these places forgot their first love some time ago, and will eventually disappear.
ReplyDeleteIt's seems to be the need to come up with some "fresh insight" into Scripture in tune with today's preoccupations that drives most modern academics. It's a crowded market and one wants to stand out.
DeleteThere was a time when theological studies was "faith seeking understanding".
Sometimes the need for understanding is pushed too far.
DeleteSi comprehendis, non est Deus.
God is a mystery.
DeleteAugustine appreciated that attempts to understand the divine nature is beyond the range of the human mind. He wrote: ’If you think you have grasped him, it is not God you have grasped’ ("si comprehendis non est Deus").
Yet, whilst recognising the inevitable mystery of God. Augustine and the Church Fathers sought a greater understanding of God.
Ultimately, it is more profitable be uneducated and know little and yet draw near to the love of God than think ourselves deeply learned and experienced and so blaspheme against Our Lord.
https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/culture/catholic-contributions/europe-s-return-to-the-fathers.html
I think it's a development of the OT idea that naming something gives you power over it. In the modern world, if we understand something, we (feel) that we have power over it - if we can understand the power of the atom, for example, we can achieve mastery over it and bend it to our will. A god who can be dissected into a number of predictable theological principles is much more manageable than an infinite Absolute that 'bloweth where it listeth'.
DeleteThe author of The Cloud of Unknowing wrote that, 'all rational creatures, angels and men, possess two distinct powers: that of knowing and that of loving. To the first, the creator God is forever incomprehensible. But to the second, to the power of love, God is totally knowable. Any single loving soul may know for himself the God who is incomparably sufficient to fill all the souls and angels that exist. This is the marvellous miracle of love ... those who by grace know this for themselves live in endless bliss; but its opposite is endless pain.'
Meister Eckhart wrote, 'man's last and highest parting occurs when for God's sake he takes leave of god [i.e. abandons his conceptions of God]. St. Paul took leave of god for God's sake and gave up all that he might get from god as well as all he might give - together with every idea of god. In parting with these he parted with god for God's sake and God remained in him as God is in his own nature - not as he is conceived by anybody to be - nor yet as something to be achieved, but more as an is-ness, as God really is.'
If one even begins to grasp (or un-grasp?) God like that, the ideas in this article just seem to be so much infantile groping around in the dark, trying to force God into categories that the speaker can understand and that fits his worldview. Hence the strange nod to Platonic idealism in, 'if the body of Christ as these works suggest [is] the body of all bodies, then his body is also the trans body'. No wonder the scriptural response to God is 'let all mortal flesh keep silence', not to engage in endless, egotistical, speculative prattling. St. Paul's response to questions about the nature of our eternal bodies is apposite in this case: 'thou fool!' (1 Cor 16:36, KJV for dramatic emphasis).
@ 雲水
DeleteUptick.
In a recent address to the International Theological Commission, Pope Francis explained how and why theology and catechesis are different and how they should be approached differently:
Delete“Theologians must go beyond, seek to go beyond. But this I want to distinguish from the catechist: the catechist must give the right doctrine, the solid doctrine; not the possible novelties, of which some are good, but what is solid; the catechist conveys the solid doctrine.
The theologian dares to go further, and it will be the magisterium that will stop him. But the vocation of the theologian is always to venture to go further, because he is trying, and he is trying to make theology more explicit.
But never give catechesis to children and people with new doctrines that are not sure. This distinction is not mine, it is St. Ignatius of Loyola’s, who I think understood something better than I do!”
It's disappointing to see Michael Banndr defending this offensive trips as Banner had a reputation- once - of being orthodox.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, I didn't know biblical interpretation was based on (bizarre misunderstandings of) medieval paintings. I always thought it was based on the Bible.
It would be very wrong to criticise young Mr Heath. He is not to be blamed for the cognitive disability that has left him unable to distinguish between a stab wound and a vagina. At the same time, nursing and medical staff at Cambridgeshire hospitals should be warned to keep a close eye on him if they should ever spot him loitering in their A&E department.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't appear that Joshua Heath has completed his doctorate, but once this blessed event is upon us, he will no doubt consider himself qualified to practise as a doctor, so the A & E department will need to keep a lookout.
DeleteI am sure he knows as little about medicine as he does about theology.
The word in question is Latin for "sheath". I do wonder how Mr Heath would react to learning that every Roman soldier had a 'uagina' hanging by his thigh? What sermons would we hear then about the nature of Caesar's legions?
Delete@BrianR - or female anatomy!
DeleteLiberal a-theology is a Rorschach test: it doesn't tell what is in tbe Bible but rather in the unhealthy mind of the dabbler in sacred things. Mr Heath may not be much interested in actual female anatomy. As for the current "trans moment" (unprecedented in history), no doubt it reflects the pathology of contemporary western culture. I wonder how many effeminate homosexuals have convinced themselves (or have been convinced by social media) that they are "really" women?
Delete@BrianR
DeleteAn article in The Times (8 April 2019) on the Tavistock clinic (and the general approach in the NHS to gender 'affirmation' in children) records former clinicians complaining that:
"So many potentially gay children were being sent down the pathway to change gender, two of the clinicians said there was a dark joke among staff that “there would be no gay people left”. “It feels like conversion therapy for gay children,” one male clinician said. “I frequently had cases where people started identifying as trans after months of horrendous bullying for being gay,” he told The Times. “Young lesbians considered at the bottom of the heap suddenly found they were really popular when they said they were trans. Another female clinician said: “We heard a lot of homophobia which we felt nobody was challenging. A lot of the girls would come in and say, ‘I’m not a lesbian. I fell in love with my best girlfriend but then I went online and realised I’m not a lesbian, I’m a boy. Phew.'"
I think of a thirteen year old that I taught who is convincing herself (and probably her classmates) that she is a boy, and the walls of British secondary schools are now filled with Stonewall propaganda. Interestingly, in girls' schools the word "lesbian" still seems to be avoided, even by Stonewall .
DeleteI wonder if a lot of teenage girls are being deluded by the prevailing sexualised climate into thinking that their friendships with other girls are sexual when in reality girls have always been more tactile and emotionally expressive towards other girls without this having a sexual element.
@ BrianR and Lain.
ReplyDeleteAdmission time!
Jack had a "crush" on a boy when he was 11 years old. Sex never entered into his mind. He just liked the boy's company and admired his physical features. A few years later, when hormones kicked in, he discovered what sexual attraction really was and his eyes towards girls.
He often wonders what would have happened if he had been subjected to the propaganda of Stonewall.
That said, homosexual inclinations do exist and it must be difficult for spiritual counsellors to know how to respond.
@HJ and BrianR
DeleteWhen I was about that age, my best (girl) friend and I were so 'infatuated' we were planning to marry each other. Likewise, there was nothing sexual and it never occurred to us that marriage meant anything more than pretty dresses and being best friends forever (and I was absolutely obsessed with her blonde hair). I was also quite a tomboy when I was younger (before hormones transformed me into the demure embodiment of feminine grace that I am today), so goodness knows what would happen to me if I were at school today.
I think BrianR is right. This movement seems to be disproportionately affecting young girls, which is partly down to the fact that it's generally more natural for girls to be tactile with each other and express feelings for each other than it is for boys (girls and women can say 'I love you' to one another in a way that I don't think boys and men can), and it's easy for outside agents to lead them to believe that those feelings mean something else. This, I think, is not helped by only having one word for love in English, and that word, interpersonally, having come to mean almost exclusively romantic and erotic love. See, for example, the erotic narrative that some have imposed on David's love for Jonathan - it's inconceivable to them that two men can passionately love each other without wanting sexual fulfilment. Furthermore, girls are much more susceptible to body image problems than boys are, especially when going through all the changes that puberty entails. I don't know even one of my female friends who was comfortable in their body in their teens, or even their twenties. I certainly hated going through that stage, with all the weird and wonderful tricks that nature plays on you. Combine that with the contemporary message that if you hate your body it's because you were born in the wrong one, and you get the huge surge in young girls suddenly coming out as trans that we're seeing today.
@ 雲水
DeleteYes, my granddaughter Lucy is planning to marry her best girl friend, not have children, just a cat, and let Seth, her brother, share a house with them. She's also "thinking about" allowing another boy, a certain Tom, join them.
Children are being denied the innocence of their early years.
I’m told that religious faith is “unreasonable”. And by many of the same writers that it’s possible for a man to become a woman. And vice versa.
ReplyDeleteThere appear to be various confused positions on how this is so. And all - to me - fly in the face of reason. That it’s all philosophical nonsense. I don’t need the Book of Genesis to reject it all as absurdity.
I accept that some people are genuine in believing they were born in the wrong body or however they wish to express it. Have met and had long conversations with one such. But I’m utterly baffled why others - say, NHS Trusts, HR departments or my Police Commissioner - also apparently think it’s the truth.
Is it group think? Fear of being seen as “intolerant”? Being cancelled? And. Importantly, is it Christianity’s vocation now to defend reason?
If you read Hans Christian Andersen's 'The Emperor's New Clothes', you will find the answer to your question.
DeleteOn a purely practical level I pity his wife if he has one! I guess his mind is set so that he would see this as a page of sadistic mass murderers:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.dreamstime.com/photos-images/woman-chopping-carrots.html
So glad I wasn't there. He needs a (verbal) dressing down by sensible Sister Wendy, if she is still alive. (Though I suspect that feisty lady is well capable of commissioning an angel to enlighten him if she has passed on!)
Hi, Magnolia. Welcome to Happy Jack's little island for Cranmer refugees.
DeleteIn Jack's opinion, it's doubtful anyone with a mind so polluted that he sees a vaginas in the side wound of Christ and sees His body as transsexual, can have healthy adult relationships.
What's shocking about this 'homily' is that it was delivered at an traditional Evensong service and was defended by the Dean of Trinity College.
Hi, Yes, and I think there is a game here called "I have Hebrew, let's go on a particular wordsearch that proves the point I want to make.' In the process historical context, the history of rabbinical and Christian interpretation, synonyms of word or of phrases, imagery, characterisation, subject-matter and theme, are surreptitiously brushed under the carpet, as if no one will notice, while a narrowed focus on a particular word carries the poor argument.
DeleteAs GK Chesterton wrote:
Delete“Tradition means giving a vote to most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead.
“Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death.
"Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our father.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/29/young-uk-people-speak-out-against-evangelical-church-universal-kingdom-god
ReplyDeleteWhat a headline, and as usual in Guardian land misleading and untruthful. It appears to be about Evangelical Christianity, instead it's about one Church, most people won't even have heard of.
The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God - an evangelical, Pentecostal church, started in Brazil. It has a presence across the globe, including more than 50 full- and part-time branches in the UK.
DeleteThe church’s Brazilian founder, Edir Macedo, has been included on Forbes’ billionaires list.
Wiki states:
"In 2017 the UCKG faced allegations of adopting children in Portugal and taking them abroad illegally. It has also been accused of cult-like illegal activities and corruption, including money laundering,[13] charlatanism,[14][15][16] and witchcraft,[15] as well as intolerance towards other religions.[17][18] There have also been accusations that the church extracts money from poor members for the benefit of its leaders.[19] In 2000, a London-based UCKG pastor arranged an exorcism which resulted in the death of a child and the conviction of her guardians of murder.[20][21] The UCKG has been subject to bans in several African countries."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Church_of_the_Kingdom_of_God
That sounds about right for most of these cults. 'Come and join our church, where you'll be loved and accepted and all your tears will be wiped away. Oh, by the way, you have a demon that can only be cured by tithing'.
DeleteThere's a special circle of hell for people who buy Mercedes with widows' mites.
I'd never heard of it!!
ReplyDeleteNor had Jack The 'charismatic' - 'evangelical' - 'churches' are sprouting up across South America and replacing the Catholic Church amongst the poor.
ReplyDeleteThe Catholic Church in Brazil and most of Latin America has been in sharp decline since the middle of the 20th century. As recently as the 1940s, 99% of Brazilians were Catholic. Today that figure has plummeted to 63%.
The great majority of the Church’s losses have been to Pentecostalism. Since the 1950s tens of millions of mostly impoverished Latin Americans have converted to Pentecostal denominations. From the 1940s the Protestant percentage of the Brazilian population skyrocketed from 1% to 22%, three quarters are Pentecostal.
That's not surprising. Pentecostalism seems to be particularly susceptible to the prosperity gospel, which is very appealing if you're poor. An interesting article:
Delete'In the case of the poor, they are especially attracted to prosperity theology, also known as the health and wealth gospel. It gives people hope that they can move up regardless of their station. People are told that, with sufficient faith and active petition of God, eventually the things that you want in life will be yours. That’s a very powerful message to someone who has very little.
Some people, particularly men, are attracted to Pentecostalism because they are struggling with substance abuse or other problems. Pentecostalism promotes healthy lifestyles and serves as the largest detox center for Latin American men. Men who join these churches often stop hard drinking … or gambling or womanizing.'
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/11/14/why-has-pentecostalism-grown-so-dramatically-in-latin-america/
It's rooted in the OT's focus on this world, where the blessings of this life were a sign that you’re in a covenant relationship with God. Presumably, these "preachers" skip the Book of Job.
DeleteIt ignores the revelation of Jesus Christ.
I think what attracted many people to Pentacostalism, is that it appeared at least to give a route out of poverty. It was all an illusion, but it also bought into the American dream. These churches deliberately aped the prosperity movement of the USA.
DeleteSafer for the USA than Liberation theology movements and Marxism.
DeleteIt's enough to convert one to Catholicism ... 😇
Delete@ 雲水
DeleteContrast this from Andrew Chesnut, professor of religious studies at Virginia Commonwealth University:
"We’re talking here about a religious free market, and in such a market you have to offer people attractive options if you want to succeed. So these religious groups are offering up their own version of Pentecostalism because that’s what people want. If Pentecostalism had never come to Latin America, I think the religious landscape… would not be nearly as vibrant as it is today."
With the then Father Ratzinger's perspective in 1969:
"The future of the Church, once again as always, will be reshaped by saints, by men, that is, whose minds probe deeper than the slogans of the day, who see more than others see, because their lives embrace a wider reality. Unselfishness, which makes men free, is attained only through the patience of small daily acts of self-denial. By this daily passion, which alone reveals to a man in how many ways he is enslaved by his own ego, by this daily passion and by it alone, a man’s eyes are slowly opened. He sees only to the extent that he has lived and suffered. If today we are scarcely able any longer to become aware of God, that is because we find it so easy to evade ourselves, to flee from the depths of our being by means of the narcotic of some pleasure or other. Thus our own interior depths remain closed to us. If it is true that a man can see only with his heart, then how blind we are!"
Which is not to say that Christians should ignore the structural drivers of poverty.
Have to offer "attractive options"!! Oh well that's were early Christianity went wrong, offering martyrdom and the cross.
DeleteHowever did it survive?
Yes, I've noticed a tendency among certain non-denominational types to dwell in parts of the OT and more-or-less ignore the New... Job is an interesting case; in the end, his fortunes and family are restored (one set of children being, one imagines, much the same as another) after he submits to God, which does seem to undermine the message of the rest of the text and reinforce the idea that the faithful are rewarded with material blessings. I remember reading somewhere that the 'epilogue' to Job is in a more modern Hebrew than the rest of the text, suggesting that it was added later by someone who found the original conclusion (that Job effectively gets no clear answer to the question of his suffering) unsatisfactory. I'm inclined to agree.
DeleteI think Prof. Chesnut's remarks typify what is wrong with most contemporary 'churches': they're like a spiritual diet fads, offering quick and easy fixes for people who don't want to put in the effort. Why bother sweating in the gym when you can take a diet pill or strap some electrical device to your abs for a six pack? But, like diet fads, they ultimately have nothing to offer and prove to be hollow (which is perhaps why the latest census says that less than half the country identifies as Christian for the first time).
I hadn't heard that before with regards the Hebrew found in Job. I've struggled more with the restoration of wealth etc then the loss of everything. I'm assuming you were being ironic when you said one set of children is pretty much the same as another, because of course they aren't. The grief of losing a child never goes away.
DeleteThey are irreplaceable.
However upon saying that I worry that what I am saying is a modern view? Cicero for example was thought unmanly for his excessive grief with regards the death of his daughter?
Does Job, even in the restoration part of it, reflect the hard hearted views of a community living with the fear of imminent death, starvation etc? i.e children are replaceable, because their main function is to be free labour and to look after you in your old age? So one set, is the same as another?
@Prof G
DeleteYes, my comment about replacement children was entirely sarcastic; the loss of a child is unimaginable. Incidentally, that's my biggest issue with those who insist that Job has to be read 'literally' - as in, it describes events that actually happen. On that reading, the book turns into a horror story wherein God allows Satan to rile him up and then permits (actually, commands) Satan to kill Job's children in order to win a bet. Not only does that make Satan more powerful than God, but it portrays God as a petty, vainglorious deity I would not wish to worship. Instead, I think the Book of Job is a very important spiritual fable.
What's most interesting about Job is that it's uniquely written in a very ancient Hebrew and, I believe, one of the oldest of the OT texts (and undoubtedly records an even more ancient tale). I find it instructive that one of the first things the Hebrews committed to written Scripture was not the creation account, or their history, but their struggle with the nature of suffering and how a good God could allow bad things to happen to good people. I think the book is more mature without the restoration epilogue: suffering is an inevitable and intractable part of human existence but God, in his mystery, is so much more, and is intimately involved in our lives. This is consistent with the God revealed throughout the rest of the Bible, who doesn't protect us from the difficulties of life (over-protected children are weak and immature), but he does care for us, picks us up, binds up our wounds, strengthens our failing arm, numbers the hairs on our heads, grieves with us and, ultimately, will wipe away every tear. With the epilogue, Job becomes a confusing mix of refuting the pagan idea that earthly goods are a reward for good behaviour, then ending the book by giving Job earthly goods as rewards for his good behaviour. It makes no sense.
You make a fair point about the 'replicability' of children, inasmuch as they're units of labour to keep the family going when the patriarch reaches old age. But we're told that Job's first children are of age: they die in an accident while 'feasting and drinking at their older brother's house', and Job must be relatively advanced in years: he has lots of children, goods, and a firmly established reputation for wisdom and righteousness which one could not expect until a certain age. In 30:1, he complains that 'now they mock me, men younger than I, whose fathers I would have disdained to put with my sheep dogs', suggesting that he is 'full of years'. By the time his 'replacement' children grew up and could usefully be put to work, it would possibly be too late. Also, although the culture must have been hard and pragmatic by necessity, Job is clearly grieved by the loss of his children, and Jacob's grief over Joseph and his assertion that losing Benjamin will 'bring my grey head down to the grave with sorrow' (Gen 42:38), suggests that children were not so callously viewed as replaceable even in those times and circumstances.
I think examples such as Cicero's are partly reflecting the conventions of their time, and partly an attitude that was perhaps more realistic than our modern fearful culture, in which ageing, disability and death are treated as taboos. To them, a man should be a strong figure of leadership and it was unseemly for him to be seen grieving excessively - this attitude still exists in the British 'stiff upper lip' - and perhaps seeing other people's grief makes people uncomfortable and they'd rather people grieved out of sight. But excessive grief, to the ancients, was also something of a sign of unbalance; it betrayed either a lack of understanding and acceptance of the inevitability of death, or a lack of trust in one's chosen deity. One of the Stoics (I think it was Marcus Aurelius), wrote that every time he hugged his wife or child, he reminded himself that they were but mortal flesh and would one day die, so that he would not be overwhelmed when it happened. Thai Buddhist monks go on long mediation retreats at cemeteries or cremation grounds to teach themselves not to cling to earthly life (their own or that of loved ones) or the perishable body, and view excessive grief as the refusal to accept that someone has died, which is to pointlessly create suffering by railing against that which cannot be changed. St. Paul similarly tells us not to grieve like those who have no hope - that is, not to ape the hysterical funerary practices of the pagans (cf. Lev 19:28) - because that betrays a lack of trust in God (note that he doesn't say not to grieve at all - Christ wept for Lazarus, even knowing that he would restore him to life moments later - but Christians should not enter into the black despair of grief that comes with believing that someone is lost forever). This is, however, often easier said than done.
DeleteI generally agree with your points, I do wonder about this;
Delete"But we're told that Job's first children are of age: they die in an accident while 'feasting and drinking at their older brother's house', and Job must be relatively advanced in years"
I just wonder firstly what age "are of age" means? 12? 16? Are we at risk of assuming 21st century ideas of adulthood? I think if we think in terms of 15 as being of age, two sets of children doesn't seem so incredible?
And yes I know 15 is a bit arbitrary on my part, but I would say a reasonable assumption.
Possibly, it's never entirely clear how old any of the characters are (although 'of age' is traditionally 12 for females and 13 for males in Judaism). Jewish tradition holds, on the basis of the epilogue, that God gave Job twice as much life after his trails as he had lived before them. The Hebrew in 42:16 is unclear; it's usually translated as Job living another 140 years after his trials, but it could also mean that he lived to be 140 overall. Most commentators seem to place Job's age at around 70, when he suffered his trails (which seems a little on the old side to me, but the OT does contain widely inflated ages, the significance of which is largely lost on us, and anything righteous in multiples of 7 has symbolic overtones).
DeleteWe do know that Job was highly respected as 'the greatest man of all the people in the east' (1:3) and that when he sat in the town square, the young, old, nobles and princes would stop speaking and listen to his teachings (ch.29). Under Jewish law, one has to attain the age of 30 before being allowed to teach or lead services of holy days (Temple priests had to be 30 - Num. 4:3 - King David became king at 30 - 2 Sam 5:4 - and, of course, Jesus began his ministry at 30). So Job had to be at least 30; factor in the time it takes to build that kind of reputation, and I'm guessing 50 isn't unrealistic.
We also know from Ch. 1 that Job was married, had ten adult children, each of whom owned their own property and took it in turns to host feasts. Job offered sacrifices for any sins his children may have committed which, according to the later atonement system laid out in Ex. 30:11f., was unnecessary until a child reached the age of 20. Assuming that the same rules roughly applied, having ten adult children aged 20+ would again put Job at around 50, I think.
In the Jewish tradition, men reach manhood at 13, so a 'useful age' of around 13-15 seems right. That would place Job at around 65 by the time his second children were of age, by my reading (which is already fantastically old 😇); or around 85 by the traditional reading. (I'm ignoring the epilogue, which says that Job lived to see four generations of his children, as being an 'and they all lived happily ever after' literary device). I think that's pushing it a bit, working the land necessary to support 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen and 1,000 donkeys in one's 60s or 80s.
Well yes, like yourself I don't treat job as history. I do wonder whether all these Jewish requirements were actually around at the time of Job or did they come later?
Delete65 is a perfectly attainable age for the period, even if rarer than today
Colin Urquharts fraudulent little outfit is also like this church. Charismatics/ Pentecostalism, what's the difference ?
ReplyDeleteIt makes one's head spin!
DeleteAccording to Wiki, Colin Urquhart is a "Neo-charismatic" or "third-wave charismatic"/ "hypercharismatic"
"[A] movement within evangelical Protestant Christianity that is composed of a diverse range of independent churches and organizations that emphasize the post-biblical availability of gifts of the Holy Spirit, such as speaking in tongues and faith healing. The Neo-charismatic movement is considered to be the "third wave" of the Charismatic Christian tradition which began with Pentecostalism (the "first wave"), and was furthered by the Charismatic movement (the "second wave").[1]: 6 As a result of the growth of post-denominational and independent charismatic groups ...
The Neo-charismatic categorization is broad and diverse and includes any group that is not considered Pentecostal or Charismatic but still emphasizes the power of the Holy spirit and supernatural signs and wonders.[3]: 17–18 Pentecostals comprise Pentecostal denominations, charismatics bring Pentecostal tendencies to mainline denominations, but Neo-charismatics are indigenous, independent, post- and non-denominational Christian groups without formal denominational ties."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-charismatic_movement
Clear?
So in short there is no real difference 🙄
ReplyDeleteI think there are quite a lot of differences, but also a spectrum. Being not dirt poor myself nor wishing to be, while having a charismatic tinge to my beliefs, I think my place on the spectrum says that one should neither be taken by a spirit of penny-pinching poverty nor one of materialistic greed, ( and of course I fail all too frequently in both directions!) Instead one should want sufficient resources to help others-family, friends, colleagues, pets, and still wider circles.
DeleteI also think that one should ask God to equip one for service, but not to wish to show off affluence. As for 'name it and claim it', or 'blab it and grab it', as some send it up, I think it is a half or third truth. There may be occasions when it is true, and certainly names and words do have innate power, and the fear of cursing others by speaking bad words of them has a significant and commendable (even if mostly overblown) moral and spiritual dimension.
So yes, one can be someone who believes in much of the charismatic agenda while trying to preserve moderation and balance one thing against another. Francis McNutt for instance wrote some very good books on healing.
Hi Magnolia I will admit that I am at best lukewarm about the charismatic movement at best. However I will agree that there are a lot of godly charismatics.
ReplyDeleteMy comment about Pentecostals and Charismatics being the same was actually in reference to their understanding with regards spiritual gifts, not the prosperity gospel. I could have been clearer.