Centennial

I just noticed that my last post was my 100th blog post.

Woooo!

The End,
Kev

Bob Marley and Hermeneutics

So the good Bob Marley came up on the ol' iPod today as I pulled into Park Royal on the people's limo. There's a wonderful song Mr. Marley sings entitled, "No Woman, No Cry". Let's just look at that title and have a little fun.

What does "No Woman, No Cry" mean? I see two possible ways of interpreting it:
1. "(if) no woman, (then) no cry" - a statement of result. If you don't have a woman, then you won't have reason to cry; with relationships comes pain and so on, you know the drill. Perhaps the more obvious meaning from the syntax and word choice alone.
2. "no woman - don't cry!" - an imperative. Here you're telling the woman to not cry; it is an imperative command. This one isn't as obvious - unless, like me, you've heard brown ESLers speak.

Now, if you've actually heard the song then you know that the answer to my question is obvious. But that's the key - you need to have heard the rest of the song.

Just thought this would be a fun example to show how complex interpretation of language actually is.

Cheers,
Kev

My Problem With My Methods Course

I think I've pinpointed the reason why I am disappointed with my 'methods in the study of religion' course.

I was expecting a course that was going to cover various approaches to interpreting religious literature. I wanted a course to cover all the various criticisms I'd heard of: historical criticism, literary criticism, narrative criticism, source criticism, form criticism, redaction criticism, reader response criticism, etc... Basically, I expected a course on exegesis and hermeneutics. These were the types of courses I had seen as part of the curriculum of both graduate biblical studies programs, as well as all the undergraduate biblical studies programs in the UK, which, by the way, I spent many a day drooling over.

However, what I got was a course on how to interpret religion on the macro scale. We are talking about how various theorists have studied the phenomenon of religion. Figures such as Eliade, Marx, Durkheim, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Otto; approaches such as colonial, postcolonial, and feminist. As you can see, this is very different from what I expected, and wanted.

Although, yes, I am interested in the stuff we talk about--how do we interpret religion? how do we interpret the 'poetics'? the 'politics'?--it really isn't super interesting to me. I want a course to guide me through the various approaches to interpretation of religious documents and literature.

I guess I won't be getting that at UBC. Oh well.

Kev

God Wills It

This is one of those posts where I've had something mulling about my head for some time and just needed to put it down in sentences and try to get my thoughts straight.

I often hear people talk about the "will of God". They will do so-and-so if "God wills it"; they don't know if they should do such-and-such because they don't know if God "wills it". As I hear this, I thinking to myself: God doesn't will anything. I'll explain.

I take very seriously the fact that humans are free creatures (yes, Free-Will). To qualify this, sometimes we have physical barriers to action (alcohol? illness? handicap?); sometimes we have economic barriers (no money?); sometimes we have mental barriers (fear? insecurity? shock?). But, in light of all this, I think I can still say that human beings have a free will.

The next step in my thinking is such: if we are free creatures, then we are free to make our own decisions. The fact that we are creatures capable of making our own decisions makes me think that perhaps that's the way God intended us to be. So then, God has allowed us the capacity to make our own conscious decisions in life.

One may say at this point that indeed we are free - free to choose the path that is God's will. Well, maybe that's the way it is. But I want to propose something else: God won't make the choice for us. That is the reason we are free creatures, to make our own choices. Now, we have guidance: we want to strive to build character, and we want to avoid actions that are morally wrong (e.g., murder, robbery, and other universally recognized wrongs); we have wisdom, experience, and common sense; we have the advice of others. Why would God provide us with all this if he wants us to make the choice that he himself has already made?

I think what I'm getting at is that there are two different paradigms of how to approach living the Christian life and making decisions. One approach is to try and figure out the one-and-0nly-one thing which God wills that we do. The other approach is to recognize the boundaries (don't kill, act in love, etc...) and make our decision using the heart and head which we all have.

If God made a creation which can self-create (no lies, I'm an evolutionist)--and I would think he very much enjoys watching this process--then surely he enjoys seeing created beings create their own paths through life.

I have rambled long enough. I can see a dozen loose ends and logical faults in what I've said. But I ask for your grace as you read - consider this a publicly available freewrite.

Cheers,
Kev

Rabbinic Nugget - The Short but Long Road

Another great snippet from the Babylonian Talmud:

I was once on a journey when I noticed a little boy sitting at the cross-road. 'By what road,' I asked him, 'do we go to the town?' 'This one,' he replied, 'is short but long, and that one is long but short.' I proceeded along the 'short but long' road. When I approached the town I discovered that it was hedged in by gardens and orchards. Turning back I said to him, 'My son, did you not tell me that this road was short?' 'And,' he replied, 'did I not also tell you: but long?'

Wonderful!

Rabbinic Nugget - "My Sons Have Defeated Me"

I want to share a wonderful quote from the Babylonian Talmud (a major text of Rabbinic Judaism):

But R. Joshua arose and exclaimed: 'It is not in heaven.' (Deut 30.12) What did he mean by this?-Said R. Jeremiah: That the Torah had already been given at Mount Sinai; we pay no attention to a Heavenly Voice, because Thou hast long since written in the Torah at Mount Sinai, After the majority must one incline. (Ex. 23.2)
R. Nathan met Elijah and asked him: What did the Holy One, Blessed be He, do in that hour?-He laughed with joy, he replied, saying, 'My sons have defeated Me, My Sons have defeated Me.'

I must say, one thing I love about Judaism--and the Rabbis in particular--is their playfulness and their constant dialogue and reinterpretation.

Multitasking?

A humourous, but true, depiction of 'multitasking':



Hats off to 43 Folders.

Cheers,
Kev