I decided to take Hannah Hurnard off of My Inspirations on the sidebar of this blog. I was inspired by her popular book “Hind’s Feet on High Places.” But I came to discover today that later in life she fell into some very strange doctrines like reincarnation, etc.
I found this very helpful quote from Pope Benedict XVI here. He emphasizes interpreting Scripture as a unity, not just cherry-picking our favorite things or reading it as a random collection of books. Check it out:
The Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, stated: “I would very much like to see theologians learn to interpret and love Scripture as the Council desired, in accordance with Dei Verbum: may they experience the inner unity of Scripture—something that today is helped by ‘canonical exegesis’ (still to be found, of course, in its timid first stages)—and then make a spiritual interpretation of it that is not externally edifying but rather an inner immersion into the presence of the Word. It seems to me a very important task to do something in this regard, to contribute to providing an introduction to living Scripture as an up-to-date Word of God, beside, with and in historical-critical exegesis.”
I just linked to the blog Singing in the Reign, which is written by Brant Pitre and Michael Barber. I met both of them about a week and a half ago at the Society for Biblical Literature Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA. I had met Dr. Pitre briefly about a year ago in Denver. Check out their blog if you get a chance!
I came across a curious comment in Moshe Greenburg’s Anchor Bible Ezekiel Commentary recently. He mentioned the fact that a full scroll of Ezekiel was found at Qumran, but it could not be opened. He referenced a particular article and left it at that. I thought “Yikes!” I mean if we found a whole scroll of Ezekiel, it seems like we ought to x-raying it and CAT-scanning it and whatver else we can do to recover its text. So, I’ve been hunting for the article. Here’s the reference: Brownlee, William H. “The Scroll of Ezekiel from the Eleventh Qumran Cave.” Revue de Qumran 13 (1963): 11-28.
Unfortunately, not very many libraries keep this journal and it’s not in any electronic databases I’ve used. But I did find this book: Brownlee, William H. The Meaning of the Qumran Scrolls for the Bible. New York: Oxford University Press, 1964. This book in general looks very helpful although I have not endeavored to read it. I searched for its comments on the Ezekiel scroll since it is by the same author as the article. He cites his own article in reference to the scroll but in the book he does state this: “An attempt to open this scroll was largely a failure, since the document had almost completely disintegrated into an unstratified mass of desiccated gelatin. A few small fragments (or scales) of text were recoverable from the outside and seem to indicate a general agreement with the familiar Masoretic text.”
So it appears this Qumran scroll is not as important as I initially thought, nor as recoverable. Undoubtedly more work has been done on it and as I find it, I’ll update this post. And if I do get my hands on the Brownlee article, I’ll tell you anything important it says.
As I have been working slowly through the Lectionary to write Lectio Divina meditations on it, I have noticed many times where the Lectionary omits verses right in the middle of a reading. This can be very distracting if you are trying to study the Bible based on the readings for the week or the day because you have to keep switching back and forth from your Bible to your missal. And sometimes, the verses omitted are vital to understand what is going on in the text.
After encountering this the umpteenth time, I resorted to some Googling to find an answer as to why these stray verses got omitted by the Lectionary. I found the official introduction to the Lectionary which explains the problem thus:
I don’t quite understand how “pastoral grounds” apply all the time. I think the omission of certain verses is often quite jarring and unhelpful to someone trying to understand the text. For example, I’m working on the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C which has 2 Macc 7:1-2,9-14 for the First Reading. It the story of the seven sons getting executed before their mother by Antiochus IV Epiphanes. But by cutting out verses 3-8, the pronoun “he” in verse 9 is stripped of its antecedent which was the second brother. As the reading is presented it seems as though the first brother is being mentioned by “he” in verse 9. It also makes very little sense that there is a “third” brother since we never met the second one–although we do here his voice, it seems like the first is speaking because of the “he” problem. And it makes even less sense that he holds out his hands and says he disdains them because without vv. 3-7 we are not told that the first and second brothers got their hands and feet cut off.
I suppose that these particular things are minor points, but they illustrate a greater difficulty with omitting verses. And the main thing that I think was probably the “pastoral ground” for omitting the verses has to do with the graphic violence associated with the torture of these men (e.g. cutting off the hands and tongue, frying, etc.) Yet I think the violence is what makes their martyrdom such a powerful story, such an astounding witness, such a great example of courage.