The Bible in the bin 2

I just want to follow up yesterday's post The Bible in the bin with further thoughts on the ending of Mark's Gospel. We saw yesterday that there is some confusion about the ending of chapter 16 and that vv.9-20 are not in the two oldest surviving copies of the Greek New Testament. Many scholars think these verses are spurious and even that they were added by the apostle Paul. The biblical scholar Bruce Metzger agreed that vv.9-20 were a later addition. He found the use of non-Markan words conclusive proof that someone had 'wished to provide a more appropriate ending.' Metzger was an editor of the Greek NT which is the foundation of most modern translations and he served on the editorial committee which brought us the RSV and NRSV.

An example of Metzger's thinking can be given. In 16.19 the writer introduces the words 'was taken up' or 'was received up' and this Greek word occurs nowhere else in the Gospels. Well, Mark uses 74 verbs which do not occur anywhere else in the Gospels and this is one of them. Mark is dealing with the resurrection, something totally outside of any human experience, so why not use a new word? Another example is the way Mary is described in v.9 despite being previously introduced in v.1. Again, we might ask why can't Mark use this form when, for example, John also uses a similar form when introducing himself as 'the disciple whom Jesus loved' in John 20.7 but in v.20 uses the additional 'the one who had reclined next to Jesus at supper.' Yet, no one disputes the ending of John's Gospel.

I think the case can be made for the place of Mark 16.9-20 in our Bible firstly on the basis of the evidence of the early Christian writers mentioned yesterday. There is also supporting evidence from the various translations that originated before the two disputed manuscripts, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. But I have found something else of interest. There appears to be some parallels between Mark 16.9-20 and Mark 1.1-20 and it might be that the Gospel writer used this as a form of inclusion. An inclusio is a rhetorical device used by many biblical writers to 'top and tail' an important text.

Compare these two texts and notice the reference to the manifestation of Jesus to the world, to the sending of a messenger, to demons and satan, to the proclaiming of the Good News, to baptism, to the sending of disciples, to the country and the wilderness, to the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and to the demonstration of faith. The use of an inclusion as a rhetorical device would indicate that the same writer is responsible for both the beginning and the end of Mark's Gospel. Therefore, the disputed verses should be included without doubt in our Bible. Sadly, the confusion has arisen because of the existence of those two oldest manuscripts which were probably discarded as corrupt in the first place. Indeed, one of them was found in a bin!

For more information see James E Snapp Jnr's essay on the ending of Mark.

The Bible in the bin

Codex Sinaiticus, Mark 16

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If you turn in your Bible to the Gospel of Mark, chapter 16, you will notice some confusion about the final verses. My NIV draws a line at the end of verse 8 and says 'Most early manuscripts omit Mark 16.9-20.' My ESV adds a note in the body of the text which says 'Some of the earliest manuscripts do not include 16.9-20.' My NRSV has two alternative endings, a shorter one and a longer one, with a footnote which says 'Some of the most ancient authorities bring the book to a close at the end of verse 8.' You might think that this is unimportant but when you consider that Mark was the first Gospel to be written, the one upon which the others were based, and that these verses include the first account of the resurrection, then you will see that we need to get to the bottom of this.

The problem has arisen because in biblical scholarship oldest is considered best.

In the photo above you can see a page from the oldest existing copy of the Greek New Testament, known as Codex Sinaiticus. It has been dated between AD325 and 360. The two columns on the left show the end of the Gospel of Mark. A line is drawn after the words 'and they said nothing to any one, for they were afraid' which is what we now know as the end of verse 8. Another copy of the Greek NT from the 4th century known as Codex Vaticanus, because it is stored in the Vatican library, also ends the Gospel of Mark here. You might think that this is conclusive proof that Mark did not include an account of the resurrection and many scholars would agree with you. But we need to investigate a little more closely.

Although we don't have any complete Greek NT manuscripts from before the 4th century we do have the writings of dozens of Christian writers who quoted or commentated on their bibles. Of these the following mention Mark 16 verses 9-20: Papias AD100, Justin Martyr AD151 (who quotes v.20), Irenaeus AD180 (v.19), Hippolytus around AD200 (vv.17 and 18), Vincentius (vv.17 and 18) at the Council of Carthage AD256, the 3rd century Gospel of Nicodemus quotes 15, 16, 17 and 18, the 'Apostolical Constitutions' of the 3rd or 4th century quotes v.16, Eusebius AD325 is familiar with all the verses, the Homily of Aphraates AD337 (vv.16, 17 and 18), Ambrose AD374-97 (vv.15, 16, 17, 18 and 20). Other early writers who were familiar with Mark 16.9-20 include Augustine, Chrysostom, Nestorius, Cyril, and Victor.

We also have other translations of the NT other than Greek and these include the Peshitto Syriac (4th [not 2nd] C), the Curetonian Syriac (3rd C), the Philoxenian Syriac (5th C), Jerome's Latin (4th C), Old Latin (2nd C), the Thebaic (3rd C), the Gothic (4th C), the Egyptian (4th or 5th C) and the Armenian (5th C). All these versions would have been translations of even earlier copies of the Greek NT than the Sinaiticus or Vaticanus manuscripts, and all of them show evidence of the disputed verses of Mark.

We need to ask ourselves why these two versions, the Sinaiticus and the Vaticanus, have come to dominate biblical scholarship. Here things become more like an 'Indiana Jones' movie. The Greek manuscript known as Codex Sinaiticus was first spotted in the monastery of St Catherine, at the foot of Mt. Sinai, in 1844, by archaeologist Constantin von Tischendorf. In fact it was found in a waste paper basket ready for burning! A monk noticed Tischendorf's keen interest and became suspicious, and the manuscript was retrieved. The professor managed to take 43 leaves away with him and these he published in 1846. Tischendorf returned to St. Catherine's in 1853 but left empty handed. In 1859 he again visited the monastery this time under the patronage of the Tsar of Russia. He managed to negotiate the removal of the remaining documents although there is still controversy over whether they were given on the assurance of their return. The Tsar compensated the monastery with 9000 ruples but the documents are still regarded as stolen to this day. (The British bought most of the manuscript for £100,000 in 1933.) Tischendorf published the complete manuscript in 1862.

Two British scholars were quick to use this new critical edition of the Greek NT. Brooke Foss Westcott (later Bishop of Durham) and Fenton John Anthony Hort (Lady Margaret Professor in 1887) relied heavily on Codex Sinaiticus, and Codex Vaticanus, to produced their own reconstruction of the text. They argued that the traditional version of the Greek NT was inaccurate, having accumulated 100s of years of mistakes, and had been forced upon the church by ecclesiastic necessity. The Westcott and Hort Greek NT was published just in time for a copy to be given to the revision committee working on a new English version of the Bible. In 1881 this became known as the Revised Version (RV) and was intended to replace the 'Authorised' King James Version of 1611. A reliance on the oldest manuscripts of the NT has remained the main feature of Bible translations ever since.

This may seem like good scholarship, surely the closer we are to the originals the more accurate the texts. Well, not necessarily, especially if the oldest manuscripts we have are corrupt or incorrect. It has been argued that the only reason these manuscripts have survived for so long was because they weren't being used. Any hand written parchment documents which were in regular use would have long since become worn and unusable. That two such good copies have survived this long begs the question why? Were they just naff copies? Despite his obvious enthusiasm Tischendorf reckoned that the Sinai document had been written by four separate scribes and had been corrected by five different editors. Tischendorf himself had to make some 20,000 corrections before he published it! Dean Burgon of Chichester argued that Sinaiticus and Vaticanus were 'the most scandalously corrupt copies extant' and 'exhibit the most shamefully mutilated texts which are anywhere to be met with.'

Previously, the traditional text of the Greek NT, which came to be known as the 'Byzantine' Text, had been the only text to rival the Latin version of Jerome. This was the text behind the Greek translation used by the Orthodox monks of St. Catherine's for centuries. This Byzantine Text is attested to by over 5,000 manuscripts from all over the Byzantine world. The definitive version of this text, the Received Text (Textus Receptus), was compiled by various editors including Erasmus, Stephens, Beza, and the Elzevir brothers, and was used by Tyndale for his first complete version of the Bible in English. Luther used it for his German translation. It also became the basis for the new English translation for the Church of England in 1611, known as the 'Authorised' King James Version.

Today the Received Text is frowned upon by scholars, as is the King James Version in biblical studies, simply because of the existence of the older texts. But does oldest mean best?

It seems ironic that Tischendorf was more concerned with the Bible in the bin than the Bible used for centuries by the monks of St. Catherine's. It is even more ironic that the Bible in the bin came to usurp those texts which had been used throughout Christendom for 1800 years. Despite the best efforts of scholars we still do not have the original texts of the Bible. In 1985 professor James Charlesworth of Princeton admitted 'Today Biblical scholars know we are far from possessing the original manuscripts written by the New Testament authors.' Also that 'we are no longer looking for a text free from corruption for we are no longer convinced that we can reconstruct the text as it existed in the first century.'

So where does all this leave us? Well, this is not just an academic exercise and the ending of Mark is just one example among many. The Church deserves to have a biblical text that it can rely on. My three versions of the Bible, the NIV, ESV, NRSV, can all be traced back to that bin at the foot of Mt. Sinai. Their reference to 'most early manuscripts' actually refers to just a few which may be of doubtful origin.

Next year we will celebrate the 400th anniversary of the printing of the King James (1611) Version and scholars will once again, no doubt, debate the validity, or otherwise, of the Textus Receptus behind its New Testament. Does this ancient text which includes the final verses of the Gospel of Mark, a text that was used for centuries all over the world, deserve to be taken more seriously? Or should a seemingly corrupt and little used manuscript continue to dominate modern translations of the Word of God? My money is on the text used by the monks of St. Catherine's and not on the one that was found in their bin.

To be continued.

(sources: Secrets of Mount Sinai by James Bentley, The Text of the New Testament by Metzger and Ehrman, The King James Version Defended by E. F. Hills, and good old Wikipedia)

Pope meets the Flowerpot men!

Pope Benedict meets the Flowerpot men!

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Spotted this picture on another blog and couldn't resist posting it here. It does lend itself to a caption competition.

Try as I might I can't see Little Weed!

or

"Your Holiness, here we have the Anglican Communion! TaaDaa!!

or

The first batch of Anglo-Catholic converts.

A Spiritual Temple

The Church has just celebrated Candlemas, the presentation of the young Jesus in the temple at Jerusalem (Luke 2.22-38). Simeon and Anna were holy people who happened to be in the temple precincts when Mary and Joseph brought their son. Simeon was guided to the temple looking for the Messiah while Anna 'never left the temple but worshipped there with fasting and prayer day and night.' The temple was the focus of their worship and a place in which people came to encounter God. But Simeon and Anna recognised the divine spirit in the person of Jesus rather than in the temple walls. Jesus would later tell the woman at Jacob's well in Samaria that the time was coming when people would worship God 'in spirit and truth' not just in the temple (John 4.21-24). John Henry Newman wrote that 'Faith opens upon us Christians the Temple of God wherever we are; for that Temple is a spiritual one, and so is everywhere present.' Therefore, we can enjoy communion with God, through prayer, wherever we are in the world.

The Book of Eli

I went to see The Book of Eli at the cinema last night. Starring Denzel Washington it is a fast paced post-apocalyptic adventure about a road warrior heading west. Food and water are the commodities to die (or kill) for but Eli carries something even more important, an old Bible. Gary Oldman, who plays the baddie as usual, will do anything to get his hands on it because, he says, it's not a book its a weapon!
If you haven't seen it yet I won't spoil it for you but I just want to reflect on a couple of points raised by the film. Firstly, as a main stream action movie with first rate actors it will give a huge audience exposure to the idea of the Bible as something special, as a sacred text. It also focusses the mind (or at least it should) on what is really important to us.
As human beings created in the image of God we have both material and spiritual needs. Food and water sustain our bodies but faith nourishes a spiritual dimension, a yearning, that often lies hidden. People try to plug that gap with more and more material things - the latest designer fashions, clothes or perfumes. The trendiest gadgets or the coolest music, the fastest cars or the most graphic computer games. But there is always something missing - a meaning to one's life, a path to walk and a journey to make. Faith is always more than what the material world can offer, it is even more than a 'book'. Faith is a relationship with the living God - a relationship with a God who has walked this earth and who knows our pain and our suffering.
Having faith does not mean that life will be easy. People of faith die every day and sometimes in the most horrible of circumstances. Many people ask how God can allow suffering in the world. Ask him. Stand before him and tell him how you have suffered in this life and he will hold forth his pierced hands, and he will show you his wounded side. God has shared our pain, and our suffering and our sorrow. But he offers us something more, something that endures, something that cannot die or be taken from us. He offers each and every human being love and hope, hope of eternal life. A life more beautiful than anyone could ever imagine - a life more satisfying than any earthly luxury. And we can begin to enjoy that love and hope right now. That is the message of the Bible and that is even more exciting than any Hollywood blockbuster.
Finally, The Book of Eli is a good film to mark the coming 400th birthday of the King James (1611) version of the Holy Bible. Perhaps the people behind the film had this in mind. Denzel Washington, who is a devout Christian himself, has given us a wonderful opportunity to consider just how fortunate we are to be able to reach across to our bookshelf and take in our own hands the Holy Bible, a sacred book, the Word of God, and read it in our own language.
If the film encourages just a few people to do just that then it will have done the Christian faith a great service.
Go and see the film (rated 15) and see what you think.

Garden Birdwatch

Our bird feeding station

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Today we took part in the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. During this weekend all RSPB members were asked to watch their gardens for one hour and count the maximum number of each species at any one time. Our best counts were as follows:

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Blackbird 2

Blue Tit 1

Dunnock 1

Goldfinch 4

House Sparrow 5

Magpie 1

Robin 1

Woodpigeon 2

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We were very pleased to see the Goldfinches, who just happened to stop by in one of our trees. Conspicuous by their absence was our nesting pair of Collared Doves and another regular, a Wren. In the photo above (click to enlarge) there is a Blue Tit on the coconut feeder but it's not very clear. Frustrating was that there were a dozen or so Starlings in a nearby tree and lots of seagulls and crows circling overhead but none of them landed in our garden. Nevertheless, it was a good excuse to sit and watch the birds for an hour, and hopefully the combined results from all members will give the RSPB some useful statistics.

Books, cars and small parts!

This morning as I drove away from the university library I was overtaken by a sports car being driven by a young man who had obviously managed to avoid the worst of the financial crisis. His display of heavy-footedness confirmed two scientific theories simultaneously. Firstly, that a Lotus Elise is faster than a Fiat Cinquecento (all 899cc of it). Secondly, that a man's contribution to the erosion of the ozone layer is in inverse proportion to the size of a certain part of his anatomy.
It is a beautiful crisp sunny day and I feel like getting in touch with my, mostly dormant, rebellious side. We all have one, of course. Jung called it the 'shadow' side of our personality. But when you hit midlife (or what you think will be midlife) you begin to wonder were it's been hiding all these years.
As someone who drives the world's smallest car, never 'does' the lottery, and never, ever, watches daytime TV, my idea of rebellion is to drink tea, ponder The Communist Manifesto, and enjoy the warm rays of afternoon sunshine, regardless of the increased risk of radiation. Thank you Mr Elise man!

Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas is one of the greatest theologian/philosophers of Christianity. He was born in 1225 and died in 1274. He was canonised a saint in 1323 and his ideas came to dominate catholic theology and education (the same thing in those days) right up until the beginning of the 20th century. Many of our greatest modern theologians, like Karl Rahner, received a 'Thomistic' education.

Thomas was born the year before St. Francis died and this was an era of great change for Christianity. The centres of education moved from the powerful monasteries, like the ones at Mont St Michel, Bec and Melk (think of the film The Name of the Rose), to the universities of Paris, Naples and Oxford. Thomas received his education from the monks of Monte Cassino until moving to the University of Naples. Here Thomas came into contact with the rediscovered writings of Aristotle.

Despite various attempts to dissuade him (including incarceration by his family) Thomas joined the Dominican Order and began to travel widely (Rome, Cologne, Paris) and to teach. He wrote that 'it is a greater thing to give light than simply to have light, and it is a greater thing to pass on to others what you have contemplated than just to contemplate.'

He is perhaps most well known for his 5 ways of proving the existence of God which were all a logical progression of his argument that there must be a 'first cause' for all things which change or move. 'Of necessity therefore anything moved is moved by something else ... Now we must stop somewhere, otherwise there will be no first cause of the movement and as a result no subsequent causes.' For Thomas that first cause is God.

While Thomas Aquinas is rightly regarded as a great thinker, occasionally he gets things wrong. In fact, sometimes Thomas seems completely off his trolley! Thomas called women "misbegotten males" and thought that women were only created for procreation. He sees the fairer sex as inherently defective and 'by nature subordinate to man, because the power of rational discernment is by nature stronger in man'. Women 'seldom keep a firm grip on things' and must remain sober because 'they are not tough enough to withstand their longings'. Clearly women were kept firmly in their place in the 13th century.

I'll leave you to ponder this classic piece of Thomistic thinking, on miracles:
'It is a fact that the world cultivated idols, as the very history of the pagans shows. But how were all of them converted to Christ, both the wise and the rich, both powerful and the multitude, by the preaching of simple people who were both poor and few in number, preaching poverty and flight from delights? Either this fact is miraculous, or not. If it is miraculous, I have made my point. If it is not miraculous, I say that there cannot be a greater miracle than that the world should be converted without miracles. No need to search any further.'

(source: The Thought of Thomas Aquinas by Brian Davies OP, Oxford 1993)

Women at the altar?

Women at the altar?

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Grab yourself a cup of coffee and then come and sit with me for a while.

As I have been reflecting on my journey towards ordination, which God willing, will be in June this year, I realise that I have become much clearer in my understanding of the role of women in ministry. Until quite recently I was against the ordination of women to the priesthood and I thought I had good theological reasons to be so. Doesn't the Bible tell us that man is to be the 'head' over his family and that women are not even allowed to speak in church? Doesn't the sacramental tradition of the Church also accept that the priest at the altar represents Jesus Christ? The priest stands in persona Christi, and, of course, Jesus was a man. Sound biblical and theological reasons to be against, or so I thought.

I have, as regular readers of this blog will know, come to revise this view. Firstly, my view has been challenged by my own experience of the ministry of women. I have met many women priests over the last three years, some of them deacons, priests, canons, archdeacons and even deans. I have had tutors that have been women priests, including the vice-principal of my ministerial course. Within the Franciscan order, to which I belong, women priests have taken on the role of leadership at all levels. Half of my fellow students, some of which are also my closest friends, are women who are going to be ordained and I have been privileged to see their sense of vocation grow and flourish alongside my own. I have no doubt that all these wonderfully gifted women are called to exercise ordained ministry within the Church of England, and the Church would be greatly impoverished without them.

I have also come to revise my view for biblical and theological reasons. Firstly, if you read the creation narrative in the book of Genesis you will see that any idea of subordination of women to men is a consequence of the Fall. The original plan for humanity was that men and women should both equally reflect the image of God (Genesis 1.26, 27). It wasn't until after the introduction of sin and disobedience into the world that humanity was burdened with the idea of headship and patriarchy (3.16). Subordination came along with the thorns and the weeds, with toil and suffering. This patriarchal system dominated the narrative of the Old Testament, with a few exceptions, like Deborah (Judges 4) who was a military leader and judge, and Esther, the young Jewish girl who saved many of her people.

Jesus seems to challenge the perceived view of women. He refuses to condemn the woman caught in adultery or to rebuke the woman who was suffering from uncontrollable bleeding. Look at the encounter of Jesus with the woman from Samaria (John 4). Here we see Jesus convert the city of Sychar through the ministry of a woman. His disciples are astounded, not because she was a Samaritan but because she was a woman (v.27)! Through the witness of one woman a whole city came to know that Jesus Christ was the Messiah, the Saviour of the world.

But what about those letters of Paul, don't they insist on the subordination of women? Well, actually no. We have forgotten that Paul was writing to people who were in a very different situation to us today. When Paul wrote to the young Church in Corinth (I'm thinking now of 1 Corinthians 14.26-40) things were very different indeed. The word church is our translation of the Greek ekklesia, which means assembly. The early Christians met in each other's houses and not in purpose built churches like today. In fact, it wasn't until the 3rd and 4th centuries, after the conversion of Constantine, that churches began to be built after the same designs as Roman law courts.

I think worship in some people's houses in Corinth was probably more like the scenes in Monty Python's Life of Brian. "He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy!" During these early meetings, with the singing of psalms, and the old scriptures being reinterpreted in the light of Jesus' death and resurrection, people (including women) kept interrupting and disturbing the flow of the worship. Paul is saying that this must stop - there must be peace if the worship is going to give glory to God. "Christian men keep your women under control, and you women keep the noise down and your husbands will explain things to you later!" Go and read the letters to the Corinthians in the light of this and see if makes a difference. We need to be careful how we read the letters of Paul if we want to apply them to our situation today. If you want to read a good scholar on this I recommend Ben Witherington and his books.

But what about the priest at the altar, should it be a man? Well, as much as it hurts me as an Anglo-catholic to write this, you will find no justification for this in the New Testament. There I said it. There is no Christian Scripture that calls any of the disciples of Jesus Christ a priest. The word is used to refer to the 'royal priesthood' of all believers (1 Peter 2.9, 10) and to the high priesthood of Jesus Christ (Hebrews 7.26). Nowhere does it refer to the followers of Jesus as priests. It wasn't until Hippolytus and his Apostolic Tradition (AD 215) that bishops began to be called presbyters, priests, because they had the 'spirit of the high priesthood.'

Of course, again after Constantine (he's got a lot to answer for!), we see the growing number of churches, now basilicas after the design of law courts, adapt the old temple practices of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem. It is from here on that the Christian Church develops its understanding of the sacred ministry of bishops and deacons, and only later, priests. Priesthood has more to do with Second Temple Judaism than New Testament Christianity, as writers like Margaret Barker are discovering.

However, the Catholic Church soon developed its idea of the priest as acting in persona Christi because of its understanding of the Eucharist as a sacrifice. It was in 1215 that the Roman Catholic Church finally nailed down its theology of the priesthood. In response to the appalling state of the clergy of the time Pope Innocent III called the Fourth Lateran Council. Here was introduced the idea of transubstantiation, the changing of the bread and the wine into the actual body and blood of Christ. Now the clergy had real power and deserved real respect and even reverence. Other reforms ensured that the people had to go regularly to their priests for confession and an Easter communion service. It is these reforms that transformed the sacred priesthood into what we understand it to be today, at least in the 'catholic' tradition.

It was in obedience to Innocent III that St Francis admonished his brothers and sisters: 'Woe to those who look down upon them [clergy]; for even though they be sinners, no one should judge them because the Lord reserves judgement on them to Himself. For ... their ministry is greater in its concerns for the most holy Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which they receive and they alone administer to others.' It was not about who the priest was but about what they did, or rather what God did through them.

Recently, Rome clarified that it understands a deacon to act 'in imago Dei', that is, in the image of God, and a bishop or priest to act 'in persona Christi', in the person of Christ. But do they have to be male? Does the gender of the person in some way inhibit the power of God to ordain whoever he chooses? Does a sense of vocation depend on the balance of hormones coursing through one's veins? Traditionally, of course, and following on from that patriarchal system the clergy have been male. That's not really surprising. Women weren't allowed onto the PCC until 1914, or even allowed to vote until 1928!

Although an odd order of 'deaconesses' has existed since 1861, or so, the Church didn't really know what to do with them. Were the deaconess in Holy Orders or not? The Church never really decided. It was not until after the Sex Discrimination Act of 1975 that the Church began to sort out how it felt about women's ministry. As early as 1975 Synod had decided that it had 'no fundamental objections to the ordination of women to the priesthood.' In 1986 women were finally allowed to serve as deacons, but only as deacons. It was in 1993 that Synod voted to allow women to become priests and the first were ordained in Bristol Cathedral in 1994. Now something like 40% of clergy are women and they make up 50% of those training for the ministry.

I think that the priest stands at the altar representing all the people of God, the royal priesthood of all believers. The priests repeat the words of Christ's institution because they have been ordained through the apostolic line of episcopal leadership. Bishops carry, and pass on, the gift of the Holy Spirit, be it in confirmation, ordination or consecration. Priests preside at the Eucharist on behalf of the bishop who has licensed them to officiate. The priest is representative of the whole congregation just as Christ represented the whole of humanity. Yes, Jesus was a man, the Second Adam, but the priest is not the Second Christ and therefore doesn't need to be a man. The priest just needs to be a human being, and that in itself is sometimes hard enough!

Through the power of the Holy Spirit it is not the priest, man or woman, who consecrates the bread and the wine, it is God himself. The words of the institution are in the first person tense, "This is my body" not because the priest is in persona Christi but because Jesus is speaking those words again. This is the anamnesis, the solemn commemoration of what Jesus did in the past but in a way that transcends time. The dark cloak of the past is drawn to the side and we see again the once and for all sacrifice of Jesus Christ, as if for the very first time. Look not upon the gender of the priest but behold the body and blood of the Saviour of the world, Jesus Christ.

These are, of course, just the rambling thoughts of an ordinand who finds himself wide awake at 6 o'clock in the morning, but I hope they may be useful for others to read.

I And My Rose

I AND MY ROSE

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THERE is a world of wonder in this rose;

God made it, and His whole creation grows

To a point of perfect beauty

In this garden plot. He knows

The poet's thrill

On this June morning, as He sees

His Will

To beauty taking form, His word

Made flesh, and dwelling among men.

All mysteries

In this one flower meet

And intertwine,

The universal is concrete

The human and divine,

In one unique and perfect thing, are fused

Into a unity of Love,

This rose as I behold it;

For all things gave it me,

The stars have helped to mould it,

The air, soft moonshine, and the rain,

The meekness of old mother earth,

The many-billowed sea.

The evolution of ten million years,

And all the pain

Of ages, brought it to its birth

And gave it me.

The tears

Of Christ are in it,

And His Blood

Has dyed it red,
I could not see it but for Him

Because He led

Me to the Love of God,

From which all Beauty springs.

I and my rose

Are one.

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Revd G A Studdert Kennedy

"Woodbine Willie"

(1883-1929)

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This is one of the poems from Woodbine Willie's collection of verse The Unutterable Beauty. My wife and I visited the Museum of Army Chaplaincy, near Andover in Hampshire, just before Christmas. I was struck by the incredible ministry of this man even amidst the unutterably terrible conditions in the trenches of WWI.

An Altar in the World

Barbara Brown Taylor

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One of my favourite writers on things religious is Barbara Brown Taylor. She is an Episcopal priest and university lecturer, and she was once listed among the best preachers in America. I'm just reading her new book An Altar in the World published by Canterbury Press, 2009.

In the book Brown recounts the story of Jacob's dream of the angels ascending and descending a ladder to heaven. When he awoke he built an altar to God in the wilderness by erecting a stone pillar. Jacob marked the place as special, even sacred. However, Brown rightly points out the danger of trying to confine God within these special places, like within the walls of our churches. Sometimes the problem with our churches are the four walls we build around them, and I'm not just thinking of the brick ones.

I'm back at college again for a new term and the current module is Mission and Education. We are considering many of the important factors of contemporary society which affect Christian mission. But I am increasingly convinced that we must avoid falling into the trap of thinking about the 'sacred' and the 'secular' as if there were two different worlds. Atheists, of course, would have us believe in this dualism but that is not how God sees it. The whole world is his creation and through the work of the Holy Spirit, which blows where he wants, God is present everywhere. So let us look for signs of God's presence everywhere we go and in everyone we meet. Whether at home, or at work, or in the supermarket, let us begin right now, right where you are.

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Highly recommended is this sermon by Sarcastic Lutheran. How do you link the story of the Wedding at Cana with the destruction in Haiti? Lutheran minister Nadia does it beautifully.

Taming the Bible?

The Holy Bible

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Yesterday I had cause to expound a few passages of Scripture in response to an email from a friend. I fear that I may have come across as a little heavy-handed in my argument and a little blase in my interpretation of Scripture. If that was the case then I hope my friend can forgive me.

This has made me think about how we use the Holy Bible to support our arguments and about how we have a tendency to explain away those bits of the Bible we don't like. Of course, much of the New Testament contains letters which were written at a particular time and place for a particular context. Paul's letter to the Romans contains the most important summary of Christian doctrine that we have, but it was actually written to a church he had never visited with a view to it being his next base from which to launch a missionary expedition into Spain.

Many of the issues that Paul addresses in his letters were local issues, disputes among the early Christians who were struggling to make sense of the story of Jesus Christ, in both Jewish and Pagan worlds.

An example is Paul's writings on the idea of justification in Romans. Modern scholars like the Bishop of Durham, Tom Wright, argue that Paul was seeking to justify those Gentile believers who were outside of the covenant people of God, the Jewish community. These Gentiles could be accepted by God into a saving relationship with him without observing the old law and without being circumcised. Faith was their way in to a relationship which the Jews already enjoyed through birthright. Wright says that justification is not about how individuals get saved but about how they are brought into the community of God, and this has led to a heated debate with the New Testament scholar and preacher John Piper.

Of course, insights of biblical scholarship and research are important and useful. It was the tradition of the Jewish Rabbis to interpret the Scriptures after they had been read aloud in the synagogue. They expounded the Scriptures and applied them to the context of the hearers.

But there is also a danger here, that the Bible loses its ability to be a vehicle for the Holy Spirit to speak to an individuals heart. Certainly since the Reformation and the advent of printing the Holy Bible has been used by God to save millions of people's souls. Everyone must have heard the story of the Welsh girl Mary Jones who saved all her money and made the long arduous journey through the valleys in order to buy her own copy of the Bible. Bible believing Christians down the centuries have diligently read the Scriptures and have turned their lives towards God in faith and humble service, without the insights of scholarship and criticism.

The Larger Catechism of the Westminster Assembly (1648) said:

'The holy scriptures are to be read with a high and reverent esteem of them; with a firm persuasion that they are the very word of God, and that he only can enable us to understand them.'

It pleased God that the Church accepted the canon of Scripture, our Old and New Testaments, as authoritative. As Robert Jenson writes 'once a canon of Scripture is in place, it has authority also over against any particular dogmatic proposal' (Systematic Theology 1, p.26). The Bible stands over us as the Word of God.

Karl Barth warned of the danger that 'the Bible will be taken prisoner by the Church, that its own life will be absorbed into the life of the Church, that its free power will be transformed into the authority of the Church, in short, that it will lose its character as a norm magisterially confronting the Church.' (Church Dogmatics I.1, p.106)

So we must always be aware of the danger of 'taming' the Holy Bible and even making it say what we want it to say. The Bible must be allowed to 'confront' the Church, and each individual believer in every generation, with its call to repentance and its offer of forgiveness and salvation. We must read and listen to Scripture in a prayerful manner with an open heart, always being prepared for the leading and guiding breath of the Holy Spirit. May it always be so.