While my first book, O Theophilus, dealt with matters of genre and text, due to popular demand, this book shall examine how we understand Scripture–indeed, how Scripture can be Scripture. Even, how can *all* of Scripture be Scripture for us. In this regard, I would like to approach the problem from two complimentary directions. The first is theological, the second, catechetical.

Theologically, I understand Scripture to be the Word of God. But there is another whom we also call the Word of God, Christ Jesus our Lord. I propose that our way for understanding them both ought to be related. In fact, I wish to begin by discussing Incarnation in general. Incarnation, most simply, is how our God of Spirit, truth, and power, humbles Himself, veils Himself, to take on flesh and matter and to speak to us on our terms and in our ways. It is the means of divine self-revelation. At this point, I must state a fundamental axiom: Incarnation is messy. It involves things like mud, dirt, flesh, things that are limited and that decay. Furthermore–it’s uncertain. Incarnation isn’t an easy thing to parse out. Separating the divine and the earthly is a complicated task that I’m not sure is ever finished–and that’s part of the point as I see it.

From my perspective, it seems that Jesus, the Scriptures, the Eucharist, and the Church are all best understood as following the same essential incarnational logic. Thus, we can use what we know of Christ and move from there. Let’s review that, though, lest there be confusion…

The best way that I’ve found to both understand and explain this is through the application of Divine Algebra. There are a couple of theorems at work here.
1. 1+1+1=1 or that the Father+the Son+the Spirit=God.
2. 100%+100%=100% or that Jesus is fully human and fully divine.
Now, neither of these follow the rules of normal, standard Base 10 math or Euclidean geometry. The numbers don’t balance to our way of thinking. Most (if not all) of the major Christological or Trinitarian heresies can be explained by attempting to make the math balance. Thus, in theorem 1, the Unitarians try to take the first 1 (the Father) and get rid of the others. The Marcionites tried to take the second (the Son) and lose the first. The Montanists just wanted the third.

Similarly, in regard to theorem 2 the Docetists wanted the fully divine Jesus and to gloss the human, the Adoptionists wanted the reverse, and the folks who said Jesus had a human body but a divine soul wanted to go 50%-50%…

However, emerging orthodoxy affirmed that the more mysterious numbers were, in fact, those confirmed by Scripture, Tradition, and–yes–the people’s experience of God.

So what would happen if we took this Divine Algebra and applied it to the Scriptures? What would it mean to say that the Scriptures themselves are 100% human and 100% divine? Well, for one thing it would mean that we would have to dispense with the whole wheat/chaff line of thought. There was a movement in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that argued that Scripture had essentially two parts, a human, particular, limited, irrational, contextual part and a divine, eternal, comprehensive, universal, rational and True part. All that had to be done was to determine which was which. The good stuff could be kept, the other stuff discarded. The Jefferson Bible is an example of this logic…

What ended up happening is that you got, essentially, a racist version of the Bible that went through the NT (and OT) and discarded anything “too Jewish” (and irrational and contextual, etc.) in favor of the “Greek” portions. Furthermore, interestingly, scholars seemed to disagree with what was eternal and timeless; it kept looking like whatever the philosophy of the month was…

This means of reading is alive and well today. People go through and pick what they like, call it the eternal truth, and suggest that the other stuff is time-bound and therefore irrelevant. Hey–I’ve done it myself. Let me suggest, though, that this is not really the best way to either encounter or honor the text. [nb: This is not to say, however, that Christians are covenant-bound to obey the Law. We’re not. Christ, Paul, and a bunch of others made that clear. On the other hand, this doesn’t mean that the Law is not the word of God.]

What I am suggesting is that we be open to the entire Scripture as the Word of God. The whole Scripture ultimately points to Christ. The Spirit speaks to us pre-eminently through this text. Even those parts that we don’t like, the “texts of terror” have to potential to be opened for us by the Spirit. The Spirit may lead us to see the love of God in them even if it is through the Spirit demonstrating that the love of God is greater than these texts. Offensiveness is part of being human, material, limited, but such things do not preclude the presence, movement, or reversal of God.

Never forget that the Word of God is living and active as Hebrews tells us. The words of Scripture are static, fixed, and limited in ways that God is not. However, our reading of Scripture in the Spirit is ever new, ever alive. Following Heraclitus, you never read the same passage of Scripture. While your eyes may pass over the same letters, the circumstances of your life, the movement of the Spirit in the world, the oppressive realities of sin, the ongoing redemptive activity of God are all making the Scriptures new, allowing them and aiding them to mediate the true Word of God who is Spirit and Truth and who has promised to reveal himself to those who love him.

This is the fully divine part of Scripture. The Scriptures are the pre-eminent way that we encounter God’s ongoing self-revelation.

The fully human part is the recognition that Scripture was written by limited, fallible, prejudiced human beings. Yes, these were men (and maybe a few women) who lived in certain cultures who thought in certain languages, and whose worlds were bounded by certain realities–realities that we may neither know nor understand. There are errors in Scripture, factual errors, grammatical errors, syntactical errors, etc. Scripture itself seems to point out conceptual errors is other parts of Scripture (a prime example being the interplay between Job and Proverbs…) These are writings by men about how they have seen, considered, and understood God’s relationship with His people.

But once again, we believe that God’s Spirit was at work in them as they wrote, enabling God’s self-revelation to speak through their words, their images, their prejudices, and yes, even their errors. But in order to hear this we must listen with the ears of the Spirit.

That’s one way of understanding the Scriptures–a theological perspective. It may be a little too theoretical for the liking of some, so let me approach it from a different, and complementary, direction: the catechetical.

One of the classic questions in the study of the NT is formed like this: if we were to discover a letter tomorrow that we could absolutely establish beyond a shadow of a doubt to be from the very hand of Paul, should we accept it into the canon? Or, even more difficult, if we found a writing from Jesus Himself, should it be included in the canon? My answer to both would be–no.

Why, you ask? Because of this: The canon, the whole of the Scriptures, are the writings by which and in which Christians have formed themselves for centuries. We have formed ourselves in relation to these texts from the time of the apostles, through the Roman persecutions, through the adoption of Christianity, through the Dark Ages, through the Renaissance, through to our own day. These are the texts that we have lived in, prayed with, argued with, pondered over, disagreed with, and found comfort in. These are literally the texts that have made us who we are. Should we throw out the Pastoral Epistles since we don’t like what they say about women or hierarchy? Christians–Christian women–have been hearing, reading and disagreeing with these texts for centuries. Even this disagreement is part of the process of formation. It is with the Spirit and in light of God’s full revelation that we read of the wars of genocide and the hurban–the devotion of entire cities to slaughter–that we disagree and say that this is not God’s way. But to remove, to excise, these texts is to lose the opportunity to struggle against them and to shape ourselves in relation to them.

This view takes the authority of Scripture very seriously. It means that we must take seriously and engage Scripture even when and where we don’t like it. That those passages we don’t like should be read again, straining the ears of the heart to hear the voice of the Spirit, teaching us, leading us into the mind of Christ. Is it the same as “God said it, I believe it, that settles it”? Hell no. Because it’s never that easy–even for the people who sport those bumper stickers.

Of course, this means that engaging the Scriptures must be a discipline. Some may ask, why should I read texts that cause me pain or that offend against me or that have been used to demonize and oppress me for centuries? My reply would be twofold. First, because the are the Scriptures. They must be wrestled with, they must be dealt with. BUT–they should be encountered in God’s good time. We may need to put certain texts away for a season. For those parts and passages that have been used as sharp rocks it may be necessary to gain strength in other places before revisiting them again. Some Scriptures of comfort and consolation may be required as wine and oil for our spiritual wounds before encountering the others. However, in some season, encountered they must be.

This is one of the purposes and powers of the liturgy, especially the liturgy of the Daily Office. Proper liturgy *is* the disciplined encounter with Scripture. With all of Scripture. And it is administered in short doses If some passages seem too much to bear, they are always surrounded by other words that contain encouragement and consolation (one of the purposes of the post-Scripture canticles imo).

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Having said the things I have purposed to say, it seems fitting to pause at this point and to declare an end to Book 2. There are things in here that may be difficult and that you may disagree with. These are my reflections on a life with Scripture; I welcome yours….

Here’s the first installment of the promised Scripture post…

I’ll start my discussion with the theological question as I believe our answer to this must ground a full-on discussion of Scripture in the public forum in order to avoid misunderstandings and certain unintentional misinterpretations. What is the Bible, theologically speaking? In response to this question, I reply that Scripture is the inspired Word of God, God’s own self-revelation to humanity for the sake of our salvation through faith in Christ Jesus [nb: not contains but is. The difference? “Contains” can be a dodge to say “only the stuff in there I like is God’s Word”; with the use of “is” I’m closing that loophole for myself]. In Scripture, we have the words of human authors inspired by the Holy Spirit that depict and communicate God’s dealings with humanity, especially Israel and the Church, for our edification, reproof, correction and training in righteousness [nb: the majority of that last sentence modifies “words”–not “human authors”. I don’t deny the inspiration of the human authors, mind you, but the words are canonical, not the authors. And yes, you’ll note that I quite consciously used 2 Tim 3:16, favored proof-text of conservatives and the horror of liberals.] As a text–like all other texts (or forms of communication for that matter)–it requires interpretation. Make no mistake here. Any act of comprehension is an act of interpretation. [When we take anything into our mind it passes through our own filters that are conditioned by our own personality and culture. The filters affect some kinds of information more than others but they are always in place. I’ll give you an example: 5+5=10. This is pretty objective, right? Not as much as you’d think…the use of Base 10 is a cultural assumption.]

Should the Bible be read literally? Well, that’s a premature question and it starts at the wrong place. Acts of interpretation are bound up with expectations and assumptions. Our cultures mediate to us certain implicit understandings about various forms of communication and how to interpret them. We pick up on clues both subtle and not so subtle that let us know how we are suppose to understand things. Examples? But of course! 1) Once upon a time 2) A man walks into a bar 3) You could already be a winner.

1. Once upon a time Our cultural milieu embeds an automatic knowledge of this phrase into us by the age of five through the use of the bedtime story–this signals a fairy tale. But how–through the meaning of the words? No. The words themselves do not denote that what follows is a work of creative fiction. They reveal a certain ambiguity of time and place but that’s as far as they go. Ponder this: what would a non-native English speaker make of these words? Or–as I like to ask my students–do you know how to say “Once upon a time” in Hebrew? It’s not a linguistic question–it’s an interpretive one.

2. A man walks into a bar Again, our cultural milieu lets us know that what follows is a joke. In certain company it also signals a cue to cover the ears of any young children seated nearby since many jokes that start this way tend to be…vulgar.

3. You could already be a winner When imprinted upon a piece of mail this is a signifier meaning “recycle me.” On an internet pop-up window, it means “close me–the faster the better…” On a piece of email, “delete me–and don’t even think of opening that attachment.” We know this is a scam even though the literal sense of the words proclaims the exact opposite.

My point is this: interpretation is a complex act. It doesn’t start with individual words, but by making a judgment on the genre of the text and making a decision about how the words are supposed to be interpreted. That’s why the “literal” question is a premature one. You can’t make that decision until you know what kind of text you’re dealing with and even when you’ve decided that a literal interpretation of two different genres is not necessarily the same thing. Content is only half of the process; context also has a profound effect on meaning.

Let me clarify that. This sentence: “In 1127, Robert of Notre Dame made a heroic escape from a closely-guarded prison in Burgundy aided only by one of his loyal knights and a common house-cat.” is a relatively straight-forward sentence. There might be some room for allegory and metaphor in there but precious little. [The reference to the knight and the cat seems to be a synecdoche for a larger plan of escape–but that’s the only literary device I can find.] On the surface, the sentence contains certain points which lead us towards an interpretation of its meaning: dates, names, places. Furthermore, it displays an internal consistency. The names, places, dates, and objects mentioned all seem historically plausible. Now–is this sentence from a history book or from a novel? That’s the key question.

What’s important to notice is that we would still read the sentence the same way–literally, as it were–if it were from a history book or a novel; the difference would be the meaning that we take from it. If the sentence appears in a history book, it would convey a certain historical fact. If it was from an historical novel, its facticity could be up for debate. Is it a piece of history inserted into the novel or is it a literary creation of the author? In one case, we might treat it as if it came from a history book–though reserving a certain skepticism given the source–in the other we would expect it to fit into the author’s overall message depending on how this sentence figures in the plot. Is it a little bit of character development or is the whole story about the escape? [For those wondering, I made the sentence up.]

Please note my use of the word “facticity” above. The word I didn’t use was “truth.” Facts are a category of things contained within the set of things that are true, not the total set of things that are true. There are true things and statements that are not scientifically quantifyable “facts.” Furthermore, I’m prepared to argue that history books contain truth and that novels can also contain truth. These are different kinds of truth, packaged in different ways and intended for different purposes, but that does not make one true and the other untrue.

Okay, enough digressions–my point here is that both content and context must be considered in order to arrive at meaning. Let’s take the discussion back to the Bible. I do want to stay on the genre thing for a moment, though, and loop back to my initial comments about assumptions and expectations.

We have expectations of certain texts. These expectations include culturally assumed limits on a text’s contents, authority, and relative truth claims. This is entirely natural and appropriate. Furthermore, these are based on genre identification. When I pick up a book entitled Quick Dinnertime Meals I expect it to contain recipes that I can follow to whip up a quick and tasty meal for my family. I don’t want it to be a poet’s interpretive feeling of what ingredients could go together in a euphonious fashion. My expectation of a book entitled A True History of the Templars will be different if I’m pulling it out of the stacks of a research library than if I’m taking it from a rack next to the supermarket checkout. One of the modern issues with Scripture, I’m convinced, is genre identification that is intimately bound up with the issue of expectations.

When an Israelite picked up Deuteronomy, or Jonah, or the Psalms, he would unconsciously identify the various genres of the books as his culture had conditioned him (he knew what “Once upon a time” is in 8th century Hebrew…). When we pick them up, we see them as all part of the same genre–Holy Scripture. This makes a huge difference in our expectations of what these books contain and thus in how we understand them from the expectations of how contemporary readers–and their authors, even–understood them.

One of the reasons why there is great resistance among laity and first-year seminarians to the discipline of biblical studies is because one of the first tasks of the instructor is to reorient the assumptions and expectations about the biblical text. This can either be done poorly or be done well. Let me just say that I’ve rarely seen it done well… Often, especially in undergraduate institutions, religion profs take a certain glee in stripping the naively religious students of their assumptions through the use of shock tactics.
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In Antiquity works were divided into books and volumes. This was a practical concern based initially on the length of a roll of papyrus. When you reached the end of one, you had book 1 and it was time to start book 2. My handheld’s battery is about to die [yes, I’m writing this on the train]; if it does, I’ll lose this–so here endeth book 1!

Yes. I’m procrastinating. I should be writing Very Intelligent Things on knowing and unknowing in the Cloud of Unknowing for a book chapter I stupidly got roped into doing. I’ve just printed out a good set of Aquinas extracts and the Epistle of Discretion for marking up alongside the Cloud and am celebrating that hard-won progress by doing random blogging…

I love All Souls. It’s the last bit of the goth Triduum (Halloween, All Saints, and All Souls) and the only set day of the Sanctorale where the appointed color is black. And the vestments today at church were to die for… (Literally, of course–it’s the set they use for Requiem masses.) But as I was telling Dave on the phone, I think that the current protestant attempt to recover the saints in general and All Saints in particular has really wrecked the church’s sense of All Souls. As you probably now, the standard early 21st century protestant take is that everybody gets to be a saint. Yeah, I know there’s *some* theological basis for that…but where does it leave All Souls? If we’ve already celebrated all the baptized yesterday, who were we celebrating today? All the non-Christian dead? I mean–in one sense, yes, since we are celebrating literally all souls but… The way to recover it, as far as I can see, is to draw the line and say–look, yes, we’re all saints in one sense but in another sense some people really did do an exemplary job of showing forth the love of Christ in their lives. These people really should be held up as exemplars and as intercessors. Perhaps the problem is that we’ve lost the third section of the Church… Traditionally we spoke of the Church Militant (all of us living folks here on earth still slogging away), the Church Expectant (those who have died and are generally hanging around waiting for the resurrection), and the Church Triumphant (those souls who are already participating in the fullness of God and who are–even as you read this–interceding before the throne of God on behalf of us poor slobs).

Ok. Must do work. Oh, one more thing–for those of you who are interested, I posted something over at the other blog on singing the psalms. Enjoy…

In thinking about liturgy and what we can do about it, Caelius earlier raised the frightening prospect of a Prayer Book revision in 2008. If GC’06 transpires as it seems to be unfolding, the church will be in chaos with departures, fights at the parish and diocesan levels, and an exodus of the more conservative folks currently within ECUSA. All in all–a prayer book revision at this time would be…less than prudent. The wheels are already in motion though. A book called “Enriching our Worship” is, I believe, essentially a volume of trial liturgies.

I thought I’d head over to ECUSA’a website to see what I could find on this. When you go to liturgy and music you are sent to another site which at least looks and feels like an official ECUSA site for all things worhip and liturgical: The Worship Well. Again, I know nothing about it but the little bit I’ve glanced at has me concerned. Why, you ask? Well…try the opening lines for resources for the season:

The end of summer and the beginning of fall–here in North America, anyway!–is an excellent time to incorporate eco-justice themes into your community’s worship. …

If we’re thinking about doing something about this prayer book revision we may well already be behind the power curve. Perhaps it’s time for a conspiratorial memo of our own… ;-)

Over at Topmost Apple there’s a discussion about the east-wall altar written—I believe—by a current or former dean of Nashotah House. In any case, it’s interesting to see the responses. Furthermore, it’s time to set them within the larger picture. Academic thought tends to move in pendulum swings. A good idea moves a field in a certain direction. The trajectory pushes the idea to its acceptable limits. Then beyond them into the borders of wacky-land. The next generation pulls it back more toward the center in an vaguely Oedipal exercise of doktor-vater slaying and this movement, in turn, moves the pendulum in a different direction. The process repeats itself in generational cycles.

The field of liturgy has been dominated by the success of the Liturgical Renewal movement. This is the Protestant side of the movement that resulted in Vatican II. Essentially it called for a return to third/fourth century norms, an elevation of the place of the people, and the suppression of clericalism. It’s tied in to Baby Boomer notions of equality and social justice making itself present in the liturgy. The young fiery proponents of this way of doing things that shook things up then are now the endowed-chair professors and are starting to retire if they haven’t died already. So—we’re talking Don Saliers, Gordon Lathrop, Aidan Kavanaugh, Paul Bradshaw, etc. These people were responsible for the liturgies enshrined in the liturgical books of the late second half of the twentieth century.

But now—their time is over.

The critiques have already begun. The east-wall altar discussion is symptomatic of a larger questioning of their theological and liturgical project. They turned the altars around. They put the liturgy back into the vernacular of the people (remember y’all—until the most recent BCP and the LBW services were still in thees and thous…). They emphasized the role and participation of the people. Now, we’re starting to rethink these innovations. Now we get to look at them again through the lens of time. It’s time for us to start sorting through in order to find what we’ve gained and what we’ve lost. And certainly, gains were made. Dirty bathwater was poured out. However, it’s now our job to discover the babies that went with it and to re-collect them. It’s time to re-question some of the assumptions that were foundational to these scholars.

In the course of this sorting process, however, the pendulum is being pushed—but where does it go now? As we move the pendulum away from the borders of wacky-land (self-congratulatory congregation-centered prayers, entertainment liturgy, etc.) where should it go from here? Where does the renewal move?

The way I read it—feeling the pulses that are out there—I’d like to see it move to rediscovering monastic qualities. A lot of us are drawn to this, especially some of the Benedictine forms. The rhythm of the Offices, living into the Psalter, a community at prayer lay and clergy combined, the antiquity and authenticity of a prayer tradition rooted in our common Catholic heritage and emphasized again in the Anglican Reformation all speak to a postmodern world that earns high marks for style but low marks for substance.

What do you think?

Chris over at Lutheran Zephyr is thinking about stewardship time. I left a comment over there that I think really needs to be expanded on. I don’t have the brain cells to do it now but here’s the basics.

Good philanthropy is about creating a solid and stable investment. You should never have to feel like you are begging money from your donors or, worse yet, extracting gifts. The first gft you extract is the last one you’ll ever see from any given donor. Assuming that you do have a legitimate cause and are attending it to (heh–not always a given, unfortunately), the fund-raiser’s task is to demonstrate to constituents that a) the donor and the organization share key concerns and motivations and that therefore b) a donation to the organization is a good investment that will 1) advance the donor’s interests, 2) assist the organization, and 3) improve life for the organization’s service population. In good philanthropy, everybody wins. It’s good *stewardship*.

In all my time in churches, I’ve never heard any clergy approach stewardship this way. Instead it’s: you have it, we need it; you warm our pews, so fork it over. Now–let’s be clear. Clergy should not be thinking of themselves primarily like non-profit execs. I know some people and places that exalt “leadership” languages and resources to the point where they’re nigh indistinguishable and I think that’s a problem. Hwever, I think this is an area where the church can do some learning.

If congregations and their leadership–both lay and clergy–are doing church right then we are 1) proclaiming Christ incarnate, crucified and resurrected, 2) putting the congregation in touch with the power of the resurrection through good liturgy and good education, and 3) offering sound ministries that enable people to act in love towards their neighbors, especially those less fortunate. That’s just the start, of couse, but here’s my question. Aren’t these three things important to your congregants? Can your congregants see that your church is doing these things? If the answer to both of these is yes, then you’re in a good place for a dscussion of stewardship as investment. I suspect that the answer to both of these isn’t always yes. If so, shouldn’t we as leadership types start thinking long and hard? Can we in good faith ask people to invest? If not, why not–and get it fixed damn fast.

So there you have it–my “temple talk” for stewardship season… ;-)

There would have even been a quiz last week…but I was in Philly for M’s ultrasound. It’s a healthy girl! We’re thrilled, of course, especially about the healthy part. Not that we’re not thrilled about the girl part–we are–but neither of us were surprised in any way on that one. We’d both “known” it was a girl through different means for a while; the ultrasound confirmed it.

Anastasia’s dissertation progress is sparking me to do more writing. I just *have* to get back in the groove of things. So here’s my plan–I’ll write for as long as I can tonight, then post on it. See? We get a built in shame factor going on that way… So I can’t renege on it unless I delete this post which I can’t do because it tells y’all about my newest daughter.

Upon asking my father-in-law about advice for rasing a houseful of girls, he–a more-or-less mild-mannered middle-school language teacher–replied: “Keep lots of beer on hand…” :-)

I confess to you, my brothers and sisters…I was a total slacker this morning and slept in when I ought to have been singing the morning office in honor of Michael and all angels. Here’s my penance:

Archangel Michael, great protector
Shield us from the demons’ wrath;
Of the angels, great director
Keep our feet from error’s path.

True defender of the Chosen,
Mighty prince of Israel
In the burning wastes and frozen
Kept the Lord’s own people well.

Now the nations call upon thee,
Leader of the heavenly band,
Hail the hosts with weapons fiery
Lead them forth by thy command

Furthermore this day we honor
All the heavenly hosts abroad;
Messengers of His high Splendor,
Those who do the will of God.

Burning seraphs tend the altar
Voices hymning in accord
Chant the song that shall not falter,
“Holy, holy, holy, Lord.”

Fire-formed spirits of the Maker,
God-breathed race of wind and flame,
Servants of the high Creator,
Do the will of that great Name

Blessed Michael, we beseech thee,
And thy nine-choir’d kin,*
May our supplications reach thee,
Keep us pure and free from sin.

To the High World-Shaper glory
And to Christ, His only Son,
Of the Spirit tell the story,
While the ages ever run.

* This is a line of spondees thus the beat goes |And thy | nine | choir’d | kin.

It’s iambic tetrameter. I have no clue what tune to put it too but there are plenty out there–pick one! ;-)

* Things are off-the-hook busy around work these days and I’ve been applying my few blasted brain cells to juggling matters there. If you’re expecting correspondence from me it may be a couple of days…

* Restructuring of chapter 2 is stalling. I feel like I’ve got a buch of wooden blocks, I’m trying to build the right shape with them but I also know I need to saw/sand and otherwise change the shape of several of them to get it to work right.

* I was home over the weekend which was nice and much needed. (I go there most weekends but it was particularly nice this past week-end as a respite.) At one point Lil’ G was playing in my bag and pulled out my Office book. She started paging through it and saying “Amen…Amen…Amen…Amen” When M asked her what the book was she said “the God is Great book.” (The mealtime prayer there is always “God is great, God is good…” so that’s apparently become her short-hand for prayer.

* Intelligent Design meets…well, it’s hysterical. Hat tip to Dr. Cook at Ralph the Sacred River.

*Anastasia tagged me for the five idiosyncracies meme. Umm…still working on it. Do I have idiosyncracies? My ways of being are natural to me–sometimes it’s hard to say what’s odd… I’m sure Dave and others will be happy to suggest some lest I miss them… ;-)

* More later as brain cells regenerate.

Last night I wrote one of the best paragraphs I think I’ve written for the diss that absolutely grabs the heart of chapter two. Here it is:

The interpretation of a text is fundamentally shaped by the circumstances within which it is normatively encountered. The Gospel of Matthew was normatively encountered by early medieval monastics within the context of the liturgy, Mass and Office. The reading of Matthew within these liturgies was understood as a means of direct communication between Christ—made present as mediated by the Gospel-book—and the community at prayer. The reading of Matthew was the presentation of authoritative teachings on life, death, morals, and doctrine by Christ to His people. Complex levels and layers of meaning were teased from the text and presented for the edification of the gathered community by the preacher with the assistance of the Tradition—understood to agree but not be univocal—also presented and transmitted through the liturgy. To understand early medieval monastic exegesis and the catechetical hermeneutic, then, is to understanding the process of learning for and learning through the liturgy that grounded this encounter and the communal interpretation of Matthew.

The bad news is, now I need to rethink and restructure chapter 2 in light of this new moment of clarity. Dang. Much will be accomplished by the use of cut and paste during this period, but shuffling sections is always an awkward process compositionally since you’re no longer heading in exactly the same direction so topic sentences need revision, paragraphs must be revised in light of their topic sentences, etc.

Classical, we make the distinction between invention, arrangement, and style (mewmory and delivery are the other two since rhetorical composition was originally for oral delivery). Cicero and others imply that these are concrete–but not for me. One of the accurate criticisms that my director had as we struggled through my proposal is that the act of writing rather than abstract conceptualization is where a lot of my thoughts arise. It’s when I’m writing the actual document that I get cool new insights; my arrangement and style become my invention. That’s wonderful, but in order to make a coherent presentation I ought therefore to go back and re-arrange. That’s what this dissertation has been a process of doing. I reconceptualized and re-outlined chapter one at least three or four times and I’ve been doing the same with chapter two. With one it wasn’t until I had about 75% of the text that things really clicked. Hopefully this paragraph should fully cement the structure of 2 but we’ll see if that turns out to be the case in the long run.

Hmm. reading it over I’m not completely happy with the prose styling… The concepts are there but some of the expressions could use work…