...IN HEAVENLY PEACE

http://www.asilentnightmovie.com/

Giving update

Vannessa's 3 yr old , Emmanuel has a bed designed like a car but she couldn't afford the sheets and blanket with the "hot wheels" designs. Liz is on the case.

Her 1 and 1/2 yr old Genesis would like Hello,Kitty sheets and blanket- An anonymous "Santa" dropped these gifts down the chimney...

Viviana's Ariana,3 and Andrea 2 love picture books - Maggie 's choice but one can never have too many books,so feel free to join in - kerry wants to give some picture books too!

Nicole's Niyeli, 3 mos old little girl could use one piece sleepers or "onesies",size 6mos

Serina's Mercedes,1 yr old likes dolls, a toy for a toddler or kitchen toys- Evan will help with some of these wishes and Mary is helping out too!

Looks like Nicole's newborn is the only little wisher waiting for a wish-come truer....

Due Dates

I e-mailed Tom about when he would like to have the gifts and got this reply:
"Let's drop off by Monday, 12/18."
I thought it just would be easier for me to post these little technical details.

Christmas giving-2nd entries

Here are the 1st entries to the wish lists :

Vannessa's 3 yr old , Emmanuel has a bed designed like a car but she couldn't afford the sheets and blanket with the "hot wheels" designs.

Her 1 and 1/2 yr old Genesis would like Hello,Kitty sheets and blanket- An anonymous "Santa" dropped these gifts down the chimney...
Viviana's Ariana,3 and Andrea 2 love picture books - Maggie 's choice but one can never have too many books,so feel free to join in - kerry wants to give some picture books too!

Nicole's Niyeli, 3 mos old little girl could use one piece sleepers or "onesies",size 6mos

Serina's Mercedes,1 yr old likes dolls, a toy for a toddler or kitchen toys- Evan will help with some of these wishes

I'll be adding wishes as they come in . Let me know if you will be selecting a wish to make it come true...Thanks, Tom

Swords into Ploughshares Dept.

Mortar shell coffee makers

Azmeraw Zeleke, an Ethiopian machinist, has started a business recycling mortar shells into coffee machines. Turning weapons into safe, effective cylinders used in household coffee machines and an innovative business.

From the BBC:

"The shells were dropped in Ethiopia during the war with Eritrea. They were dropped so people hid them in their homes and now they sell them," Mr Azmeraw says.

… He then transforms the cylinder to channel the water, coffee and milk…

He uses old mortar shells, which stand about one metre high, to make his coffee machines.

He cuts off the pointed ends, seals them and puts holes into the aluminium cylinder. The cylinder channels the water, coffee and milk…

"Sometimes I think about the fact they were used for war but I want to change them to do something good. They could be a symbol of war but I am doing something good out of the bad."

Since he started production five or six years ago, Mr Azmeraw has sold hundreds of machines - he cannot remember exactly how many.

Each one costs about $1,300. Most of them have been sold to people in the Mekele area.

Excellent Essay on the Value of the Psalms

Here are some excerpts from an article I just came across. The full article can be found at: http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj9911&article=991149.

THE POETRY OF the psalms preserves the immediacy of human experience. Joy is unchecked by the sobering of time. Despair and hope flow freely, void of the broader perspective that we get well after the moment has passed. Yet these prayers do not leave us to our own devices. They bridge us to the Divine; they remind us of God's promises to which they then embolden us to lay claim.

The Psalms preserve the heart's cries in language, images, and movements spacious enough to find our own experiences. Nane Alejandrez of Barrios Unidos tells about giving a copy of the Psalms to gang members, and how they were startled at such accurate descriptions of being hunted down and of having blood on your hands. It was a shock to their systems to find their lives in something they considered so wholly foreign. Little soothes like the balm of another's witness.

However, the Psalms are far more than survivor literature. Regardless of the depth of despair, the hope and belief persists that God can respond and deliver. God's blessings are reiterated, at times with an initial forced cheer, until the energy of remembered deliverance produces calm. It is the pattern of remembering and believing after which we model the Eucharist.

...

THE PSALMS DEFY our notions of profane and sacred, proving that everything we feel, witness, do unto others, and have done to us is acceptable subject matter for conversing with the Divine. They invite us to bring every part of ourselves into our houses of worship. If we omit expressions of faith lost, of rage, of disdain, and of the desire for revenge, we leave parts of ourselves at the door. Worse, we exclude those mired in these experiences. Prayer has the capacity to invite the healing, judging, transforming power of God to soak into our beings, landing precisely where we most need it, connecting us with the hope that the psalmist is able to gain at the end of his petition.

We need the Psalms in these days of little imagination. In an effort to de-fang the God of vengeance, we render God toothless and babbling, cozy and squishy, rather than eminent and awesome. We have lost our capacity to be shocked, to be humbled and amazed, which undercuts our creativity and leaves our language shallow and sterile. We "share" rather than "tell." We explain rather than show. In the comfort and numbness of our age, we have put our words on Prozac, with sterilizing affect. Given the sensibilities of our age, were the canon being selected today large portions of this collection would likely end up on the cutting room floor. After all, we have turned Noah's ark into a children's toy.

Yet we are called to be awake, not anesthetized. This posture of alertness allows us to enter into God's creation and to create ourselves. To do so requires the profound awe and humility that comes with a deep knowledge of our place in the world. On this Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote:

The root of any religious faith is a sense of embarrassment, of inadequacy. It would be a great calamity for humanity if the sense of embarrassment disappeared, with an answer to every problem. We have no answer to ultimate problems. We really don't know. In this not knowing, in this sense of embarrassment, lies the key to opening the wells of creativity. Those who have no embarrassment remain sterile.

Without humiliation or judgment, the Psalms allow us to bare our souls to God. Our prayers reflect our finite view of things. Most of us wouldn't want them recorded for posterity's sake. The joy is we can rant about an enemy and our innocence, then move on to love and serve. If, however, all we do is sing about how misunderstood we are, then go home self-satisfied and unchanged, we have missed the point entirely. All humans have the capacity for power and powerlessness. We are the oppressors and oppressed; the abused and abusive. We rail at God not to let the evildoers escape punishment, and just as quickly are the ones facing the judgment seat and crying for mercy. With David, we are the righteous ones forced to hide from jealous Saul. And with him, we are the abusers of power, killing off Uriah, manipulating Bathsheba.

We all need to come to the mercy seat and fervently kneel. When our every cell screams out to God at how unfair it all is, we need to return, sobbing and exhausted, to the steadfast love and grace of God. Because life is not fair. If it were, we would all live in the fullness of our worst thoughts and actions, in ever-deepening separation from God.

Statement against Torture

Here's how I'm contacting the 5 people requested.
-Maggie

Your Help is Needed to Reach 50,000 Endorsements of the Statement of Conscience of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture by January 15, 2007

Dear Friends,
You are one of the more than ten thousand people of faith who has endorsed “Torture is a Moral Issue” - the Statement of Conscience of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT). We deeply appreciate your commitment to ending U.S.-sponsored torture. A copy of the text of the “Statement of Conscience” is below.

We are asking for your help. It would be a powerful witness if NRCAT reached 50,000 endorsers of the Statement of Conscience by January 15, 2007. Please contact at least five people you know to ask them to endorse - family members, friends, and members of your congregation.

Give them a copy of "Torture is a Moral Issue" and ask them to endorse. They can do so online at www.nrcat.org/statement.aspx. You can either give them the copy of this letter or print out an individual form at http://www.nrcat.org/documents/statement_individual_endorser.pdf.

If you wish to take the petition version to your congregation or other organization to which you belong, please go to http://www.nrcat.org/documents/petition_style_form.doc.

Thank you for joining us in the campaign to end U.S.-sponsored torture - without exception.

Sincerely,

Jeanne E. Herrick-Stare, Esq., Chair, NRCAT Coordinating Committee
Rev. Richard Killmer, Senior Staff, NRCAT

The Statement of Conscience
National Religious Campaign Against Torture
TORTURE IS A MORAL ISSUE

Torture violates the basic dignity of the human person that all religions, in their highest ideals, hold dear. It degrades everyone involved - policy-makers, perpetrators and victims. It contradicts our nation’s most cherished values. Any policies that permit torture and inhumane treatment are shocking and morally intolerable.

Nothing less is at stake in the torture abuse crisis than the soul of our nation. What does it signify if torture is condemned in word but allowed in deed? Let America abolish torture now-without exceptions.

a good joke for both blogs!!!!!!

A cabbie picks up a Nun. She gets into the cab, and notices that the VERY
handsome cab driver won't stop staring at her.

She asks him why he is staring.

He replies: "I have a question to ask you but I don't want to offend you"

She answers, " My son, you cannot offend me. When you're as old as I am and
have been a nun as long as I have, you get a chance to see and hear just
about everything. I'm sure that there's nothing you could say or ask that I
would find offensive."

"Well, I've always had a fantasy to have a nun kiss me."

She responds, "Well, let's see what we can do about that: #1, you have to
be single and #2, you must be Catholic."

The cab driver is very excited and says, "Yes, I'm single and Catholic!

"OK" the nun says. "Pull into the next alley." The nun fulfills his fantasy
with a kiss that would make a hooker blush.

But when they get back on the road, the cab driver starts crying.

"My dear child," said the nun, why are you crying?"

"Forgive me but I've sinned. I lied and I must confess, I'm married and I'm
Jewish."

The nun says, "That's OK. My name is Kevin and I'm going to a Halloween
party."
-->

-->
-->

OURBlBLESTUDY!@DlNNER WEDS!! 6:30PM

MAG'S FABULOUS GlVNG lDEA!!!! For the 1st time ourbiblestudy12 will be adopting children for Christmas! l will be posting wish lists from EDGE HS teen moms' for their little ones and you can choose the gifts you wish to buy...

Dinner at the Rogers RSVP 571-9286; gmangparog@cox.net; tom@edgehighschool.org

satellite photo:http://www.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&q=&om=1&t=k&z=19&ll=32.213464,-110.866385&spn=0.00061,0.001212

directions if you are not taking a satellite:
Start
2555 E 1st StTucson, AZ 85716
End
626 S Del Valle AveTucson, AZ 85711
Travel
5.7 mi (about 12 mins)


©2006 Google - Imagery ©2006 TerraMetrics, Map data ©2006 NAVTEQ™ - Terms of Use
Map
Satellite
Hybrid
1 mi
2 km
Start address:
2555 E 1st StTucson, AZ 85716, Edge HS
End address:
626 S Del Valle AveTucson, AZ 85711
Distance:
5.7 mi (about 12 mins)
Get reverse directions
Directions
1.
Head east from E 1st St - go 0.5 mi
0.5 mi
1 min
2.
Turn right at N Country Club Rd - go 0.9 mi
0.9 mi
2 mins
3.
Turn left at E Broadway Blvd - go 3.0 mi
3.0 mi
5 mins
4.
Turn right at S Craycroft Rd - go 0.6 mi
0.6 mi
1 min
5.
Turn left at E 18th St - go 0.5 mi
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6.
Turn left at S Del Valle

The Roches

These and other lyrics can be found at http://www.roches.com/lyrics/zerochurch.html. They also have several scores at http://www.roches.com/scoresnlyrics.html, including three from their Christmas album (Dick, Evan?). Regretfully, the score to the one played tonight is not among them.

Why Am I Praying

Why am I praying
Who's gonna hear?
What I'm saying right now
is from fear
of nothingness
and of everything,
of not knowing enough
and of learning too much,
of being alone
and not having my space,
of being naked in a crowd
or being clothed in disgrace.
So this is what I pray:
To be OK,
to be with those I love
and to know what to say
when I see whatever's above.

words by Cromwell Schubarth

music by Suzzy

11/ 8 BlBLE STUDY

11/ 8 BlBLE STUDY
Westerhoff discusses next the lndividual Psalm of Lament. He claims that this is by far the most frequent type psalm in the Psalter,50 in all. He urges us to not be to narrow in our vision of the liturgical setting of this prayer-song. 1 Samuel 2:1-10 provides our critic with the setting for such a song of sadness. ls 38 :10-20 is another case of the Sitz in leben-the setting in life- of these psalms and their assurance of the salvation at hand in their time of trouble. when we find these songs in the Psalter only the lament remains. the breaks in the text indicate a response, a turning point given perhaps by a prayer leader. maybe there were special services for unjust accusation, illness,or asylum-seekers...

Psalm 13 :[Psalm 13]Prayer for deliverance from enemies1 How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?2 How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?3 Consider and answer me, O LORD my God! Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death,4 and my enemy will say, "I have prevailed"; my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.5 But I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.6 I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me.


A brief simple psalm which illustrate beautifully the genre if individual lament, according to Westerhoff. This has been the vehicle for the transmission of centuries of anxiety and sorrow. westerhoff ses here a kind of concentrated form of centuries lived suffering: "ln this long and movingprehistory the psalm received its extrememly succinct form , one in which each word represents many sentences , many chains of thought".Four questions begin the psalm: How long? The cry that results from pressure that can no longer be endured. Westerhoff finds echoes of this lament in the Babylonian lamentations(http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com/introduction/literature.htm ) , the German Christian Hymn "Jesu , meine Freude"( http://www.sfbach.org/repertoire/jesumeinefreude.html) and we may even uncover it perhaps in the contemporary Reggae movement( http://www.crosscurrents.org/murrell.htm)


Westerhoff's analysis sees the four questions divided into interrogations of the mysteries of God, self and the enemy:Vs 1 questions God exhibiting a questioning faith that depends upon God's presence for " the joy, happiness , freedom and health(that comes from) God's participation in human life". When these blessing are absent , God is absent.Vs 2 a and b represent the complaint about self and vs 2c is the complaint about the enemies. Don't we believe in some way even today that the triumph of the enemies is an accusation against God, against justice and the way we expect life to unfold?! Why do the laments never tell us the specifics of the complaint? Perhaps they were edited to be general representations for all of the troubles of humankind... or maybe we have here a cry from deep in the human heart that knows all of life's symptomatic troubles are caused by the root causes of disruptions in the three basic relationships upon which happiness is built-God, self and others.

Petition naturally follows complaint. The two part petition from the communal; lament is found here. 1)Consider and answer and 2) lntervene. Consider is the prayer of one who knows the Divine is both transcendant and lmminent and that dialectical relationship is mysteriously part of the dance of the one believed in and the believer. Perhaps the divine in a free act of grace draws near when called upon ;maybe the believer can be changed into a receptive vessel by such cries to the Divine who just waits for such moments. lntervene is the prayer of the believer who dares to risk faith in a Divine whose powers mystically go beyond thought and word and proceed in a mighty way to action, rescue and deliverance.

The BUT of vs 5 may be the seam which indicates the place where a prophet or priest delivered an assurance in the voice of God that caused this kind of dramatic reversal. Here , perhaps we catch a hint of the liturgy into which these ancient songs were placed like antique jewels in a new and renewing setting. The danger to faith represented by lament is like the risky confrontation betweeen lovers. How often have we swallowed our complaints for fear that the rebuttal will be pitifully transparent and self-defensive . Or that it will reveal an aspect of our own behavior that deserves even greater condemnation! So complaint is risk- a gamble that says this love between us can bear open analysis because why? Because there is a power greater than the enemy of our mistakes...there is a foundational strength that we can trust even amid the volley of complaints. And so,perhaps all lover's disputes should include the affirmation of vs 6 - Bottom line though l dare come to you with my dissatisfaction , it is only because my trust is larger than my complaint, my exultation in what we have been and what more we can be outweighs my dispute and the song of gratitude that hums in my heart may once again drown out my present words that sound so angry and so sad...

Weds Night 11/1 All Hallows Night

Communion of saints





COMMUNITY PSALM OF NARRATIVE PRAISE

"...when God broke silence and came to the aid of the people...then this deed awakened the jubilation of the liberated..."

ln the same way that lament was limited by the post-exilic emphasis on penitence, so too praise grew faintin the postexilic experience of an absence of deliverance.The remembrance of divine deliverance is best re-experienced in the Exodus text we have heard already . Miriam's dance and song in Ex 15:1 :

Sing to the Lord , who has triumphed gloriously / Horse and rider has been thrown into the sea.

Westerhoff urges us to observe the Psalm of Praise in its simplest form: 1) a summons to praise
2) an account of God's saving deed.

The CommunityPsalm of Praise is expanded in Ps 124:

Psalm 124
1If it had not been the Lord who was on our side—let Israel now say—
2if it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when our enemies attacked us,
3then they would have swallowed us up alive, when their anger was kindled against us;
4then the flood would have swept us away, the torrent would have gone over us;
5then over us would have gone the raging waters.
6Blessed be the Lord, who has not given us as prey to their teeth.
7We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we have escaped.
8Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
The New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.






Psalm 124
1If it had not been the Lord who was on our side—let Israel now say—
see Ps 94:17

Note plural references as indicative of a national or communal thanksgiving song


2if it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when our enemies attacked us,
3then they would have swallowed us up alive, when their anger was kindled against us;

see Prov 1:10-12-sinners swallowing the innocent alive like sheol cf Num 16:30-33


4then the flood would have swept us away, the torrent would have gone over us;
5then over us would have gone the raging waters.

Chaotic waters engulfing the believer also in Jonah 2:4 and Ps 69:2-3;15-16

Note the structure: 1-5 : the situation of past danger

6Blessed be the Lord, who has not given us as prey to their teeth.

Note the mood change . Prey to their teeth is common animal imagery as in Amos 3-4; Job 4:10-11; Ps 104:21
7We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we have escaped.

Salvation from earthbound predators gives way to rescue that allows flight to the heavens
8Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

Note inverted order: vs 6- escape on land ; vs 7- escape to the sky; vs 8 maker of heaven and then earth

6-8: Thanksgiving for deliverance


The New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

A little known psalm ,Westerhoff believes, provides us with a retrospective into " the hour into which lsrael looked back upon a rescue from very grave trouble and summed up this experience in language of relieved praise". Our critic invites us to realize that this experience of "dodging the bullet" is understandable to people of all ages. Praise celebrates the present human experience of rescue; lament remembers the deliverances of the past in order to generate hope for the present time of trouble.

weds night ...10/25

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

weds night ...10/25
Psalm 80:Vs. 1-3 : Find the introductory petition and the address to which it is attached......Note the invocation of the deity-not unlike the epic poet's invocation of the Muse- is the call to the Most High who is remembered (praise is to never forget) as the source of the great good fortune of the past. If you have no remembrance of having been blessed, is it possible that your lament will never be as deep and your praise will never be as high?Find the verbs that illustrate the action of faithful petition for the Yahwistic believer...Do you find here a truly personal God....Vs. 4-7: Here find the complaint... Is the complaint rooted in the life of the believer or in the believer's relationship with the divine...Note the use of the address ...Thou...Thou...Thou...: "The accusation of God is the nerve center of all the lamentations in the Psalms". Suffering is not thought to come from some ungodly irritant but instead "in God alone".Suggest the significance of the "bread of tears" and " the cup of tears"...See Lamentations 3:15-16Vs 6 provides the 3rd element of the lament:Find mention of the enemy and its mockery of the plaintiff...Vs 7 marks the refrain ,labeled by Watson in Classical Hebrew Poetry as " a variant refrain"(295): see vs 3,7,19. Westermann notes that this refrain is not a mechanical chorus at the end of each stanza but instead a meaningful rejoinder to fit the sense of the particular petitions to which it is connected.Vs. 8-11: "...Past personal experiences of God's goodness and faithfulness" are the foundation of faith to which the complaintant grasps tightly(emunah-Hebrew word for faith).Find the vinedresser imagery. Why is it a particularly efffective representation of the God of Israel's saving actions?Why does Westermann think this image is more effective as "history" than as lyrical symbol?Can you find the "the historical creed...the basic confession of faith of the people of israel" in these verses?How does vs 11 bring us back to the complaint?Vs. 12-13: Find the question of vs 4 and compare it to vs 12...Interpret the accusation against the vinedresser as planter and now destroyer...How does vs 13 re-introduce the enemy and to what effect?Compare the sequences of 12-13 and then 14 ; and 4-6 and then 7...Vs. 14-15: From whence shall salvation come?Vs. 16-17: In the battle between enemy and lamenter , where does the Psalmist place emphasis?Vs.18-19 : do you agree with Westermann that this vow is the true pledge of allegiance free of " a bargain promising ...a recompense for ...deliverance" (34).

anyone going to DC?

This is from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/20/AR2006102001756_pf.html.

A Testament To Change: Early Scraps Of the Bible
Rare Fragments Show Evolution of Scripture

By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 21, 2006; C01

If 40 percent of Americans refuse to believe that humans evolved from earlier hominids, how many will accept that the book we know as the Bible evolved from earlier texts and was not handed down, in toto, by God in its present form?

The fossil evidence for human evolution is permanently on display at the American Museum of Natural History. Hard evidence that the Bible took its present shape over centuries will be on display for the next 11 weeks, from today through Jan. 7, across the Mall at the Smithsonian's Arthur M. Sackler Gallery.

They are rarer than dinosaur bones, these fragments of papyrus and animal skin that tell the Bible's story. With names such as Codex Sinaiticus, the Macregol Gospels and the Valenciennes Apocalypse, they evoke lost empires and ancient monasteries as surely as archaeopteryx and ceratosaurus conjure up primeval swamps and forests.

The Sackler's exhibition, "In the Beginning: Bibles Before the Year 1000," is one of the broadest assemblages of this material ever brought together in one place. "It has not happened before, and we will not see its like again in our lives," said guest curator Michelle P. Brown, professor of medieval manuscript studies at the University of London.

These are documents with the proven power to shake faith. That's what happened to Bart D. Ehrman, author of the 2005 bestseller "Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why."

Ehrman was a born-again Christian from Kansas when he entered Chicago's Moody Bible Institute at age 18. After three decades of comparing ancient manuscripts in their original languages to try to determine the earliest, most authentic text of the New Testament, he is now an agnostic.

"I thought God had inspired the words inerrantly. But when I examined the historical texts, I realized the words had not been preserved inerrantly, and it would have been no greater miracle to preserve them than to inspire them in the first place," said Ehrman, now chairman of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

But if these fading papyrus leaves and purple parchments inscribed with silver ink can shake faith, that does not mean they must .

Brown, who pulled the Sackler's exhibition together in association with Oxford University's Bodleian Library, sits on the governing board of St. Paul's Cathedral in London. "That's a pretty good tip-off," she said, that she is a member in good standing of the Church of England.

"There's nothing here that's going to shape or challenge people's beliefs, except on one point," she said. "It will challenge the belief that the Bible originated in the form we have today, rather than being the result of the very complex process of a lot of people of faith using scriptures to help them live God-focused lives."

Her eyes flashing, pink cheeks turning pinker, Brown warmed to her point.

"If people come looking to find something new about Jesus, they won't find it in this exhibit. That's not what it's saying. But it is saying that we didn't start out with this," she said, producing a red Gideon's Bible from her Washington hotel room and giving it a resounding thwack with the palm of her hand.

The modern text, but in an old-fashioned presentation, is the focus of another Washington exhibition, "Illuminating the Word: The Saint John's Bible," now at the Library of Congress. It showcases a handwritten, illuminated Bible commissioned by a Benedictine monastery using paints from hand-ground lapis lazuli, malachite, silver and gold.

The Sackler exhibition opens with a shamelessly romantic bow to the Indiana Jones-style adventurers and collectors who unearthed some of the most ancient texts -- or bought them in what Brown calls "dodgy, backstreet deals" -- mostly in Egypt between about 1850 and 1930.

A wooden chest holds a jumbled, crumbled heap of illegible parchment and paper, part of the actual trove that the Talmudic scholar Solomon Schechter brought to Cambridge University from the genizah, or storeroom for damaged sacred texts, of Cairo's Ben Ezra Synagogue in 1897. A life-size photographic wall mural shows Schechter in his Cambridge study, holding his head as he contemplates the immense jigsaw puzzle laid out before him on wooden worktables.

From there, the exhibition turns somber, literally and figuratively. The lights dim to protect the manuscripts. Some of the most famous -- such as a deteriorating fragment of the Book of Isaiah from the Dead Sea Scrolls found in a cave in 1947 -- are, in this context, surprisingly unimpressive. It's the progression that counts here, the gradually changing form and content and concept of the Bible, and it really picks up when Hebrew scrolls give way to early Christian writings in Greek.

From papyrus documents purchased in Egypt in the 1920s by American mining magnate Chester Beatty, there is the earliest known copy, dating from about 200, of St. Paul's letter to the Romans, which many scholars think was the first of the New Testament scriptures to be written. There are older fragments of New Testament writings in existence. But this is "the earliest of the first," in the words of Charles Horton, curator of the Beatty collection housed at Dublin Castle, Ireland.

The first three or four centuries of the Common Era are what, borrowing from the language of fossils, might be called the "Bibliocene" period, the time when Christian communities were writing and exchanging letters and gospels, or accounts of the "good news" about Jesus.

Pointing to what she called "cheap, scrappy little bits," Brown explained that "Biblia" were pamphlets or booklets, a few leaves bound together, and that the early Christians liked them because they were easily hidden and allowed quick comparisons between texts. Richer folks preferred scrolls and sneered at books; the Sackler exhibition contends that the book format developed alongside Christianity and achieved social acceptance in the Roman Empire at the same time that Christians did, in the 4th century.

When Christianity became the state religion, Brown argues as she walks on, there was a natural impulse to codify it. Among the writings that ultimately were not accepted into the Christian canon, the Sackler shows a 2nd-century fragment of the Unknown Gospel, which includes the story of an attempt to stone Jesus, and a 3rd-century papyrus known as the Sayings of Jesus, including this one: "Jesus says: A prophet is not acceptable in his own country, nor does a physician work cures on those who know him."

As Christians were establishing what was in and what was out, they began compiling the New Testament in a book, or codex. In the physical and ideological heart of the exhibition are two stained parchment pages of meticulous Greek script from one of the most celebrated: Codex Sinaiticus, discovered in 1859 at St. Catherine's Monastery in the Sinai Desert.

Ever since it came to light, Sinaiticus has been a pivotal document -- and a theological challenge -- for scholars like Ehrman. Together with a few other documents, it forms the basis for the most authoritative modern versions of the Old Testament in the original Greek.

Ehrman noted that its version of the Gospel of John is missing the story of the woman taken in adultery, the famous parable in which Jesus says to those who would kill the woman, "Let the one among you who is without sin cast the first stone." He and many other textual scholars believe the adultery story was not introduced into John until the Middle Ages.

The second half of the exhibition moves from relatively plain writings to the elaborate, illuminated manuscripts produced to wow potential converts, glorify God and boast of wealth and learning. In rich green, yellow and red tones, the 9th-century Macregol Gospel from Ireland used intricate calligraphy at a time when some Christians viewed figurative drawings as idolatry. The gorgeous Stockholm Codex Aureus is purple-dyed parchment inscribed in silver and gold ink. (Brown said scholars once assumed the purple color came from whelks, but recent tests on other manuscripts have indicated it might come from vegetable dyes -- or even stale urine.)

For pure symbolism, however, it would be hard to top the Latin translation of both the Old and New Testaments commissioned by the Abbott Ceolfrith when he retired from the monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow in northern England in 716. The Sackler has just a few leaves of one of these volumes. As a gift for the pope, Ceolfrith called for a huge, lavishly illuminated version, which took three people to lift. The message it was meant to send, according to Brown, was that "the farthest outpost of the empire is where it's at now; we can outdo Rome in craftsmanship, we can outdo Rome in scholarship."

That message, apparently, was received. Sometime in the 9th or 10th centuries, Ceolfrith's name was scratched out of the Bible sent to the pope. It was replaced with the name of an Italian saint, and the codex was assumed to be Italian until the 1880s.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

See also: http://www.asia.si.edu/exhibitions/current/IntheBeginning.htm for the exhibition website.

YOURBIBLESTUDY12 READS AND SEES THE SCROLLS????

Liz , our personal bible study travel agent sends an idea for spring study and summer travel... We can dream , can't we?!

http://www.sdnhm.org/scrolls/

5th night ;10/18

The sadness and joy of real people constituted the tonalities of Israelite and Jewish worship.Like the hugs at wakes and the embrazos of friends at weddings -the Psalms are the love songs of a deeply bonded community. Imagine a people with an idea of God so great and all-encompassing that" all great gifts around us come from heaven above "( Godspell) and the tragic shortfalls are those moments of puzzlement that call forth from the faithful hearts of a believing community - a Why? a Where? a How long? Westermann from his existentialist perspective (finally a chance to use this adjective correctly) sees in the Psalms: " The individual's joys and sorrows between birth and death,...toil and celebration,...sickness and recovery...anxiety and trust,temptations to despair and comforts received."(p 24).


This sadness and joy, this basic rhythm, marks the genre delineation of the Psalms: " Praise is joy spoken to God; lament is sorrow poured out to God". Like all human life, the emotional life is lived out alone and in our relationships with others. thus, Westermann would have us look at these faith-songs as the ballads of individuals and the choral songs of a community. In the genre of praise , we find celebrations of specific acts of rescue[ ps 124 and 129] and psalms that " praise God in the fullness of ...(god's ) existence and activity"[ ps 8,103].

The Community Psalms of Lament: Psalm 80

Westermann notes: " No worship observance in Ancient Israel is as well known...as is the special rite of lamentation...a fast(som)". The community would be gathered by a summons( Ez 21:12) and acts of purification- abstinence, mourning garments,ashes,weeping were as much a part of the observance as the community psalms of lament. Not a regular part of liturgical life, instead they represent the spontaneous prayerful response to crises: drought , plague,attack or defeat. Our Psalter shows many fewer lamentations than the Jewish Scriptures note . Westermann believes this is a result of the post-exilic editing of the Hymn book which emphasized repentance over and against lamentation. This is the theological debate between the Deuteronomist theology and the Wisdom theology found in the Book of Job. Lamentation , some would say , can stand before God in faithful complaint while repentance can only neurotically internalize blame for life's troubles. The author of Job understood that true faith possesses the nerve to confront undeserved suffering with a faithful affirmation that declares: This cannot be what a Good God would want!

Ps 80

We will follow the commentary in Westermann pgs 31-34

The structure of the community lament:

1) The call to God

2)The Complaint

3) The Review of God's Acts

4)The Petition

5) The Divine Response

6)The Vow to Praise

Imagine Forgiveness

This is taken from the God's Politics blog:

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Diana Butler Bass: 'What if the Amish were in charge of the war on terror?'

I confess: Over the last 10 days, I did not pay much attention to the Amish school shooting. As the mother of an 8-year old girl, I find school violence stories too painful to follow.

Despite attempts to avoid this particular news, the stories of the Amish practice of forgiveness eventually captivated me. Their practice of forgiveness unfolded in four public acts over the course of a week. First, some elders visited Marie Roberts, the wife of the murderer, to offer forgiveness. Then, the families of the slain girls invited the widow to their own children’s funerals. Next, they requested that all relief monies intended for Amish families be shared with Roberts and her children. And, finally, in an astonishing act of reconciliation, more than 30 members of the Amish community attended the funeral of the killer.

As my husband and I talked about the spiritual power of these actions, I commented in an offhanded way, “It is an amazing witness to the peace tradition.” He looked at me and said passionately, “Witness? I don’t think so. This went well past witnessing. They weren’t witnessing to anything. They were actively making peace.”

He was right. Their actions not only witness that the Christian God is a God of forgiveness, but they actively created the conditions in which forgiveness could happen. In the most straightforward way, they embarked on imitating Christ: “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.” In acting as Christ, they did not speculate on forgiveness. They forgave. And forgiveness is, as Christianity teaches, the prerequisite to peace. We forgive because God forgave us; in forgiving, we participate in God’s dream of reconciliation and shalom.

Then an odd thought occurred to me: What if the Amish were in charge of the war on terror? What if, on the evening of Sept. 12, 2001, we had gone to Osama bin Laden’s house (metaphorically, of course, since we didn’t know where he lived!) and offered him forgiveness? What if we had invited the families of the hijackers to the funerals of the victims of 9/11? What if a portion of The September 11th Fund had been dedicated to relieving poverty in a Muslim country? What if we dignified the burial of their dead by our respectful grief?

What if, instead of seeking vengeance, we had stood together in human pain, looking honestly at the shared sin and sadness we suffered? What if we had tried to make peace?

So, here’s my modest proposal. We’re five years too late for an Amish response to 9/11. But maybe we should ask them to take over the Department of Homeland Security. After all, actively practicing forgiveness and making peace are the only real alternatives to perpetual fear and a multi-generational global religious war.

I can’t imagine any other path to true security. And nobody else can figure out what to do to end this insane war. Why not try the Christian practice of forgiveness? If it worked in Lancaster, maybe it will work in Baghdad, too.

Diana Butler Bass is an independent scholar and author. Her latest book, Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church is Transforming the Faith, is published by Harper San Francisco.

posted by God's Politics @ 9:41 AM

10/11 pt ii

When time and place become sanctified settings : " All of life (becomes) permeated with worship" ( Westerhoff,15.)
Present collection of Psalms appears random. We seem to have artificial , formal divisions: Five books ,each ending with a doxology: 1-41;42-72;73-89;90-106;107-150. Perhaps this structure is meant to echo the 5 books of the Torah.

Smaller collections can still be distinguished:

3-41 davidic , individual ; 42-83 Elohistic Psalter; 84-90 appendix to EP( 42-89 seem to be taken from cantors' guilds as mentioned in Chronicles see ch 6[ Asaph 73-83, The Korah eight 42-49 ; David 51-71; individual laments on enemies theme 51-59.

Book 3( 73-89) - community psalms predominate and guild attributions. Majority are communal laments

Books 4 + 5 - enthronement psalms93,95-99; 100 as conclusion 103-107 as praise
Alleluia psalms111-118,135-136
Pilgrimmage psalms 120-134
Folk Song-137

Some of the psalmic superscriptions( which originate from the collectors and not the composers )are mysteries to us: miktam,16,56-60 was translated by Luther as a golden jewel; shiggaion as innocence in Ps 7.

We find unexplainable musical notations like lamnasseah and selah which may indicate a sung choral responseas in 136:1.

In Psalms and Proverbs we find all three types of poetic parallelism:
1) synonymous 103:1
2)synthetic 103:2
3) antithetic Prv 21:26

Ps 93 contains a particularly powerful example of repetition in vs3.

We will listen to the Hebrew text to see hear the rhythm in some of these songs.
Westerhoff notes that hebrew poetry patterns itself after natural speech and thus avoids artificial structure. He reminds us that the sentence not the word is the basic unit of speech and therefore rhyme is not an individual word pattern but instead a sentence meaning pattern. That is what parallelism is really all about.

Spiritual Progressives Talk on Thursday, Oct 12

Spiritual Transformation of America - Michael Lerner, author of "Spirit Matters" and "The Left Hand of God: Taking the Country Back from the Religious Right", founder of the Tikkun Community and co-founder of the Network of Spiritual Progressives will speak to the community on the Spiritual Covenant with America, a new political platform, with a question and answer period after. If time avails, there may be a reception for NSP members. Parking is limited, carpooling would be appreciated by the hosts and by the Earth. See http://www.spiritualprogressives.org for more information on NSP. 7 - 9:30 pm on Thursday, October 12, First United Methodist Church, 915 E 4th St @ Park, Tucson. Free, donations accepted. (Vince Pawlowski, nsp(at)ultrasw(dot)com)

10/11 fourth night

Westermann would have us listen to the song of rescue from Exodus 15, a victory song from Judges 5; a celebratory hymn to unexpected new life in 1 Sam 2; a royal exultation in 2 Sam 22. Why? He instructs: " Israel's earliest writingabout its history grew out of its declaration of praise for God's acts of deliverance". The articulation of praise can be an individual or a communal prayer but praise is not the only motif in the symphony the human heart raises to the heavens. Hearts pour out laments as well! Lost people, ignored leaders and an exiled nation utter songs of complaint and hymns of desolation: " Praise and lament are the two basic melodies which , like echoes, accompany god's actions on this long path of history".

Israel's prayer life dared to establish a much greater range in its faith -voice. Today we utter praise and thanks and forgiveness and petition-not a bad vocabulary for prayer. but Israel's lamentation showed a faith communication that dared to complain, confront and downright catterwall against the divine! This audacious voice lifted up to God combined prayer , poetry and the musicality of song: "an immediacy of speaking directly to God which connects reality in all its breadth , depth and harshness with the God who is the Lord of both the righteous and the wicked..." .

Westermann reminds us that worship is a response not a direct experience of the religious life. The religious experience happens not first in the Temple but in " the harvest fields..the battlefields, in the wilderness or in the homes, on sickbeds or in the streets" . This life experience with the divine could be articulated in a special holy place or that holy place could by extension transfer to all places the identity of a house of prayer. Time , too, had its sacred festival moments but it also found a way to reach out across the hours and days to consecrate all days as days for the holy. thus , place and time became consecrated. This is not unlike other tribal religious experiences. there is a tale told of an encounter between a native Shaman and a Christian minister. The minister was stressing the importance of keeping holy the Sabbath. the Shaman expressed surprise and declared that his people honored not just one but every day as Holy!

BIBLE STUDY NIGHT # 3-10/4 PT # 1

" For he knows our frame;
he remembers that we are dust"(vs 14)

Westermann reminds us : " God does not forget who we are and what we are". This wonderful ancient religious imagination was able to envision a transcendant deity who turns with loving forgiveness to "perishing human beings". Their Divine rather than disregarding the specks of dust beneath has compassion for their mortality and understands that there is only one hope for these creatures- connect your life- How? " " Praise, praise with all your being the eternal God for sending fatherly(sic) goodness into your life". The celebration of the human participation in the greater power represents the dialectic of human fraility juxtaposed with the great and good and steadfast love that is beyond us yet in us.

" But the steadfast love of the Lord
is from everlasting to everlasting
upon those who fear him,
and his righteousness to children's children( vs 17)

Westermann wants us to consider that the immensity of power unleashed in our age requires more than ever before the contemplation of the even more immense goodness that flows from the creative energy that stands behind LIFE ITSELF.." The call not to forget is what gives meaning and direction to the[ lives caught in] the chaotic structures of organization , achievement, and failure in which we live".

Westermann claims that Psalms are human responses. They represent our ancient ancestors cries... of joy... mourning...petition... cries for help and cries for forgiveness... Our ancient predecessors dreamt of an originator of Creation's wonders and continued to believe in that Prime Mover's Involvement and Perfecting of the Created World! He reminds us : " Whenever God acts, there must be a response of praise". What they meant by the acts of God is dependant on the interpretation of a contemporary community of faith. The possible range of interpretation for some is very broad- whenever goodness breaks into the usual experience - it can be a divine act. For others , the identification of God's acts requires those awe-inspiring events some call "miracles".

ANOTHER JEWISH FILM-PSALM

We saw Lost Embrace and know you'll take it to your heart. It's a love story in an unique cultural setting : a Buenos Aires Mall dominated by Argentine-Jewish families and a Korean couple with a forbidden love. A father-less son and a son-less father turn Buenos Aires into a Joycean Dublin as they seek roots and progeny after years of loss-physical and emotional. The Argentine accent alone makes this an interesting linguistic experience. But the inter-generational quest for meaning draws every life 's lost embrace to a Homeric home!

Belief-O-Matic

Have you ever taken one of those "find your perfect match" quizzes after you were in a committed relationship? Well, this is equivalent for your religious path in life. The introduction to it follows:

Belief-O-Matic -- A personality quiz about your religious and spiritual beliefs

Even if YOU don't know what faith you are, Belief-O-Matic™ knows. Answer 20 questions about your concept of God, the afterlife, human nature, and more, and Belief-O-Matic™ will tell you what religion (if any) you practice...or ought to consider practicing.

Warning: Belief-O-Matic™ assumes no legal liability for the ultimate fate of your soul.

It can be found at http://beliefnet.com/story/76/story_7665_1.html.
After you have completed the quiz, you are offered a list of over 2 dozen religions in order of compatibility. My best match was "Liberal Quaker". Those who know me can figure out what my least compatible religious tradition was.

John Kerry's faith testimony

This comes from a Beliefnet blog entry:

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Amy Sullivan: Brother Kerry's Testimony

Last Monday, John Kerry did something many of us wish he'd done two years ago. He showed up at Pepperdine University—if not exactly the lion's den, then at least a lair of sometimes snarling cats—and gave a long, open talk about his faith. (You can read the text of his speech here and watch the speech, as well as some Q&A here.)

It seems that Kerry caught this conservative Church of Christ campus off-guard. After hearing about his faith journey from cradle Catholic to spiritually wounded and questioning soldier to mature Christian, the standing-room-only crowd gave a standing ovation that I doubt the former Democratic presidential candidate expected.

The fact that Kerry even accepted Pepperdine's invitation shows that some Democrats are starting to realize that speaking to even conservative Christian audiences is a no-lose proposition. If they don't like you when you show up, and you bomb, then you haven't lost any support. But if after listening to you, some people decide, wow, I really had that John Kerry wrong,

Perhaps more importantly, what Kerry has learned—and told the crowd—is that it's all well and good for a Democrat to decide that his faith is private and he'd rather not talk about it in public, thank you very much. But that doesn't mean that his faith remains private. It just guarantees that his faith—or purported lack thereof—gets defined by the opposition.

As long as 70 percent of Americans continue to say they want their president to be a man of faith, religion will be an issue in political campaigns. Better for Democrats to be proactive and define themselves for Americans before Republicans start the inevitable painting of them as godless secularists. Barack Obama told a similar story in June when he talked about his insufficient response to Alan Keyes' charge that "Jesus Christ would not vote for Barack Obama." And this week, Cong. James Clyburn, a minister from South Carolina, made much the same point when he talked about losing a county in his district for the first time after his opponent called him the "most un-Christian person I've ever met."

Democrats tend to ignore charges like these because they're absurd (and they are), but they have an impact if Democrats don't then affirmatively explain who they are. That could mean anything from talking about the philosophical principles they use to ground their political positions or the religious beliefs that anchor their policy priorities. Kerry took the latter approach when he told the Pepperdine crowd that his Catholicism has influenced his positions in four areas: poverty, environmental stewardship, abortion, and an adherence to just war principles.

Read the whole thing (better yet, watch it to get a sense of how newly comfortable Kerry is with Biblical exegesis and discussions of his own struggles to understand a God who allows bad things to happen to some people) and come to your own conclusions. My guess is that many people will be surprised, and perhaps impressed, by what they see and hear. Whether you agree with Kerry or not, it's nice to see him and Obama (and Bob Casey at Catholic University last week) presenting different ways to talk about faith and politics.

posted by God's Politics @ 9:11 AM

Listening to the talk takes a bit over 30 minutes; the rest is an intro in the beginning and Q&A at the end. I think the links will transfer, but if they don't, let me know.

BIBLE STUDY-NIGHT # 2- 9/27/06 PT #1& 2

BIBLE STUDY -NIGHT #2 - 9/27/06
PT 1

Westermann thinks a fragment of Psalm 103:1-2 is a good place to start a Psalm-study:


Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.


Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits:


He notes first the self-referential nature of the composition. O my soul is the the subject of the address. But the source of blessing ,make no mistake , is a name and a personal name for the divine. And that name is herein praised! Westermann calls this: " a summons to praise from a distant world". The critic calls our attention to the phenomenon ...this summons transcends time and place for many believers...no longer to be silenced.
What is it about the transcendental symbols of life leadership that evoke from us seekers praise? " To praise is never to forget"

Toda- to praise in Hebrew is also the word for giving thanks

This specific experience of the divine breaks through the counterfeit value systems to a concrete reality and must find its expression in worship.


Two Laws Of Worship:
1) Everyone needs to worship(needs remembrance of the praiseworthy)
2) Humans become what they worship(what they know by heart)


Never forgetting the benefits , the gifts that the energy of life provides; this Yahweh, " I am who am" I am Being itself; I am Existence itself; I am the energy of life itself;the beyond; the incomprehensible(so far)

To remember blessings is to be present in gratitude even in times of loss and logical ungratefulness. These thanks-filled memorials are built by faith,risk,trust in the soul, at the core of our very being,existence,life...


The opening verses of this holy song stand for all time as a re-MIND-er... Mind the memory of the gratitude that is truly there in your life story- sometimes hidden ...seemingly forgotten ...overshadowed by loss and defeat. In loss and defeat we experience the silence ,the distance of the divine... A psalm of praise is a song that breaks the silence with a call to remembrance- Visit those memorials! ,it commands ...walk through the halls of the great heroic memories of your and your families , your communities' and your world's life story.


What about our life ,day to day, prevents this remembrance?


What in your life reinforces the accursedness and not the blessedness of your lifestory?

The essential power of blessing-remembrance is its power to integrate our lives and help us to real-ize meaning .

This be-attitude however is inextricably bound to experiences of loss and defeat . Otherwise we would be creating a fantasy of denial . Psalm 103 refuses this escapist perversion of authentic religious imagination and re-MINDS us that these experiences of gratitude are often grounded in forgiveness,healing, redemption-none of which can happen without sin, sickness, death or the death-like depths into which anyone and everyone's life can sink.

PT 2

Ps 103

3 Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;


4 Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies;

here in just 4 verses from this great ancient song we can hear the eternal two dramatic acts in human life: Praise from lamentation and Lamentation from praise. The people of trouble experienced reversal, deliverance, the awakening of the jubilation of the liberated, the saved... These religious affections are not well-represented in the post-exilic Psalter- the segment of the hymnal of Israel the colony, the defeated province less aware of the acts of deliverance.

Earlier , the "jubiliant shout" of Ex 15:1, inspired the psalms 124 and 129-songs of praise looking back in relief. Later the lamentations looked back to find hope for a new day and in a way they too became songs of broken silence...

Westermamm writes: " The psalms embrace these great contrasts. In never-ending and yet-ever-new ways they always circle about one center: human existence in its mighty, terrifying and glorious rhthym of loss and rescue, cry for help and shout of exultation, capture and release, laughter and weeping".

Whitehead says that first we know God as a void, then God the enemy and later God the friend.
Westermann notes the cycles of being near to god and being far from God: " Turning away, revolting, and being indifferent to God can all be restored and healed by ' the one who forgives all your iniquities'.

Consider that once we relinquish the godly man-up stairs , we still find that the life experiences that inspired this earlier naive theological reflection are ever capable of delivering life-meaning of the dimensions of reconciliation and atonement. The energy of LIFEITSELF continues to call out to us long after we have outgrown the unrefined imagery of animist ,polytheist and even monothist speculation. Freed from past obsolete ideas of the divine , we find ourselves still inundated in the religious life experiences that have always caused humans to exult: In, With,Through, as the prayer of Spirit-Unity which evokes the inner ectasy of glory and honor that carry feelings of might and timelessness.

11 For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him.


12 As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us


Remember, according to Westermann: " The God whom the Psalms praise is not the God of religious conceptualizations but the Lord of the great universe,the Commander of cosmic dimensions". The Psalm-God is the transcendant reality that encompasses the vertical axis of the heavens and the earth and the horizontal reaches of the sunrise east and the sunset west. Thus this ubiquitous divine presence,by nature, is able to give meaning and integrationto both the high and low points of life.

Web sources for used and O/P books

Those of you looking for Westermann's The Psalms might want to try these web sites:

http://www.alibris.com/
http://www.biblio.com/
http://www.abebooks.com/
http://www.bookfinder.com/ (search engine for multiple sellers)

Shana Tova

What a great time to launch a new discovery into an understanding of faiths! L'Shana Tova to all who come here. May this Rosh Hashana open a new era of peace and understanding among all who seek a higher authority for guidance in their life.

Here are few things from http://www.chabad.org/holidays/JewishNewYear/template.asp?AID=4644:

The central observance of Rosh Hashanah is the sounding of the shofar, the ram's horn, which represents the trumpet blast of a people's coronation of their king. The cry of the shofar is also a call to repentance; for Rosh Hashanah is also the anniversary of man's first sin and his repentance thereof, and serves as the first of the "Ten Days of Repentance" which culminate in Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Another significance of the shofar is to recall the Binding of Isaac which also occurred on Rosh Hashanah, in which a ram took Isaac's place as an offering to G-d; we evoke Abraham's readiness to sacrifice his son and plead that the merit of his deed should stand by us as we pray for a year of life, health and prosperity. Altogether, the shofar is sounded 100 times in the course of the Rosh Hashanah service.Additional Rosh Hashanah observances include: a) Eating a piece of apple dipped in honey to symbolize our desire for a sweet year, and other special foods symbolic of the new year's blessings. b) Blessing one another with the words Leshanah tovah tikateiv veteichateim, "May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year." c) Tashlich, a special prayer said near a body of water (an ocean, river, pond, etc.) in evocation of the verse, "And You shall cast their sins into the depths of the sea." And as with every major Jewish holiday after candlelighting and prayers we recite Kiddush and make a blessing on the Challah.

A HINDU FILM-PSALM!!!!!!!!!

The Asian-Indian film, "Water", is an exquisite tragedy involving

the oppression of widows in Hindu society. This,however, is not some sensationalist expose,but,rather a deeply moving story of the human struggle between conscience and religious tradition. The characters are drawn with such fine versimilitude that the easy manicheanism of good and evil are defied.Life beside the holy river Ganges baptizes,cleanses,refreshes and drowns the best and the worst of these fragile yet enduring lives. Brilliant cinemaphotography and a moving soundtrack imprint this compelling screenplay upon the eye , the ear , the mind and the heart. Dare to plunge into" Water " despite or because of its eloquent tragedy and experience the catharsis .

SOME COMMENTARIES FOR THE PSALMS

http://parablemania.ektopos.com/archives/2006/01/psalms_commenta.html


Aquinas Translation Project: Psalms Commentary
[English, Latin] Niagara University's ongoing translation of "Commentary on the Psalms" by Thomas Aquinas.www.niagara.edu/aquinas/ - 11k - Cached - Similar pages

DAVID KIMHI'S PSALM COMMENTARY
I will focus my attention upon the psalm commentary of David Kimhi. David's introduction to his interpretations of the psalms contains many interesting and ...www.glaird.com/kiminter.htm - 27k - Cached - Similar pages


[PDF] A Modern Jewish Commentary on the Book of Psalms
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTMLThe Interpretation of Psalms. “Typologies of Jewish Psalms Commentary”. Professor Alan Cooper. The Jewish Theological Seminary ...www.wcas.northwestern.edu/jewish-studies/Poster_for_Psalms_conference_at_Northwestern3.pdf - Similar pages

[PDF] The Spirituality of Chrysostom’s Commentary on the Psalms
File Format: PDF/Adobe AcrobatWhereas the Savile edition of the Psalms commentary rests on a handful of ... 337–39). (We noted Wenger’s ignorance of the Psalms commentaries.) ...muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_early_christian_studies/v005/5.4hill.pdf - Similar pages

Chittister on Papal foot-in-mouth disease

Sr. Joan Chittister comments on papal quote about Islam at http://ncrcafe.org/node/472.

Get Religion

A great source for tracking media accounts of religious issues is http://www.getreligion.org/. A recent post on Papal-Muslim "dialog" includes this handy bit of info:

Also, Binky notes that the pope’s email address, should you want to write him a note about all of this, is benedictxvi (at) vatican.va — so there.

I wonder what happens to all that e-mail. Have any of you ever done it? Is it a canned reply, like from the White House? Maybe an indulgence is included as an attachment with the reply.

Some religious periodicals online

http://www.natcath.org/

http://www.faithresource.com/showcase/RomCath/RCperiodicals.htm

http://library.stmarytx.edu/acadlib/subject/theology/theoejrn.htm

http://www.christiancentury.org/- Mainstream Protestant journal


http://www.tikkun.org/- Liberal Jewish magazine

http://islamlib.com/en/page.php?page=article&id=458- liberal Islamic source

http://www.lib.washington.edu/Resource/Search/ResFull.asp?Field=subject&ID=512745 - Buddhist sources

http://www2.etown.edu/vl/worldrel.html- world religion source

http://www.sojo.net/- evangelical protestant social justice source

See " WHEN DO WE EAT"-a Jewish film -psalm

"When do we eat" is a zany Jewish family comedy about a modern Jewish family's Seder that reveals the slaveries and liberations that plague and set free every family. Amid laughter and tears , their generational joys and sorrows are played out against the backdrop of holocaust ghosts , lesbian love,drug and work addiction, a disappointing marriage, religious and sexual extremism and a truly unusual case of idiot savant. Are these wacky modern film families a response to the weirdness of contemporary family life or are they a tempting relief that mercifully tells us that our families are at least not this strange??!! Without answering this question , this film eloquently allows each eccentric configuration to become a truly human image and voice that would appear and speak to every eye and ear that might perceive.

Maggie sends:

http://www.prolefeedstudios.com/catalog/psalm5/psalm5.html -I have a suggestion for another modern poet--Ernesto Cardenal. Unfortunately, his book "Psalms" is O/P. But you can view/here him reading his version of Psalm 5 at http://www.prolefeedstudios.com/catalog/psalm5/psalm5.html. He reads in Spanish, but there are English subtitles. It's a 2 min free video.

http://www.getreligion.org/?p=1891 - comments on Pope's lecture and good site for Religion and Media

First night's notes 9/20/06

The Book of Psalms represents a microcosm of the Hebrew Scriptures themselves. In the same way that the Bible is a library ;Psalms is a hymnal. As each book of the Bible resembles an archaeological dig with layer after layer of artifacts from the different stages of the book’ evolution; so too each psalm has its own developmental history.

As a rule the poetry and songs in ancient literature are thought to be the oldest passages having a lengthy oral history and a variety of written versions edited over time. Israel’s 150 psalms are best understood following this rule. Their development helps a us trace the history of worship in the Ancient Near East . Many of these psalms may have originated in the worship of the ancestors of the Israelites. Clan cults throughout the region had sacred places and sacred seasons. The nomadic nature of their lives gave rise to seasonal liturgies at the sanctuaries holy to their tribe. When humans worship, song is nearly always present.

The religion of the Ancient Near East was characterized first by the animism found among primal cultures. These nature cults encountered the divine in the spirits that they believed inhabited all things. In other words , there was no such thing as inanimate. The fascination and the trembling experienced by human beings in the face of the forest, the sea, the storm , fertility,birth , sickness, conflict and death gave rise to the earliest religious impulses. The quest for peace and life and the search for victory over the enemies of happiness drove these human communities draw near to the holy and to control those forces that threatened to destroy their lives. Animism ,even in modern religion provides for a powerful sense of the sacred and often inspires great respect for earth and its resources. On the other hand ,its influence on the human psyche can be quite anxiety-producing . The spirits that surround us are often believed to be capable,not just of blessings, but also of mischief and even malevolence.

One of the first developments in the history of religion is the emergence of polytheism. Belief in the gods seems to be an attempt to bring some order to the chaotic spirit world of animism. This polytheism is present throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. The titles under which the clans worshipped their family deities( El Shaddai, El Elyon etc) at the shrines they constructed along their nomadic trails represent distinct gods. Strong evidence of this polytheism among the ancestors of the Israelites helps us understand the later development of the Yahweh religion which would shape the history of Israelite and later , Jewish religion. This stage of religious culture will certainly be a significant part of the songs we will study in the Book of Psalms.

The Israelite people are born out of the Exodus. The symbolic passage through the Red Sea is seen by some as the mythic image of their emergence in birth waters from between the legs of mother Egypt. The descriptions of the Exodus are filled with the hyperbole characteristic of a great nation wanting its origins to be as mighty as the present state of their ascendancy and the great future they hope for. In fact , it is much more likely that a rag-tag band of escaped slaves ,whose tribal identities and religious beliefs were quite disparate, formed the source of the first Israelite identity. The etiology of the Passover provides a good example of this evolution of a people , its culture and its religion.

It is thought that the Passover celebration began as the Festival of the New Lambs in a herding culture. Thus the Paschal Lamb and the rituals of travel. It may be that a communal dance marked by leaping movements in imitation of the young lambs was part of the celebration. One of the other source tribes for the new emerging culture may have been agrarian. The Barley harvest occasioned another Near East spring festival and this may have been the origin of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Over time these festivals merged and the legend of the Exodus became the myth binding the liturgy and the community of believers together.

Another example may be the amalgamation of the polytheistic gods of the Fathers with an Egyptian desert cult to the high god , Yahweh. Some think this may have been the theological synthesis of Moses himself. Though others see it as a much later development. At any rate , the arrival of a monotheist viewpoint is itself a study on evolution. Even the Ten Commandments seems to suggest that the honor owed to Yahweh is the honor due a high god . “No gods before me” indicates that there may very well be other gods but Yahweh is superior to those gods.

The conquest of the land is another of the legends that telescopes and exaggerates to way in which the people of Israel gained (regained?) their homeland. Instead of the biblical lightning thrusts described in Judges and Kings , a long multi-generation pattern of war and intermarriage probably accounts for the United Kingdom we find in the time of David.

Solomon’s Temple certainly played a key role in the standardization of Israelite liturgy . This became a powerful influence on the development of the psalms. In fact , we will observe the phenomenon of the Enthronement Psalms from the coronation liturgies.

The Era of the Divided kingdom gave rise to more varied and less –Temple centered worship and song. The fall of the northern kingdom influenced the yahwhist religion by concentrating worship in a southern kingdom under threat. The fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the 1st Temple had a devastating effect on Israelite worship and we can even hear the lament: “How can we sing the Lord’s songs in a foreign land.” Psalm 137:4. The restoration of Israel in the post-exilic period returned the powerful symbol a central Holy City to the worship life of the Jewish people. It is in this stage of history that the Psalms undergo further editing. The desire for the rebuilding of the Temple influences the reshaping of the 1st Temple’s songs as powerfully as the origin of these songs in their desert sanctuary birthplaces. It is thought that the final edition of the Book of Psalms we have today was completed in 150 bce.

This hymnal was the songbook of Jesus’ synagogue and Temple worship and the Gospel of Mark chose a verse from one of these psalms( Ps 22: 2a) as one of the last words of the crucified Christ.


I have started an “ourbiblestudy” blog on which I will try to place our notes and other interesting readings and current events. Right now the Pope’s lecture on Islam can be found there. Log on to : www.blogger.com Then put ourbiblestudy12 into the search space.

OURBIBLESTUDY12 DEBUTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OURBIBLESTUDY begins its 06-07 season with its own biblogle... what better way to begin than with the Pope and his latest controversy:

APOSTOLIC JOURNEY OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI TO MÜNCHEN, ALTÖTTING AND REGENSBURG (SEPTEMBER 9-14, 2006)
MEETING WITH THE REPRESENTATIVES OF SCIENCE
LECTURE OF THE HOLY FATHER
Aula Magna of the University of RegensburgTuesday, 12 September 2006

Faith, Reason and the UniversityMemories and Reflections

Your Eminences, Your Magnificences, Your Excellencies,Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is a moving experience for me to be back again in the university and to be able once again to give a lecture at this podium. I think back to those years when, after a pleasant period at the Freisinger Hochschule, I began teaching at the University of Bonn. That was in 1959, in the days of the old university made up of ordinary professors. The various chairs had neither assistants nor secretaries, but in recompense there was much direct contact with students and in particular among the professors themselves. We would meet before and after lessons in the rooms of the teaching staff. There was a lively exchange with historians, philosophers, philologists and, naturally, between the two theological faculties. Once a semester there was a dies academicus, when professors from every faculty appeared before the students of the entire university, making possible a genuine experience of universitas - something that you too, Magnificent Rector, just mentioned - the experience, in other words, of the fact that despite our specializations which at times make it difficult to communicate with each other, we made up a whole, working in everything on the basis of a single rationality with its various aspects and sharing responsibility for the right use of reason - this reality became a lived experience. The university was also very proud of its two theological faculties. It was clear that, by inquiring about the reasonableness of faith, they too carried out a work which is necessarily part of the "whole" of the universitas scientiarum, even if not everyone could share the faith which theologians seek to correlate with reason as a whole. This profound sense of coherence within the universe of reason was not troubled, even when it was once reported that a colleague had said there was something odd about our university: it had two faculties devoted to something that did not exist: God. That even in the face of such radical scepticism it is still necessary and reasonable to raise the question of God through the use of reason, and to do so in the context of the tradition of the Christian faith: this, within the university as a whole, was accepted without question.I was reminded of all this recently, when I read the edition by Professor Theodore Khoury (Münster) of part of the dialogue carried on - perhaps in 1391 in the winter barracks near Ankara - by the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both. It was presumably the emperor himself who set down this dialogue, during the siege of Constantinople between 1394 and 1402; and this would explain why his arguments are given in greater detail than those of his Persian interlocutor. The dialogue ranges widely over the structures of faith contained in the Bible and in the Qur'an, and deals especially with the image of God and of man, while necessarily returning repeatedly to the relationship between - as they were called - three "Laws" or "rules of life": the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Qur'an. It is not my intention to discuss this question in the present lecture; here I would like to discuss only one point - itself rather marginal to the dialogue as a whole - which, in the context of the issue of "faith and reason", I found interesting and which can serve as the starting-point for my reflections on this issue.
In the seventh conversation (διάλεξις - controversy) edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the holy war. The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion". According to the experts, this is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Qur'an, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the "Book" and the "infidels", he addresses his interlocutor with a startling brusqueness, a brusqueness which leaves us astounded, on the central question about the relationship between religion and violence in general, saying: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached". The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. "God", he says, "is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably (σὺν λόγω) is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death...".The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazm went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practise idolatry.
At this point, as far as understanding of God and thus the concrete practice of religion is concerned, we are faced with an unavoidable dilemma. Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God's nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true? I believe that here we can see the profound harmony between what is Greek in the best sense of the word and the biblical understanding of faith in God. Modifying the first verse of the Book of Genesis, the first verse of the whole Bible, John began the prologue of his Gospel with the words: "In the beginning was the λόγος". This is the very word used by the emperor: God acts, σὺν λόγω, with logos. Logos means both reason and word - a reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason. John thus spoke the final word on the biblical concept of God, and in this word all the often toilsome and tortuous threads of biblical faith find their culmination and synthesis. In the beginning was the logos, and the logos is God, says the Evangelist. The encounter between the Biblical message and Greek thought did not happen by chance. The vision of Saint Paul, who saw the roads to Asia barred and in a dream saw a Macedonian man plead with him: "Come over to Macedonia and help us!" (cf. Acts 16:6-10) - this vision can be interpreted as a "distillation" of the intrinsic necessity of a rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek inquiry.In point of fact, this rapprochement had been going on for some time. The mysterious name of God, revealed from the burning bush, a name which separates this God from all other divinities with their many names and simply declares "I am", already presents a challenge to the notion of myth, to which Socrates' attempt to vanquish and transcend myth stands in close analogy. Within the Old Testament, the process which started at the burning bush came to new maturity at the time of the Exile, when the God of Israel, an Israel now deprived of its land and worship, was proclaimed as the God of heaven and earth and described in a simple formula which echoes the words uttered at the burning bush: "I am". This new understanding of God is accompanied by a kind of enlightenment, which finds stark expression in the mockery of gods who are merely the work of human hands (cf. Ps 115). Thus, despite the bitter conflict with those Hellenistic rulers who sought to accommodate it forcibly to the customs and idolatrous cult of the Greeks, biblical faith, in the Hellenistic period, encountered the best of Greek thought at a deep level, resulting in a mutual enrichment evident especially in the later wisdom literature. Today we know that the Greek translation of the Old Testament produced at Alexandria - the Septuagint - is more than a simple (and in that sense really less than satisfactory) translation of the Hebrew text: it is an independent textual witness and a distinct and important step in the history of revelation, one which brought about this encounter in a way that was decisive for the birth and spread of Christianity. A profound encounter of faith and reason is taking place here, an encounter between genuine enlightenment and religion. From the very heart of Christian faith and, at the same time, the heart of Greek thought now joined to faith, Manuel II was able to say: Not to act "with logos" is contrary to God's nature.
In all honesty, one must observe that in the late Middle Ages we find trends in theology which would sunder this synthesis between the Greek spirit and the Christian spirit. In contrast with the so-called intellectualism of Augustine and Thomas, there arose with Duns Scotus a voluntarism which, in its later developments, led to the claim that we can only know God's voluntas ordinata. Beyond this is the realm of God's freedom, in virtue of which he could have done the opposite of everything he has actually done. This gives rise to positions which clearly approach those of Ibn Hazm and might even lead to the image of a capricious God, who is not even bound to truth and goodness. God's transcendence and otherness are so exalted that our reason, our sense of the true and good, are no longer an authentic mirror of God, whose deepest possibilities remain eternally unattainable and hidden behind his actual decisions. As opposed to this, the faith of the Church has always insisted that between God and us, between his eternal Creator Spirit and our created reason there exists a real analogy, in which - as the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 stated - unlikeness remains infinitely greater than likeness, yet not to the point of abolishing analogy and its language. God does not become more divine when we push him away from us in a sheer, impenetrable voluntarism; rather, the truly divine God is the God who has revealed himself as logos and, as logos, has acted and continues to act lovingly on our behalf. Certainly, love, as Saint Paul says, "transcends" knowledge and is thereby capable of perceiving more than thought alone (cf. Eph 3:19); nonetheless it continues to be love of the God who is Logos. Consequently, Christian worship is, again to quote Paul - "λογικη λατρεία", worship in harmony with the eternal Word and with our reason (cf. Rom 12:1).This inner rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek philosophical inquiry was an event of decisive importance not only from the standpoint of the history of religions, but also from that of world history - it is an event which concerns us even today. Given this convergence, it is not surprising that Christianity, despite its origins and some significant developments in the East, finally took on its historically decisive character in Europe. We can also express this the other way around: this convergence, with the subsequent addition of the Roman heritage, created Europe and remains the foundation of what can rightly be called Europe.
The thesis that the critically purified Greek heritage forms an integral part of Christian faith has been countered by the call for a dehellenization of Christianity - a call which has more and more dominated theological discussions since the beginning of the modern age. Viewed more closely, three stages can be observed in the programme of dehellenization: although interconnected, they are clearly distinct from one another in their motivations and objectives.
Dehellenization first emerges in connection with the postulates of the Reformation in the sixteenth century. Looking at the tradition of scholastic theology, the Reformers thought they were confronted with a faith system totally conditioned by philosophy, that is to say an articulation of the faith based on an alien system of thought. As a result, faith no longer appeared as a living historical Word but as one element of an overarching philosophical system. The principle of sola scriptura, on the other hand, sought faith in its pure, primordial form, as originally found in the biblical Word. Metaphysics appeared as a premise derived from another source, from which faith had to be liberated in order to become once more fully itself. When Kant stated that he needed to set thinking aside in order to make room for faith, he carried this programme forward with a radicalism that the Reformers could never have foreseen. He thus anchored faith exclusively in practical reason, denying it access to reality as a whole.The liberal theology of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries ushered in a second stage in the process of dehellenization, with Adolf von Harnack as its outstanding representative. When I was a student, and in the early years of my teaching, this programme was highly influential in Catholic theology too. It took as its point of departure Pascal's distinction between the God of the philosophers and the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In my inaugural lecture at Bonn in 1959, I tried to address the issue, and I do not intend to repeat here what I said on that occasion, but I would like to describe at least briefly what was new about this second stage of dehellenization. Harnack's central idea was to return simply to the man Jesus and to his simple message, underneath the accretions of theology and indeed of hellenization: this simple message was seen as the culmination of the religious development of humanity. Jesus was said to have put an end to worship in favour of morality. In the end he was presented as the father of a humanitarian moral message. Fundamentally, Harnack's goal was to bring Christianity back into harmony with modern reason, liberating it, that is to say, from seemingly philosophical and theological elements, such as faith in Christ's divinity and the triune God. In this sense, historical-critical exegesis of the New Testament, as he saw it, restored to theology its place within the university: theology, for Harnack, is something essentially historical and therefore strictly scientific. What it is able to say critically about Jesus is, so to speak, an expression of practical reason and consequently it can take its rightful place within the university. Behind this thinking lies the modern self-limitation of reason, classically expressed in Kant's "Critiques", but in the meantime further radicalized by the impact of the natural sciences. This modern concept of reason is based, to put it briefly, on a synthesis between Platonism (Cartesianism) and empiricism, a synthesis confirmed by the success of technology. On the one hand it presupposes the mathematical structure of matter, its intrinsic rationality, which makes it possible to understand how matter works and use it efficiently: this basic premise is, so to speak, the Platonic element in the modern understanding of nature. On the other hand, there is nature's capacity to be exploited for our purposes, and here only the possibility of verification or falsification through experimentation can yield ultimate certainty. The weight between the two poles can, depending on the circumstances, shift from one side to the other. As strongly positivistic a thinker as J. Monod has declared himself a convinced Platonist/Cartesian.
This gives rise to two principles which are crucial for the issue we have raised. First, only the kind of certainty resulting from the interplay of mathematical and empirical elements can be considered scientific. Anything that would claim to be science must be measured against this criterion. Hence the human sciences, such as history, psychology, sociology and philosophy, attempt to conform themselves to this canon of scientificity. A second point, which is important for our reflections, is that by its very nature this method excludes the question of God, making it appear an unscientific or pre-scientific question. Consequently, we are faced with a reduction of the radius of science and reason, one which needs to be questioned.I will return to this problem later. In the meantime, it must be observed that from this standpoint any attempt to maintain theology's claim to be "scientific" would end up reducing Christianity to a mere fragment of its former self. But we must say more: if science as a whole is this and this alone, then it is man himself who ends up being reduced, for the specifically human questions about our origin and destiny, the questions raised by religion and ethics, then have no place within the purview of collective reason as defined by "science", so understood, and must thus be relegated to the realm of the subjective. The subject then decides, on the basis of his experiences, what he considers tenable in matters of religion, and the subjective "conscience" becomes the sole arbiter of what is ethical. In this way, though, ethics and religion lose their power to create a community and become a completely personal matter. This is a dangerous state of affairs for humanity, as we see from the disturbing pathologies of religion and reason which necessarily erupt when reason is so reduced that questions of religion and ethics no longer concern it. Attempts to construct an ethic from the rules of evolution or from psychology and sociology, end up being simply inadequate.
Before I draw the conclusions to which all this has been leading, I must briefly refer to the third stage of dehellenization, which is now in progress. In the light of our experience with cultural pluralism, it is often said nowadays that the synthesis with Hellenism achieved in the early Church was a preliminary inculturation which ought not to be binding on other cultures. The latter are said to have the right to return to the simple message of the New Testament prior to that inculturation, in order to inculturate it anew in their own particular milieux. This thesis is not only false; it is coarse and lacking in precision. The New Testament was written in Greek and bears the imprint of the Greek spirit, which had already come to maturity as the Old Testament developed. True, there are elements in the evolution of the early Church which do not have to be integrated into all cultures. Nonetheless, the fundamental decisions made about the relationship between faith and the use of human reason are part of the faith itself; they are developments consonant with the nature of faith itself. And so I come to my conclusion. This attempt, painted with broad strokes, at a critique of modern reason from within has nothing to do with putting the clock back to the time before the Enlightenment and rejecting the insights of the modern age. The positive aspects of modernity are to be acknowledged unreservedly: we are all grateful for the marvellous possibilities that it has opened up for mankind and for the progress in humanity that has been granted to us. The scientific ethos, moreover, is - as you yourself mentioned, Magnificent Rector - the will to be obedient to the truth, and, as such, it embodies an attitude which belongs to the essential decisions of the Christian spirit. The intention here is not one of retrenchment or negative criticism, but of broadening our concept of reason and its application. While we rejoice in the new possibilities open to humanity, we also see the dangers arising from these possibilities and we must ask ourselves how we can overcome them. We will succeed in doing so only if reason and faith come together in a new way, if we overcome the self-imposed limitation of reason to the empirically verifiable, and if we once more disclose its vast horizons. In this sense theology rightly belongs in the university and within the wide-ranging dialogue of sciences, not merely as a historical discipline and one of the human sciences, but precisely as theology, as inquiry into the rationality of faith.
Only thus do we become capable of that genuine dialogue of cultures and religions so urgently needed today. In the Western world it is widely held that only positivistic reason and the forms of philosophy based on it are universally valid. Yet the world's profoundly religious cultures see this exclusion of the divine from the universality of reason as an attack on their most profound convictions. A reason which is deaf to the divine and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable of entering into the dialogue of cultures. At the same time, as I have attempted to show, modern scientific reason with its intrinsically Platonic element bears within itself a question which points beyond itself and beyond the possibilities of its methodology. Modern scientific reason quite simply has to accept the rational structure of matter and the correspondence between our spirit and the prevailing rational structures of nature as a given, on which its methodology has to be based. Yet the question why this has to be so is a real question, and one which has to be remanded by the natural sciences to other modes and planes of thought - to philosophy and theology. For philosophy and, albeit in a different way, for theology, listening to the great experiences and insights of the religious traditions of humanity, and those of the Christian faith in particular, is a source of knowledge, and to ignore it would be an unacceptable restriction of our listening and responding. Here I am reminded of something Socrates said to Phaedo. In their earlier conversations, many false philosophical opinions had been raised, and so Socrates says: "It would be easily understandable if someone became so annoyed at all these false notions that for the rest of his life he despised and mocked all talk about being - but in this way he would be deprived of the truth of existence and would suffer a great loss". The West has long been endangered by this aversion to the questions which underlie its rationality, and can only suffer great harm thereby. The courage to engage the whole breadth of reason, and not the denial of its grandeur - this is the programme with which a theology grounded in Biblical faith enters into the debates of our time. "Not to act reasonably, not to act with logos, is contrary to the nature of God", said Manuel II, according to his Christian understanding of God, in response to his Persian interlocutor. It is to this great logos, to this breadth of reason, that we invite our partners in the dialogue of cultures. To rediscover it constantly is the great task of the university.
***
NOTE:
The Holy Father intends to supply a subsequent version of this text, complete with footnotes. The present text must therefore be considered provisional.

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