Unlikely Origin

Yesterday my copy of The Death of the Messiah (vol. 2) by Raymond E. Brown arrived in the mail. It came quickly, and for a very good price. The strange thing is where this book originated... The bookseller, kbooks, shipped the book from Toronto, Ontario, but when I opened the book, a most curious stamping greeted me. The inside cover was stamped "Archibald Library." That sounds awfully familiar! I turned the page to find:

Archibald Library

Briercrest Bible College

Caronport, Saskatchewan, Canada

So, after going through Abebooks and a week of shipping, I end up with a book from a library that I can see from my house. I'm very interested to see where volume 2 comes from in a week or so!

Now that's innovation!

Many interesting things came into the world around the 1830's: Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, the rapture theory... but most notable of all, without a doubt, is --- the mustache cup! In our visit to Elbow, Saskatchewan today, we stopped in at the little museum of Elbow, and this gem was just waiting to be found:

Because of the glorious mustaches of those days, a clever 'mustache guard' was put into place, more visible in this angle:

φωνὴν μεγάλην (Mark 15:37)

I'm currently researching Markan motifs for the Gospels class I took at the start of June. In some of the reading, I've come across some very interesting interpretations. The most noteworthy thus far concerns the centurion's confession at Jesus' death. Robert H. Gundry explains that the centurion's confession that Jesus is Son of God is not brought about by seeing Jesus suffer and die (he had probably witnessed that a hundred times), but is "evoked and defined, rather, by the supernatural strength that enables Jesus at the moment of his death to shout with a superhumanly loud voice and with exhalant force so powerful that it rends the veil of the temple. . . he sees Jesus die in a way that defies naturalistic explanation. It is Jesus' overcoming the weakness normally caused by crucifixion, not dying itself by crucifixion, which evokes the centurion's declaration." (Gundry, Mark: A Commentary on His Apology for the Cross. Eerdmans, 1993, 974).

Programming Code and Gospel Motif

An odd combination for sure. I guess that because these are my two worlds right now --- tracing Markan motifs that climax in Jesus' death, and immersing myself in the various coding languages of the internet --- I've begun to see parallels between how the two of these things operate. Both seem to ebb and flow like well-written classical music. Just yesterday I was listening to CBC Radio 2, whose host was playing John William's score from "Return of the Jedi". I found the flow of the music so interesting. Elements of the highly recognizable themes of Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker are introduced and pulled back, repeated, reinforced, interwoven, and finally brought to a climax that makes goosebumps suddenly form. There is foreshadowing and echoing and finally full-blown revelation.

I have found that Gospel motifs work like this too, as the author introduces a theme, develops it slowly, and in the case of motifs leading to Jesus' death, brings them to such a head that they can hardly be ignored. Maybe an analogy to Visual Basic programming is a bit of a stretch (and I don't know if I understand it well enough yet to give a very helpful explanation), but here too, the first module contains a sub-routine that points forward to the next module containing the actual commands referenced in the first module. The second module's sub-routine might include a reference which propels the program to the third module, and so on. With each move forward, the program always returns to the beginning to find its instruction, forming a continuous cycle of forward and backward movement until the program fulfills its mission and the program ends.

If nothing else, thinking about similarities between code syntax and narrative development helps to keep coding interesting. (And I think I'm beginning to understand how Dr. Karen H. Jobes of Wheaton College made a transition from computer science to exegesis...)

Dominion Day Adventures

Canada Day this year was spent with our good friends Paul and Darcie. We headed up to Regina Beach for the afternoon and contentedly browsed through the boutiques, basked in the sun at the beach, enjoyed some frisbee and Bocce Ball, and helped some drunkards get their car started. As it grew dark, we headed to the Legislative building for Regina's fireworks show, which was great because it happened to be the retirement celebration of the man who has put on the fireworks for the last 25 years. Very impressive!

But the best light show happened on the way home... Toward the end of the afternoon and throughout the evening we saw lightning in the distance. On the road home to Caronport, the storm met us full on. I haven't been in a storm like that in years! A wall of water and hail came on hard, thunder roared, and so much lightning flashed at once that we had to shield our eyes! It was amazing. I love being in the grip of such power, knowing that at any moment my life could be threatened. I've always, secretly, wanted to be a storm chaser. I'm absolutely thrilled by violent storms. To top all of this off, we saw a funnel cloud begin to form. It never really materialized, but we saw the beginnings of a cone shape start to swirl and angle toward the ground before it dissolved. (The picture above is of the same cloud that was over us, but the picture doesn't do the storm justice. You really had to be there.)