St. Aidan's new internet home

St. Aidan Anglican Church has a new website. Check it out: mjanglican.org.

Nebby the Vulcan (well, almost)

Perhaps it's all the Star Trek I've watched this past summer, but as I've been working through the Aramaic sections of Daniel, I have found that Nebuchadnezzar's benediction to the peoples of the earth makes him sound almost Vulcan:

First, upon witnessing how superior is the God of Shadrack, Meshak, and Abednigo in comparison to the gods of Babylon, he "made Shadrack, Meshak, and Abednigo prosper in the province of Babylon" (Dan 3:30).

In the next verse, Nebuchadnezzar declares to all the peoples, tribes, and tongues who dwell in all the world, "May your peace grow greatly" (Dan 3:31 MT; Dan 4:1).

These things together sound a little like Mr. Spock's, "Live long and prosper" (a line which Leonard Nimoy adapted from the kohanic blessing in Judaism).

Of course, Nebuchadnezzar's Vulcanhood is precluded by his unabashed display of emotion when he realized that the three men were not burning to death in the furnace, but were able to emerge unscathed. If Nebby were a true Vulcan, he would have taken one look at the scene, raised an eyebrow, and respond, "Fascinating."

Unlikely Origin (2)

The other volume arrived this week. Nothing too special to report about it. Unfortunately not from Briercrest Bible College like its counterpart... This one comes from the Lewis & Clark Library in Helena, Montana.

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).