NT Manuscript Variations and Inspiration

For those of you who have been to Sunday School classes or youth events where your questions were dismissed by your teachers because "you should just accept things by faith and not question God," I am glad to read that not everyone is this way. Thankfully many people have questioned and not simply accepted things blindly, but searched and studied.  I liked this little snippet.  Maybe because it's comforting to know scholarly people have studied and come out stronger in their trust of Jesus as he is presented in the New Testament.


In The Case for the Real Jesus author Lee Strobel recalls an interview he had with Bruce Metzger   "a scholar who's universally acknowledged as the greatest textual critic of his generation."  Bart Ehrman "even dedicates Misquoting Jesus to him, calling him 'Doctor-Father' and saying he 'taught me the field and continues to inspire me in my work.'"

Strobel was interviewing Metzger about the variations between New Testament manuscripts noting most of them "tend to be minor rather than substantive."

"Yes, yes, that's correct, " Metzger replied, adding: "The more significant variations do not overthrow any doctrine of the church."

Then I recall asking him how his many decades of intensely studying the New Testament's text had affected his personal faith.  "Oh," he said, sounding happy to discuss the topic, "it has increased the basis of my personal faith to see the firmness with which these materials have come down to us, with a multiplicity of copies, some of which are very ancient."

"So," I started to say, "scholarship has not diluted your faith ____"

He jumped in before I could finish my sentence.  "On the contrary," he stressed, "it has built it. I've asked questions all my life, I've dug into the text, I've studied this thoroughly, and today I know with confidence that my trust in Jesus has been well placed."

He paused while his eyes surveyed my face. Then he added, for emphasis, "Very well placed."   (pg. 99)

I just wanted to share this for those wondering what the Bible being inspired meant.


In an interview with Dan Wallace ...


"Seeking a crisp summary, I said, 'Complete this sentence: when Christians say the Bible is inspired, they mean that...'"

"'...that it's both the Word of God and the words of men.  Lewis Sperry Chafer put it well: "Without violating the authors' personalities, they wrote with their own feelings, literary abilities, and concerns. But in the end, God could say, That's exactly what I wanted to have written."'"  (pg. 74)

Good definition or would you say it differently?


Thoughts?

"Lipstick Jihad"

Excerpts from Lipstick Jihad: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America and American in Iran by Azadeh Moaveni


Note: The author was born in 1976 to Iranian parents who came to America and ended up staying after the Islamic revolution. As an adult she lived in Tehran for several months as a journalist. She tried to remember the Iran she visited as a child and fit in with her people.  Here are a few observations that I noted from this book.



I wanted to pinpoint precisely what it was that gave me away as a foreigner. After watching me for several weeks as we rode in taxis and shopped and had coffee, Celine concluded that it was nothing so obvious. She leaned forward in her chair, as if to make a serious pronouncement. One, you laugh whenever you want.  And two, you smile too much. This is very American of you. It doesn't really occur to you, to alter yourself in public. So I should smile less? I asked. I should be less nice?  No, she replied, you need to be more selective about who you're nice to.  (pg. 69)

I just found that funny because I think I would be guilty of the same if I were in one of those societies where it's odd to smile at any ol' person walking down the street.


The major social aim of the revolution had been to impose Islamic faith on Iranian society.  But the catalog of restrictions - on dress, behavior, speech - meant to instill a solemn decency instead inflamed people's carnal instincts. Made neurotic by the innate oppressiveness of restriction, Iranians were preoccupied with sex in the manner of dieters constantly thinking about food. The subject meant to be unmentionable - to which end women were forced to wear veils, sit in the back of the bus, and order hamburgers from the special "women's line" at fast food joints - had somehow become the most mentioned of all.  The constant exposure to covered flesh - whether it was covered hideously, artfully, or plainly - brought to mind, well, flesh.  (pg. 71)

Makes sense really.  And I read stuff like this often on Muslim blogs about how preoccupied the people are with sex!  To me, covering women doesn't really make the men stop fantasizing about what's hidden under the veil.




Her thoughts on temporary marriages, the Shiite practice of sigheh -- "It is a form of prostitution, which enables a patriarchal culture to cement the imbalanced gender relations in the guise of empowering women with a temporary and flimsy legal status that rarely works to their benefit."  (pg. 74)


It amuses me somewhat when people try to defend this as some gift from God.


It was only over time, after repeated exposure to womanizing clerics, clerics who stole from the state and built financial empires, who ordered assassinations like gangsters, who gave Friday sermons attacking poodles, that I came to understand the virulence of my father and my uncle's hate for the Iranian clergy. Perhaps their flaws were no greater than those of ordinary mortals, but ordinary mortals did not claim divine right to rule, ineptly, over seventy million people. (pg. 101)

Yessssss!  And that is the problem! You are corrupt like the rest of us, yet you believe God allows you to tell us what to do!  And poodles are so awful just because some Westerners own them?  Get outta here!


Thoughts on the veil -- "It was the symbol of how everything had gone horribly wrong. How in the early days of the revolution, secular women wore the veil as a protest symbol against the West and its client state policies, and then had it imposed on them by the fundamentalist mullahs who hijacked the revolution and instituted religious law. My generation, Iranians who learned about 1979 at kitchen tables in the United States, absorbed this version of history as truth.  Though most women in modern-day Iran might not consider the veil their highest grievance, they knew it symbolized the system's disregard for women's legal status in general. Mandatory veiling crushed women's ability to express themselves, therefore denying them a basic human right."  (pg. 170)


Nanny governments and mandatory veiling stinks! What happened to it being between a woman and God?


On how some women from conservative families were more free after the Shah's removal from power -- "Under the Shah's regime, traditional parents like hers would never have let their daughters stray out into society. They preferred to keep them uneducated and housebound rather than exposing them to corrupt, Westernized Iranians who drank, smoke, wore miniskirts, and slept around. The revolution erased all those sins from the surface of society (tucking them under wraps, along with women).  In the process, it made possible for young women like Fatimeh to venture out of the home sphere. They were given the opportunity to do something with their lives besides washing dishes and birthing."  (pg. 181)


This reminded me of the arguments of those who oppose the burqa bans in some European countries. They claim women will just have to stay home since they won't be allowed to go out in public with their faces showing.  In that sense France, in their opinions, actually oppressed Muslim women (more).


I really enjoyed this book because I was able to learn some about the Iranian revolution and life in Tehran from an Iranian woman.  I do realize she is a secular Muslim* woman who grew up in California and that colors her views of some things in Iran that others may have no problem with.



*Some would probably not even consider her Muslim, but I believe she culturally considers herself this way.

Climbing Trees and Breaking Things

Remember how I've talked about noticing patterns in the past? (Like this post where I talked about tuna.)   Well, last night I posted a few pictures from Halloween on Facebook.  I had one where Michael took a picture of me pretending to climb a tree. I'd gotten to his house early so we took a few pictures while waiting for it to get dusky enough for trick or treating.  (It's this picture for those who are able to see my Facebook photos.)  Anyway, one of my doctor friends joked that it was cute, but he'd advise against it so I joked that yeah I might break my arm and have to visit a doctor.

No biggie.

A few hours later I was mowing the yard and thinking of climbing trees and wondering if kids even did that any more. I remember climbing trees at my great grandmother's house. My cousins and I had fun hiding out up there.

No biggie.

But then a couple hours later I was talking to my mom and she was telling me about one of her fifth grade students who was absent today. Turns out the kid was *cue spooky music* climbing a tree before trick or treating!

Fell.

And broke his arm!

What?!

I just thought that was weird enough to share.


In other news, Lipstick Jihad was a really good book and I enjoyed learning about the author's experiences in Iran.  I never knew Iranians were so much like Americans in many ways.

October Books

It's that time again!  I read more books this month than I thought I would. It helped that many of these were rather short and/or easy reads.  Some books just take way more thinking than others. Most of these were not that type so I read quite a bit.  Happy Halloween to those who enjoy this day!


The Places In Between by Rory Stewart -- A book about a Scottish man's journey by foot through central Afghanistan and the people he meets along the way. I was impressed by some villages' hospitality, but mostly unimpressed by how many treated a stranger among them and how they treated dogs and donkeys!  Rather neat story and way to "see" some remote parts of Afghanistan just after the Taliban fell.



Paul: The Mind of the Apostle by A.N. Wilson  -- see previous posts




Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas -- "A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America" is a cute story I happened to stumbled upon in the biography section of my local library.  Firoozeh was 7 years old when her family moved to California for two years. This was before the Iranian Revolution and the family was there because of her dad's work with a big oil company.  She told how nice the Americans were and her first impressions of their language, foods and services. I laughed out loud when she and her mom went to the store looking for "elbow grease" to help get out stubborn stains!  The family went back to Iran for a while, but came back to the US permanently after the revolution.  While Firoozeh mentions Islam, Muhammad and being Muslim, she is quick to point out her family's secular views and speaks of her father's love of ham (which he was able to purchase and eat in Iran since they lived in a section developed by the British) and her own marriage to a cultural Roman Catholic French guy whom she met in the US. (Oddly, his mom never accepted their marriage as of the writing.)  I loved her talk of our lack of using those guttural sounds, our lack of a billion names for relatives. Cousins, aunts, uncles covers a lot of people in English whereas in Iran they are each broken down specifically!  Really cute book. I loved seeing America through her family's eyes!


The Language of Names: What We Call Ourselves and Why It Matters by Justin Kaplan and Anne Bernays -- the authors (a married couple) discuss movie stars taking new names as well as regular people names, place names and maiden names. Some chapters are of more interest to me than others, but overall a pretty good book even though it was published way back in 1997.  A few tidbits:


"If first names whisper, surnames shout,and they often give misleading messages. 'In daily life,' Mary Waters, a sociologist, reported, 'Americans routinely use surnames to guess one another's ethnic origins,' but the conclusions they reach, based on folk knowledge of what is a typical Irish, Italian, or Dutch name, deal only with the father's ethnicity, ignore the mother's, and disregard mixed marriages, mixed ancestries, and earlier name changes. Even so, beginning with the first tidal waves of immigration, a surname could cut you off from employment and social acceptance as effectively as a criminal record.  If it was O'Reilly or Epstein or Bertucci, your destiny was shaped in the cradle.  Some people with undesirable names went the pragmatic route and changed them.  Others, who couldn't tolerate the psychic wrench of a name change, did not and often paid for their refusal in reduced earning power and career advancement, although they may have slept better at night than the name changers."   (pg. 56)


"Smith is the ultimate catchall for linguistic naturalization: it takes in Schmidt, Schmitt, Schmitz, Smed, Szmyt, Schmieder, Smidnovic, Seppanen, Fevre, Kalvaitis, Kovars, Haddad, McGowan, and other variants that in their original language mean someone who works with metal." (pg. 52)


Granted this book is old, but when it was published in 1997 it said this about Germany's naming laws: "'the gender of the child must be recognizable from the first name.' Junior, Jr., and Jun. are verboten, as are Hemingway, Jesus, and Woodstock as first names..."  Under Hitler there "was a list of first names to be used exclusively for Jewish newborns" and those adults who were not readily identifiable by their last names as Jews had to take "Israel or Sarah as a middle name."  (pg. 113)


"When a woman gives up her name at marriage, she's saying: 'While I'm willing to relinquish a piece of my identity for the sake of this union, I do not ask the same of you.'"  (pg. 146)




Fried Eggs With Chopsticks by Polly Evans - An English woman tells of her travels by sleeper trains, buses, bicycles, taxis through parts of China. This book was written in a much more humorous way than some other travel books I've read. Almost like a comedy mixed with travel through China.




Thura's Diary: My Life in Wartime Iraq by Thura Al-Windawi (almost 20 years old) tells of the few days before the war, Thura's family during the initial days of war and such things.  Interestingly, things got worse for women as religious people started making the women cover their hair and not celebrate Muhammad's birthday at the mosque like she had all her years before. Also pornography became much more commonplace. It could have just been the American soldiers, but Thura "scolded" the Muslim-majority Iraqi people for this.



Life In Year One: What the World Was Like in First-Century Palestine by Scott Korb -- a library book that discussed war, homes, religion, money, foods, bathing, respect and death in year one.  Pretty interesting! You can read a short interview about these topics here if you want.


Faith Under Fire by Roger Benimoff is "an army chaplain's memoir" mostly about his second deployment to Iraq and the struggle he had with PTSD and adjusting to normal family life upon his return.  He questioned how he could serve a God who would not step in to stop all the terrible things and suffering in life. This book made me so sad about the awfulness of war...all those killed and living with shattered bodies and minds. 


The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo by Paula Huntley -- I really enjoyed this book; see previous posts for more on it



Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Sarajevo by Zlata Filipović -- life just before and during the war as told by 11 and 12 year old Zlata; it ends with the shelling continuing; I got to thinking that Zlata is now 30 years old and wonderedhow she is now. Oh, I found this about her on Wikipedia.




The Bookseller Of Kabul by Asne Seierstad -- a great book which tells about life in a fairly well-off family; each chapter follows various family members' roles in society and in their households. Makes me extremely appreciative for not being part of that life.


Muhammad by Deepak Chopra -- a fictionalized biography of sorts; each chapter is told by a contemporary of Muhammad - friends, families, enemies; I got the book recommendation from Wafa's reading blog - here is her review



Off The Map: Bicycling Through Siberia by Mark Jenkins -- granted this book is a bit old; the journey took place in 1989, but it was fun reading of that time in Russian history. I enjoyed Mark's telling of his trip with a couple other Americans and four Russians - complete strangers prior to this months-long journey - and their interactions with each other and people in Siberian villages. It was sobering to hear one lady admit that "they were pets" to the country's leaders.  Interesting book!


Falling Leaves by Adeline Yen Mah -- "The True Story of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter" -- I found this at the local library. What a sad book in so many ways.  Adeline's mother died two weeks after her birth so she was considered unlucky. Her stepmother was cruel and her father had no backbone to stand up to her.  Adeline's siblings were troubling too. I admire Adeline for her hard work in getting good grades and determination to study abroad and finally settle in California as a doctor. This book was quite interesting as it told some history of Shanghai and Hong Kong as it pertained to the author's life.  Made me wonder how people could sorely mistreat family like this. 


What about you? Read any good books lately?

The Human Condition

Journal entry excerpt from The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo by Paula Huntley.  Last ones, I promise!  I returned the book a few days ago.  :-)

I read this and it just struck a chord. Maybe it's because not many days before this, I had been thinking of the "human condition" while sitting on my porch reading about struggles in Vietnam and elsewhere in the world. (Those travel books can really get to you when you start seeing "the enemy" as human beings!)  It was so weird seeing those exact words written in this journal entry in this particular book. I can relate much to the author's sentiments here and in the final entry on this post. Only instead of Kosovo (Kosova to Albanians; the spelling is a political statement and both are used in the book), my heart was left in Syria. I always wanted to go back, but now it seems nearly impossible.


TUESDAY, APRIL 24, 2001

... I remember a letter my brother, David, wrote me not long ago - a long thoughtful letter about the futility of most human efforts to improve things. Humanity evolves at its own speed, he says, and we are a long way away from being anywhere close to goodness, kindness, peace. He worries, I think, that with all the renewed violence in the area, I am discouraged, unhappy with our decision to come here. Maybe, he thinks, I have become cynical. After all, things look less stable now than they did when we arrived eight months ago.

It is true that after seeing what I have seen, learning what I have learned, I am less hopeful than ever about our human condition.  I doubt we can ever straighten ourselves out. World peace is only a dream. The most we can do, I fear, is to prevent violence in some places, put a lid on it in others, help each other when we can.

But in the place of hope I now feel ... something else.  I look around me and see that most of us share a certain sweetness.  Most of us are trying to live decent lives, doing what we can for our families and children, trying to find some meaning, to piece together the puzzle. But we keep blundering, stumbling, falling into fits of rage and fear, hatred and self-destruction. Our stories are often sad, tragic, maddening.  And I am not hopeful that things will get much better. I don't see progress, but I don't feel cynicism. I feel only an immense tenderness for all of us.

Tonight, as I have often done during my stay in Kosovo, I turn to a copy of The Sun, the magazine published by my friend, Sy. In an interview, James Hillman advises us to "pick one place where your heart can connect to the world's problems." 

For me, that place has been Kosovo. I am so very lucky to have found it.   (pg. 210)


Do you think Ms. Huntley's outlook on humanity or the world is too pessimistic, too optimistic or about right?  Do you think the world is getting better, worse or staying the same?  In what areas do you see progress? In what areas do you find cause for concern?


What do you think of the "immense tenderness" she feels for people? Do you also feel this way or do you tend towards cynicism or something else entirely?


What do you think about her observations of people sharing a "certain sweetness" and just trying to provide for their families and figure out this puzzle of life?


FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2002

...So, we will return this spring. ... When I e-mailed them of the possibility of returning for a visit, Leutrim and Leonard wrote back immediately volunteering to try to round everyone up for a class reunion at the Cambridge School.  And Genti wrote: "We wonder why anyone would come back to Kosova. We think you must love us very much."  (pg. 225)


Thoughts? Where has your heart connected to the world's problems? Or maybe it's not necessarily a particular place, but a cause or a group of people scattered throughout the world or in your own country.

Anything you want to share?

The Darkness of My Heart

Journal entry excerpt from The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo by Paula Huntley.


"Teacher" was talking to her Kosovar students about the war and about how not all Serbs are bad and it's not good to generalize the whole population as being one way...right?

MONDAY, MARCH 5, 2001

...Is their bitterness, their fear so great that they could do to Serbs what Serbs did to them?  Could soft-spoken Veton burn a Serb village because his own was burned by Serbs? Would sweet, wide-eyed Enver, who loves basketball and never misses a class, stand by and watch while atrocities were committed?  Could any of these bright, kindhearted young people kill Serbs because they are Serbs?

And if I were in their shoes, what would I be capable of? Have I come to grips with the darkness in my own heart?

Tonight I read the words of Francois Bizot, who was imprisoned by the Khmer Rouge for three months in 1971 and who writes in Le Portail: "Every war needs killers and they can always be found. We always put ourselves in the skin of the victims and not of their killers - we never put ourselves in the skin of a Nazi or Khmer Rouge.  Yet between them and us there is very little difference, no more than between the victim and us."

And the same from Matthew Spender: "In extreme situations only chance divides the role of the torturer from that of his victims."

Are they right? Given the right circumstances, we are all, even the best of us, capable of anything?  There are no easy answers, in Kosovo or anywhere else. (pg. 188)


I was talking to a friend in Damascus the other day and he was saying how things have changed the last two months. The uprisings that began in Syria back in March have continued yet Friend has noticed a shift. He said people are openly talking of revenge, of siding with the devil if it means toppling the regime. His exact words to me were:

ordinary people are now talking of revenge and very very dark thoughts

  i fear that we will be torn apart there is so much hate now   i never imagined that we would reach this level 

 He said he'd even lost friends because of differing of opinions, there was much sectarian division and he did not like the way things were headed.

Listening to Friend talk and reading this excerpt from Ms. Huntley's journal makes me think the man she quoted is right when he says we often identify with the victims without perhaps realizing we are capable of evil things if circumstances go another way. Maybe the Nazis didn't realize they were doing anything wrong. They were cleansing the world of filth in order to ensure the strongest of the species survived, right?  And for the Syrian regime: why not stop those traitors who are bent on destroying the country?  Even religions OK killing treasonous people, don't they?

It's actually pretty easy to rationalize our favorite evil things. Thankfully most of us won't go the route of rounding up people for gas chambers, or mutilating young boys for the sake of power and control of a country. But...

What do you think of the quotes in this journal entry?

Four Journal Entries

Journal entry excerpts from The Hemingway Book Club of Kosovo by Paula Huntley. I am really enjoying this book!


MONDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2000

I am in love with my students. They are bright, fun, curious, receptive. Today they practice speaking, repeating each sentence after me in perfect imitation, and I realize with chagrin that these Kosovo Albanian students are being taught to speak English not only with an American accent, but with a southern accent!  It seems that, even after twenty-one years in California, my southern drawl is still with me - and now, with my students!  (pg. 51)


Haha!  I can totally see this happening if I were teaching ESL!  Samer would consider it great, I think. He actually wishes sometimes that I had a heavier southern accent if you can imagine! 



FRIDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2000


...And here is the key distinction, I've found, between Kosovar students and American students: American students study in order to secure lucrative jobs and a sense of individual achievement. Kosovo Albanians study so they can provide for their families - their parents, siblings, and grandparents, as well as any future family they will have. Education is a family goal, not an individual goal.  (pg. 115)


A few entries later the author talks about how shocked her students are when told that American teens often study far from their families and get jobs hundreds of miles away. Families are very important to Albanians and they cannot imagine this.  When "Teacher" reminds them that many of their relatives are in Western Europe working, they counter that they do this to send money back home, but their main goal is to return to be near their parents and siblings.



FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2001

At the bottom of Dragodan at an intersection close to the railway tracks, there's a sign that proudly proclaims: "This Corner Cleaned Up by UNMIK."  The signpost itself is invisible because of the mountains of rubbish piled around it. The trash of kitchens, offices, and shops surrounds the sign and spills over into the street.

There's a basic cultural misunderstanding on this corner.  UNMIK, wishing to set an example for the community, cleaned up the site and erected the sign to show what could be done. The community took the sign to mean that UNMIK would clean up whatever garbage they dumped there.  Thus, the messiest corner in the city. (pg. 171)

This just struck me funny. Cultural misunderstandings often are (and sometimes not, of course!)  Oh, the people just pile trash outside. Apparently there are mounds of it to wade through to go anywhere.



THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 2001

As Leonard and I walk from the Monaco Café to the school today, I ask him: "Leonard, how is it that people here can always tell I am an American? Even before I open my mouth, shopkeepers, taxi drivers, people on the street can see that I am from the U.S."  I've been puzzled about this for a long while.

"That is easy, Teacher," he says. "You are not afraid."

I don't understand.

"Teacher" - he eyes me carefully, not wanting to insult me - "you think that because you like everyone, everyone will like you. You show everyone a friendly face, a face that trusts. You don't think anyone would hurt you. Everyone knows that is how Americans are." 

"Here in Kosova," he continues, "we have learned to be afraid.  Americans have not learned this lesson."  (pg. 182)

I remember when Samer and I were early in our friendship and I made a short video on my camera. Initially he told me if I came to Syria, I would blend right in with the locals because not all Syrians have dark hair and eyes and olive skin. (Since that area has had so many conquerors that have left their marks, the people can vary in skin, eye and hair color.)  So he told me until I open my mouth and reveal my English-speaking talk, they would probably think I was local. 

But then he saw a video where I was introducing myself to a few of his college friends and he changed his mind completely.  He said there was something about me - my body language (although the video was mostly a head-and-shoulders shot), my facial expression, my voice, something - that said "you are not Syrian!"  He said later that my eyes sparkled. And Syrian eyes did not so much.

Hmmm.

His friend "Jake" also thought I could pass for Syrian. He'd always seen the still-shot of me that I had on Skype or Facebook or somewhere!  But when he came with Samer to pick me up from the airport, he was amazed that I did not look Syrian at all and was very American-looking (whatever that means!)


What are your thoughts or impressions of any of this?  This book is great, by the way. Makes me want to learn more about that area of the world and the people and conflicts. I have been sorely ignorant.