Disgusting Communion

At the recommendation of a colleague, I've started reading Richard Beck's book, Unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality (Cascade Books, 2011). Beck, an experimental psychologist (= social scientist, not a theologian or biblical scholar), brings the psychology of disgust to bear on questions of purity (food, sex), hospitality (social acceptability), and mortality (death).

My interest in the topic is primarily sexual. A few years ago I read Donna Freitas's book, Sex and the Soul (Oxford University Press, 2008), which aroused in me a deep concern that we are raising a/nother generation without providing any guidance or wisdom regarding the connection between one of our most basic physical urges (sex) and one of our most basic spiritual urges (communion with God/the divine). In a profession such as mine (equipping, training, educating people for ministry), that lack of guidance and wisdom is scandalous, or it would be if we weren't so used to it.

Chapter 1 presents some basic thoughts on the psychology of disgust. Beck reproduces a three-fold typology of disgust (p. 19):

1. core disgust: revulsion centered on eating and oral incorporation;
2. sociomoral disgust: revulsion centered on moral and social judgments;
3. animal-reminder disgust: revulsion centered on stimuli that function as death/mortality reminders.

Beck also suggestively maps this typology onto the Eucharist, an intriguing move that he will return to in his final chapter.

I'm enjoying the book already, but I'm not quite sure what to think. On the one hand, I want to defend "disgust" as a physical and even social concept. The expulsive impulse triggered by disgust is healthy, even life-preserving, as when we eat rancid meat or encounter a pedophile on a school yard. On the other hand, there are things that are not, intrinsically, disgusting that still curl my stomach. I eat the flesh of dead cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, etc., but never no never of dogs, pigs, cats, rats, or horses. I accept that every person in church on Sunday is a sinner, but if I find out about their sin (especially if it's sexual in nature) I am driven to passages such as 1 Corinthians 5 ("Remove the evil person from among you").

If I accept that disgust, as an emotion, is culturally determined in a way not true of other emotions (Beck, pp. 16–18), how do we distinguish between healthy and proper manifestations of disgust and those that block and run counter to the redemptive work of Christ? I do not have an answer. But I do have a suspicion. Some things, people, and ideas genuinely and urgently need expulsion from the body physical, political, ecclesial. Those things represent real and present dangers to life and health. But this is the scandal of the gospel, of a Jesus who not only heals the leper but touches him, of a God who not only redeems humanity but becomes her. That which is disgusting, which needs expulsion, is not expelled but redeemed. This is the shocking story of Ezekiel 16 (warning: this chapter is NOT.FOR.CHILDREN, but you absolutely must read all the way to the end of this long chapter). This is the good news (= gospel) of God: I was disgusting and revolting, but God called me to his table, offered me his own flesh ("Disgusting!"), and invited me, saying, "Take, eat. This is my body, broken for you."

Disgust is real. Revulsion is appropriate. If we truly believe in the gospel, disgust leads not to ejection (vomiting, shunning, excommunication) but to gratitude and humility. I once was filthy but now am cleansed. Who am I, then, to push you away in your noxious, grungy, stained rags. I know the One who clothes others like kings and queens, and he has asked me to bring you to him. He offers you the Cup that sates, but be careful. This is His Blood, poured out for you, too. Please don't be disgusted.

teaching and research: resisting the tyranny of either/or

Over at PEJE IESOUS, Christopher Skinner has linked to a very good reflection piece from Inside Higher Ed on the challenges (and methods) of balancing the aspirations of an active research agenda with the demands of a heavy teaching load. Dr. Hollis Phelps offers some very helpful thoughts (and tips!) for those of us who are carrying a significant teaching load and trying to keep up with and contribute to the larger academic discipline to which we belong.

Speaking for myself, I am currently preparing to shop a book proposal for what I hope will be a fairly significant work on Romans. I only ventured into Pauline and Romans studies because my university assigned me to develop a course on Romans for our graduate students. Among the potential synthetic consequences of the tug-o-war between teaching and research, I would identify the following:

• my research deepens the content of my in-class lecture and discussion materials;
• my research strengthens my identification with and passion for my field, which communicates directly to my students as they wrestle to decide whether my field matters to them;
• my teaching broadens the scope of my reading and knowledge, which directly affects the quality of my research and writing;
• my teaching forces me to improve my writing and thinking (especially since I encounter so much bad writing and thinking in [Father, forgive me] student papers).

While not all researchers would be good teachers, and not all good teachers would be good researchers, in the Venn diagram of higher education, there is more overlap between the two than not.

in this river, swimming, nearly drowning

These are hard days. They're good days; don't get me wrong. But I find myself in a season of my faith where I am especially aware of being unworthy of the God I worship. Today—right now—as I sit in church surrounded by people who don't appear on the surface to struggle as I do, I am tempted to look down on these, my brothers and sisters, for seeming to feel so confident of their relationship with the Almighty Creator of the world. If I come off as condescending or elitist, please see through it. Please see through to the small little man who is terrified of his faith.

Some of you who read this blog don't share my faith. I understand that. Honestly, I often envy you. If I felt the choice were truly open to me, I might also choose a different belief.

But faith, as I experience it, is like swimming in a swiftly raging river. I choose how to swim or where (whether with the current or against). Perhaps I even chose to jump into this torrent, once upon a time. But now it has me, and I go where it directs, no matter my choices. I feel the apostles words down deep in my bowels, somewhere deeper than my heart and lungs: "I am not my own; I have been bought at a price."

Sometimes, I hate this river. I long for the peace and calm of the shore, or I envy those who seem to ride these waves so leisurely. But I am drowning. My head sometimes rises above the waters, but usually it thrashes just below the surface, sometimes banging against the rocks and threatening me with unconsciousness.

Other times, however, I realize that this river is taking me somewhere I cannot reach on my own, somewhere I could not get to from the safety of river's edge. If I fought long enough, hard enough, I could remove myself from this flow. But the only thing that scares me more than this river is the loss of the feel of its current driving me forward, closer to the One who directs its course. So I continue to struggle, not to remove myself from this river, but to keep myself from drowning in its furious foam.

The Shack, pt. I

This is not an academic post. If you read Verily Verily for the scholarly things I write—if you're one of the three people who fit that description—you can stop here.

This afternoon I started reading William Paul Young's book, The Shack. After reading the Foreword and the first four chapters, and I'm not sure how to react to this book. The one thing I cannot bring myself to say is that I like it. I don't like it. In fact, I hate it. Maybe I could like it if its story couldn't be true. If evil and death and sadness and brokenness and emptiness and guilt and loneliness were alien guests in the minds of storytellers. If parents didn't lose children and no one had to deal with losing a sibling. If this book were no nearer reality than Gene Roddenberry's tribbles or J. J. Abrams's . . . well, than J. J. Abrams's anything.

Two days ago I had a very difficult day, and I spent half of it crying in my office. Sometimes I can keep the full weight of the reality of my sister's loss out of mind. But not two days ago. Sometimes I can wrap myself in the warmth of my faith and trust that God has a plan, even if I cannot see it. But not two days ago. Sometimes I can strengthen my knees and my back to support the people around me, especially those who experience this loss as their own. But not two days ago. Two days ago I had a very difficult day.

And then my Dad called. It was good to hear his voice. It's good to talk to someone who feels the same pain I feel (though it hurts to know that he feels more of it). And it is good to have someone know the soothing comfort of that pain. Life shouldn't be normal. Not yet. So this pain makes me feel . . . I dunno, human, I guess. Talking with Dad feels the way I imagine war veterans feel when they talk with one another. Other people sympathize. Hell, everyone sympathizes. No one understands. But Dad does. And that makes it easier for me to let him shoulder my burden, and to try to help him lift his. So it was good to hear his voice.

He told me that someone at work gave him The Shack and that he started reading it. He hadn't got very far, and he didn't really know what it was about. But this someone-at-work had been through something himself, and The Shack had apparently been helpful for him. So Dad was reading The Shack. I had heard of it. I think Andrea had even read it, back when the book was everywhere, like frogs in Egypt. But I didn't know anything about it. Dad didn't ask me to read it. But the idea of reading it with him—really, of reading any book with him—struck me as appropriate therapeutic. So yesterday I dropped two quarters on a used copy at McKay's. And now I'm reading The Shack, too.

And I don't think I can put it down. I don't want to describe the plot, especially if the two people who read Verily Verily happen to also be the two people who haven't read The Shack yet. But let me say, I'm reading this book not primarily as someone who has lost his sister. I'm reading it mostly as someone in love with a man who has lost his daughter, and as someone who has two daughters of his own. I'm reading it as a man who wants desperately to believe that he can keep all of this . . . this mess, this hurt, this filth, this pain, this . . . this sin away from his little girls. I'm scared that this book will make me face the fact of my powerlessness, of my impotence (and that's a rare word for a man to use of himself!).

So, no. I don't like this book. But I can't put it down. Because I don't want to avoid thinking about the things this book wants to make me think about. And because I don't want my Dad to read this book alone. And because I find myself thinking about my sister when I read it.

And because I want to believe that God still writes notes.

ΚΑΤΑ ΤΟ . . . A Tribute for Rikki Erin Bera

The Greek phrase κατὰ τό . . . (pronounced kata to . . . ) means "according to . . ." So, for example, the titles printed over the four canonical Gospels are κατὰ Μαθθαῖον [pronounced kata Matthaion], "According to Matthew," κατὰ Μᾶρκον [kata Markon], "According to Mark," and so on.

At any rate, I wanted to give a few thoughts regarding the outpouring of support in the aftermath of my sister's too-early passing away due to cancer. The spirit of this post is, Thank you.

ΚΑΤΑ ΤΟ . . . ("According to . . .")

Kata to . . . the stats on my Facebook post announcing the news that my sister had passed away, 144 people left kind words in the comments. In the immediate hours after I found out that Rikki's body simply could not fight anymore (her spirit, however, fought through the end!), I needed some little distractions. The near-constant ding of my Facebook notifications gave me something else to think on, and your kind words were very encouraging in those first couple of days. Twelve more of you posted comments on my update when I arrived in Phoenix, and thirty-one of you clicked "Like." Thank you.

Kata to . . . the number of posts on my wall, twenty-four people created new posts expressing your condolences, offering your prayers, uploading pictures, and so on. Also, kata to . . . my inbox, twenty-six of you replied to my e-mail announcing the news and let us know that your hearts broke with ours. In addition to that, four of you created new e-mails informing us that your thoughts and prayers were with us. This is in addition to the sixteen messages I received from people at our church. It might not have cost you anything to give me those words, but I cannot express how much they meant to me. Thank you.

Kata to . . . the stack on my table, twenty-six of you sent us cards, some with poetic words in italic fonts, some with very few words at all. All of them seemed appropriate at the time we opened them. One came with a whole pound of Starbucks whole-bean coffee and a mug to drink it with. (Another dear friend hand-delivered a Starbucks tumbler from Seattle!) One came with a CD with stories of coping with cancer. And one came with a pot of yellow mums. Some traveled from across the street; others came cross-country. All of them touched us. Thank you.

Two Services

On a beautiful Saturday afternoon, 10 April 2010, I married my sister to her husband, Justin Bera. I wrote the service myself, and it was a wonderful honor.

Order of Service (Wedding)

Only nine hundred and two days later, on Friday, 28 September 2012, I had the terrible honor—but it was an honor nevertheless—to officiate my sister's funeral service. Again, I wrote the service myself; I hope I never have a similar assignment ever again.
Order of Service (Funeral)

I loved my sister, and she loved me. We didn't always get along, but we weren't supposed to. I was her brother; she was my sister. She will always be my sister. And I will never forget her.

I love you, Rikki. Be well.

a breakfast your mom would approve of

This morning I was blessed to have been invited to breakfast at the house of Dr. Gerald Mattingly, probably Johnson University's most well-known faculty member at present. Dr. Mattingly was hosting Father Justin Sinaites, the Greek Orthodox monk who is at the center of current efforts to digitally photograph and preserve some of the world's most ancient manuscripts, including the famed Codex Sinaiticus. Father Justin lives at the famous and ancient St. Catherine's Monastery, situated at the foot of the traditional Mt. Sinai. Breakfast (and the conversation in particular) was a wonderful experience, and I am grateful to both the host and the guest of honor for allowing me to participate.

Father Justin is in the States, among other reasons, to offer presentations at a number of universities in the Southeast and in Texas and California. He'll be presenting at the University of Tennessee (Knoxville) on Wednesday, 26 October 2011. I don't think it would be inappropriate of me to share the flyer (though if I hear differently I will remove it post-haste.

review of Structuring Early Christian Memory

I don't know how other scholars keep track of who has reviewed their works, in which journal, and what they've said. It seems to me that you just kind of accidentally encounter a review that you didn't know was being written.

That happened to me last week. I accidentally discovered that Kelly Iverson, of St Andrews University (Scotland) reviewed my published thesis in the Journal for the Study of the New Testament. His brief review is positive and exactly the kind of thing an author hopes for (accurate, fair, critical, etc.). Here's an excerpt, if you're interested:

This study is a welcome addition to historical Jesus studies and provides a fresh perspective that deserves careful attention. For those who may be relatively new to the fields of performance and social memory, this volume offers an informative summary and helpful bibliography. In addition, there is detailed interaction with several textual examples (exorcisms and healings) that illustrates the potential usefulness of the approach. Given the broad objective of this monograph, some will not be convinced that the thesis sufficiently undermines the traditional criteria of authenticity or develops an unobstructed path forward. This volume does, however, make a reasoned argument for appreciating the variability in the Jesus tradition within the contours of an oral culture.

These, I think, are all fair comments. For lengthier and more substantive critiques of the traditional criteria of authenticity, see my "Authenticating Criteria: The Use and Misuse of a Critical Method" (Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 7/2 [2009]: 152–67), as well as the forthcoming volume, Jesus, History, and the Demise of Authenticity (Chris Keith and Anthony Le Donne, eds.; T&T Clark International), for which I contributed an essay on the failings of the criterion of embarrassment.

For Kelly Iverson's full review of Structuring Early Christian Memory, you can follow this link (you'll need to search for "Structuring Early Christian Memory," or you can scroll down to p. 44).

the first review

I received an e-mail yesterday from T&T Clark that included a review of Structuring Early Christian Memory: Jesus in Tradition, Performance, and Text. Daniel Frayer-Griggs, of the University of Durham, has reviewed my book for Theological Book Review, and he has had kind things to say. I've included the concluding paragraph of his review below:

This is a profoundly ambitious and highly technical work, calling for nothing short of a paradigm shift in gospels research. Rodriguez's discussion of social memory theory is highly suggestive and should enliven both gospels and historical Jesus research, and, while he is perhaps too sceptical regarding the existence of Q and the continued relevance of source and redaction criticism, his analysis of the relationship between orality and textuality is learned and illuminating.

Thank you, Mr Frayer-Griggs. I hope we meet one day.

new on my shelf

The following books have recently made their way onto one of my bookshelves. Some are new, others are new to me. If you have anything to say about any of these—whether praises, critiques, or just things to look for—feel free to leave your comment below.

Robin Lane Fox. Pagans and Christians (New York: Knopf, 1987). Pp. 799.

Andrew T. Lincoln. Truth on Trial: The Lawsuit Motif in the Fourth Gospel (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2000). Pp. xv + 527. List: $29.95.

Alan F. Segal. Paul the Convert: The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1990). Pp. xvi + 368. List: $23.00.

still reading

I'm still reading Anthony Le Donne's The Historiographical Jesus: Memory, Typology, and the Son of David (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2009), but both my reading and my commenting have slowed down considerably for a number of reasons. First, I'm currently in the eye of a hurricane (in reverse, perhaps). On the one hand, my oldest sister was married on 10 April in Phoenix, AZ; my wife was a bridesmaid, my daughter the flower girl, and I officiated. On the other hand, my youngest sister gets married this Saturday, 1 May. Only Janelle is involved (hence the in reverse comment), but this still requires serious adjustments to our schedules. Second, and much more significantly in terms of time, we have take custody of a baby girl we plan to adopt later this year. The move from one to two children has deprived me of sleep, productive work time, and (of course) time writing for the blog.

Even so, I did manage to read Le Donne's sixth chapter ("The Therapeutic Son of David" [137–83]) and his brief excursus, "The Presupposition of Davidic Descent" (185–9). Of course, the chapter depends rhetorically and historiographically on the identification of traditional trajectories, and I have registered elsewhere my objection to this approach to history (especially here). But that aside, there is much to praise in this chapter. First, I was pleased with how overlapping are his analysis of the Beelzebul controversy with my own analysis (see chapter 7 of my Structuring Early Christian Memory), even though we have very different emphases and agenda. Second, I think Le Donne is exactly right to point out that exorcisms and healings were not necessarily distinct therapeutic phenomena in the ancient world. Luke clearly blurs the distinctions between them, both in his account of the healing of Simon's mother-in-law (Luke 4.38–9) and in the healing of the bent woman (Luke 13.10–13); Le Donne focuses on Matthew's similar blurring. Third (and again, similar to my discussion of exorcisms in chapter 7 of Structuring Early Christian Memory), Le Donne draws attention to the ways the evangelists localized Jesus' exoricisms within Hebrew biblical traditions. This is no small feat, given the paucity of Hebrew biblical traditions that could be read demonologically (really, only 1 Sam 16.14-23). Even so, Matthew (as Le Donne argues) reads Jesus' exorcisms from the perspective of Isaianic therapeutic traditions (see Isa 35.5–6; 61.1–2 [LXX]), especially in Matthew 12.

in today's mail

Okay . . . so I've wanted to get to this post all day, but first my Gospel Narratives final exam and then Midnight Breakfast (which started at 9.00 pm!) kept me from my computer. When I got the mail today, hidden amidst the bills and various solicitations, was Structuring Early Christian Memory, the published version of my PhD thesis. I looks . . . well, it looks like every other volume in T&T Clark's Library of New Testament Studies series, except that it has my name on the cover and spine. In other words, it's very sexy.

A few of my colleagues have commented on the price, and I am a little embarrassed at the $140 list. The price, however, is a reflection of the very limited print run more than a statement of its intrinsic value. And no, I don't get $50 for each copy sold.

Speaking of copies sold, tonight at Midnight Breakfast one of my colleagues told me that she bought a copy. You can get it from Amazon.com for 37% off (which is actually better than my author's discount with T&T Clark!!), but it's still over $85. But hey, shipping's free, so . . . At any rate, she's the first person that I know of who's bought my book, so I should be slowly creeping up the Amazon Sales Rank now.

UPDATE: I was remiss in not providing requisite photographic evidence of the book; I have now rectified the oversight.

[HT: Chris Keith]

done!

Last December I began reading through my Greek New Testament. Not in order (Matthew to Revelation). Not even very systematically. But [almost] every day. It was sorta a spiritual thing, but it was also about exposing myself to Greek texts everyday. More than that, it was about reading Greek texts everyday, as opposed to the closer, more analytical work I do (also almost daily) with Greek texts.

Of course I did a lot of translating on the way. But I also tried hard to understand without translating—to engage the text as a Greek text rather than to transmogrify the text into a quasi-English text before engaging it. I read a lot aloud, but probably not as much as I should have. But always my goal was to read the text rather than translate the text.

At any rate, today I finished the last book: Acts. I'm considering a similar program for Hebrew, though I can't even imagine trying to work through the Hebrew Bible in a year [!]. But maybe the Pentateuch. Or maybe just Gen 1. Best to start with reasonable expectations.

Regarding Greek, my plan is to start on the Apostolic Fathers next. I'd also like to work through some of the Greek Second Temple Jewish texts, but my immediate research interests pull me more vigorously toward those later texts at the moment. But today felt strangely like some sort of milestone, so I thought it deserved a mention here.

another reason to love Greek

Earlier I mentioned ἀποτυμπανίζειν [apotympanizein], a word that I might not need often but that comes in really handy when I do. I offer today another word that I might not use everyday. But if my wife spoke Greek, this word just might reduce the number of words I would need to answer the question, "What did you do at work today, honey?" According to the Louw-Nida Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains, μοσχοποιεῖν [moschopoiein] means "to make a calf-idol, to shape an idol in the form of a calf" (§6.101). I hereby coin an equally convenient English verb, to calfdolatrize, as the standard English equivalent to μοσχοποιεῖν.

The new, authorized translation of Acts 7.41 is, then:

They calfdolatrized in those days, and they offered a sacrifice to their idol, and they rejoiced in the works of their hands.

The word of the Lord.

what arrived in today's mail

Today I received an examination copy of Elizabeth Struthers Malbon's most recent book, Mark's Jesus: Characterization as Narrative Christology (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2009; I couldn't find this book on BUP's website). Here's the blurb from inside the dust jacket:

Noted biblical scholar Elizebeth Struthers Malbon asks a literary question in this landmark volume: how does the Markan narrative characterize Jesus?

Through a close narrative analysis, she carefully examines various ways the Gospel discloses its central character. The result is a multilayered Markan narrative christology, focusing not only on what the narrator and other characters say about Jesus (projected christology), but also on what Jesus says in response to what these others say to and about him (deflected christology), what Jesus says instead about himself and God (refracted christology), what Jesus does (enacted christology), and how what other characters do is related to what Jesus says and does (reflected christology). Holding significant implications for those who wish to use Mark's Gospel to make claims about the historical Jesus, as well as for those who wish to use Mark's Gospel to construct confessions about the church's belief, Malbon's research is a groundbreaking work of scholarship.

I'm looking forward to having an opportunity to work through this book. I'm especially intrigued by the various lenses through which she explores Mark's christology, particularly the category refracted christology. I've struggled to explain to my students how to conceptualize the fact that everything Jesus says in the NT is actually Matthew, Mark, Luke, and/or John speaking without giving the impression that Jesus' words in the gospels and Acts are only the evangelists speaking. I think I like the idea that Jesus' words are refracted through the gospels, even more, perhaps, than the (problematic, in my view) idea of the ipsissima vox Jesu.

request for suggestions

I'm looking to purchase some library management software, and I was wondering what people use, what reactions they've had to their software, and if you have any recommendations and/or things to watch out for. I've heard good things about Library Master, but it looks like that only runs on Windows. I do run Windows on Parallels, and if the best software is PC-only software, I could go that route. But if anyone has any suggestions for Mac OSX, please let me know.

Thanks in advance.

Why I love Greek

ἀποτυμπανίζειν [apotympanizein], according to the abridged Liddell-Scott-Jones lexicon, means "to cudgel to death." You have to appreciate any language that has a single word for such an action and which thoughtfully and in advance reduces the linguistic effort needed to describe it.