Sabbath Dinner A loaf of challah with sesame seeds, part of the standard fare for a modern sabbath dinner. Photo by Aviv Hod, used under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license (source). This week’s Gospel passage shows us Jesus as a guest at a dinner being given by a fellow Pharisee. Odd though this would seem to us, these sorts of dinners were not private; at least, not altogether. To take a seat, dine, and contribute to the evening’s conversation—yes, that... Read more
I Tell You a Mystery Our Gospel for 24 August, the Tenth Sunday after Trinity (which equates, this year, with the Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time), touches on a difficult topic in theology. It is a topic that has driven, maybe, more intellectual wars among nerdy, overchurched fourteen-year-olds than any other. It is the doctrine of election, or as it is also called, predestination. The Lord’s Prayer (1896), by James Tissot. Some people think that only Reformed Christians, a.k.a. Calvinists,... Read more
Go here for Part I. Also, you’ll notice that the textual footnotes seem to go directly from a to d; this is because note d actually concerns two words, and becomes fully relevant at the second (by which time two more textual notes have been marked). Luke 1:39-56, RSV-CE La Visitación [“The Visitation”] (1500), by Maestro de Perea. In those days Marya arosed and went with haste into the hill country, to a city of Judah, and she entered the... Read more
The Gospel of the Visitation Ivory panel carved in 12th-c. Germany, showing the Tree of Jesse (Jesus’ lineage). Though proper to the Feast of the Visitation, Luke 1:39-56 is associated with the Assumption as well. It’s possible— Wait, What’s the Visitation? and Why Are We Reading About It? That depends, actually: in addition to being a Marian event/feast, The Visitation is also the title of a Frank Peretti novel, one which really isn’t at all bad. The prose is kinda... Read more
A Few Words on Luke’s Outline This past Sunday’s Gospel came from Luke 12. This places it in the middle of the book (Luke has 24 chapters of, very roughly, similar length). Now, I haven’t hitherto said much about the structure of Luke, and there’s a reason for that: It hasn’t got much. There is one, in an extremely general sense—a three-part structure sort of shared by Matthew and John (Mark has only the second and third parts of this... Read more
The Parable of the Rich Man and His Barns From a translator’s point of view, tomorrow’s Gospel passage is quite simple; nor is it complicated theologically. I think it’s absolutely unprecedented that I don’t even have any footnotes! It is, also, a very unwelcome Gospel for today’s society. We like thinking of our income and our property as ours. This parable from Luke simply tell us bluntly that they’re not. The best advice I have to offer—not that it’s very... Read more
Luke 11 Bethany today, located in the West Bank, adjacent to Jerusalem. Photo by Tomer Hu, used under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license (source). The Gospel for this past Sunday (the Seventeenth in Ordinary Time, or Sixth after Trinity by the English calendar) contains the Lord’s Prayer and some of Jesus’ teaching about it. By an intriguing coincidence, this is also the chapter of Luke in which we meet SS. Martha and Mary of Bethany, in probably their most famous... Read more
This post is part of a series. Part I: The Septuagint and the Masoretic Text Part II: The Outline of the Hebrew Bible Part III: The Biblical Centrality of the Temple ⇒ Part IV: The Blueprint of the New Testament Also: All of my content has always been free to read since I began this blog; however, in case you hadn’t come across it and would like to support me, I have a Patreon. I mention it because I’m coming up... Read more
This post is part of a series. Part I: The Septuagint and the Masoretic Text Part II: The Outline of the Hebrew Bible ⇒ Part III: The Biblical Centrality of the Temple Part IV: The Blueprint of the New Testament Also: All of my content has always been free to read since I began this blog; however, in case you hadn’t come across it and would like to support me, I have a Patreon. I mention it because I’m coming up... Read more
This post is part of a series. Part I: The Septuagint and the Masoretic Text ⇒ Part II: The Outline of the Hebrew Bible Part III: The Biblical Centrality of the Temple Part IV: The Blueprint of the New Testament Also: All of my content has always been free to read since I began this blog; however, in case you hadn’t come across it and would like to support me, I have a Patreon. I mention it because I’m coming... Read more
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