This is “Revere Pewter.” I hope you like it, but more importantly, I hope that we still like it six months from now, because this is what all of our downstairs walls will soon look like.
I’m not doing the walls, the Slacktivixen is taking care of those. I’m the Ceiling Guy. Hence the sluggish blogging here the past couple of post-Christmas days, as I’ve either been painting ceilings, or cleaning paint off the dog, or rubbing my shoulders trying to recover from painting ceilings. (I’m not complaining — there are four walls for every ceiling, so I’ve got the easier gig.)
In the meantime, here are a few links and a couple of videos for your perusal:
• Deane Galbraith looks at the two stories of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem that we get from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. More interesting is the follow-up in which he surveys some of the responses to that post:
I want you to note the language that I quoted above …: that harmonization “can be” done, or it is “possible to” find a harmonizing interpretation of the two stories. Also, note that the information in Luke 2.39 is seen as “a problem” … and a “major obstacle.” … This would be odd language if the goal was simply to seek the more probable meaning of each text. But can there really be a “problem” unless it is your primary goal to arrive at interpretations which result in a harmonization? Can there really be an “obstacle” unless it’s not actually your goal to seek the best meaning of each text (irrespective of whether that interpretation involves a contradiction or harmonization)?
“Harmonizing” the Gospels is a mugs’ game. It’s a waste of time. Might as well be trying to harmonize Rashomon, or maybe the first two chapters of Genesis. It’s also a sure-fire way to wind up missing the point. Matthew and Luke tell their stories differently because they’re trying to say and show different things. If we insist that the stories can’t be different, we’ll miss the various points that the Bible’s various authors are making.
Since I’m making literalists and illiteratalists upset, I might as well keep going. Here’s Pete Enns ruining Christmas by discussing “The virgin shall conceive” and “Unto us a child is born.”
• December has brought us two strong candidates for Most Embarrassing Interview of the Year. First up, Ted Crockett’s epic brain-freeze on CNN, as the spokesman for Roy Moore’s campaign learns something he can’t quite comprehend about oaths of office. Crockett is dumbfounded, and found to be dumb:
Crockett is getting some stiff competition, though, from late-entry Pete Hoekstra, the former Republican congressman now serving as Donald Trump’s ambassador to The Netherlands. Hoekstra gets called out on his lies about The Netherlands, then lies by saying he never lied, then lies again by, seconds later, claiming that he never lied about lying:
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