Bad Theology
Text for today: Matthew 1 xviii-xxv; Luke 1 xi-xxxv
An angel visits Mary and Joseph, and Mary's kinswoman Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah. The angel foretells the births of Jesus and John the Baptist, specifies the names they are to be given and predicts that John will abstain from drink. Mary and Zechariah both question the angel's predictions, and Zechariah is punished by being struck dumb for the duration of his wife's pregnancy.
The name of John the Baptist, as ordered by the angel, means graced by God or God has been gracious; the name of Jesus is a Greek corruption of Joshua, which connotes salvation or deliverance by God. Both names reflect the Father's characteristic sense of humour. Having been ordered to name his son after God's grace, John's priestly father is ungraciously deprived of speech for daring to doubt the word of his employer; while Mary, in an equally ungracious display of arbitrary favouritism, escapes a similar punishment despite voicing similar doubts. Presumably, what annoyed the Father's messenger is that Zechariah's scepticism is based on demonstrable fact (he and his wife are both elderly), while Mary takes the opportunity to turn her question into a boast about her own chastity.
The name of Jesus, of course, has its most glorious precedent in Moses' successor, the génocidaire of Canaan. While Moses let God do his killing in Egypt and at the Red Sea, Joshua and his soldiers themselves put entire cities to fire and sword at the Father's command. It is appropriate, therefore, that the name of Moses' military heir should be bestowed upon the Saviour who found the laws of Moses insufficiently harsh, and whose gospel proclaimed that a genocide even more sadistic than Joshua's would soon befall the whole world.
An angel visits Mary and Joseph, and Mary's kinswoman Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah. The angel foretells the births of Jesus and John the Baptist, specifies the names they are to be given and predicts that John will abstain from drink. Mary and Zechariah both question the angel's predictions, and Zechariah is punished by being struck dumb for the duration of his wife's pregnancy.
The name of John the Baptist, as ordered by the angel, means graced by God or God has been gracious; the name of Jesus is a Greek corruption of Joshua, which connotes salvation or deliverance by God. Both names reflect the Father's characteristic sense of humour. Having been ordered to name his son after God's grace, John's priestly father is ungraciously deprived of speech for daring to doubt the word of his employer; while Mary, in an equally ungracious display of arbitrary favouritism, escapes a similar punishment despite voicing similar doubts. Presumably, what annoyed the Father's messenger is that Zechariah's scepticism is based on demonstrable fact (he and his wife are both elderly), while Mary takes the opportunity to turn her question into a boast about her own chastity.
The name of Jesus, of course, has its most glorious precedent in Moses' successor, the génocidaire of Canaan. While Moses let God do his killing in Egypt and at the Red Sea, Joshua and his soldiers themselves put entire cities to fire and sword at the Father's command. It is appropriate, therefore, that the name of Moses' military heir should be bestowed upon the Saviour who found the laws of Moses insufficiently harsh, and whose gospel proclaimed that a genocide even more sadistic than Joshua's would soon befall the whole world.
2 Comments:
At 1:26 am ,
Brian M said...
LOL. Awesome points, Philip. Of course, the whole series of Old Testament stories are not really true. It's just a few priestly and landowning elites coming back to Canaan while cravingly serving the Persian Emperor as tax farmers...and they need stories of GLORIOUS ISRAEL to justify why the peasants needed to pay the Persian Satraps.
At 3:56 pm ,
Philip said...
Of course, there is always the possibility that the archaeological record was installed about the same time as all those dinosaur feathers, in order to test our faith. But even if this were not so, as theologians we are concerned not with strict historical truth but with the deep and enduring moral lessons which these stories hold for the suitably humble.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home