Insults To Blessing

I was called an idiot a couple of days ago by an 'adjunct professor' from Fuller Theological Seminary.

On social media, of course: I'm sure he's far too polite to do such a thing in the real world. What I found interesting, and mildly amusing, is that the overall process turned out to be a great help for a project I'm working on.

A the moment I'm trying to develop a series about (Christian) Discipleship for later in the year. So when I saw a Facebook post from a 'friend of a friend' with a slide from a conference, titled "Four elements of discipleship" I went over for a look.

The slide looked really good: well laid out and beautifully presented. The trouble was, like a lot of church produced stuff, it was jargony and didn't appear to make much contact with what is laughingly known as the real world.

So I said so. Politely and reasonably, of course, and making the point that the talk that went with the slide might have been wonderful for all I know. And the adjunct professor who had posted it took exception. He'd been at the conference and thought the talk was wonderful, etc, etc ... and I'm an idiot for disagreeing. Fair enough, such is the joy of social media.

Except that, in another comment against the same post, he posted a link to a Church of England paper on encouraging discipleship (and leadership) amongst lay people - something the CofE has long struggled with. That paper is really helpful and got me past a structure issue I was struggling with in my own series.

What's more, I also had an example of the importance of getting an opening summary right, as that is what people see first - it may even be the only part they see. And he was a reminder that discipleship encompasses the whole world, even social media.

So out of his rudeness I received a blessing. Such is the wonder of God's way.

Finally, just for fun:

The Courtesans In Southampton

Last Friday the two of us went to Southampton to see The Courtesans, who were live at The Talking Heads there. It was a superlative experience, so I'm afraid you're now going to see several hundred words of me gushing.

Even travelling by Cross-Country Rail to get to Southampton was pleasant enough - certainly far easier than driving. The only slight problem was that there seemed to be no indication at Southampton Station which exit went where ... once we had left by the wrong exit we couldn't go back through the station to the right side of the tracks.

Southampton Novotel is easy walking distance from the station, even with the detour, so it wasn't a problem. The Novotel was a great find! Getting back from Southampton to Reading after a gig is a lot of hassle, so I had booked us a room overnight.

My previous experience of a hotel in Southampton had been decidedly meh, with complications even when things should have been simple. On this trip I had changed the number of people staying in the room (originally my wife was working that day, so it was just me, then her shifts changed so we could both go - nice, but a recipe for confusion) so I was expecting the worst. As it turned out they were brilliant: everything was sorted already, we just paid an extra tenner for breakfast at checkout. The room was comfortable, bar food was fairly simple but good quality, breakfast was excellent, and everyone was friendly and helpful. Oh, and the price was reasonable too.

So, after eating we popped back over the railway line to The Talking Heads, where the Courtesans were playing. They were having technical problems in the venue proper, so we couldn't go in at the official 'doors open' time. No problem: there was also a spacious front bar with a stack of real ales and some acoustic jigs playing (it was early on St Patrick's day night, so it was already busy).

When we did get in to the main concert room it was nice and spacious, with a bar down one side (also with real ales) and a corner with seating and a decent view of the stage on the other - handy for a knackered old codger to wait for the bands. Another feature of The Talking Heads was the friendliness of the clientele in general - although that may be just a feature of Southampton, or of the musical genre, as I noticed the same thing when I went to see Bad Pollyanna a while back.

The opening band were Lost or Stolen, a local band. When they started the room was completely dead; by about their third song you could feel the energy pumping out, warming things up. They were essentially blues-rock, but clearly wanting to push the boundaries of that genre, and themselves. From time to time they pushed further than they should have perhaps, and lost a bit of timing, but I can respect that: it's far better than a band who just play it safe and bland.

Main support was Ruby Blue and The Chain, occupying a sort of triple point between jazz, blues and funk, with consummate style and musicality. I am surprised to see on their website that they have only been around for about a year, they seemed to play so comfortable and eloquently together. I really enjoyed their gig and hope to see them again.

But the highlight of the evening, by a huge margin, was The Courtesans (just as an aside, searching for "Courtesans Southampton" returns some interesting results, including an ad claiming you can buy courtesans on Amazon!). Nothing particularly showy or flashy, just excellent, powerful music, presented with a depth of charisma and presence.

I already had their new EP, from PledgeMusic, so I thought I knew their most recent songs, but hearing them live was at a whole different level. The drumming was so powerful and spikey, bass and guitar so evocative, and the deeply passionate lyrics sung with such heartfelt strength that it was overwhelming. I'll stick a link to their Mesmerise video at the bottom of the post, so you can at least get a feel for their style ... just imagine that with the intensity racked up a few orders of magnitude.

A shout-out here for the sound at The Talking Heads - it was impeccable: loud enough but not too loud, beautifully balanced and wonderfully clear. Often live music means sacrificing sound quality for the live experience, but not here.

Do I have any negatives in the midst of all this dreadful positivity? Just one: by the end of the Courtesans' gig I was bouncing and jumping all over the place, absolutely into the music and the movement. Now I hurt pretty much all over. Would I do it all again? Silly question - I'd be there in a flash, aches or no aches!

Seventy Disciples Or Seventy-Two?

Last Sunday at St John's we tried to get the congregation seeing (and feeling) a Bible passage from the inside, as it were, by getting them all to take part. The results were remarkable and illustrated just how much power there is in Scripture if you take the time to go deeper than the abstract religious stuff. But that's not my point today.

The passage we used was from Luke's Gospel, in the New Living Translation, and began:

The Lord now chose seventy-two other disciples and sent them ahead in pairs to all the towns and places he planned to visit.

Straightforward enough, one might think, except that we've been seeing this passage quite a lot during our Partnership for Missional Church initiative, but usually in the New Revised Standard Version where it begins:

After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go.

Spot the difference.

On Sunday nobody mentioned this - they were too busy being struck by the contrasting experiences of welcome, exclusion and judgement which come later in the passage - but it certainly struck me as being odd: how can two modern translations of the Bible differ on something so simple? So I did some research.

The short answer seems to be that the original written by Luke probably said seventy-two, but that seventy makes more sense.

Translators don't have access to Luke's original, of course, so they have to work from copies of copies. The people who made these copies were incredibly accurate, but over centuries changes and 'corrections' did creep in. The earliest copies we have of this passage say 'seventy-two', but later on someone seems to have 'corrected' that to 'seventy' and copies of this 'corrected' version went on to be very influential in early English Bible translations.

So now we have a situation where translations which prioritise faithfulness to the original, such as the NLT, say there were seventy-two disciples sent out, whereas those which prioritise faithfulness to tradition, such as the NRSV, say there were seventy.

Problem solved? Not really: it just moves the question on to why anybody ever thought 'seventy' was a correction in the first place? Which takes us to the book of Genesis.

In chapter 10 of Genesis you get a passage known as the 'Table of Nations', where Noah is presented as the father of all the different races and people groups in the world. In the earliest Hebrew versions of this we have found there are seventy names in this list. However, in the main Greek version, called the Septuagint and translated two or three centuries before Luke was born, there are two extra names, making seventy-two. If I tell you that Luke's Gospel, like the rest of the New Testament, was written in Greek and tended to quote from the Septuagint rather than the Hebrew Scriptures, you can probably see where this is going.

The odds are that Luke was trying to make a point in this story about the disciples who were sent out representing all of the races of mankind, not just one or two. This sort of inclusiveness is an important theme in Luke's writing. So he uses a number which his readers would have recognised as referencing the Old Testament list of all the peoples of the world: seventy-two.

But later translators of the Old Testament used the Hebrew as their primary source so they ended up with just seventy races in the Table of Nations list - breaking the connection. Therefore they 'corrected' Luke to restore the likely point of the number in the first place.

So which number is best today? To be honest, hardly anybody in churches today knows their Old Testament well enough to recognise the point of either, so it doesn't really make a lot of difference.

Today we tend to think that numbers are all about counting, so we are more inclined to ask something along the lines of "how many were there really?" This would have seemed a very odd question back then, but does tend to bother us today.

The short answer, of course, is that we don't know. A longer answer might be that if Jesus was wanting to make the point he would have used the number from the Hebrew Scriptures: seventy. But for Luke the correct translation of that into Greek - meaning for meaning - would then be seventy-two. So working on pure likelihoods: seventy is probably the correct count of disciples, seventy-two is probably the correct literal translation of Luke, and seventy with a footnote back to Genesis 10 would probably be the truest meaning-for-meaning translation: I don't think any of them do that!

So, is there a less technical point to all this Bible geekiness? Actually I can think of three:

1. The mission of the church includes everybody, irrespective of race, gender or all the other things that normally divide us;
2. Have sympathy with Bible translators: it is a far more difficult job than we imagine;
3. If you're given to quoting the Bible at people, always do so with extreme humility: there's a lot more to Scripture than we can possibly grasp, and our understanding is bound to be less than God's. The flip side of this is that if someone quotes Scripture at you, especially if they do so in a judgemental way, treat their words with caution: their understanding is also far less than God's, and if they are being judgemental then they don't even understand the very basics of Scriptural teaching:

"Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgement on another you condemn yourself"

On which (slightly judgemental) note I wish you grace and peace in the days ahead, and every blessing for you and yours.