Caputo on the "Right" & WWJD

Caputo's What Would Jesus Deconstruct is a really good book for anyone interested in Derridian philosophy and how it might bear on the church. It's quite simple and short but packs a lot of punch. I also love reading books that have great one-liners. Here are a few of my favorite things:

“It will be an eye opener to the Christian Right, who, having tried to blackmail us with this question [WWJD], will discover that the slogan they have been wearing on their T-shirts and pasting on their automobile bumpers all these years is a call for radical social justice!” (22).

“The question [WWJD] is tricky, not a magic bullet, because, everybody left or right wants Jesus on their side (instead of the other way around). It requires an immense amount of interpretation, interpolation, and self-questioning to give it any bite – and if it is not biting us, it has no bite – lest it be just a way of getting others to do what I want them to do but under the cover of Jesus” (24-25).

“We sing songs to the truth as if it were a source of comfort, warmth, and good hygiene. But in deconstruction the truth is dangerous, and it will drive you out into the cold” (27).

“The next time we look up to heaven and piously pray “Come, Lord Jesus,” we may find that he is already here, trying to get warm over an urban steam grate or trying to cross our borders” (30).

“The truth will make you free, but it does so by turning your life upside down” (30).

“The religious heart or frame of mind is not “realist,” because it is not satisfied with the reality that is all around it. Nor is it antirealist, because it is not trying to substitute fabrications for reality; rather, it is what I would call “hyper-realist,” in search of the real beyond the real, the hyper, the uber or au-dela, the beyond, in search of the event that stirs within things that will exceed our present horizons” (39).

"To announce the kingdom of God is to bring good news to all those who are poor in spirit and just plain poor, to those who hunger for justice and who are just plain hungry, to those whose minds are blinded by sin and who are just plain blind, to those whose hearts are bent by evil and whose bodies are just plain bent"

Jonah 7

Although there are dozens of other great literary features in the book of Jonah (like chapter 4's affinity with the book of Exodus) I will end this series with a discussion of how the Ninevites are portrayed in the book. The book makes it sound as though the Ninevites are no better than cattle.

Now, oftentimes, the Old Testament will call people animals. For instance, Amos rails against some foreign wives and says, "Hear this word, you cows of Bashan who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy!" But there in Jonah the comparison between the foreigners and cattle is a little more subtle.

This idea is seen in Jonah 3:7-8 and 4:11. In 3:7-8 the author lumps man and beast together in the proclamation of the king of Nineveh who says:

"Do not let man, beast, herd, or flock taste anything. Do no let them eat or drink water. But both man and beast must be covered with sackcloth and let them call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and the violence which is in their hands." So both man and animal (what a strange idea) must be covered with sackcloth (a traditional Hebrew rite for mourning) and let them (another strange idea) call on God.

Then in 4:11 he also lumps them together although the connection is not as explicit:
"Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?"

Son Lux

I very rarely listen to Christian music but when I was reading CT the other day they mentioned an artist that was obsessed with Radiohead and had won a contest and a chance to record with a label. Well, I took a chance and loved him. His name is Ryan Lott but his "alias" is Son Lux. Check out his myspace, though it only has songs from his old album, which is not nearly as good as the new one called at war with walls and mazes.

A Moral Statement?

Watching these videos back to back made my mind reel with thoughts of the ethical temperature of our society.

Jonah 6

Old Testament thoughts is a weekly post where we'll be looking at some interesting aspects of some Scripture from the Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament). Right now, we are looking at the literary aspects of the book of Jonah.

Chapter 3 begins the way you would have expected the entire story would have (see the first post below). YHWH tells Jonah to "arise" and he does "arise" to go to Ninevah, instead of "arising" to "go down" to run away from YHWH.

Then he goes to Nineveh and says this, "Yet forty days and Nineveh will be haphak."

I will, for the sake of space and focus, not deal with how unlikely it would have been for the Ninevites to understand Hebrew, the language the Scriptures are written in. That is, what did Jonah really say? And did he say it in Hebrew? Or is what we have a translation? Ah...for another day...

But I do want to simply point out the ambiguity of the term haphak. If God (via Jonah) wanted to proclaim that in 40 days Nineveh would be destroyed there are several other words that would be unambigious. Instead, he uses the ambigious haphak, which could mean either "turned" or "overthrown." We obviously know which of those Jonah meant, he wanted Nineveh to be "overthrown."

Instead, verse 5 shows us that the Ninevites "turned" or "were changed," that is, they repented. Is that what God meant when he said, "40 days and Nineveh will be haphak"?

The interesting thing is that Nineveh wasn't destroyed. If you remember, in Deuteronomy, the mark of a true prophet is that his/her prophecy comes true. But Nineveh wasn't destroyed. So if Jonah took haphak to mean "destroy" then he is a false prophet. But as it is, and against Jonah's own wishes, Nineveh "turns," so maybe he wasn't a false prophet after all...

N.B.: Even the people of Nineveh thought (whatever language Jonah used) that God was planning on destroying them - see 3:9.

Jonah 5

Old Testament thoughts is a weekly post where we'll be looking at some interesting aspects of some Scripture from the Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament). Right now, we are looking at the literary aspects of the book of Jonah.

The Psalms in ancient Israel are everywhere. They seem to be what the Israelites continue to go back to in order to explain where they are in life. David prays for deliverance in 2 Samuel 22 quoting extensively from Psalm 18, Jesus uses Psalm 22 to describe his current pain and abandonment.

In Jonah 2, the Psalms are used the same way Beatles songs are used in the movie Across the Universe. There is a pastiche of quotes from the psalms all stitched together to make a coherent prayer for Jonah in the belly of the fish. Here is a list* of verbatim uses of the Psalms in Jonah 2:

Jonah 2:3a=Psalm 18:7; 30:3; 118:5; 120:1

Jonah 2:3b=Psalm 130:2

Jonah 2:4b=Psalm 42:8b

Jonah 2:5a=Psalm 31:23a

Jonah 2:6a=Psalm 18:5; 69:2

Jonah 2:8a=Psalm 142:4; 143:4

Jonah 2:8b=Psalm 5:8b; 18:7

Jonah 2:9a=Psalm 31:7a

Jonah 2:10a=Psalm 42:5b; 50:14; 66:13

Jonah 2:10b=Psalm 3:9

The rhetorical effect of this is in providing a structure that lends itself to introspection, as many of the Psalms are, but also of identifying with Israel as a whole. Why else might the writer of Jonah use all these Psalms in the prayer of Jonah?

*List taken from A Poetics of Jonah: Art in the Service of Ideology by Kenneth M. Craig

New Septuagint Translation

For those (one or two) interested, there is a new English translation of the Septuagint (NETS) available for free online in pdf format.

The interview with Peter Gentry, a Baptist Septuagint scholar, reminded me of the excellent introductory book on the Septuagint, recommended to anyone interested in a basic understanding of what the Septuagint is and the issues surrounding it, called Invitation to the Septuagint by Karen Jobes & Moises Silva.

NETS Website

HT: Justin Taylor

Jonah 4

Old Testament thoughts is a weekly post where we'll be looking at some interesting aspects of some Scripture from the Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament). Right now, we are looking at the literary aspects of the book of Jonah.

A shorter post this time we'll continue the theme from last time - who really is a God-fearer in the story of Jonah? The writer makes another contrast between Jonah and the "pagan" boat crew. Here it is:

When the folks from Ninevah sin, Jonah has no interest in mercy or in trying to save them from their impending doom.

When Jonah sins, the "pagan" boat crew do everything they can, even against their best interest, to save Jonah.

Even after Jonah told them that the only way to calm the storm was to throw him into the sea they still "rowed desperately to return to land but they could not."

This may give some evidence as to when and why Jonah was written, although such a question is a little off topic from the purpose of these posts. However, many think that Jonah was written around the time of the exile of 586 BCE, either just prior (pre-exilic), during (exilic) or just after (post-exilic) This is important because later in the life of Israel, around the time of the exile, they became unhealthily ethno-centric. This rhetorical effect (or maybe even the whole book) may be one example of the writer of Jonah trying to correct how ingrown Israel had become. God cares about and yearns to have compassion on all the nations, not just Israel. Israel had forgotten that. So here, to make the "pagan" boat crew more God-like than the prophet of God, Jonah, is a slap in the face to the Israelites...but a much needed slap.

Summer Reading List

Jonah 3

Today we'll look at the contrast of character between Jonah and the "pagan" boat crew.

The first contrast comes in the form of "fear." When the sailors cast lots to see who was responsible for this great storm and the lot fell on Jonah, they asked him who he was. He replied, "I am a Hebrew, and I fear (yare) YHWH." But does he really? He has just run away from YHWH and has disobeyed him.

But the sailors, on the other hand, go through a "conversion experience" so to speak here in the first chapter of Jonah. When the storm first came about the sailors became afraid (yare) and each one cried to their own god.

Secondly, after Jonah tells the men that he is running away from YHWH, the one who made the heavens and the earth, they become "extremely afraid" (yare).

Then, to complete the conversion experience, in verse 16, after they have thrown Jonah overboard and the sea stops its raging, they "fear YHWH greatly" (yare), so much that they offer sacrifices and make vows.

Oh the irony, the true "prophet of God" who is a "fearer of YHWH" doesn't fear him at all. Instead we have a whole boat full of pagans who see God for who he really is. They are appropriately afraid of the storm, then they become extremely afraid when they find out Jonah is running from "YHWH, the one who made the heavens and earth." You ran away from who? That God? Are you crazy? Then finally, when the storm suddenly stops, the pagan sailors become true God-fearers, ironically unlike Jonah.

Who is the true follower of God in this story?