Mom and the Bible

The Stream just published a short piece I wrote about Mom and the Bible -- right before Mother's Day!  Happy Mothers' Day to those of you who are.   It made me think about the sort of legacy I would like to leave to my children -- I'm afraid I haven't measured up to my own parents on this score.

That evil Bible, again.

Neither do car repair manuals usually mention the

Makah Indians or totem poles.  What could they  

possibly be for?   

As in most memes, inanity and error battle for supremacy here.

Ten Greek Books (or collections) Worth Reading

What ancient non-canonical or non-Christian books give you the most valuable background to the New Testament, including by making you invulnerable to half the skeptical arguments out there? Here's my Top Ten list:

1. James Robinson's The Nag Hammadi Library. (Almost all the extant Gnostic works -- most of them boring as all get-out, but highly revealing. Read with Plato's Parable of the Cave.)

2. Bart Ehrman's al-Scripture collection, Lost Scriptures: Books That did not make it into the New Testament. (My disagreement begins with the first two words -- not having these books, which are not "Scriptures," in our Bible is no loss, really. But seeing their unsuitability for yourself is part of the value of the collection - and some are interesting in their own right.)

Aslan Gets Bulverized!

Many of the early negative reviews of Reza Aslan's runaway bestseller, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, were embarrassing to those of us who think the real problem with Aslan's portrait of Jesus is that he gets his facts wrong:

Earth to New Testament critics!

(Note: I'm at a weird hotel computer with a twisted mind of its own -- probably owned by the Unabomber in a past life.  Excuse the caps, that's the least of its perversities.)

I had the chance to spend most of Thursday in Kalamazoo, Michigan, with a remarkable philosopher named Timothy McGrew.  Tim teaches philosophy of science, among other subjects, at Western Michigan University.  He is also an expert on, besides chess, the application of probability to history, and Lord knows what else, modern apologetics from the 17th to the early 20th Centuries.  Many of these old apologists have a great deal that proves strangely pertinent to share, that is sadly neglected, and often with a literary flair that makes their works just plain fun to read.  

Here's a particularly biting 61 year old passage from an old scholar with too many names for his own good, which Tim dug up from his home library and read me.   It was a good thing, frankly, I wasn't drinking milk while listening.  On my request, he also posted these paragraphs at his Library of Historical Apologetics, which he informs me is due to grow dramatically in the future, with logistical help from a number of other scholars in Texas and the UK.   

I expect many of my readers will enjoy this, as well. 

Goodbye, Dad, for now.

At our elder son's high school graduation this June.  (His
name is also John; that is not a coincidence.)

John Quincy Marshall (1932-2012) went to be with the Lord last night, at home in bed, surrounded by a few of those who love him. 

Dad's last days were not easy.  The pain had been under control medically (thanks, Big Drugs).  He seemed to feel little hunger, though he had eaten almost nothing for a month.  (A few bites, some of which he regretted, a little grape juice.  One of the last things it seems he ate was a tiny piece of the 50-pound king salmon my brother Steve recently caught by his home on the Columbia River.  He said, "That smells really good.") 

I spent Tuesday night and Wednesday morning at their home, helping in the middle of the night when needed.  Dad was seldom fully conscious, and seldom fully unconscious.  He felt increasingly nauseous.  Not everything he said could be understood: he lacked the strength to speak clearly, and he may have seen a few things that weren't there, though it was hard to tell for sure.  (He mentioned Paris to me, I don't know why.  "You mean in France?"  "Yes.")  He repeatedly told Mom, "I want to go home."  He told me Steve had been offered a job near his home (he commutes on a weekly basis to patrol Seattle's subway for King County, now), and it turned out this was true.  He also said, "This is the worst I've felt in all my life."  I said, "You're a tough man, Dad."  He answered, "I don't feel tough."  But he also thanked me for what little I could do to help. 

Other people filtered into the house, and I left to give them time, and keep the crowd to a minimum. 

When I got ready to leave, I went into Dad's bedroom and said goodbye, and "I love you."  He raised his hand to say goodbye.  But people were outside the bedroom talking, and I couldn't leave right away.  I went back into his room.  He grasped my hand with surprising strength.  I said, "God be with you, Dad."  He said clearly, forcefully, "The Lord be with you." 

I left with that blessing ringing in my ears, as it will for a long time, I think. 

Dad died that evening about 7:40, with my brother Peter attending him, just a few minutes after we had prayed over dinner back home for a peaceful outcome. 

I will share a poem below, that will tell you what you need to know about Dad.  But first, a few superficial facts:

Dad served in the Army during the Korean War, in what is now Eritrea, and was then part of Ethiopia.  He long displayed the head of a gazelle from Africa that he and his friends got hunting, on the wall.  Though he didn't go hunting often, he treasured his two years in Africa, and often spoke of those hunting trips.  (Along with his later moose hunting trip near Yakutat, when we lived in Alaska.)

Dad built houses and, occasionally, apartments.  He specialized in building new homes on steep slopes, surrounded by trees, which he tried to save.  During the economic downturn in Seattle after the Vietnam War ended, we moved to Alaska for five years, where there were plenty of slopes and trees, but also lots of cold rain and mosquitoes.  We enjoyed the slopes; Dad endured the rain and the snow, when it came, working outside in a cold-weather parka.  (Construction is most difficult when it is raining, winding, and snowing just above freezing, which it often is in Juneau, then again with a bitter cold wind well below zero, as it sometimes was in Skagway). 

Dad was a Presbyterian elder and one of those Calvinists who actually reads Calvin.  He loved gardening, even just a week ago picking over the tomatoes I brought in from his last garden, and putting some on the window sill, though he couldn't eat them.  He was a Seahawks fan, the kind who watches to the end even when they were behind by three touchdowns.  (Though he might have missed last week's come-from-behind victory over New England -- he saw the first part of the game.) He  was a Republican and strong Mitt Romney supporter.  I even remember a Richard Nixon bumper sticker on the wall of the basement bedroom we three boys shared, growing up, by the window. 

Much of what I am, comes from Dad: my love of the mountains, of gardening, of sports, my political interests. 

I'm not a Calvinist, but I also treasure our Presbyterian heritage, a sane, book-loving, politically-involved, historically-informed subculture.  Dad and Mom met at Westside Presbyterian in West Seattle, left that church for a while, then spent the last twenty years or so at it again, deeply involved in many ways.  West Side is what they call in the evangelical community a "missions-minded church," which in practice means they have lots of interesting people from around the world come in and go out.  (Maybe that also helps explain me.)  One of the pastors, Ron Rice, builds wheelchairs for polio victims in Nigeria, for instance, and also helps develop Christian Ed curriculum for parts of that country.  The great mission physicians, Dr. Paul and Margaret Brand, "retired" to a third or fourth life of service at West Side, as did Don and Martha Wilson from Thailand: these were among my parents' close friends. 

But so are a lot of other people, including many who had no claim to fame at all.   

Thus we come to my poem. 

I cheated, as you'll see.  Someone else wrote the first draft:

Even though I read classical Chinese or programming languages for Microsoft editor, but have no love, I am noisy as a Heavy Medal Thrash band, or a jackhammer on 35th. Even if can forecast an El Nino winter, and have faith to put a Republican in the White House or pay off the National Debt, without love, I am nothing. Even if I pay for AIDS drugs in Mozambique, preach to New Atheists on the Internet, or chain myself to Old Growth Douglas fir to save it from being murdered by Big Timber, but lack love, it does me no good at all.

Love puts up with lawyers from Family Court, without losing its temper. Love does not shout guests down at the Thanksgiving dinner table. You find love with a cheerful face and a "Good morning" on the couch in the living room at 6 AM, with an open Bible. Love picks people up at the airport. It does not count apple pie slices or put greedy guests on its Enemies List. Love refurbishes boats, cleans out houses, fixes leaks, builds garages. It loves the truth. It bares tough news without wallowing in self-pity, even by affecting a phony Stoicism. Love holds to faith without giving up, hopes under dire circumstances, -- even when the Mariners lose their star right fielder, or a Little League team loses its tenth straight game 16 to 1 – and does not lose hope during losing streaks in real life, either.

Love never fails. As for MA and PhD degrees, they are just piles of paper. As for bank accounts, they drain like leaky pipes before you call the apartment manager. As for languages, they will lose out to Google translator. As for books, Kindle is conquering the world, unfortunately. For our research is fragmentary, and our grasp on empirical data uncertain and incomplete. But when the real manifests itself, the psyche-enhancing memorabilia we cling to scatter like "epistles of straw" in the wind.

When I was a child, Captain Kirk was my hero. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the childish need to be grownup. I still enjoy Star Trek, but have found better heroes. Now, we see what really matters indistinctly, like trying to shave without glasses. Then we will see face to face. Now we know in part, and most of what we think we know needs to be fact-checked. But then we shall understand as we are now understood.

Just three things stay with us, in the end: faith, hope, and love, no more than these. But the greatest of these is love.

Though hope is pretty awesome, too.

Thanks, Dad, for helping us see the things that count.

That difficult Bible.

"And Moses just sits around, and
writes the Bible!"  Actually this is 
supposed to be John, but we need to
sneak a Keith Green quote in
here, finally. 

In a forum somewhere last week (I won't quote directly), someone reminded participants (all Christians) that while apologetic books are all well and good, we should not neglect to read our Bibles.  Even some pastors, he noted, have not read the Bible through.  The Bible is a pretty good book, he reminded us.  This post received dozens of "likes," and was followed by numerous affirming comments, including suggestions for which Study Bible to buy next, or which version to listen to on tape. 

But Mark Heard's old line comes to mind:

I'm too sacred for the sinners, and the saints wish I would leave.

Apparently I'm doomed to be disagreeable, whereever I am:

I have read the Bible, in more than one language. But honestly, it is hard for me now to read through the OT. Last time I made it to Jeremiah, and ran out of steam. All that wishing of gruesome death on peoples I had never met -- a few passages I could handle, but it seemed unrelenting. Even Isaiah, one of my favorites, was in the mid sections difficult. I understand why so many atheists claim they lost their faith by reading the Bible.  

The Bible is magnificent, mysterious, full of marvelous things, including prophecies of Jesus and teachings that have changed the world for the better. (But in some cases, also seem to have encouraged evil.) It is fantastic how all these different books come ino focus around Christ, even those written centuries before he was born. But let's not be glib. The Bible is not a "pretty good book:" it's a strange collection of books, some of them the greatest things ever written, some containing what look like terrible things. I for one don't claim to have figured this book out. Nor do I think that by itself, the Bible will produce faith in every kindly heart that reads it. (This, Richard Wurmbrand warned about.)