Second Friday after Pentecost
Let me again remind everyone that I'll be on vacation next week. We'll have the Bible Study blog Saturday, then a week off. The blog will return on June 29.
Friday is the day I respond to comments. First, thanks to Jennifer for her comment on her journaling. Here it is:
I too have been journaling for many years. I would have to go back and look to see when I started; I have a stack of journals that’s more than a foot high. I start each journal entry with Thankfuls. Three things that I’m currently thankful for. This is easier some days more so than others. I usually copy some scripture and make notes from the devotion that I read that day. I end most journal entries with a written prayer.
For as long as I can remember this time that I spend journaling is the first thing I do in the morning after I make the bed and pour a cup of coffee. I have a spot in our bedroom where I can look out the window at the pond next to our house. Unless I must be somewhere early in the morning this is my daily practice.
What Jennifer does fits the ideal I described in yesterday's blog. She shows that ideal to be attainable. She also shows it to be personally rewarding. If any of the rest of you journal, I would love to hear from you about your experiences with it.
I too have been journaling for many years. I would have to go back and look to see when I started; I have a stack of journals that’s more than a foot high. I start each journal entry with Thankfuls. Three things that I’m currently thankful for. This is easier some days more so than others. I usually copy some scripture and make notes from the devotion that I read that day. I end most journal entries with a written prayer.
For as long as I can remember this time that I spend journaling is the first thing I do in the morning after I make the bed and pour a cup of coffee. I have a spot in our bedroom where I can look out the window at the pond next to our house. Unless I must be somewhere early in the morning this is my daily practice.
Second, thanks to Chris for his questions about cremation and burial in regard to the resurrection of the body. Here is his question:
Christian, can you comment on full body burial versus cremation in the context of bodily resurrection? How are the differences in these procedures viewed from current and older perspectives within the United Methodist Church? And how do these perspectives compare with other Protestant religions?
The Hindus have used cremation for at least 2,500 years. The ancient Romans used both cremation and burial. The ancient Egyptians mummified and entombed their wealthier citizens and their Pharaohs. Some of the greatest Egyptian art is in the tombs of the Valley of the Kings. That art was not for public view but was to accompany the Pharaoh into the afterlife. None of these ancient civilizations thought in terms of a bodily resurrection at the end of time. That understanding belonged to early Jews and early Christians.
Christian, can you comment on full body burial versus cremation in the context of bodily resurrection? How are the differences in these procedures viewed from current and older perspectives within the United Methodist Church? And how do these perspectives compare with other Protestant religions?
The Hindus have used cremation for at least 2,500 years. The ancient Romans used both cremation and burial. The ancient Egyptians mummified and entombed their wealthier citizens and their Pharaohs. Some of the greatest Egyptian art is in the tombs of the Valley of the Kings. That art was not for public view but was to accompany the Pharaoh into the afterlife. None of these ancient civilizations thought in terms of a bodily resurrection at the end of time. That understanding belonged to early Jews and early Christians.
Until our own lifetimes, the Christian Church has disdained cremation. For some creation implied total annihilation. The growth of cremation in the last three decades has been spectacular. Some of the reasons are economic and some ecological. I can thin of no theological reason for the growth of cremation. The United Methodist Book of Discipline has nothing to say on the subject. We use the same funeral/memorial liturgy for everyone.
As Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 15, on the last day we will be resurrected. Our physical bodies will be changed to spiritual bodies. I explained the difference in Wednesday's blog. Paul did not write about the condition of deterioration of the physical body after death. It did not matter to him. A decomposed pile of bones could rise and be changed as easily as an embalmed person in a coffin. Likewise, a pile of ashes scattered to the wind could rise and be changed into a spiritual body on the last day. I plan to have my ashes scattered over the waters of the Atlantic at Coquina Beach in the Outer Banks. I'm fully confident that God can put it all together into a changed body, a spiritual body.
Third, I want to go back to April's comments about our lunch with Jaroslav Pelikan.
I will affirm my daughter's intellectual abilities. In the seventh grade she directed a play at Ligon Middle School. It was an adaptation of "Twelve Angry Men" to "Twelve Angry Women." That helped her get into Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan for high school. Her focus was on stage management. She knew every line of every play she stage managed. In the summers she went to the TIP program at Duke. From Interlochen she was accepted early admission to Yale, where she was selected for the Directed Studies program, a program that only 8% of Yale students get into. She majored in History and studied under Jaroslav Pelikan. He was her advisor and mentor for her four college years. When April called and told me that Pelikan would be her advisor and mentor, I couldn't believe it. I was definitely envious. There were about ten in his group with April. He told them at the beginning that they would be the last group he would take through Yale. He was also the world's greatest church historian and the smartest person I ever met (and I've known some really brilliant scholars).
Pelikan grew up in St. Louis. His parents were eastern European immigrants. His father spoke Czech and his mother Slovenian. He grew up tri-lingual with these two languages and English. It's actually erroneous to say that he grew up tri-lingual. There were many more than three languages. He got interested in short wave radio at an early age and listened to broadcasts from all over Europe and Russia, picking up languages as he went along. It's a feat that neither you nor I could could even think about doing. He would eventually know all the European languages except Hungarian and Finnish.
He could read by the time he was three. He couldn't write because his fingers were too small to hold a pen properly, so his mother taught him to type. He was a highly proficient typist at age four. His father was a Missouri Synod Lutheran pastor. Pelikan grew up in that denomination and remained in it until the last years of his life. He went to a Missouri Synod college and seminary, Concordia and then went on for a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago. He then received an appointment as Sterling Professor of History at Yale, skipping those Assistant Prof, Associate Prof., full Prof., stages that the rest of us go through.
Besides all the modern European languages, Pelikan also mastered the ancient languages. He could speed read classical Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Ethiopic, Arabic, Coptic and had a good knowledge of a number of other ancient languages as well. His command of the vast, vast literature of Christianity in the original languages was greater than that of all but two or three scholars who have ever lived.
Pelikan's first great scholarly project was editing the complete works of Martin Luther, which total 54 volumes, at about 400-600 pages a volume. Pelikan did all the editing and much of the translating from German to English. He then wrote scores and scores of books, big ones and little ones, on every century in Christian history, on Eastern Christianity as well as Western, and on other subjects as well. Eight of his books are on my shelves here in my study, several others in the bookcases in the living room, and others still among the thousand books or so I have in the shed out back.
When I went through Divinity School and Graduate School, there were no courses on Eastern Orthodoxy, even though there are as nearly as many Eastern Orthodox Christians in the world as Protestants. Pelikan changed all that.
The lunch at Mory's that April mentions in her comment was one of the high points of my life. I think April may have been afraid I would just sit there and gawk. I didn't. He put me at ease the moment I met him. Told me to call him Jerry. Recommended the Mulligatawny soup. Told me that he had read my articles in the Anchor Bible Dictionary and gave me some advice for an article I was writing on Herodotus for the Eerdman's Dictionary of the Bible. He treated me as a fellow scholar, even though I was and still am in awe of him. He told me how brilliant April was and lamented a bit that she was not planning to go into academia.
In the last four years of his life, Jaroslav Pelikan had a surprising conversion. He went from being a lifelong Missouri Synod Lutheran to becoming Greek Orthodox. He died in 2008.
Thanks again for your comments. I would love to get more of them from more of you.
Faithfully,
Christian
Third, I want to go back to April's comments about our lunch with Jaroslav Pelikan.
Thank you for your kind words about Sunny, Dad. She was about eight times as big as Pretzel (dad and Marianne's beautiful dachshund), but she was no threat to anyone... always loving, gentle, and as I said, just like Jesus. We miss her but we can feel her among the trees, with her Mother. As to your comment about not having to research things to have a reaction, as your daughter's comments clearly show, I'll have your readers know that while I may not be a Biblical scholar, I did study history with the world's foremost church historian, Dr. Jaroslav Pelikan, at Yale. I was one of his favorite students ever (Dad can, and will, confirm) and he said, "April isn't an academic - she's a teacher." So I have been, all my life, in various forms. One of Dad's greatest days was eating lunch with Dr. Pelikan at Mory's, the private club at Yale that was a great tradition and the only union restaurant in New Haven by that time. Dr. Pelikan was delighted to meet my Dad.
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Pelikan grew up in St. Louis. His parents were eastern European immigrants. His father spoke Czech and his mother Slovenian. He grew up tri-lingual with these two languages and English. It's actually erroneous to say that he grew up tri-lingual. There were many more than three languages. He got interested in short wave radio at an early age and listened to broadcasts from all over Europe and Russia, picking up languages as he went along. It's a feat that neither you nor I could could even think about doing. He would eventually know all the European languages except Hungarian and Finnish.
He could read by the time he was three. He couldn't write because his fingers were too small to hold a pen properly, so his mother taught him to type. He was a highly proficient typist at age four. His father was a Missouri Synod Lutheran pastor. Pelikan grew up in that denomination and remained in it until the last years of his life. He went to a Missouri Synod college and seminary, Concordia and then went on for a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago. He then received an appointment as Sterling Professor of History at Yale, skipping those Assistant Prof, Associate Prof., full Prof., stages that the rest of us go through.
Besides all the modern European languages, Pelikan also mastered the ancient languages. He could speed read classical Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Ethiopic, Arabic, Coptic and had a good knowledge of a number of other ancient languages as well. His command of the vast, vast literature of Christianity in the original languages was greater than that of all but two or three scholars who have ever lived.
Pelikan's first great scholarly project was editing the complete works of Martin Luther, which total 54 volumes, at about 400-600 pages a volume. Pelikan did all the editing and much of the translating from German to English. He then wrote scores and scores of books, big ones and little ones, on every century in Christian history, on Eastern Christianity as well as Western, and on other subjects as well. Eight of his books are on my shelves here in my study, several others in the bookcases in the living room, and others still among the thousand books or so I have in the shed out back.
When I went through Divinity School and Graduate School, there were no courses on Eastern Orthodoxy, even though there are as nearly as many Eastern Orthodox Christians in the world as Protestants. Pelikan changed all that.
The lunch at Mory's that April mentions in her comment was one of the high points of my life. I think April may have been afraid I would just sit there and gawk. I didn't. He put me at ease the moment I met him. Told me to call him Jerry. Recommended the Mulligatawny soup. Told me that he had read my articles in the Anchor Bible Dictionary and gave me some advice for an article I was writing on Herodotus for the Eerdman's Dictionary of the Bible. He treated me as a fellow scholar, even though I was and still am in awe of him. He told me how brilliant April was and lamented a bit that she was not planning to go into academia.
In the last four years of his life, Jaroslav Pelikan had a surprising conversion. He went from being a lifelong Missouri Synod Lutheran to becoming Greek Orthodox. He died in 2008.
Thanks again for your comments. I would love to get more of them from more of you.
Faithfully,
Christian
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