School is almost back in session and I haven't managed to slough off the spiritual ick of this summer. I would love to make my spiritual issues sound noble, but they aren't really. Basically, I've been in reaction to some very insidious spiritual disease infecting the Church on a universal scale (and even penetrating the blessed but imperfect community of Duke Divinity). I still believe that the crisis of the Church is bad and real, but I haven't been taking it well. And it's personal to me because I feel a vocation to do Patristics. And hopefully I'll be employed at a seminary. So a main part of my work will probably be doing a core class on Early Church History (whatever is the equivalent to Duke's CH 13). So this will be my primary means of ministry to the future leadership of the Church.
This is something which I have come increasingly to feel as a clear vocation and this work has become like an inseparable part of me very quickly. I grew up Christian, but had a long period of discontentment and seeking. The exquisite abundance of the Church Fathers' and Mothers' thought, the vibrancy and richness of orthodox dogma, the absolute and astounding beauty of the life of virtue and holiness to which early theologians aspired -- these are the things I was seeking. Finding patristics at this point feels like traveling halfway across the world only to discover that finally you feel at home.
Fall 2009: No Crisis
I was almost ecstatically happy in the Fall. I felt like I was eating, sleeping, and breathing God. I couldn't stop saying prayers of gratitude for the Fathers, for my advisor, for Duke Divinity, for my life, for the leading to this place, for God being just so utterly, deliciously wonderful and for the chance to spend all my time thinking deeply about that wonderfulness. And most of this was because of CH 13. Twice a week, I got regaled with the stories of this wonderful group of people who are the Church Fathers -- these men and women who put themselves totally at the disposal of God to pursue God's goodness, to seek ever deeper and closer fellowship with God, to help others in the Church to draw closer and not be led away from true communion with God, to demonstrate to emperors that God is greater than human rulers and that God will not condone atrocities, to speak all around and right up to the edge of the dark-bright mystery of God's ineffable being, to give voice to the narrative of the economy of salvation again and again, each time enriching the picture with more imaginative, evocative, and illustrative words, themes, and Biblical allusions.
For the record, I was rather anti-orthodox when I came here; I was much more about social justice and Moltmann and Kierkegaard and Tillich and existentialism and universalism and quasi-unitarianism and feminism. Oh -- and I had a fairly well-considered and totally heretical Christology. I also sort of the thought the resurrection was a really unimportant bit of doctrine. I was kind of bummed about Duke, afraid it would be too conservative. What I really wanted to do was go to Drew and work with Catherine Keller on process theology. [Yes, I am serious: process theology. I was all jazzed when I got her latest book in Fall of 2008, when I was doing my applications for Divinity School. I still have the book and I can show you if you don't believe me.]
Spring 2010: Crisis Brewing
So CH 13 was the instrumental means of grace for me. Yay. So what's my crisis?
The crisis is that ever since the end of the Fall semester I've been realizing that meeting the Fathers didn't "work" for everyone. Hence the existence of the discipline of "Early Christianity." OK, but there are bound to be non-Christians looking at Christian stuff with their secular humanist methodologies. That's fine. I can deal.
Of course, I also met Christians who were all into the social-historical "Early Christianity" thing. But not everyone got to take CH 13 with J. Warren Smith. Maybe they didn't get the special dispensation of grace. OK; that makes sense.
But then I noticed that there were people in the Divinity School who took CH 13 who still seemed to be lacking some grace! In fact, some of them were kind of hating on the Fathers. But maybe they didn't come to class enough and just swatted up the material with study guides for the final. It really does make a difference when you let it sink deep into you meditatively and reflectively over the course of a semester....
But then I discovered there exist persons in the Div School who did CH 13, who took further patristics courses with Warren Smith, and who actively dislike orthodoxy. And there are also some real serious CH 13-haters who somehow came away thinking that it's all about white people trying to write off "the black experience" or that the entire Early Church was about vilifying sex and/or oppressing women.
Brief Moment of Horrible Un-Christian Arrogance
I know there are a lot of people going into ministry (even at Duke) who aren't um... well... "intellectual powerhouses." They have other gifts and other gifts are good. Other gifts are important. I celebrate other gifts. Yay. Celebrate. Woo-hoo.
But at a certain point I stop celebrating and I start thinking, "WHAT?!?! Did you miss the bit in the very first class where he said it's NOT about White European Males and that we weren't even going to meet a European until Irenaeus and the next one would Anselm in the 11th-12th century? Are you really saying that your main take-away message from an entire semester was "Early Church hated sex"? Very odd that they managed to make it to the Middle Ages with growing numbers, considering the whole "anti-sex" thing.... Did you just not even read the Life of Macrina? Or did you just decide that said oppressive things before you even read it? Did you just figure that because it's an ancient text by a man and is about someone female that of course it must be just chock full of patriarchal bias and unabashed sexism? This raises a very critical question: How dumb can you be, exactly, without getting kicked out for crappy grades after the first semester?"
Summer 2010: Super Crisis Maelstrom
I'm having a crisis not because I'm doubting the value of orthodoxy, but because I know how important orthodoxy is. I know that it is a very important part -- perhaps the most important part -- of a good spiritual life and relationship with God and of effective ministry. I know that orthodox theology IS life-giving; you can't have full fellowship with God without it. And yet I see how "untrendy" it is. Even in the Church, there are a lot of people who want other things to be more important than orthodox theology. And, after much reflection (both logically and in light of my own experience as a erstwhile heretic) I have come to the conclusion that this trend against orthodoxy is very, very bad. Ironically, it amounts to "putting God in a box" (although this is often used by the heretical types to describe orthodox dogma); heretical Christianity becomes not about the rich and paradoxical statements of the creeds and councils, but about a decision to utterly ignore God's being and instead to make God say what we want to hear. And this applies to both liberals and conservatives.
I believe that the Church and her future leaders need more orthodoxy. Not for some airy-fairy theoretical reason, so that we can all be "right" for the sake of being "right." And not for some reason born of historical toadyism, as if anything old and traditional is automatically good and to be preserved uncritically. And not because I'm one of those "propositional Protestants" who thinks that proper formulation equals salvation or that God can't work with us if we're not really smart and abstract and totally right about who God is. The reason we need orthodoxy is utterly spiritual and pretty darned practical. Because without orthodoxy, the Christian life becomes deeply unfulfilling and won't sustain us to do anything good. We won't be producing fruits -- we'll be laboring to try to manufacture fruits that are composed mostly of corn syrup, preservatives, artificial flavor and Red #40. It's harder to try to make fruit than to let fruit just grow; we might manage to crib something together that vaguely resembles spiritual fruit, but it won't look or taste quite right.
And my problem is that I'm out to give the Church what it needs and what it doesn't want. And I'm angry that it doesn't want it. I've been wanting to kick the world for most of the summer. So, my real problem is that I'm angry. I vented and prayed and thought and prayed some more. I made a desperate cry for help. Got no answer. So I vented again, prayed, thought.
A pretty good proverb: "If you're angry, you're wrong." Maybe not totally right, but a good check to perform if you have anger issues. So I asked very honestly if I was perhaps wrong about the whole orthodoxy thing. Pretty sure that's not it. So there's something wrong happening that is making me want to kick people. I think I'm finally starting to get a handle on my problem.
1) It's easier and feels better to be angry at people for not liking orthodoxy than to be sad. Anger is kind of an ego-boost: it stirs up energy and makes you feel like you can fix things, right the wrong. The point is, I can't. I can't argue anyone into good doctrine. I hope that God will move in people's hearts to draw them closer, but I know from my own experience that God's grace is not an irresistible Calvinist caveman who wacks people over the head and drags them to faith. I am little. I can't fight this fight. This is a major trend of badness that has infiltrated the Church. I'm trying to do the same thing as the ministerial nuts who notice that there is poverty and disease and war and oppression and forget that Jesus already saved the world and think they've got to go do it all themselves. So, partly I need to deal with being sad that things are how they are and that people are cutting themselves off from truth.
2) I'm also being kind of lazy. I managed to get spoon-fed orthodoxy-based spiritual practice on a regular basis during the year by being in numerous patristics courses. This summer, I read one good scholarly book on patristics which was faithful -- and then followed that with a bunch of secondary literature which is not orthodox and not life-giving. No primary texts. And my asceticism has slipped; now that I'm not pressed by classes and deadlines, it's easy to feel like eating, sleeping late, watching TV. I'm all angry and fruitless because I'm not practicing what I preach. I've been so caught up in my reaction against heresy that I haven't spent enough time sinking deep into orthodoxy, thinking about God and being and letting that truth sustain me.
A Spiritual Practice for Me
I realize that I don't know how to do patristic spirituality by myself. It just happened when things were brought up in my patristics classes. I'd think about the arguments against the Eunomians or about allegorical interpretation or Christology or Nyssen's anthropology and then I'd just sort of -- turn to God. It just kind of happened. I've kept listening to the recorded CH 13 lectures. It sort of helps. Except that I listen while driving and almost ran a stop-sign the last time I got too into it. Also, it's the 5th or 6th time I've listened to the whole set now. It'd be nice if there were some *little* surprises every now and again...
So currently, my spiritual practice is rather non-existent because what I used to do before I came to Duke was based on a very wishy-washy theology. It is pretty directionless and vapid -- and it also feels icky because it reminds me of the sad time when I my dogma was bad. And also, I think I might be spiritually "remedial" -- I have special needs because of my severe social anxiety, my sensory processing problems, and my ADD. If I'm around other people, I'm generally overwhelmed and am going to be manic and hyperactive or else hyper-vigilent or else totally glazed and shut down -- very hard to think about God in the midst of that kind of brain chemistry. So I need some practices I can do while I'm alone.
There are plenty of practices in lots of Christian traditions. I'm sure I could try a bunch and see what works. But how would I know what "works"? I don't want to make the mistake of thinking that some sort of subjective emotional experience actually constitutes effective spirituality. So, I've decided that I'm going to interrogate whole subject of spirituality from an orthodox perspective and then figure out what sort of practices support the ends of "spirituality" and fix something up to be a nice, doctrinally sound spiritual discipline for me. And I want to get this going before classes start up and things get crazy -- especially because I only have one patristics-type class this semester and it's only partly about patristics. And I really don't want to just hang around CH 13 spooking out the first-years....
So I am hoping to blog through my investigation of "spirituality" and my figuring out a happy little orthodox spiritual practice that socially awkward Christian Platonists can do. I will do so in the coming days before classes start, unless my advisor magically gets all his work for the new semester done at warp speed and notices the email I sent that said I'm having a spiritual crisis and tells me some spiritual practice stuff to do, which would probably be quicker, easier, and more effective than me trying to figure it out myself.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
The Curious and Quibbling History of "Syllabus" (part 2)
[NB. This post is rated PG ("Pedagogical Guidance") for indictments of the infallible authority of reference works and for scandalizing references to literary critical theory. It is probably best not to read this if you are in Latin 101. If you are in Latin 201, please use discretion.]
Part the Second, in which our heroine discovers the shocking origins of "syllabus" and rekindles her hermeneutic of fiery suspicion towards lexica.
Now, like most people, I don't like being wrong. But I'm willing to be wrong if that's a stop on the way to discovering the truth -- even about something as seemingly petty as the proper declension of the word "syllabus". Mostly, I was embarassed to admit that I'd never looked the thing up before. So I got out my chunky lexica and went to work, beginning with the reference my advisor had sent.
Here is what L&S (Lewis & Short) say (s.v. "syllabus"):
syllabus, -i, m., = σύλλαβος, a list, register, syllabus, Aug. Conf. 13, 15.
From this, the word seems to be a Greek loaner, clearly 2nd declension. Augustine uses it. And thus the plural is indubitably "syllabi".
The only problem with this is that L&S is wrong.
I know this seems a rather arrogant assessment. The very fact that I continued to search betrays a deep lack of wanting to eat crow. But, in my defense, I trusted the scholars who told me the word was 4th declension and I was wondering where they got this idea.
So I looked up this Greek word σύλλαβος in my LSJ (Liddel, Scott, Jones -- it's the big one, the "Great Scott"). It's not there because the Greek word does not exist. A quick search on the TLG confirmed this. Greek authors through the Byzantine period aren't using this phantom word σύλλαβος (all the hits for σύλλαβοι, σύλλαβοις, etc. are verbal forms of συλλαμβάνω (roughly, "gather"). There is a Greek noun συλλαβή; it's feminine and means (roughly) "syllable".
But there was still this Augustine citation. So I looked it up (basically to check whether it was in a form that might betray its being 2nd as opposed to 4th declension). The form in the Confessions is "syllabis", which actually leaves open the question of whether it's 1st or 2nd declension. It's more likely to be 1st, in my opinion -- from the 1st declension Latin borrowing from Greek συλλαβή (Latin form is the expected "syllaba"). And this particularly because it's meaning is most probably "syllable". Augustine is talking about the angels in heaven and writes "ibi legunt sine syllabis temporum". Considering that ancient reading is often aloud, that makes rather a nice point -- the angels read without temporal syllables, syllables which sound within space-time. [Amusingly, one could posit that the angels are doing everlasting reading courses: they read without the syllabi/syllabuses/syllabūs of time!]
Curiouser and curiouser... I checked the OLD (Oxford Latin Dictionary) for "syllabus"; no entry there. I was now beginning to wonder where the word itself came from, let alone its plural! So I looked at the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) entry for the English word "syllabus".
Here's a summary of what it says: The existence of the word "syllabus" appears to be founded on a suspect reading in Cicero's Epistle ad Atticum IV. iv, where the reading Latin is sillybous (Gk. σιλλύβους). And some editors still print this (like Purser, whose text is on Perseus and the editor of the Loeb vol., Winstedt). However, the word appears in the mss. at ad. Att. 4.5 and 4.8 as "sittybis" (NB. Purser and Winstedt, inter alios, print these again as "sillybis"). Cicero is clearly using the words to mean something like "title slips" -- bits of parchment with tables of contents or titles to be glued on to scrolls or scroll cases to identify the contents of the volume. Cicero petitions Atticus to send him some slaves to work as gluers and to find him some nice parchment suitable for use as "title slips".
So, I then did some TLG searches. The Greek σίλλυβον seems to refer to a thorny or "fringy" type of flower. And σίττυβα can be either some sort of dish or a small leather thing (perhaps a chamois? or a shrug?). Clearly the latter, as associated with animal skins, is much more likely to be a word used for "title slip". Note, also, that this latter Greek word is feminine and first declension!
So here is my reconstruction of the history of "syllabus":
1) Around 68 B.C., Cicero borrows the Greek word σίττυβα and transliterates it as sittyba; he uses the inflected forms sittybis (dat/abl. pl.) and sittybas (acc. pl.)
2) At some point in the manuscript tradition, between 68 B.C. and 1389 (when the Codex Mediceus was copied) the first of these (at least) is corrupted to sillybos, with a change both of gender and of the t's to l's. It is possible that the corruption was first to sillybas and then a further change was made to the gender of sillybas when a copyist compared Greek forms of σίλλυβον (a neuter noun) and mistook it for masculine; hence the masculine acc. pl. in Latin as sillybos.
3) In 1389, the copyist of the Codex Mediceus 49,18 writes "sillabos", continuing the errors of gender and of double-L for double-T, but introducing the further change of -a- for -y-. This may have been an attempt at correction, although there is no Greek word beginning σίλλαβ- (according to what's extant and in the TLG database).
4) After 1389, a further change occured for one of two reasons: 1) the fact that the Greek meaning of σίλλυβον is so dissimilar from that of the intended σίττυβα prompted a reconsideration of the Latin "sillybus" OR 2) the error of the Codex Mediceus reading "sillabos" prompted the "correction" also of the first vowel to make it seem like a transliteration of a real Greek word (since no Greek word in σίλλαβ- was known). Therefore, in an effort to correct a corrupt reading, philologists decided it was not meant to represent the Greek σίλλυβον, but rather, that the error had been a phonetic transposition and that "sillybos" should read "syllabos" -- as a transliteration of the (non-existent) Greek word σύλλαβος, derived from συλλαμβάνω.
5) In the late 15th and early 16th centuries, printed editions of Cicero's letters adopted the reading "syllabos" (e.g. Cratander, Jenson, and the Roman ed. of 1470). This word "syllabus" was then, in fact, adopted as a 2nd declension masculine noun in Neo-Latin and its meaning extended to the needs of Latin-speaking academics (who no longer used scrolls requiring "title slips"). On the logic of a derivation from συλλαμβάνω, the word "syllabus" came to mean something like "list" (i.e. something gathered and collated). This isn't too far off from the original meaning of "title slip" -- although the original term used by Cicero refers to the material of the title slip (leather, skin) and not to the function of the title slip (a list of collected titles). On this basis, therefore, the proper plural of "syllabus" would seem to be "syllabi".
6) In recent years, before I was taught such things in the 1990's, another stage of philological hyper-correction observes that if the word has been derived as a nomen actionis from the Greek συλλαμβάνω, it should logically follow the rules for such verbals. They generally take the -u- marker (often as -tus or -sus, but Greek loan-words frequently come in without the dental). Therefore, the word, IF it were derived from συλλαμβάνω, should be 4th declension with plural syllabūs.
In conclusion....
Several observations:
1) The plural of "syllabus" is most correctly "syllabi".
2) Never just believe what teachers tell you. And don't always believe lexica either; they're composed by other human beings just like you and me. And often those other human beings had less resources available to them because they were living back before the Internet when dinosaurs roamed the earth and all research was done with notecards, fountain pens, train rides and letters of introduction by more senior scholars. They had lots of more important things to do than to make sure they got a totally correct definition for really rare words -- they had to worry about Lewis Carroll taking nude photos of their kids in verdant settings and other serious things like that.
3) If you want to join the syllabūs camp, you're certainly welcome to. But you should realize that since "syllabus" isn't an "organic" Latin word in the first place, you won't be proving much of anything about your intelligence. Rather, by taking the silly thing seriously, you will merely be complicit in the tyranny of l'écriture. Because let's face it: this whole etymological history and the very existence of the word "syllabus" is the sort of thing which serves as intellectual pornography for deconstructionists.
Part the Second, in which our heroine discovers the shocking origins of "syllabus" and rekindles her hermeneutic of fiery suspicion towards lexica.
Now, like most people, I don't like being wrong. But I'm willing to be wrong if that's a stop on the way to discovering the truth -- even about something as seemingly petty as the proper declension of the word "syllabus". Mostly, I was embarassed to admit that I'd never looked the thing up before. So I got out my chunky lexica and went to work, beginning with the reference my advisor had sent.
Here is what L&S (Lewis & Short) say (s.v. "syllabus"):
syllabus, -i, m., = σύλλαβος, a list, register, syllabus, Aug. Conf. 13, 15.
From this, the word seems to be a Greek loaner, clearly 2nd declension. Augustine uses it. And thus the plural is indubitably "syllabi".
The only problem with this is that L&S is wrong.
I know this seems a rather arrogant assessment. The very fact that I continued to search betrays a deep lack of wanting to eat crow. But, in my defense, I trusted the scholars who told me the word was 4th declension and I was wondering where they got this idea.
So I looked up this Greek word σύλλαβος in my LSJ (Liddel, Scott, Jones -- it's the big one, the "Great Scott"). It's not there because the Greek word does not exist. A quick search on the TLG confirmed this. Greek authors through the Byzantine period aren't using this phantom word σύλλαβος (all the hits for σύλλαβοι, σύλλαβοις, etc. are verbal forms of συλλαμβάνω (roughly, "gather"). There is a Greek noun συλλαβή; it's feminine and means (roughly) "syllable".
But there was still this Augustine citation. So I looked it up (basically to check whether it was in a form that might betray its being 2nd as opposed to 4th declension). The form in the Confessions is "syllabis", which actually leaves open the question of whether it's 1st or 2nd declension. It's more likely to be 1st, in my opinion -- from the 1st declension Latin borrowing from Greek συλλαβή (Latin form is the expected "syllaba"). And this particularly because it's meaning is most probably "syllable". Augustine is talking about the angels in heaven and writes "ibi legunt sine syllabis temporum". Considering that ancient reading is often aloud, that makes rather a nice point -- the angels read without temporal syllables, syllables which sound within space-time. [Amusingly, one could posit that the angels are doing everlasting reading courses: they read without the syllabi/syllabuses/syllabūs of time!]
Curiouser and curiouser... I checked the OLD (Oxford Latin Dictionary) for "syllabus"; no entry there. I was now beginning to wonder where the word itself came from, let alone its plural! So I looked at the OED (Oxford English Dictionary) entry for the English word "syllabus".
Here's a summary of what it says: The existence of the word "syllabus" appears to be founded on a suspect reading in Cicero's Epistle ad Atticum IV. iv, where the reading Latin is sillybous (Gk. σιλλύβους). And some editors still print this (like Purser, whose text is on Perseus and the editor of the Loeb vol., Winstedt). However, the word appears in the mss. at ad. Att. 4.5 and 4.8 as "sittybis" (NB. Purser and Winstedt, inter alios, print these again as "sillybis"). Cicero is clearly using the words to mean something like "title slips" -- bits of parchment with tables of contents or titles to be glued on to scrolls or scroll cases to identify the contents of the volume. Cicero petitions Atticus to send him some slaves to work as gluers and to find him some nice parchment suitable for use as "title slips".
So, I then did some TLG searches. The Greek σίλλυβον seems to refer to a thorny or "fringy" type of flower. And σίττυβα can be either some sort of dish or a small leather thing (perhaps a chamois? or a shrug?). Clearly the latter, as associated with animal skins, is much more likely to be a word used for "title slip". Note, also, that this latter Greek word is feminine and first declension!
So here is my reconstruction of the history of "syllabus":
1) Around 68 B.C., Cicero borrows the Greek word σίττυβα and transliterates it as sittyba; he uses the inflected forms sittybis (dat/abl. pl.) and sittybas (acc. pl.)
2) At some point in the manuscript tradition, between 68 B.C. and 1389 (when the Codex Mediceus was copied) the first of these (at least) is corrupted to sillybos, with a change both of gender and of the t's to l's. It is possible that the corruption was first to sillybas and then a further change was made to the gender of sillybas when a copyist compared Greek forms of σίλλυβον (a neuter noun) and mistook it for masculine; hence the masculine acc. pl. in Latin as sillybos.
3) In 1389, the copyist of the Codex Mediceus 49,18 writes "sillabos", continuing the errors of gender and of double-L for double-T, but introducing the further change of -a- for -y-. This may have been an attempt at correction, although there is no Greek word beginning σίλλαβ- (according to what's extant and in the TLG database).
4) After 1389, a further change occured for one of two reasons: 1) the fact that the Greek meaning of σίλλυβον is so dissimilar from that of the intended σίττυβα prompted a reconsideration of the Latin "sillybus" OR 2) the error of the Codex Mediceus reading "sillabos" prompted the "correction" also of the first vowel to make it seem like a transliteration of a real Greek word (since no Greek word in σίλλαβ- was known). Therefore, in an effort to correct a corrupt reading, philologists decided it was not meant to represent the Greek σίλλυβον, but rather, that the error had been a phonetic transposition and that "sillybos" should read "syllabos" -- as a transliteration of the (non-existent) Greek word σύλλαβος, derived from συλλαμβάνω.
5) In the late 15th and early 16th centuries, printed editions of Cicero's letters adopted the reading "syllabos" (e.g. Cratander, Jenson, and the Roman ed. of 1470). This word "syllabus" was then, in fact, adopted as a 2nd declension masculine noun in Neo-Latin and its meaning extended to the needs of Latin-speaking academics (who no longer used scrolls requiring "title slips"). On the logic of a derivation from συλλαμβάνω, the word "syllabus" came to mean something like "list" (i.e. something gathered and collated). This isn't too far off from the original meaning of "title slip" -- although the original term used by Cicero refers to the material of the title slip (leather, skin) and not to the function of the title slip (a list of collected titles). On this basis, therefore, the proper plural of "syllabus" would seem to be "syllabi".
6) In recent years, before I was taught such things in the 1990's, another stage of philological hyper-correction observes that if the word has been derived as a nomen actionis from the Greek συλλαμβάνω, it should logically follow the rules for such verbals. They generally take the -u- marker (often as -tus or -sus, but Greek loan-words frequently come in without the dental). Therefore, the word, IF it were derived from συλλαμβάνω, should be 4th declension with plural syllabūs.
In conclusion....
Several observations:
1) The plural of "syllabus" is most correctly "syllabi".
2) Never just believe what teachers tell you. And don't always believe lexica either; they're composed by other human beings just like you and me. And often those other human beings had less resources available to them because they were living back before the Internet when dinosaurs roamed the earth and all research was done with notecards, fountain pens, train rides and letters of introduction by more senior scholars. They had lots of more important things to do than to make sure they got a totally correct definition for really rare words -- they had to worry about Lewis Carroll taking nude photos of their kids in verdant settings and other serious things like that.
3) If you want to join the syllabūs camp, you're certainly welcome to. But you should realize that since "syllabus" isn't an "organic" Latin word in the first place, you won't be proving much of anything about your intelligence. Rather, by taking the silly thing seriously, you will merely be complicit in the tyranny of l'écriture. Because let's face it: this whole etymological history and the very existence of the word "syllabus" is the sort of thing which serves as intellectual pornography for deconstructionists.
The Curious and Quibbling History of "Syllabus" (part 1)
Part the First, In which our heroine renounces her intellectual complacency and embarks upon The Quest.
What is the proper plural of the word "syllabus"? You can google it. People do worry about this. They worry, that is, unless they are just sure that they know the correct answer. Up until this morning, I thought I knew the correct answer. But now, I don't have an answer. I have a story.
It's the story of the word "syllabus" and it sweeps several languages and centuries. But it is also the story of the very human failings and humane instincts of philologists. And, it's a quirky little tale of a tortuous etymology. So I've decided to share.
There are three basic camps on the issue of the plural of "syllabus":
1) The "English" camp. The logic is as follows: It's a word in English. English plurals end in "-s" or "-es". So the plural is "syllabuses."
2) The "Latin" camp: It's a word from Latin because it ends in -us. Their plurals end in -i. So the plural should be "syllabi". [NB: There is a much more rigorous and well-informed version of this position, as we shall see. But there are a number of people who do not know Latin who hold this view.]
3) The "Philologist" camp: The word has come into English from Latin. But it's not a 2nd declension noun in -us; it's a 4th declension noun in -us. Therefore the plural is not -i, but -ūs. Hence, "syllabūs". [NB: There are good reasons for this view as well, but there is also a subtext directed against the Latin camp which goes something like this: "Ha! You think you know Latin because you can make jokes like "semper ubi sub ubi"? Bet you didn't even know there *was* a fourth declension, did you?]
In the final analysis, there are reasons for all three positions that can be either emblematic of rigorous scholarly analysis or typical of an unthinking reactivity. For my part, I was taught by the Philologist camp, but to my chagrin I had accepted the doctrine of "syllabūs" without questioning or investigation. I suppose my reasons were both naive and reactive; I can't pretend I'm not annoyed by people who are in fraternities and therefore think they know something about Greek when they can't even pronounce the names of the letters properly. It's even more annoying when hoi polloi want you to respect what are basically mere opinions, despite the fact that you've spent years of study in submission to an actual discipline with a well-considered (even if often questioned) methodology and some actual scientific RIGOR.
So, I have often dropped my uncritically received opinion of the plural "syllabūs", generally with more evangelistic than polemic motives (ie. I think "gee, this is cool; I will tell so-and-so and they will be happy to have this knowledge!" not "Ha! This person is stupid and doesn't know Latin and I'm going to show them how much they don't know.")
Yesterday was one such instance. My mentor was talking about finishing up his "syllabi." Of course, my advisor, though not a classicist per se, has a solid background in the classics. And he pronounced "syllabi" properly as "sill-a-bee". My acquaintance with him generally has been filled with such moments of anagnorisis; there are any number of little off-hand comments that serve as tokens or signals among classics geeks that say, "You can relax. I mean no harm. I, too, am deeply familiar with the entirety of the I, Claudius miniseries. I'm one of you."
So, I said my 4th-declension-syllabūs spiel with the best of intentions. However, he is too much of a scholar to just accept what I say uncritically. His curiosity was piqued. And he looked it up in the Lewis and Short and emailed me. It seems I was wrong (*gasp* shock! horror!) And this is where my quest began.
What is the proper plural of the word "syllabus"? You can google it. People do worry about this. They worry, that is, unless they are just sure that they know the correct answer. Up until this morning, I thought I knew the correct answer. But now, I don't have an answer. I have a story.
It's the story of the word "syllabus" and it sweeps several languages and centuries. But it is also the story of the very human failings and humane instincts of philologists. And, it's a quirky little tale of a tortuous etymology. So I've decided to share.
There are three basic camps on the issue of the plural of "syllabus":
1) The "English" camp. The logic is as follows: It's a word in English. English plurals end in "-s" or "-es". So the plural is "syllabuses."
2) The "Latin" camp: It's a word from Latin because it ends in -us. Their plurals end in -i. So the plural should be "syllabi". [NB: There is a much more rigorous and well-informed version of this position, as we shall see. But there are a number of people who do not know Latin who hold this view.]
3) The "Philologist" camp: The word has come into English from Latin. But it's not a 2nd declension noun in -us; it's a 4th declension noun in -us. Therefore the plural is not -i, but -ūs. Hence, "syllabūs". [NB: There are good reasons for this view as well, but there is also a subtext directed against the Latin camp which goes something like this: "Ha! You think you know Latin because you can make jokes like "semper ubi sub ubi"? Bet you didn't even know there *was* a fourth declension, did you?]
In the final analysis, there are reasons for all three positions that can be either emblematic of rigorous scholarly analysis or typical of an unthinking reactivity. For my part, I was taught by the Philologist camp, but to my chagrin I had accepted the doctrine of "syllabūs" without questioning or investigation. I suppose my reasons were both naive and reactive; I can't pretend I'm not annoyed by people who are in fraternities and therefore think they know something about Greek when they can't even pronounce the names of the letters properly. It's even more annoying when hoi polloi want you to respect what are basically mere opinions, despite the fact that you've spent years of study in submission to an actual discipline with a well-considered (even if often questioned) methodology and some actual scientific RIGOR.
So, I have often dropped my uncritically received opinion of the plural "syllabūs", generally with more evangelistic than polemic motives (ie. I think "gee, this is cool; I will tell so-and-so and they will be happy to have this knowledge!" not "Ha! This person is stupid and doesn't know Latin and I'm going to show them how much they don't know.")
Yesterday was one such instance. My mentor was talking about finishing up his "syllabi." Of course, my advisor, though not a classicist per se, has a solid background in the classics. And he pronounced "syllabi" properly as "sill-a-bee". My acquaintance with him generally has been filled with such moments of anagnorisis; there are any number of little off-hand comments that serve as tokens or signals among classics geeks that say, "You can relax. I mean no harm. I, too, am deeply familiar with the entirety of the I, Claudius miniseries. I'm one of you."
So, I said my 4th-declension-syllabūs spiel with the best of intentions. However, he is too much of a scholar to just accept what I say uncritically. His curiosity was piqued. And he looked it up in the Lewis and Short and emailed me. It seems I was wrong (*gasp* shock! horror!) And this is where my quest began.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Patristics Chick at VBS, Part 2 -- "Yes, Virginia: 10-yr olds care about the homoousios!"
People in the MDiv program like to laugh a bit at us MTS (Masters of Theological Studies) students. While MDiv's have the reputation for just wanting to hug and "be in the trenches with the people", MTS's have the reputation for being a bit too scholarly, socially inept, and maybe a bit less "Christian" than those who have a more pastoral vocation. There was a story in our satirial blog, The Depressio, entitled "Students Tried Too Hard In Field Ed" which depicted a student locking a kid in a closet to represent Jesus' time in the tomb and trying to let the Sunday School poppets wrestle with the rather unsatisfying ending of the Gospel of Mark. When I was getting advice from my mentor about applying to the more ministerial ThD program, he recommended doing some "ministry". And he seemed slightly worried that I might do something crazy, like, well... trying to teach 10 year olds about the consubstantiality of the eternal Logos with the Father or the hypostatic union and the ultimately heretical nature of Nestorius' two-subject Christology. ("Hey kids! Can you say 'apokatastasis'?") Well, to be honest, I was a little worried, too.
I love theology. I'm more in love with God when I think about divine impassibility and divinization soteriology and inter-Trinitarian relations than when singing praise songs and hearing Bible stories about how "God so loved the world" and all that. So, I'm exactly the sort of person who could make all kinds of grave ministerial mistakes, like trying to market theosis to a Western post-Augustinian, post-Reformation world. Or trying to tell kids about how the Son is homoousios with the Father at VBS.
However, the latter is exactly what I did.
Here was the situation. My academic mentor happened also to be the Bible story leader at VBS. When I was volunteering to help, he told me the lesson was the parable of the sower and joked that it would be like our Early Christianity intro "on steroids". I instantly had visions of him tying the parable of the sower into a lengthy discussion on grace and bringing in Origen's interpretation of how the rain falls on the just and unjust alike and so the hardening of pharaoh's heart as a result of grace is really because pharaoh had hardened his own heart and so the "rain of grace" just runs off. I am sensible enough to know he wasn't going to tell 5-10 year olds all that, but I acknowledged that fact with a slight pang of regret. Still, all during the lessons I kept waiting for him to bring up baptism.
On the last day of VBS, my mentor had another engagement to lecture and couldn't make it. So the pastor filled in for Bible time. He pretended that since it was his first day, he didn't know anything about the story. He kept messing up parts and making the kids correct him. Some of them got pretty into it, giggling and groaning and yelling "no!" when he said things like, "A sower went out to swim..." But a few of my older kids were just not amused.
My autistic kid summed it up at once: "He really does know it, but he's going to keep saying wrong things just to be silly." And one of the ten-year-olds who goes to the church said wisely, "He's a pastor. He can't fool me -- he knows this story." So, most of them were playing along, but some of them were sitting there kind of rolling their eyes indulgently.
And I get that. When I was young, I'd usually try to play along, but those sorts of things drove me up a wall. To be fair, they got to review the key points of the story. That is, they've got the "earthly narrative" down pat. They know the seeds don't fall among "hot dogs" but among "thorns". And these are good things to know.
The problem came up when he started reviewing the "heavenly meaning" of the parable's "earthly story". This part was exceedingly short, in my MTS opinion. But I must admit I didn't hear too much of it. His first question was: "So who does the sower represent?" Some kids called out "God" and others said "Jesus". And my little ten-year-old corner got feisty.
Kid #1: God IS Jesus. They're the same thing.
Kid #2: Nunh-unh! Jesus is a person! God is up in the sky, like... he's God.
Kid #1: [looks at me] God is so Jesus... isn't he?
Jen: Well, Jesus is God, but God isn't the same thing as Jesus. It's not like God is sometimes being Jesus and sometimes is being God. Jesus is God's Son and so he's the exact same kind of thing as God, just like you are the same kind of thing as your parents. You're people like your parents and Jesus is God just like God his Father is.
Kid #2: OK.
Kid #3: If Jesus is God's Son, then is God Jesus' real father -- like really?
Kid #1: Then who's his mom?
Kid #4: Mary's his mom.
Jen: Well, Mary's his mom when he was born as a person, as Jesus. You know how you have a birthday, the day you were born?
Kid #4: Jesus' birthday is Christmas.
Jen: That's when he got born as a person. But Jesus is a person AND he's God. So as God's son he was always around just like God is and he never had a time when he "got born". And because he's God just like God is, he didn't have a mom. We need moms and dads because we're people, but God isn't like human beings so he doesn't have his Son the same way people do. But when he became a person too he got born as Jesus and then he had a mom.
Kid # 3: But his dad is still God. Because it wasn't Joseph.
Jen: Right. And that's how Jesus is a person and also still God.
Kid #1: Ohh! I get it now.
Kid #2: [nodding wisely] That makes sense.
Their last comments almost made me laugh, because of course it doesn't make "sense" -- these are the major mysteries of Christian doctrine. It took the Church centuries to be able to articulate it, and we still don't know the "how" of it. But after that, at least they were no longer using their modalist and adoptionist ideas. I had managed to give them something that was orthodox that they could grab hold of, be satisfied with, and grow with. It was the happiest moment of my entire week and it felt like a little gift to me, the cheese at the end of the maze.
I felt a little bad about having this discussion while the wrap-up of the lesson was happening, but we had about six kids that were paying attention to this and wanted to know. And we were quiet. They were asking the questions and they were listening for answers. The thing I've learned with these kids is that you'd better take every opportunity you've got because the moment is gone in a second. The pastor finished recapping the heavenly meaning in the minute that we'd spent talking and then the youth helpers had them playing "Simon Says" (this was a recurring theme). I figure six out of nineteen kids asking about key items of the faith was worth bending propriety.
The incident has made me think a lot. There are several things.
1) Having a darned good handle on theology is important for ministry. Period.
OK. Let me hedge a little -- it's important for a lot of ministry. I'm not saying that people can't be ministerial unless they have theological training. One of the things that bothers me about the MDiv's is that they seem to equate "ministry" with "being pastoral". And one of the things that bothers me about some MTS people is that they seem to think that being stringently orthodox is an end in itself, for everyone. (I don't quite agree, but that's a whole 'nother blog post.) You can sing, play an instrument, sweep floors, give money, hand out food at a soup kitchen or a whole lot of other things that help the Church without having theological training.
However, if you're going to teach, preach, or counsel, I think solid theology is desirable. And I think it might be even more desirable for teaching kids. I'll admit that I'm congratulating myself a bit on the answers I gave. It wasn't perfect. But the point is: I wouldn't have been able to give those sorts of answers before this year. I read a good bit of theology, including some of the key stuff on "Arians" and the hypostatic union, in the year before I started in the Div School. Back then, I probably would have gotten a bit too geeked out, gone into the history, maybe even said the word "homoousios". Partly, I would have just gotten too excited and I would have been saying it more for myself than for the kids; I didn't have enough of this in my life to miss out by "dumbing it down". And I wouldn't have had the familiarity to be able to "dumb it down" into 8-10 yr old speak. I'd only scratched the surface. I knew homoousios. I didn't see the full and rich tapestry of issues behind it.
Before last year when I was reading theology, I might not have noticed that their comments were straying out of the corral. Or I might not have cared. I didn't get so hepped up about Jesus because I disliked the whole "me and my Jesus" trend -- the Christology that produces those macho T-shirts for men which show crosses and iron nails and thorn crowns dripping blood and those WWJD bracelets and which makes women get alternately weepy and happier than otters on Prozac at retreats and Bible studies. I was into the Father and the Spirit. I was working on a way to dispense with Jesus altogether. And that's because Jesus was human and because all these Evangelical sorts are way more interested in themselves than in God and so focus on Jesus almost to the exclusion of any idea of the Son before the incarnation (another rant for another time). I might have just said something like "God isn't Jesus, but Jesus is God." I'd be willing to bet that most regular people would hear "God is Jesus" and say either "God is Jesus' Father" or "Yes, Jesus is God."
2) I will never let anyone ever again tell me that people don't care about these things.
I think the reason that adults don't want to hear about it is that they've heard something enough that they're absolutely sure it's right. They don't mind hearing what they've always heard and nodding along, but they don't want to investigate or hear something new. Kids, on the other hand, are used to not knowing everything. If they get in a disagreement, they might actually ask and try to learn. At a certain level, kids are able to be more invested in finding out what's right than in being perceived to be right. These kids cared. They might not know all the reasons why it matters, but they care whether Jesus is God or just a guy or what.
3) The obverse of the first contemplation: ministry is important for theology.
Let me be clear here: the content of one's theology should never depend upon human situations. I'm sure this is very controversial and a whole lot of people will revile me (if they were to read my blog, which most people don't, so I'm safe). And I still think that, as a hopeless patristics geek, I will still have "private theology time" where I go as abstract and complex and "ethereal" as I possibly can -- partly this is what I need to do to fulfil the Shema and love God with my whole mind. And partly it's just crazy fun that makes life enjoyable while I'm waiting for the eschaton.
But if this sort of work is what I'm born to do, if it's a true vocation, then I'm meant to do it with reference to something beyond myself and beyond the 20 or 30 other patristics scholars in this country (OK, I'm understating. But only slightly.) Therefore, I need there to be a proportion in my life. So much of the Christian life is grounded upon our theology -- or it should be. I've come to the conclusion that a lot of our teaching ministries in the church are less effective than they could be because they aren't based on a very deep theology. The problem is that people who are good at practical things are often impatient with abstract thinking. And the people who are good at abstract thinking aren't good at (and often just hate) thinking about the practical. There's a presumed "trickle down" from scholars to Church, but I don't think it's working so well -- at least not in my field. And I'm becoming more and more convinced that there are actual "practical" things that need a healthy dose of historical theology. For this reason, I think many of us who are doing the "abstract" have a serious obligation to be thinking of the "practical" and to frame our research questions with some sort of relevance to what is actually going on in the Church, what's happening "in the trenches with the people". Ideally, we should write about it. But even if we can't write for general audiences with practical ideas and suggestions, we need to be looking for the implications for the concrete and practical.
Let's say we're working on the Christological controversies and the debate between Nestorius and Cyril of Alexandria. Historically, how did the reasoning of the time support or make difficult the orthodox formulation? Is there friction between the formulation and our current "grammars"? What about post-modernism? Is there an epistemological conflict between the two or is there a way of reconciling them? What does this mean for how we articulate this today? A lot of people are just dropping Chalcedon and I think that's wrong. What is motivating this trend? What needs are we trying to fulfil in people by dropping Chalcedon? What will we then lose? What is it in Christianity that makes this formulation integral? How does its loss affect how we teach? How does it affect our imitation of Christ? How does it call into question the hope of the resurrection? What does this then impact? How do we articulate the aspects of Chalcedon which are, in fact, spiritually gratifying? How do we present the values and orientation implicit in the Chalcedonian formulation in a way which makes clear their relevance to our lives in this day and age? What of the needs behind the rejection trend are legitimate? What are the logical errors or failures of piety which prompt the rejection of Chalcedon? And how can we correct for this? Is there some human need that we've been neglecting in presentation of doctrine or in ministerial praxis, a lack which then makes the rejection of Chalcedon attractive as a means of meeting the need? How then can we meet those human and spiritual needs by means of a ministry that grows out of the Chalcedonian definition? How can we teach Chalcedon in a way which invigorates and is spiritually nourishing?
[-- This is my problem. I feel like it's really important to do this. And I have a sense of what it is that I want to do to join the practical and the abstract. But I don't really have the words and can't manage to articulate it. But I just know that good, deep theology can help people!]
I love theology. I'm more in love with God when I think about divine impassibility and divinization soteriology and inter-Trinitarian relations than when singing praise songs and hearing Bible stories about how "God so loved the world" and all that. So, I'm exactly the sort of person who could make all kinds of grave ministerial mistakes, like trying to market theosis to a Western post-Augustinian, post-Reformation world. Or trying to tell kids about how the Son is homoousios with the Father at VBS.
However, the latter is exactly what I did.
Here was the situation. My academic mentor happened also to be the Bible story leader at VBS. When I was volunteering to help, he told me the lesson was the parable of the sower and joked that it would be like our Early Christianity intro "on steroids". I instantly had visions of him tying the parable of the sower into a lengthy discussion on grace and bringing in Origen's interpretation of how the rain falls on the just and unjust alike and so the hardening of pharaoh's heart as a result of grace is really because pharaoh had hardened his own heart and so the "rain of grace" just runs off. I am sensible enough to know he wasn't going to tell 5-10 year olds all that, but I acknowledged that fact with a slight pang of regret. Still, all during the lessons I kept waiting for him to bring up baptism.
On the last day of VBS, my mentor had another engagement to lecture and couldn't make it. So the pastor filled in for Bible time. He pretended that since it was his first day, he didn't know anything about the story. He kept messing up parts and making the kids correct him. Some of them got pretty into it, giggling and groaning and yelling "no!" when he said things like, "A sower went out to swim..." But a few of my older kids were just not amused.
My autistic kid summed it up at once: "He really does know it, but he's going to keep saying wrong things just to be silly." And one of the ten-year-olds who goes to the church said wisely, "He's a pastor. He can't fool me -- he knows this story." So, most of them were playing along, but some of them were sitting there kind of rolling their eyes indulgently.
And I get that. When I was young, I'd usually try to play along, but those sorts of things drove me up a wall. To be fair, they got to review the key points of the story. That is, they've got the "earthly narrative" down pat. They know the seeds don't fall among "hot dogs" but among "thorns". And these are good things to know.
The problem came up when he started reviewing the "heavenly meaning" of the parable's "earthly story". This part was exceedingly short, in my MTS opinion. But I must admit I didn't hear too much of it. His first question was: "So who does the sower represent?" Some kids called out "God" and others said "Jesus". And my little ten-year-old corner got feisty.
Kid #1: God IS Jesus. They're the same thing.
Kid #2: Nunh-unh! Jesus is a person! God is up in the sky, like... he's God.
Kid #1: [looks at me] God is so Jesus... isn't he?
Jen: Well, Jesus is God, but God isn't the same thing as Jesus. It's not like God is sometimes being Jesus and sometimes is being God. Jesus is God's Son and so he's the exact same kind of thing as God, just like you are the same kind of thing as your parents. You're people like your parents and Jesus is God just like God his Father is.
Kid #2: OK.
Kid #3: If Jesus is God's Son, then is God Jesus' real father -- like really?
Kid #1: Then who's his mom?
Kid #4: Mary's his mom.
Jen: Well, Mary's his mom when he was born as a person, as Jesus. You know how you have a birthday, the day you were born?
Kid #4: Jesus' birthday is Christmas.
Jen: That's when he got born as a person. But Jesus is a person AND he's God. So as God's son he was always around just like God is and he never had a time when he "got born". And because he's God just like God is, he didn't have a mom. We need moms and dads because we're people, but God isn't like human beings so he doesn't have his Son the same way people do. But when he became a person too he got born as Jesus and then he had a mom.
Kid # 3: But his dad is still God. Because it wasn't Joseph.
Jen: Right. And that's how Jesus is a person and also still God.
Kid #1: Ohh! I get it now.
Kid #2: [nodding wisely] That makes sense.
Their last comments almost made me laugh, because of course it doesn't make "sense" -- these are the major mysteries of Christian doctrine. It took the Church centuries to be able to articulate it, and we still don't know the "how" of it. But after that, at least they were no longer using their modalist and adoptionist ideas. I had managed to give them something that was orthodox that they could grab hold of, be satisfied with, and grow with. It was the happiest moment of my entire week and it felt like a little gift to me, the cheese at the end of the maze.
I felt a little bad about having this discussion while the wrap-up of the lesson was happening, but we had about six kids that were paying attention to this and wanted to know. And we were quiet. They were asking the questions and they were listening for answers. The thing I've learned with these kids is that you'd better take every opportunity you've got because the moment is gone in a second. The pastor finished recapping the heavenly meaning in the minute that we'd spent talking and then the youth helpers had them playing "Simon Says" (this was a recurring theme). I figure six out of nineteen kids asking about key items of the faith was worth bending propriety.
The incident has made me think a lot. There are several things.
1) Having a darned good handle on theology is important for ministry. Period.
OK. Let me hedge a little -- it's important for a lot of ministry. I'm not saying that people can't be ministerial unless they have theological training. One of the things that bothers me about the MDiv's is that they seem to equate "ministry" with "being pastoral". And one of the things that bothers me about some MTS people is that they seem to think that being stringently orthodox is an end in itself, for everyone. (I don't quite agree, but that's a whole 'nother blog post.) You can sing, play an instrument, sweep floors, give money, hand out food at a soup kitchen or a whole lot of other things that help the Church without having theological training.
However, if you're going to teach, preach, or counsel, I think solid theology is desirable. And I think it might be even more desirable for teaching kids. I'll admit that I'm congratulating myself a bit on the answers I gave. It wasn't perfect. But the point is: I wouldn't have been able to give those sorts of answers before this year. I read a good bit of theology, including some of the key stuff on "Arians" and the hypostatic union, in the year before I started in the Div School. Back then, I probably would have gotten a bit too geeked out, gone into the history, maybe even said the word "homoousios". Partly, I would have just gotten too excited and I would have been saying it more for myself than for the kids; I didn't have enough of this in my life to miss out by "dumbing it down". And I wouldn't have had the familiarity to be able to "dumb it down" into 8-10 yr old speak. I'd only scratched the surface. I knew homoousios. I didn't see the full and rich tapestry of issues behind it.
Before last year when I was reading theology, I might not have noticed that their comments were straying out of the corral. Or I might not have cared. I didn't get so hepped up about Jesus because I disliked the whole "me and my Jesus" trend -- the Christology that produces those macho T-shirts for men which show crosses and iron nails and thorn crowns dripping blood and those WWJD bracelets and which makes women get alternately weepy and happier than otters on Prozac at retreats and Bible studies. I was into the Father and the Spirit. I was working on a way to dispense with Jesus altogether. And that's because Jesus was human and because all these Evangelical sorts are way more interested in themselves than in God and so focus on Jesus almost to the exclusion of any idea of the Son before the incarnation (another rant for another time). I might have just said something like "God isn't Jesus, but Jesus is God." I'd be willing to bet that most regular people would hear "God is Jesus" and say either "God is Jesus' Father" or "Yes, Jesus is God."
2) I will never let anyone ever again tell me that people don't care about these things.
I think the reason that adults don't want to hear about it is that they've heard something enough that they're absolutely sure it's right. They don't mind hearing what they've always heard and nodding along, but they don't want to investigate or hear something new. Kids, on the other hand, are used to not knowing everything. If they get in a disagreement, they might actually ask and try to learn. At a certain level, kids are able to be more invested in finding out what's right than in being perceived to be right. These kids cared. They might not know all the reasons why it matters, but they care whether Jesus is God or just a guy or what.
3) The obverse of the first contemplation: ministry is important for theology.
Let me be clear here: the content of one's theology should never depend upon human situations. I'm sure this is very controversial and a whole lot of people will revile me (if they were to read my blog, which most people don't, so I'm safe). And I still think that, as a hopeless patristics geek, I will still have "private theology time" where I go as abstract and complex and "ethereal" as I possibly can -- partly this is what I need to do to fulfil the Shema and love God with my whole mind. And partly it's just crazy fun that makes life enjoyable while I'm waiting for the eschaton.
But if this sort of work is what I'm born to do, if it's a true vocation, then I'm meant to do it with reference to something beyond myself and beyond the 20 or 30 other patristics scholars in this country (OK, I'm understating. But only slightly.) Therefore, I need there to be a proportion in my life. So much of the Christian life is grounded upon our theology -- or it should be. I've come to the conclusion that a lot of our teaching ministries in the church are less effective than they could be because they aren't based on a very deep theology. The problem is that people who are good at practical things are often impatient with abstract thinking. And the people who are good at abstract thinking aren't good at (and often just hate) thinking about the practical. There's a presumed "trickle down" from scholars to Church, but I don't think it's working so well -- at least not in my field. And I'm becoming more and more convinced that there are actual "practical" things that need a healthy dose of historical theology. For this reason, I think many of us who are doing the "abstract" have a serious obligation to be thinking of the "practical" and to frame our research questions with some sort of relevance to what is actually going on in the Church, what's happening "in the trenches with the people". Ideally, we should write about it. But even if we can't write for general audiences with practical ideas and suggestions, we need to be looking for the implications for the concrete and practical.
Let's say we're working on the Christological controversies and the debate between Nestorius and Cyril of Alexandria. Historically, how did the reasoning of the time support or make difficult the orthodox formulation? Is there friction between the formulation and our current "grammars"? What about post-modernism? Is there an epistemological conflict between the two or is there a way of reconciling them? What does this mean for how we articulate this today? A lot of people are just dropping Chalcedon and I think that's wrong. What is motivating this trend? What needs are we trying to fulfil in people by dropping Chalcedon? What will we then lose? What is it in Christianity that makes this formulation integral? How does its loss affect how we teach? How does it affect our imitation of Christ? How does it call into question the hope of the resurrection? What does this then impact? How do we articulate the aspects of Chalcedon which are, in fact, spiritually gratifying? How do we present the values and orientation implicit in the Chalcedonian formulation in a way which makes clear their relevance to our lives in this day and age? What of the needs behind the rejection trend are legitimate? What are the logical errors or failures of piety which prompt the rejection of Chalcedon? And how can we correct for this? Is there some human need that we've been neglecting in presentation of doctrine or in ministerial praxis, a lack which then makes the rejection of Chalcedon attractive as a means of meeting the need? How then can we meet those human and spiritual needs by means of a ministry that grows out of the Chalcedonian definition? How can we teach Chalcedon in a way which invigorates and is spiritually nourishing?
[-- This is my problem. I feel like it's really important to do this. And I have a sense of what it is that I want to do to join the practical and the abstract. But I don't really have the words and can't manage to articulate it. But I just know that good, deep theology can help people!]
Monday, June 21, 2010
Hardcore ministerial challenge -- VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL
When you think of "ministerial challenges", you're probably thinking of things like prison, L'Arche, Africa. No, I'm here to introduce you to a ministerial challenge closer to home: Vacation Bible School (otherwise known as "VBS").
Sure you might think it's really fun and easy to shepherd kids around for half a day and help them do some crafts and learn a little lesson. If you think so, then you are clearly not an overeducated introvert.
The biggest problem is: the kids do nothing but play. Just about all day. There is way too much fun at this VBS program. We've got a green theme, so they plant some seeds. Then they are done and play on the playground. Then we hear a Bible story and it was fun; they got to act it out. And then we did have a slight boring bit where one of the craft leader people talked a bit much. But they got to do a craft involving yarn, glue, and little stickers. Then we did a craft where they cut out pieces of paper and glued them on a folder. They finished early and played "Simon Says". Then we had game time. Not that there weren't games before, but this was official game time. Outside. Where they ran around like crazy monkeys. Then we had a snack. Then there was another craft where they made cards. Those who were done early played a game.
Now, don't get me wrong; I like to play. In fact, I've got an autistic kid in my group and he's sort of a bad influence. The last room we were in had a Lego table and he got distracted from the craft (which was too bad, because in my opinion it was the best craft of the day). I knew that I should be redirecting him, but partly I just really wanted to play with the Legos. They had some of the castle pieces in there and I have a deep and abiding weakness for the castle Legos. I mean, I did when I was a kid. I'm almost 30 so I'd never do something like staying up late and dragging out the Legos and building the Mountain fortress with the working drawbridge and glow in the dark ghost while watching Masterpiece Theatre tapes of Jane Eyre. I mean, I'm not a loser like that; I'm really cool. Ask anyone.
And I'm not such a crazy person who thinks kids shouldn't be kids. I know they need to run. I'd rather they ran around for about an hour before they got to VBS, actually. My problem is that the crafts barely relate at all to the Bible lesson. And they don't know the Bible lesson. The gluing things on a folder craft was to make a board game supposedly based on the parable of the sower (there are spaces like "fall on rocky ground; lose a turn" or "birds come; go back two spaces". And they were sort of mellow, so I was quizzing them about the Bible lesson. Here's how it went. These kids are 3rd to 5th grade, by the way.
Jen: "What's a parable?"
Kid: A story about Jesus.
Jen: Remember when we repeated that definition? [we did this three or four times at the bible lesson in unison]
Kid#2: Oh! oh! It's an earth story with a heavenly manner.
Jen: A heavenly what?
Kid #2: Manner.
Jen: I think it was "a heavenly meaning."
Or this:
Jen: So what happened to the seeds when the farmer scattered them?
Kid: They fell.
Jen: Where all did they fall?
Kid: On birds.
Jen: Um... OK. Where else?
Kid#2: Rocks, and weeds and mud.
Jen: OK, so that's the earthly part, right? What's it mean?
Kid #3: It's about Jesus.
Jen: [a leading question]... so Jesus is a bird?
Kid #3: no, Jesus and um... when we listen to him.
Jen: So, if the seed is God's word then what does it mean when the birds get it?
Kid #4: That's when we don't listen.
Jen: [very excited] YES!! And what's it mean if it falls on the rocks?
Kid #4: That's if we listen, but we don't... um....
Jen: Yeah, what do we have to do next?
Kid #4: Um....
Jen: Think about the seed; if it falls on the rocks, what happens? what can't it do in rocks that it needs to do to grow?
This is when they got distracted because they were starting to play "Simon Says". I'm hoping and trusting that since we have three more days and we already got the whole Bible story, that in Bible time we'll go over it. Mostly, it's saddening because I remember learning this parable in Sunday School when I was little. I will admit that I don't remember all the lessons from the VBS sessions I attended as a kid. What I remember most is the crafts. But our crafts were related to the material better.
The most memorable VBS I was at had the theme of the "fruits of the spirit". And so all the groups had a different fruit as our name tag. And the spiritual fruits were each represented by an actual fruit. Of course, there were only five days, so some fruits got short-changed. But I remember the fruits we did: love was a strawberry, joy was watermelon, peace was grapes, patience was a pineapple, self-control was a peach, and goodness was a banana. And I remember the craft that gave me religious neurosis -- we made a doorhanger with a felt glued slice of watermelon at the top. And on three paper plates hanging on a strip of felt down from that we had the letters "J", "O" and "Y". And that represented the order in which you are supposed to love -- Jesus, Others, Yourself. [Have I mentioned that I grew up in a conservative, fundamentalist, and moralistic tradition?] I remembered that so well that I had issues with self-care and saying "no" to people for at least twenty years.
I'm not saying we should warp the kids with tricky theological concepts. I'm not saying we should bring in an Origenist interpretation of the rain falling on soil and pharaoh's heart hardening and tackle questions of election and evangelism with respect to the parable of the sower. Yes, there's a part of me that REALLY wants to. But I'm older now and not so crazy. All I'm saying is that the "B" in VBS is there for a reason. And the "S". We need a bit more Bible, a bit more School, and a bit LESS Vacation.
So I'm thinking of a new theme for tomorrow -- SBS! -- SOVIET BIBLE SCHOOL! I will wear black leather boots and bring a riding crop. And they will learn some stuff about "discipleship". And there will be no game time, no snack time, no bathroom time until they have learned what the heck a parable is! And then we will do a "special Jen craft" where we make a picture of the sower and label the rocks with birds with things we do instead of listening. And we will label the rocks with things that make us lose interest and motivation, things that make us superficial. And we will label thorns with things of the world that we start caring about more than God. And then we will put labels in the soil on good things that support us to experience God's love and which help us to keep trusting, the instruments of grace. And OK, they can be things like flowers and sunshine, and the rigorous discipline of Soviet Bible School and their fearless whip-wielding leader... er... I seem to see a slight flaw in my brilliant plan here....
So I suppose that the real ministerial lesson here is for me: I've got some gifts and it would be nice if there were quieter crafts so I could review the lesson with the kids a bit, try to relate to them in smaller sub-groups of the main group, and try to help them internalize what they're learning and integrate the disparate parts of this program. BUT -- kids are kids. And whether or not they get the stated lesson, they're absorbing all the other information that we're all putting out there. They're learning something from me, whether it's what I intend to teach or not. Am I caring about them? Do I seem happy to be there? Happy to be talking about what we're doing? Am I willing to accept their attention span to some extent, their desire for diversion? Or am I pushing some sort of agenda of learning which says that they aren't OK unless they get the lesson to my satisfaction? Am I celebrating who they are, even if I have to do so without the leisure to get to know them individually? Am I noticing them, who's asking what sorts of questions, what their body language says?
I've always been "observant" -- which is a nice way of saying "critical". But I am finding lately that I notice things I think others are doing wrong and don't just say to myself, "Ha! Look how they did that wrong!" More and more recently I notice things others are doing and realize the extent to which I am inclined to do the same things and so I use my negative reaction to make me understand why I do NOT want to do that. Today, one of the craft leaders starting just talking and talking to set up the craft. And it was miserably boring. My ADD frustration threshold was reached and exceeded. When the autistic kid started interrupting and making smart aleck comments.... well, I sort of did, too. Now, that was wrong. However -- there were some problems here. She says, "I bet most of you were baptized when you were babies, weren't you?" And my autistic boy says, "I wasn't." And she gave him this glare, as if he were trying to make trouble. And I got a bit miffed, so I said, "I wasn't either."
After all, there's a missional component to VBS. A lot of people aren't in a church at all, let alone this church. Do they even know what baptism is? So suddenly you've said this one thing that makes a bunch of children feel like outsiders. And why? This is drawing on construction paper, for crying out loud, not the Eucharist!!! So now there are the "baptized kids" and the "unbaptized kids". And who are the kids you really need to reach and make feel loved and accepted, make them think church is a nice safe place? -- Right! Probably NOT the baptized kids who were baptized in this church and know who you're talking about when you refer to the pastors by their first names. And she went on to start talking about sponsors and god-parents. Let me just say, I had Catholic friends when I was little in Maryland and nothing makes you feel more left out than people talking about god-parents and god-siblings when you don't have any and have hardly any idea what that even means and wonder why you don't have extra adults that love you. Does it mean God likes you less? Or that your parents aren't quite so holy? Or what? Not really something to go into at VBS during the stinking craft session when they don't even know the Bible story properly.
So, I feel a little bit bad about getting feisty. I can just hope that she didn't notice I have grey hair and thinks that I'm one of the youth helpers. If she doesn't like me, then she can have a good time trying to find my parents to complain. I feel worse about being bored and failing to contain a couple yawns than about the baptism comment.
But I'm thinking that my bad reaction to all this is a warning about what could happen if I started to let my own talking and my own agenda become too important. And it's a definite tempation. It's easy to justify the impulse -- who would argue that the lesson isn't important? It's easy for me to say, "Oh, I'd know how to do it well." But I probably wouldn't. Because the second you start thinking about what you think needs to happen, you stop thinking about what others need and you stop being as open to seeing them as they are; rather, you begin to see students or other people in terms of how they are supporting or resisting your plan. Sometimes, it's a really bad idea to try to make people get with the program -- because, ultimately, your plan and program aren't the ones that matter. It's a good ministerial lesson. And, for people like me, it's an especially difficult one to learn and trust when you have kids running around knocking over the scenery, smearing glue on their hands, forgetting what a parable is, and playing with Legos during craft time.
Sure you might think it's really fun and easy to shepherd kids around for half a day and help them do some crafts and learn a little lesson. If you think so, then you are clearly not an overeducated introvert.
The biggest problem is: the kids do nothing but play. Just about all day. There is way too much fun at this VBS program. We've got a green theme, so they plant some seeds. Then they are done and play on the playground. Then we hear a Bible story and it was fun; they got to act it out. And then we did have a slight boring bit where one of the craft leader people talked a bit much. But they got to do a craft involving yarn, glue, and little stickers. Then we did a craft where they cut out pieces of paper and glued them on a folder. They finished early and played "Simon Says". Then we had game time. Not that there weren't games before, but this was official game time. Outside. Where they ran around like crazy monkeys. Then we had a snack. Then there was another craft where they made cards. Those who were done early played a game.
Now, don't get me wrong; I like to play. In fact, I've got an autistic kid in my group and he's sort of a bad influence. The last room we were in had a Lego table and he got distracted from the craft (which was too bad, because in my opinion it was the best craft of the day). I knew that I should be redirecting him, but partly I just really wanted to play with the Legos. They had some of the castle pieces in there and I have a deep and abiding weakness for the castle Legos. I mean, I did when I was a kid. I'm almost 30 so I'd never do something like staying up late and dragging out the Legos and building the Mountain fortress with the working drawbridge and glow in the dark ghost while watching Masterpiece Theatre tapes of Jane Eyre. I mean, I'm not a loser like that; I'm really cool. Ask anyone.
And I'm not such a crazy person who thinks kids shouldn't be kids. I know they need to run. I'd rather they ran around for about an hour before they got to VBS, actually. My problem is that the crafts barely relate at all to the Bible lesson. And they don't know the Bible lesson. The gluing things on a folder craft was to make a board game supposedly based on the parable of the sower (there are spaces like "fall on rocky ground; lose a turn" or "birds come; go back two spaces". And they were sort of mellow, so I was quizzing them about the Bible lesson. Here's how it went. These kids are 3rd to 5th grade, by the way.
Jen: "What's a parable?"
Kid: A story about Jesus.
Jen: Remember when we repeated that definition? [we did this three or four times at the bible lesson in unison]
Kid#2: Oh! oh! It's an earth story with a heavenly manner.
Jen: A heavenly what?
Kid #2: Manner.
Jen: I think it was "a heavenly meaning."
Or this:
Jen: So what happened to the seeds when the farmer scattered them?
Kid: They fell.
Jen: Where all did they fall?
Kid: On birds.
Jen: Um... OK. Where else?
Kid#2: Rocks, and weeds and mud.
Jen: OK, so that's the earthly part, right? What's it mean?
Kid #3: It's about Jesus.
Jen: [a leading question]... so Jesus is a bird?
Kid #3: no, Jesus and um... when we listen to him.
Jen: So, if the seed is God's word then what does it mean when the birds get it?
Kid #4: That's when we don't listen.
Jen: [very excited] YES!! And what's it mean if it falls on the rocks?
Kid #4: That's if we listen, but we don't... um....
Jen: Yeah, what do we have to do next?
Kid #4: Um....
Jen: Think about the seed; if it falls on the rocks, what happens? what can't it do in rocks that it needs to do to grow?
This is when they got distracted because they were starting to play "Simon Says". I'm hoping and trusting that since we have three more days and we already got the whole Bible story, that in Bible time we'll go over it. Mostly, it's saddening because I remember learning this parable in Sunday School when I was little. I will admit that I don't remember all the lessons from the VBS sessions I attended as a kid. What I remember most is the crafts. But our crafts were related to the material better.
The most memorable VBS I was at had the theme of the "fruits of the spirit". And so all the groups had a different fruit as our name tag. And the spiritual fruits were each represented by an actual fruit. Of course, there were only five days, so some fruits got short-changed. But I remember the fruits we did: love was a strawberry, joy was watermelon, peace was grapes, patience was a pineapple, self-control was a peach, and goodness was a banana. And I remember the craft that gave me religious neurosis -- we made a doorhanger with a felt glued slice of watermelon at the top. And on three paper plates hanging on a strip of felt down from that we had the letters "J", "O" and "Y". And that represented the order in which you are supposed to love -- Jesus, Others, Yourself. [Have I mentioned that I grew up in a conservative, fundamentalist, and moralistic tradition?] I remembered that so well that I had issues with self-care and saying "no" to people for at least twenty years.
I'm not saying we should warp the kids with tricky theological concepts. I'm not saying we should bring in an Origenist interpretation of the rain falling on soil and pharaoh's heart hardening and tackle questions of election and evangelism with respect to the parable of the sower. Yes, there's a part of me that REALLY wants to. But I'm older now and not so crazy. All I'm saying is that the "B" in VBS is there for a reason. And the "S". We need a bit more Bible, a bit more School, and a bit LESS Vacation.
So I'm thinking of a new theme for tomorrow -- SBS! -- SOVIET BIBLE SCHOOL! I will wear black leather boots and bring a riding crop. And they will learn some stuff about "discipleship". And there will be no game time, no snack time, no bathroom time until they have learned what the heck a parable is! And then we will do a "special Jen craft" where we make a picture of the sower and label the rocks with birds with things we do instead of listening. And we will label the rocks with things that make us lose interest and motivation, things that make us superficial. And we will label thorns with things of the world that we start caring about more than God. And then we will put labels in the soil on good things that support us to experience God's love and which help us to keep trusting, the instruments of grace. And OK, they can be things like flowers and sunshine, and the rigorous discipline of Soviet Bible School and their fearless whip-wielding leader... er... I seem to see a slight flaw in my brilliant plan here....
So I suppose that the real ministerial lesson here is for me: I've got some gifts and it would be nice if there were quieter crafts so I could review the lesson with the kids a bit, try to relate to them in smaller sub-groups of the main group, and try to help them internalize what they're learning and integrate the disparate parts of this program. BUT -- kids are kids. And whether or not they get the stated lesson, they're absorbing all the other information that we're all putting out there. They're learning something from me, whether it's what I intend to teach or not. Am I caring about them? Do I seem happy to be there? Happy to be talking about what we're doing? Am I willing to accept their attention span to some extent, their desire for diversion? Or am I pushing some sort of agenda of learning which says that they aren't OK unless they get the lesson to my satisfaction? Am I celebrating who they are, even if I have to do so without the leisure to get to know them individually? Am I noticing them, who's asking what sorts of questions, what their body language says?
I've always been "observant" -- which is a nice way of saying "critical". But I am finding lately that I notice things I think others are doing wrong and don't just say to myself, "Ha! Look how they did that wrong!" More and more recently I notice things others are doing and realize the extent to which I am inclined to do the same things and so I use my negative reaction to make me understand why I do NOT want to do that. Today, one of the craft leaders starting just talking and talking to set up the craft. And it was miserably boring. My ADD frustration threshold was reached and exceeded. When the autistic kid started interrupting and making smart aleck comments.... well, I sort of did, too. Now, that was wrong. However -- there were some problems here. She says, "I bet most of you were baptized when you were babies, weren't you?" And my autistic boy says, "I wasn't." And she gave him this glare, as if he were trying to make trouble. And I got a bit miffed, so I said, "I wasn't either."
After all, there's a missional component to VBS. A lot of people aren't in a church at all, let alone this church. Do they even know what baptism is? So suddenly you've said this one thing that makes a bunch of children feel like outsiders. And why? This is drawing on construction paper, for crying out loud, not the Eucharist!!! So now there are the "baptized kids" and the "unbaptized kids". And who are the kids you really need to reach and make feel loved and accepted, make them think church is a nice safe place? -- Right! Probably NOT the baptized kids who were baptized in this church and know who you're talking about when you refer to the pastors by their first names. And she went on to start talking about sponsors and god-parents. Let me just say, I had Catholic friends when I was little in Maryland and nothing makes you feel more left out than people talking about god-parents and god-siblings when you don't have any and have hardly any idea what that even means and wonder why you don't have extra adults that love you. Does it mean God likes you less? Or that your parents aren't quite so holy? Or what? Not really something to go into at VBS during the stinking craft session when they don't even know the Bible story properly.
So, I feel a little bit bad about getting feisty. I can just hope that she didn't notice I have grey hair and thinks that I'm one of the youth helpers. If she doesn't like me, then she can have a good time trying to find my parents to complain. I feel worse about being bored and failing to contain a couple yawns than about the baptism comment.
But I'm thinking that my bad reaction to all this is a warning about what could happen if I started to let my own talking and my own agenda become too important. And it's a definite tempation. It's easy to justify the impulse -- who would argue that the lesson isn't important? It's easy for me to say, "Oh, I'd know how to do it well." But I probably wouldn't. Because the second you start thinking about what you think needs to happen, you stop thinking about what others need and you stop being as open to seeing them as they are; rather, you begin to see students or other people in terms of how they are supporting or resisting your plan. Sometimes, it's a really bad idea to try to make people get with the program -- because, ultimately, your plan and program aren't the ones that matter. It's a good ministerial lesson. And, for people like me, it's an especially difficult one to learn and trust when you have kids running around knocking over the scenery, smearing glue on their hands, forgetting what a parable is, and playing with Legos during craft time.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Why Syriac is the coolest kid on the Semitic language block
I have to admit it: I'm a bit intimidated by Semitic languages. It's not because they're written right-to-left. There are really two reasons I don't like them:
1. The letters swim. I'm trying to read and they're having a mass orgy on the page, with no shame at all. I make super-sized xeroxes and for Hebrew I got a pair of reading glasses with a higher power than I usually use; they made my eyes hurt but didn't stop the letters from acting like Jell-O with legs. Arabic is much, much worse. And the vowels are always teeny-tiny. Don't even try to count those dots. Half of them aren't part of the official vowel anyway, they just dropped by to hang out because the vowels always have extra beer in the fridge (which is partly why they're staggering around your page).
Once you mark a Hebrew text with accents and Masoretic and text crit markers, part of me gets cranky and decides that I don't want to pretend that it actually means anything anymore. Then I'm filled with an overwhelming desire to call my mom, take my toys, and go home and have a nap.
So, into the midst of all the angst created by Hebrew, Arabic, and Akkadian -- enter Syriac.
Syriac is just what the world needs. Why?
1. It has all those fabulous Semitic sounds you know and love. Yeah, I know they're tricky to learn, but once you figure out how to pronounce the voiceless pharyngeal fricative ḥ, you really want to do it on every possible occasion. Because it just sounds HOT. Listen to Natascha Atlas on the Kingdom of Heaven theme if you don't believe me. I wanna cheat on the church with the pharyngeal fricative after that second verse. <*indecent shudder of delight*>
This is part of the problem with Hebrew. It totally has the same letters as Arabic, but it really doesn't push them to their full potential. "Chet" is the same as ḥ, and Tsade and Tet are emphatic s and t, respectively. But the way people teach this, "Chet" sounds just like fricative Kaf; Qoph never gets the tender glottal loving it deserves; and you can't tell a Tet from a Taw. Don't get me started about not pronouncing ʿayin!
2. Syriac probably had a set-up meeting where everyone said, "You know, maybe we should make our letters big enough to see. And maybe we shouldn't have so many that look alike. And let's make them easy to write so that at-home handwriting can pretty much approximate our calligraphic script instead of looking completely freaking different."
3. Then the divinely inspired founders of Syriac put some wacky tobaccy in their hookah and had another meeting. "Y'know man, this language would be the bomb if we, like, just made all the nouns end in -o." There were a few they missed, but not many.
4. They decided not to get uppity about shevas. The policy is: "You don't need to write a sheva. Pronounce with semi-vowel as needed." There aren't any ridiculous rules about whether it's a silent sheva or a vocal sheva. Syriac trusts you to figure out whether you need vocalization or not. And isn't trust the crucial foundation for every good relationship?
5. And plurals all have a nice little diaresis type marker called a sómye. I know what you're thinking: "Ahhh. So that's the catch; where does that little beauty go and how often does it change depending on fifty other variables?" Well, you have to put it in the word you're making plural. Somewhere in the word. Go ahead -- personalize your sómye habits. But think about it -- you can be pretty sure a word is plural if you see the double-dots. Isn't that nice and helpful? What other language goes out of its way to give you a helping hand?
6. They've got poetry about pigeons. Theologically symbolic pigeons. Need I say more?
1. The letters swim. I'm trying to read and they're having a mass orgy on the page, with no shame at all. I make super-sized xeroxes and for Hebrew I got a pair of reading glasses with a higher power than I usually use; they made my eyes hurt but didn't stop the letters from acting like Jell-O with legs. Arabic is much, much worse. And the vowels are always teeny-tiny. Don't even try to count those dots. Half of them aren't part of the official vowel anyway, they just dropped by to hang out because the vowels always have extra beer in the fridge (which is partly why they're staggering around your page).
Once you mark a Hebrew text with accents and Masoretic and text crit markers, part of me gets cranky and decides that I don't want to pretend that it actually means anything anymore. Then I'm filled with an overwhelming desire to call my mom, take my toys, and go home and have a nap.
2. Semitic languages are California surfer-dude cool about some things... but then they're anal-retentive Austrians about others. For example, Semitic languages really don't care about morphological relationships of nouns. "Eh," they say, "What's the difference between a direct and indirect object, really?" They're totally content to do everything with word order and particles rather than inflection. That's a personal choice and I respect that.
I just wish that they didn't get so dang touchy then about their vowel problems. What do you think is going to happen when you start sticking fourteen prefixes onto your noun? Eventually you're going to have to buy a vowel. And then there are going to be rules and regulations. And whatever market analysis survey told Hebrew it would be cool to have four "flavors" of sheva was rigged.So, into the midst of all the angst created by Hebrew, Arabic, and Akkadian -- enter Syriac.
Syriac is just what the world needs. Why?
1. It has all those fabulous Semitic sounds you know and love. Yeah, I know they're tricky to learn, but once you figure out how to pronounce the voiceless pharyngeal fricative ḥ, you really want to do it on every possible occasion. Because it just sounds HOT. Listen to Natascha Atlas on the Kingdom of Heaven theme if you don't believe me. I wanna cheat on the church with the pharyngeal fricative after that second verse. <*indecent shudder of delight*>
This is part of the problem with Hebrew. It totally has the same letters as Arabic, but it really doesn't push them to their full potential. "Chet" is the same as ḥ, and Tsade and Tet are emphatic s and t, respectively. But the way people teach this, "Chet" sounds just like fricative Kaf; Qoph never gets the tender glottal loving it deserves; and you can't tell a Tet from a Taw. Don't get me started about not pronouncing ʿayin!
2. Syriac probably had a set-up meeting where everyone said, "You know, maybe we should make our letters big enough to see. And maybe we shouldn't have so many that look alike. And let's make them easy to write so that at-home handwriting can pretty much approximate our calligraphic script instead of looking completely freaking different."
3. Then the divinely inspired founders of Syriac put some wacky tobaccy in their hookah and had another meeting. "Y'know man, this language would be the bomb if we, like, just made all the nouns end in -o." There were a few they missed, but not many.
4. They decided not to get uppity about shevas. The policy is: "You don't need to write a sheva. Pronounce with semi-vowel as needed." There aren't any ridiculous rules about whether it's a silent sheva or a vocal sheva. Syriac trusts you to figure out whether you need vocalization or not. And isn't trust the crucial foundation for every good relationship?
5. And plurals all have a nice little diaresis type marker called a sómye. I know what you're thinking: "Ahhh. So that's the catch; where does that little beauty go and how often does it change depending on fifty other variables?" Well, you have to put it in the word you're making plural. Somewhere in the word. Go ahead -- personalize your sómye habits. But think about it -- you can be pretty sure a word is plural if you see the double-dots. Isn't that nice and helpful? What other language goes out of its way to give you a helping hand?
6. They've got poetry about pigeons. Theologically symbolic pigeons. Need I say more?
Thursday, October 8, 2009
I have a blog!
I've decided that I need a blog (to the extent that anyone really needs a blog....) I suppose the real tell-tale sign that you need a blog is that your desire to babble about your life or overly specialized interests overtaxes the usual platforms for babbling (friends, family, facebook, etc.). I don't really expect much readership, but since the internet has become a collective mental rubbish heap, I figure any dumpster divers are welcome to my thoughts. After all, what's an information super highway without intellectual litter?
Here's me: I'm approaching 30, single, switching careers within academia -- which is to say, I didn't quite get to the point where you could call the first "career" a "career". My BA and MA are in Classics (philology; Hellenist). I was in a PhD program on fellowship and left before I'd managed to do anything really respectable like taking general exams, submitting a dissertation proposal, or publishing articles. Overall, this was a good thing because if I'd done much more it would have seemed too much effort to give up on. So, first I thought I should "get a real job" -- except that really successful academic types (and I was rather successful) rarely make successful practical types. Or, at any rate, they don't make for happy and successful practical types.
So, I'm starting over in a new field. I decided that I wanted to do theology (formally; everyone, in effect, does theology). I knew I wanted to be an academic and not a pastor and since I have very little educational background in religion, I knew I needed a Master's to even make me an attractive candidate for PhD programs. So, I applied to Harvard, Yale, and Duke for Master of Theological Studies/Master of Arts in Religion programs. Duke had the best financial offer and a really sweet director of admissions. So here I am in Durham, NC, procrastinating on a Church History paper.
Speaking of Church History.... This brings me to the focus of this blog and its more specific purposes (other than autobiographical self-indulgence). First, I should mention that although my reasons for choosing Duke were extremely weak and mercenary, I am convinced that this is the one of the best decisions that I've made in my life. It's a good program, academically speaking, but the best thing about it is that the faculty and administration and students are committed to an ethos, an Christian way of being that arises and is in harmony with the substance of their teaching. Integrity is a big thing with me; Duke Divinity has it.
Long story short: the advisor for the MTS program met with us students, got to know a bit about us, and told us what seminars to take (in addition to some normal core requirement classes). I told him my background and said I was interested in New Testament or Theology. He started trying to stick me in patristics. I was (covertly) annoyed and resentful, chiefly because he's in Theology proper and I figured that he was looking down on me because I didn't have the later philosophy background or I was a girl or he didn't like my face or something and didn't want me in his field. It just seemed sort of too obvious: "Oh, she used to read dead Greek and Latin guys; she should just keep reading dead Greek and Latin guys." I came here to do something different, didn't he get that?
I was hoping I had a time conflict with the seminar. No. I briefly entertained the idea of lying and saying I'd asked and been turned down (OK, very unChristian and very easy for the MTS advisor to double check). The professor for the Alexandrians seminar was the first one I met as he taught my core req' Church History course. So I dutifully asked him at the end of the first class if I could bypass the requirements and get in the seminar, hoping he'd say "No, you idiot -- one of the requirements is this course you're in with me right now! What are you thinking?" Of course, he said "Oh, sure, fine, no problem".
And now I'm realizing a few things:
1) The MTS advisor is much wiser than I am;
2) I really, really LOVE patristics and Early Christianity; and
3) It is, in fact, quite different from Classics when done in a Christian context.
So, I'm reading loads of Church fathers and mothers both in an outside of classes and I'm struggling with figuring out what this field is really about -- how it is similar to but different from academic work I've done before. Additionally, this program is strangely unlike my other graduate program. So, I wanted to blog about:
1) my interactions with these texts from early Christianity;
2) my struggles to make sense of the field and of how to really "be" in it; and
3) how (1) and (2) intersect with my personal faith and way of being in the world.
That's pretty much what to expect. Enough of procrastinating for the time being; time to get back to Cyril and Christology. I'll allow myself to blog about it as a treat when the paper is done.
Here's me: I'm approaching 30, single, switching careers within academia -- which is to say, I didn't quite get to the point where you could call the first "career" a "career". My BA and MA are in Classics (philology; Hellenist). I was in a PhD program on fellowship and left before I'd managed to do anything really respectable like taking general exams, submitting a dissertation proposal, or publishing articles. Overall, this was a good thing because if I'd done much more it would have seemed too much effort to give up on. So, first I thought I should "get a real job" -- except that really successful academic types (and I was rather successful) rarely make successful practical types. Or, at any rate, they don't make for happy and successful practical types.
So, I'm starting over in a new field. I decided that I wanted to do theology (formally; everyone, in effect, does theology). I knew I wanted to be an academic and not a pastor and since I have very little educational background in religion, I knew I needed a Master's to even make me an attractive candidate for PhD programs. So, I applied to Harvard, Yale, and Duke for Master of Theological Studies/Master of Arts in Religion programs. Duke had the best financial offer and a really sweet director of admissions. So here I am in Durham, NC, procrastinating on a Church History paper.
Speaking of Church History.... This brings me to the focus of this blog and its more specific purposes (other than autobiographical self-indulgence). First, I should mention that although my reasons for choosing Duke were extremely weak and mercenary, I am convinced that this is the one of the best decisions that I've made in my life. It's a good program, academically speaking, but the best thing about it is that the faculty and administration and students are committed to an ethos, an Christian way of being that arises and is in harmony with the substance of their teaching. Integrity is a big thing with me; Duke Divinity has it.
Long story short: the advisor for the MTS program met with us students, got to know a bit about us, and told us what seminars to take (in addition to some normal core requirement classes). I told him my background and said I was interested in New Testament or Theology. He started trying to stick me in patristics. I was (covertly) annoyed and resentful, chiefly because he's in Theology proper and I figured that he was looking down on me because I didn't have the later philosophy background or I was a girl or he didn't like my face or something and didn't want me in his field. It just seemed sort of too obvious: "Oh, she used to read dead Greek and Latin guys; she should just keep reading dead Greek and Latin guys." I came here to do something different, didn't he get that?
I was hoping I had a time conflict with the seminar. No. I briefly entertained the idea of lying and saying I'd asked and been turned down (OK, very unChristian and very easy for the MTS advisor to double check). The professor for the Alexandrians seminar was the first one I met as he taught my core req' Church History course. So I dutifully asked him at the end of the first class if I could bypass the requirements and get in the seminar, hoping he'd say "No, you idiot -- one of the requirements is this course you're in with me right now! What are you thinking?" Of course, he said "Oh, sure, fine, no problem".
And now I'm realizing a few things:
1) The MTS advisor is much wiser than I am;
2) I really, really LOVE patristics and Early Christianity; and
3) It is, in fact, quite different from Classics when done in a Christian context.
So, I'm reading loads of Church fathers and mothers both in an outside of classes and I'm struggling with figuring out what this field is really about -- how it is similar to but different from academic work I've done before. Additionally, this program is strangely unlike my other graduate program. So, I wanted to blog about:
1) my interactions with these texts from early Christianity;
2) my struggles to make sense of the field and of how to really "be" in it; and
3) how (1) and (2) intersect with my personal faith and way of being in the world.
That's pretty much what to expect. Enough of procrastinating for the time being; time to get back to Cyril and Christology. I'll allow myself to blog about it as a treat when the paper is done.
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