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A Good Husband
I knew the Law of course –
and there seemed to be no doubt
that she’d done wrong.
Yet God knows we’re all human
and I’d no wish to break her.
I knew the Prophets too –
but you don’t expect their words
so close to home
to mix you up in matters
beyond your understanding.
So what’s the greater sin –
to dare to believe her story
or deny my dream?
Some questions will not let you
put them quietly aside.
by Mike Bartholomew-Biggs
Helping with Enquiries (London: Crossgrain, 2005)
Discuss this Article on the Fulcrum Forum
Forum Posts About This Article:
Posted by: Tim Goodbody
Wednesday 26 December 2007 - 06:32pm
I watched it and thought the use of 80's music - La's, Bunnymen and Teardrop explodes was more exciting, as the Beatles tunes all had fairly predictable settings. Could be a generational thing. Much preferred it to the Manchester Passion too.
The most intriguing/moving part for me was the insistence from Gabriel and the crowd that Liverpool is not a place where children come to any harm. The scriptwriters obviously wanted to make a point about gun crime following the recent murder of Rhys Jones, and also that the James Bulger case was not typical Merseyside behaviour.
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Wednesday 26 December 2007 - 05:57pm
Of course they didn't start with a blank page - they started with the Hebrew scriptures and the stories of the early Christians.
No I didn't see it, nor was I on some coach (couch?).
I would have watched Robert Beckford on Channel 4, but someone invited us to a dinner and conversation in Grimsby.
Posted by: John Martin
Tuesday 25 December 2007 - 01:26pm
Did anyone else out there watch Liverpool Nativity (BBC 1, 23 December)?
In my mind's eye I imagined Pluralist sitting on the coach muttering. It suggested a line of thought that Pluralist might ponder. The really creative bit of Liverpool Nativity was the way it threaded together a series of Beatles Songs (Lady Madonna, All You Need is Love, etc) so that the deeper meaning of the Christmas Story was sung and celebrated.
It's obvious enough that the various Beatles' songs used were not originally written as an oratorio to convey the Christmas story. But if you know the story, then allegories of it may be discerned even within the corpus of Beatles' songs.
In recent months there's been a similar process as people have searched Harry Potter trying to discern if it carries spiritual allegories.
I can't buy Pluralist's assertion that since there is no historic account of a Census during Herod's reign, it didn't happen. Luke and Matthew both set Jesus in a context that in broad brush stands up. However, I think I can discern a clue about how the NT writers worked by comparing what the creators of Liverpool Nativity did with material from the Beatles. The task of the Gospel writers was to convey the deeper, eternal significance of the Jesus Story, and naturally they would search the ancient Scriptures of the Jewish people for clues. For me, it's one thing to say that. It's something altogether less plausable to suggest that Matthew and Luke started with a blank page.
There was a story in circulation and Luke's comment that Mary "kept all these things in her heart" is a hint that there was at least one key eyewitness. Because the story already existed it was possible to discern all sorts of OT threads and themes that, however opaquely, added something to the understanding of Jesus and pointed to him - as perhaps the Beatles do in their own way as well.
Posted by: Graham Kings
Monday 24 December 2007 - 09:09pm
Mike Bartholomew-Biggs is helping us tell to the Christmas story on Fulcrum this year. See his three poems, from his book 'Helping with Enquiries' (London: Crossgrain, 2005):
A Good Husband
http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/page.cfm?ID=258
Emmanuel
http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/page.cfm?ID=260
Simeon: on letting go - with a new painting by Alan Storkey
http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/page.cfm?ID=259
Any comments?
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Sunday 23 December 2007 - 07:42pm
OK. Just a point that I added to my blog before reading this, not after. I've had a second go, with detail and a little extra. A conversation this morning and a Reader wondered how Rowan Williams could have said "I should think so" (meaning yes) to factual and historical when he knows all the issues about construction and difference. Perhaps I should edit my blog from 'I should think not' to 'I should think so but I don't' - for me.
Posted by: Tim Goodbody
Saturday 22 December 2007 - 09:43pm
Fair do's Pluralist - I was being a bit reactionary having just finished a sermon about the virgin birth (I know I know virginal conception more properly etc).
A while ago the Telegraph ran a story about a church in Holland that split over whether the snake in Genesis 3:1 actually spoke.
I suspect we would all say "how ****** ridiculous” (insert context-appropriate expletive here), but it shows how narratives of different genres within scripture need differently tinted hermeneutical spectacles to get the best from their reading. I wouldn't necessarily expect Genesis 1-11 to be read as completely straight history and am happy with the term myth, but would want to stand by my assertion that truth about God (as in The Christian God) can be conveyed by myth, and I feel there is no baby & bathwater/slippery slope scenario with saying that and talking about the Bible as the infallible word of God (although note I avoid the term inerrant).
The birth narratives are somewhat different from other sections of the synoptics and may or may not be verifiable or questionable (calling your bluff on the credible scholarship stuff) from other sources – astronomical data about the star, census, Quirinius, pre Dionysius dating etc. No one can deny that Matthew has M&J living in Bethlehem whereas Luke has them travelling there from Nazareth, but that doesn’t negate the truth the different narratives convey (Luke for Mary and Matthew for Joseph), any more than the apparent inconsistencies in the chronology of Holy Week between John and the synoptics negate the truth of the passion and death and resurrection of Christ (although as you have indicated on another post they may do for you!)
I guess if you’re starting from a position of scepticism with regard to the BN’s you’ll always end your quest with an “I told you so”, but I believe that if your relationship with God in Christ is what feeds your understanding of reality (what Middleton and Walsh might have called relational realism), then the reality of the annunciation, the birth and the worship of the new born King will inform how you cope with questions such as those you raised in “Let me Help”.
Let me give you a personal example. Absolute historicity is not necessary for me to be able to say, “this is the Word of the Lord”, but that may be because as a charismatic evangelical with catholic tendencies my relationship with the reality of God (and so therefore my ministry) is based on a diet of Word, Spirit and Sacrament. Not just a literal reading of the Word.
If the birth narratives were good enough for those who decided on the Canon, and if they’re good enough for the ++, they’ll certainly be good enough for me.
Wonder if any of this will cause any CE’s to take the bait – it’d be nice to be on the same side of the fence as you for a change Adrian.
Tim
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Saturday 22 December 2007 - 08:21pm
Obviously there is and was scholarship involved; I didn't make it up. Of course it is revisionism from an evangelical website point of view - but it was not on an evangelical website. It was linked from one to mine, and mine is liberal.
Posted by: Tim Goodbody
Saturday 22 December 2007 - 05:17pm
Pluralist
I read your "let me help" but came away thinking that wasn't help it was revisionism, without acknowledged recourse to any credible or even incredible scolarship - or do you assume we all know full well the bits that you precede with "may" or "would have" or whatever. You remind me of AN Wilson!
On your own blog you can claim authority to "Speak", But personally I don't think you can get away with such a bulldozer approach to the birth narratives on an evangelical website.
And in any case, who said myths can't convey truth? They remain the word of God
Tim
Posted by: Deleted user 1222
Saturday 22 December 2007 - 01:10am
Have a look at my blog on the story!
It is helpfully called Let Me Help.
Posted by: Ken Sawyer
Friday 21 December 2007 - 09:00pm
Yet on TitusOneNine and Stand Firm there have been awful criticisms of Rowan Williams. They have accepted the chaff journalism reports and seem to think that he has totally denied the Virgin Birth.
For many conservatives on the USA side of the Atlantic RW does no good ever.
Posted by: John Martin
Friday 21 December 2007 - 07:49pm
Three cheers for the Archbishop of Canterbury for addressing some of the issues that prompted me to start banging on about the subject of this thread. Did he get it right?
View the entire interview with Simon Mayo and Ricky Gervais (Newswatch), wonder at the media incredulity that it triggered, and ponder the question: does the church get the media it deserves?
Cheers to John Richardson (see Newswatch) for sorting the journalistic chaff that's accompanied the Archbishop's interview.
Posted by: John Martin
Thursday 13 December 2007 - 09:13pm
With Christmas coming it's time to freshen up this thread. How well do we know the story? Like:
1. Was there a stable?
2. How many people lived in Bethlehem at the time: 500, 1000, 1500, 2000?
3. How far is Jerusalem from Bethlehem: 2, 5, 10, 15 miles?
4. Which Herod appears in the story? The Tetrarch, Antipas, Agrippa?
5. How much older than Jesus was John the Baptiser?
6. Where did John's parents live?
Posted by: Charles Read
Monday 26 November 2007 - 10:46am
Promise of His Glory suggested carol services that allowed Matthew or Luke to tell their own story with its own emphases. I tried this several times in inner city and suburban parishes when I was in parish ministry and found that people found it refreshing to see what a Gospel actually says.
You can than preach about the particular emphases of that Gospel's Christmas story.
Posted by: Mark Bennet
Saturday 24 November 2007 - 11:02pm
I think there is a fair amount of truth in what Charles Foster is saying, and that we all need to become better readers of the Bible. Too often we see what we expect to see, or what we have been taught to see.
Mind you, I think even the popular version of the Christmas story is getting lost in the homes and schools around here. The subtleties of the story have to be understood by those leading Carol services etc, but are just too subtle to draw attention to. Rather - on such occasions - they offer opportunities for opening up the positive message of the Gospel for people - why Jesus came, that kind of thing. The little points I notice when studying become features of what I say, without drawing attention to contrasts and comparisons. After all Luke doesn't say - "I'm telling this story differently from my friend Matthew because ..." - rather he gets on and tells the story. And I think there is something to learn from that.
On the other hand I've just started a Confirmation Group. Given the time of year, one of the first tasks has been to read Matthew's Gospel, particularly the Christmas Story, and notice what is in it, and what isn't. I am with Charles in not being afraid of having different accounts and in tackling them all properly. So we'll be looking at Luke too.
Posted by: John Martin
Saturday 24 November 2007 - 12:29pm
Well, do you agree with Charles Foster's general comment? (Newswatch)
http://www.christiantoday.com/article/christians.are.afraid.to.tell.the.real.christmas.story.claims.new.book/14839.htm
I suspect he's onto something evangelicals ought to talk openly about:
1. Our churches offer Carol Services but do we enter in to a lot of it with gritted teeth, not least because so much of what's sung is in a Victorian time warp and misinformes the popular understanding of the real story?
2. Are evangelicals confident enough with their grasp of the synoptic issue to be able to guide a thoughtful congregation through the birth narratives etc in a way that will inspire and energise them?
3. Are there bits of the story told in popular lore where we ought to be confident enough to teach an alternative? For instance we can tell by comparing the Greek in the parable of the Good Samaritan that "no room in the inn" doesn't sum up the situation. What was going on and what does it suggest?
4. Are there bits of the story that are even more gripping if we research the backgound, eg what Josephus tells us about the Herods?
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