I ended up not signing up for any of the credit courses, and I’m glad I didn’t, because I wouldn’t have been able to do justice to one or the other. Finishing a 3-credit course in just five days requires a lot of effort – and a lot of time on homework just when I would have been attending the lectures. Another factor would have been expense. I was on a budget, and ended up with *just enough* for the three days’ stay and travel to and from Wolfville. I did stay one night at the lovely and gracious Blomidon Inn in Wolfville, which I highly recommend, and I treated my friend Trinda, with whom I stayed for the next two nights, to a yummy gourmet dinner with wine. Although I didn’t take a formal course, I was able to absorb a lot, just by being able to spend some time on the campus, though I sure suffered on Tuesday as the consequence of the unfamiliar slog up and down the hill from the Divinity College to the Library and the main street and back again several times. I have never had such cramps – in my left shin of all things – in my life! But parking is so scarce on the campus that my instinct, once I succeeded in finding a spot, was to stay put and walk as needed. Fortunately, although I walked as much on Wednesday as I had the day before, I wasn’t afflicted by cramps again.
It was great to see Trinda again and renew our friendship. She was a year ahead of me at Dalhousie Law School in the early 1980’s, but there has been a lot of water over the dam for both of us since I saw her last. Her longtime partnership with David broke up (I can still scarcely believe it), and I lost Arthur, my husband, partner and best friend of 30 years in June 2009 after a long struggle with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. It was also great to meet (in rough order) Lorraine Higgins, Deputy Registrar, Shawna Peverill, the Registrar, my prof of New Testament, Danny Zacharias, “virtual classmate” Carolyn Steeves, and several other classmates previously known perhaps only auditorily (Charla and Denise, class auditors, and Libby Amirault, just briefly) who attend classes in person (of all things!). In addition, I obtained an inordinate amount of excitement just by picking up my Acadia Student ID (Axe-cess) card. I love being a student again after all these years! Less exciting but worthwhile experience was being able to obtain an ASIN card to use if I intend to do searches in person at any of the universities in Halifax or the Atlantic School of Theology, and to begin a library search in the Vaughn Library for my exegetical paper, which is going to be on the passages Mt 22:34-40, in which Jesus spoke of the greatest commandment.
On the lighter side, I was able to pick up a case of what I think is a lovely local wine from Gaspereau Vineyards, Lucie Kuhlmann, which we were served last April at the Blomidon Inn when they were out of the usual house wine. Very mellow and mild, much like a Merlot. Mmmmmm!!! And I was also able to buy a super hoodie and matching ball cap from Marion Dorey at ADC, as well as a fuzzy blanket (a thank you gift for Trinda) and T-shirt from the Harriett Irving Botainical Gardens, adjacent to the K.C. Irving Auditorium, where the lectures were held, both embroidered with the lovely HIBG floral logo..
Regarding the lectures themselves, while I am really glad I had the few days’ experience of the campus and the wonderful people who staff it, I was . . . a bit disappointed in the lectures. Prof. Webster is a brilliant academic, I have no doubt, and is a typically British master of the English language. But I was really looking forward to the talks on the themes centering around God the Creator and was a bit let down when what I got seemed to be an academic exercise somewhat akin to the medieval debates about the number of angels who could dance on the head of a pin. The sense I took away from the first lecture was of an entirely self-contained and self-sufficient creator, who has no need of us mere mortals, and who therefore we should be wary of characterizing as just “the biggest thing around.” I detected a lot of references to St. Augustine, author of *City of God,* which I have never read but which makes me suspect that he was a rather rigid and judgemental father of the Church. The second lecture dealt largely with God’s creation ex nihilo (literally, “from nothing”) also apparently an idea pursued by Augustine. The danger we were cautioned of here was in thinking of *something* (besides God in the form of the Trinity) existing before the creation of the world. And the third lecture, which could have been illuminating, dealt with God’s relationship with us, bestowing upon us our “creaturely dignity” and us having the choice to act in accordance with our higher natures or sinning, which he termed descending to the bestial.
I could not be drawn to or love a God who was so detached from his creation. Prof. Webster minimized the importance of the concept (which is itself contained in Scripture, as I recall) that Man (that is all of us, men and women) is created in the image of God. And, being a believer that all of God’s creation was “good” in God’s site, I was disturbed to hear “beasts” characterized as being somehow sinful. By the way, it was rather interesting to me to hear Prof. Webster somehow characterize beasts as being somehow “fallen” as a result of “Man’s fall.” Hmmmm . . . I think a lot of us animal lovers feel that, though we may be fallen, God’s creatures still retain the pure goodness in innocence that He has given them – and that therefore our beloved animals can help us retain or regain our better natures. Of course, my notion is that God put us here “to tend the Garden,” that is, be good stewards of this Earth on his behalf, and that that includes responsibility for our environment and creation, including our fellow creatures.
Some such discussion was what I expected of the theme, God and Creation, but what we got was a lecture of “us” versus “them,” with “us” being wholly unworthy creatures subject to a God who is so much greater than us as to be beyond comprehension. This seems to me to be a rather futile belief system, more designed to drive away ordinary people than to provide them with hope and comfort.
I think God, as Creator of all, would want us to love our fellow creatures as well as our fellow man. Jesus did not say much about animals, but I think it is reasonable to say that it is implied in his preachings and his actions, such as the cleansing of the Temple and the innovative concept that God did not require animal sacrifice in his honour – which of course had been the usual custom in the Temple and was still the norm (several times a day, with more on special occasions and holy days) during Jesus’ lifetime.
Again, in discussing the nature of the Trinity as pre-existing (everything else) and of equally divine nature in all its parts, I think the essentially human nature of Jesus was superseded. Again, for us, it is not most important that Jesus existed before time, but rather that he was God’s Chosen One, and that as God’s Chosen One, he suffered the most ignominious death possible, rather than reigning in glory. The sacrifice of God’s beloved son, to show us that in this world, justice does not always come to those who deserve it in their lifetimes – but that it is more important to build up one’s treasure in Heaven than on this Earth – and that people who have much status, wealth, and education in this world must be prepared to be servants of all.
I can’t help but think of some of our class members who have found it concerning to hear about the layers of composition of the Gospels, with perhaps some parts being more “authentic” (as reflecting things Jesus actually said and did during his lifetime) than other parts, which may have been created a generation or more after Jesus’ death. I am currently reading two books by John Dominic Crossan, a former Roman Catholic priest and teacher, who left the priesthood in pursuit of more academic freedom and because he wanted to marry. One of the books is Jesus: a Revolutionary Biography, San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994, a shorter version of Crossan’s best-selling 1991 book on the historical Jesus. There is a lot of the discussion in Crossan that I am skeptical of – he uses social sciences to prove things about the historical Jesus which may or may not be true – for instance, that Jesus was illiterate, while I think it’s possible that as a precocious youngster he may have been taken out of his “peasant” milieu and better educated than most boys of his era. Jews as a people valued education and literacy, and I think his parents Joseph and Mary would likely have encouraged such an opportunity if it was opened to him. This possibility is not ruled out by the material in the Gospels, since we have little information about Jesus’ life prior to commencement of his ministry, and some of that material may not be historically accurate.
To get to my point, I am currently reading Crossan’s takes on Jesus’ miracles, raising the dead and exorcising demons. He notes that “demoniac possession” may have actually represented involuntary “trance states,” sometimes called “altered states of consciousness,” and that such states can be caused by a people’s being subjected by foreign conquerors, as the first-century Hebrews were. He posits that there is a correlation between an individual’s body and the “body politic,” and that therefore some events were particular to an individual but were symbolic of things occurring in society at large, while other things were systemic to the society but became reflected in the individual. So he refers to a couple instances of Jesus’ exorcisms, one the “Gerasene demoniac” referred to in Mark 5:1-17. He states that this specific event probably never occurred but the specific details of the story may have been originated at the time of the First Jewish War (66-73 A.D.). Crossan is not saying that such exorcisms never took place, but rather that “. . . they may have been too commonplace for oral memory to record in any save the most general descriptions.” (pg. 89)
Crossan notes specifically in the instance of the demon(s) named Legion:
An individual is, of course, being healed but the symbolism is also hard to miss or ignore. The demon is both one and many; is named Legion, that fact and sign of Roman power; is consigned to swine, that most impure of Judaism’s impure animals; and is cast into the sea, that dream of every Jewish resister. (pg. 90)
Here is the crucial point Crossan makes regarding these tales and perhaps much else of the material of the Gospels:
The case of the Galilean leper [in Mark 1:40-44] shows us how an action performed on one single body reaches out to become an action performed on society at large. And it would happen with or without Jesus’ intention, since body/society symbolism is a permanent given. As all the theological apologetics exercised on that story emphasize, Jesus is making claims about who regulates social boundaries, who determines cultural norms, who defines religious authority, and who decides political power. In that case, event becomes process. But the case of the Gerasene demoniac indicates the opposite phenomenon. I do not think there was ever an event such as that. It is, of course, possible that there was such a happening, but the event is just too perfect an embodiment of every Jewish revolutionary’s dream. In that case, most likely, process becomes event. For example, if in front of a hypothetical Lincoln High School in America there stands a statue of that president with upraised ax ready to smash through the chains binding a slave’s feet, is that true or false? Do we not have to respond that it is not true as event but is quite accurate as process? (pg. 94)
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