I listened to the first ten minutes of this last Thursday and need to listen to the rest. Although I thought the little I heard was blasphemous. And I don't use that term lightly.

Now, she claims that her apostasy came about by reading the Bible.

And thinking that, she could probably still hold the Catholic Church responsible, in that they didn't teach her how to read the Bible and retain her Christian faith at the same time.

Because we tend to come at it with this idealized view, this high esteem for the sacred text. Then we're scandalized by what we read. She had a problem with Jesus being "not nice". Read a favorite Salinger quotation here.

Sure, she knew about the moneychangers' tables getting overturned. They had it coming. But, isn't he rude to immediate family in John 2 and Mark 3? Of course, we bring alot of ourselves to the text we read. Scripture is a mirror sometimes, a view into our own souls.

I don't want to blame her, but she's lazy if she stops where she is. That's all I'm saying. And arrogant if she thinks that she's the only one who's come to this crossroads or that she's taken the inevitable turning.

"I cut it myself!"

"I cut myself!"
Just a scrape, really, not even any blood.

Still, after only three moves with the knife, he was done and I finished it up for him.

Kenny's turned out quite nice, actually, but daddy touched it up some.

More pictures here at flickr.

"Standing on the promises."

That's what Fr. Mike said on Sunday during his homily. That we're standing on the promises.

Someone should tell him that Catholics don't talk that way.

'course, they would have to shout it to him over the loud refrains of "This Little Light of Mine."

"Commission looks for balance in English liturgical translations" - CNS, 10/27/06.

I thought the translation work was a done deal.

"Provided the Latin is rendered faithfully, we are keen to keep terminology the people are familiar with."

[Cardinal Pell] described some of the phrases as "too grammatical" in the sense that they sound like they are the result of an advanced grammar lesson rather than a faithful translation into a living language.

Alright, I'll hold off longer on buying new missals.

I hope this diddling hasn't, as someone suggested, anything in common with Titanic deck chairs.

I mean, I hope that the frantic tweaking reflects not ditch efforts to rescue the Novus Ordo from an inevitable going-the-way-of-the-dodo. For all I know, it's a ruse, to signal ... or even accelerate ... that demise. So someone can declare afterwards, "Fixing it proved unworkable, so we scrapped the entire enterprise in favor of the 'time-tested' model."

Metzger's textual commentary turned me on to a non-controversial variant in Rev. 4:11.

And going over the study questions, the leader read the verse from the NIV:

"You are worthy, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they were created
and have their being."

I asked her to read it again, to be sure that I heard her correctly. Yes, the translators flipped the last two verbs, from how the standard text reads, "are and were created," to the more logical "were created and are." The inversion isn't noted at all.

I've known for some time that the NIV uses an "eclectic" Greek text as the basis for its NT translation. A growing number of modern English Bibles do the same. I can't understand why, but the critical text seems to have been all but abandoned.

However, I have a copy of the NIV's "eclectic" text, supposedly, so I checked it. The font is a little more ornate than I am used to, but I can make it out well enough. It is good to be comfortable with a variety of typefaces, you know. Recreationally, I used to work through old books printed in German blackletter in college, just to improve my recognition of the letters. For the most part, you just have to distinguish "f" from "s".

Anyway, the NIV's eclectic text conforms to the standard text on Rev. 4:11! So, why doesn't the English translation follow the word order of the Greek? Or at least, footnote the deviation. Don't know.

Of course, this is an unimportant discrepancy because the verbs function as virtual synonyms in the verse, as the NAB's translation makes clear:

because of your will they came to be and were created.

But I'm just struck by how, time and again, the NAB manages to capture the nuance of the Greek in tricky places where other English translations fall down.

Consider the ESV:

by your will they existed and were created.

leaves the reader asking, "How can things exist before they are created?!"

From the NAB rendition, we see that there is a way to remain faithful to the Greek and spare the reader confusion. The NIV gives up on the former and the ESV disregards the latter.

Reading through Jeremiah 50 and 51, the unexamined hermeneutic classified passages not specific to pre-exilic and exilic times to our times. Explicit mention of "Babylon" or "Medes" cemented the verse in the historical past, leaving all other verses for us to puzzle out.

It was mechanical and not perceptively prayerful. We were reminded that biblical prophecy simply "works this way." And I wondered, "Is God a God of confusion?!"

But then, I do something similar, to a lesser degree. In the first instance, of course, all of Jeremiah's words apply to his immediate situation one way or another. I may not know precisely how but I trust that they do.

Then, in the second instance, I recognize passages that speak to me, Jeremiah 50:20, for example:

'In those days and at that time,' declares the LORD, 'search will be made for the iniquity of Israel, but there will be none; and for the sins of Judah, but they will not be found; for I will pardon those whom I leave as a remnant.'

I look forward to that time because I put myself among God's people, among those to whom God's words are addressed. And, taken literally, I confess that I trust that the prophecy will be fulfilled, 'though I don't see it taking place in a discernible way just yet.

Back-to-back field trips. It wasn't supposed to be this way.

I couldn't stomach the bus this time, getting noticeably motion sick yesterday. There wasn't room for me anyway. I wasn't an official chaperone and I had Chris with me. See the pictures.

What a drive over there, to Hazlet!

I had Jeff look up the directions last night just in case I lost the bus. The driver had mentioned Tennent Rd., 79, Church St., Bethany Rd., and Middle Rd., so I fed those parameters to Jeff. And as he described the Google maps results to me, fragmented, ancient memories of that segment of Monmouth Cnty came back to me in odd ways:

Lemme see, there's a China Buffet in the shopping plaza there ...

... St. John Vianney High School is near there ...

... isn't that exit 117?

... the Holmdel Post Office and a fire station ...

... oh, I remember it being so congested, narrow streets, under construction!

... and North Beers St. ... I went to Dr. Penney's Holmdel office once after Tim was born ...

... I went out the "back-way" from the Holmdel building, past the post office and picked up Bethany to 35, to the China Buffet once ....

Jeff said, looking at the map, "Yes, that's Telegraph Hill Road." And the memories flooded back, in dribs and drabs. But it's been almost eight years since I worked in Holmdel.

Green Meadows was crowded! A popular place, I guess. Don't know why. I mean, it was ok. Timmy liked it very much. Chris had a good time. I guess the thing is that we live in the country, so visiting a farm isn't so novel. It's more for the "city kids" over there in eastern Monmouth County. Actually, schools in South Amboy and Plainfield (Cook Elementary School) made the trip, if you can believe it.