Читать книгу Matty and Matt - Sel Caradus - Страница 7

Melanie was impressed that at 7.30 the next Tuesday evening, all were in their accustomed places, evidently ready for business. They seemed keen and eager to begin. “Here you are, all on time and ready. Aunt Matty trained you well!” She recalled to them a day when she had made a retreat in a monastery and had complimented a young monk about the punctuality of their services. “Well,” he replied, “we are all creatures of habit.”

She found it somehow pleasing that they stared at her for several seconds before letting loose with groaning. She had heard, long before, that this was their way of dealing with bad jokes.

She asked Webster for the opening prayer and he took the opportunity after the “Amen” to make a plug for his favorite aid to the study of the Gospels. He held up a well-worn volume. “Over the years, I have found it a great help to use this. It puts the three Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, in parallel columns, arranged so that differences and similarities can be seen.” Al asked, “What about John’s Gospel?” and the answer seemed to satisfy him: that John’s Gospel was so different from the other three that you could scarcely find any parallels with the others. Al said, “You might say that John’s is an unparalleled Gospel!”

Pause, then the groans. Melanie remembered how Matty sometimes tried out her corny jokes on her before she left on Tuesday evenings. Another nostalgic moment.

But now, at last, they got down to the evening’s work: the first chapter of Matthew. During the week, Melanie had asked Martha Henson, one of the group, to comment on Aunt Matty’s direction: “Cherchez les femmes” She was a natural choice since she taught Women’s Studies at the College.

She came well prepared and Melanie put up the genealogy on the screen again.

Martha cut to the chase: “This is a standard genealogy,” she said, “except for the four women named: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba. Without too much detail, here are thumbnail sketches:

Tamar was the resourceful widow who ensured the continuation of her husband’s lineage by tricking her father-in-law, Judah, into having sex with her;

Rahab was a prostitute in Jericho who aided the invading Hebrews at the time of the conquest;

Ruth was a foreigner who married a wealthy kinsman of her deceased husband (and the text hints that she seduced him);

Bathsheba, wife of the honorable mercenary, Uriah, was taken adulterously by King David (after he arranged for Uriah’s death)”

They all needed time to absorb this although, for most of them, this information was not unfamiliar as Matty had taken a previous study on “Women of the Bible.” Al looked baffled, however. “I can see that I will have to do my homework. But from what Martha has said, I think that from now on I keep Bibles away from children!”

Webster had a more substantive comment. “I am surprised about your reference to Ruth. She has always been held up as a model of good behavior!” Martha agreed that the text of the book of Ruth in English translation was not so clear. “But the storyline has Ruth following her mother-in-law’s instructions. ‘She washed and perfumed herself and waited until Boaz was asleep. Then she approached quietly, uncovered his feet and lay down.’ The Hebrew idiom for ‘uncovering the feet’ carries with it serious sexual overtones. And in Chapter 4, the elders of the village bless the happy couple with the words, ‘May your family be like that of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah.’”

Melanie was concerned that the discussion, such as it was, had become too specialized. “Wow, we certainly dived in deep. And it’s only Chapter 1,” she said, partly to lighten the mood. She took the initiative to remind them all that background reading would be essential to get the most from these discussions and she put up the Bible references needed for Martha’s list:

For Tamar, Genesis, Chapter 38

For Rahab, Joshua, Chapter 2

For Ruth, look between Judges and First Samuel

For Bathsheba, 2 Samuel, Chapter 11

She was impressed that most of them wrote it all down.

Martha then addressed their unspoken question: “Why make reference to these women and ignore all the others; Sarah, Rebecca and Rachel, wives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, for starters? It almost looks as if someone was trying to cast a cloud on the royal line, and in so doing, maligning David as well.” There was some confused discussion. Someone thought that a later editor, with some malicious intent, might have inserted the names of the four women. Another wondered if it was because they were all probably non-Jewish, so that a hint was being given that the story to be told was the beginning of a new openness to Gentile people. Several thought that it was a preparation for the one who would be notorious for “eating and drinking with outcasts and sinners.” But Martha had more to say. “What if we are looking at the four women in the wrong way? Whatever else we can say of them, it is clear that they were resourceful and determined ladies. One possibility: ‘Matthew’ was a woman!” Big silence. No one had thought of that and there was a resistance to the unfamiliar.

Melanie was pleased with all of this. It was opening lots of new ideas. “Let’s keep Martha’s suggestion in the back of our minds as we proceed. Maybe we’ll find some other clues.” Martha nodded. “I can make quite a case for female authorship,” she insisted. “Wait for it!”

Melanie guided the conversation to the next big problem: why give a genealogy for Joseph when the text would immediately claim that Mary’s pregnancy was of divine origin, so that Joseph wasn’t the father at all? It was time to display the text of the second part of Chapter 1 and to wonder about the Virgin Birth.

The circumstances of the birth of Jesus Christ were these. After his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they were united in marriage, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. But Joseph her husband, being a kind-hearted man and unwilling publicly to disgrace her, had determined to release her privately from the betrothal. But while he was contemplating this step, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to bring home your wife Mary, for she is with child through the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to call his name Jesus for he it is who will save his people from their sins.” All this took place in fulfillment of what the Lord had spoken through the Prophet, “Behold! The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call His name ‘Immanuel’ ”—a word which signifies ‘God with us’.

When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded, and brought home his wife, but did not live with her until she had given birth to a son. The child’s name he called Jesus.

Someone asked if belief in that doctrine was essential. Creeds were quoted (“born of the Virgin Mary”). Stephen remarked that Paul, who wrote his letters before the Gospels were compiled, seemed unaware of such a belief, saying of Jesus only that he was “born of a woman”. Al had been silent for a while and Melanie wondered if he was out of his depth. But he clearly had been doing his homework as he raised a question about the words of the prophet: “Behold! The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call His name Immanuel.”

He said that he had read somewhere that the word “virgin” didn’t appear in the original source and he wondered also why no one called Jesus “Immanuel”. Martha, full of information, was quick to respond. “Al is right about the word ‘virgin’. In the Hebrew text of Isaiah 7:14, where the quotation comes from, the word was “young woman.” But when translation was made into Greek, the word for ‘virgin’ was used.” Someone remembered the publication of the Revised Standard Version in 1952 when fundamentalist Christians attacked its translation of Isaiah 7:14 (“a young woman will conceive”) as an undermining of the Doctrine of the Virgin Birth.

On the question of the name, “Immanuel,” Webster remarked that it does not appear anywhere else in Matthew (or in any of the other Gospels, for that matter). Al added the comment: “We all hear ‘Jesus Christ’ used casually in the street. ‘Immanuel Christ’ would sound a little strange.”

Webster had been looking ahead to Chapter 2 and he remarked that if one omitted the second part of Chapter 1, then the text flowed nicely and there would be no debate about Virgin Birth, which many Christians found problematic. They needed to look at the flow from the end of the genealogy:

. . . Eliud was the father of Eleazar,

Eleazar was the father of Matthan,

Matthan was the father of Jacob,

Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, who was the mother of Jesus who is called Christ

There are, therefore, in all, fourteen generations from Abraham to David; fourteen from David to the Removal to Babylon; and fourteen from the Removal to Babylon to the Christ.

And then go on to the beginning of Chapter 2:

Now after the birth of Jesus, which took place at Bethlehem in Judaea in the reign of King Herod, excitement was produced in Jerusalem by the arrival of certain Magi from the east, inquiring, “Where is the newly born king of the Jews? For we have seen his Star in the east, and have come here to do him homage.”

Since Chapter 2 was the topic for the following week, Melanie displayed the full text for all to ponder:

Now after the birth of Jesus, which took place at Bethlehem in Judaea in the reign of King Herod, excitement was produced in Jerusalem by the arrival of certain Magi from the east, inquiring, “Where is the newly born king of the Jews? For we have seen his Star in the east, and have come here to do him homage.” Reports of this soon reached the king, and greatly agitated not only him but all the people of Jerusalem. So he assembled all the High Priests and Scribes of the people, and anxiously asked them where the Christ was to be born.

“At Bethlehem in Judaea,” they replied; “for so it stands written in the words of the Prophet, ‘And thou, Bethlehem in the land of Judah, by no means the least honorable among princely places in Judah! For from thee shall come a prince—one who shall be the Shepherd of My People Israel.’”

Thereupon Herod sent privately for the Magi and ascertained from them the exact time of the star’s appearing. He then directed them to go to Bethlehem, adding, “Go and make careful inquiry about the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and do him homage.” After hearing what the king said, they went to Bethlehem, while, strange to say, the star they had seen in the east led them on until it came and stood over the place where the babe was. When they saw the star, the sight filled them with intense joy. So they entered the house; and when they saw the babe with his mother Mary, they prostrated themselves and did him homage, and opening their treasure-chests offered gifts to him—gold, frankincense, and myrrh. But being forbidden by God in a dream to return to Herod, they went back to their own country by a different route.

When they were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise: take the babe and His mother and escape to Egypt, and remain there till I bring you word. For Herod is about to make search for the child in order to destroy him.”

So Joseph roused himself and took the babe and his mother by night and departed into Egypt. There he remained till Herod’s death, that what the Lord had said through the Prophet might be fulfilled, “Out of Egypt I called My Son.”

Then Herod, finding that the Magi had trifled with him, was furious, and sent and massacred all the boys under two years of age, in Bethlehem and all its neighborhood, according to the date he had so carefully ascertained from the Magi. Then were these words, spoken by the Prophet Jeremiah, fulfilled,

“A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and bitter lamentation: it was Rachel bewailing her children, and she refused to be comforted because they were no more.”

But after Herod’s death, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, and said to him, “Rise from sleep, and take the child and His mother, and go into the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.” So he roused himself and took the child and His mother and came into the land of Israel. But hearing that Archelaus had succeeded his father Herod on the throne of Judaea, he was afraid to go there; and being instructed by God in a dream he withdrew into Galilee, and went and settled in a town called Nazareth, in order that these words spoken through the Prophets might be fulfilled, “He shall be called a Nazarene.”

They read the familiar words and thought about Webster’s suggestion that the Virgin Birth narrative might have been a later addition to the text. “It almost looks as though some one slipped in an extra page and didn’t change anything else.” This gave rise to a debate about such a possibility. “Surely you wouldn’t get away with tampering with Holy Writ.” It was pointed out that in the early times, the writing wouldn’t have such stature and it could be done and copies of the new text circulated. They were now getting used to the idea that their discussions were going to be often inconclusive. As Webster said, “I am putting forward this idea but don’t have any evidence for it, so I will go on saying the Creed every Sunday!”

A new contribution was made by Andrew who had, up to this point, joined in the general discussion without saying anything particularly memorable. Andrew was a considerable reader of Bishop Spong, the controversial bishop of the Episcopal Church of the U.S.A. He wished to acquaint the group with the idea of midrash, a way of interpreting a text which had been developed by Jewish rabbis: to take a text and “fill in the details,” as he put it, using careful imagination. “Spong is entranced with the idea that midrashic interpretation is the key to understanding the Gospels,” Andrew reported. “He thinks that Matthew Chapter 2 is a midrash on Old Testament texts.” The argument went something like this: early Christians, still thinking of themselves as a part of Judaism, trawled the Jewish scriptures for predictions which might apply to their Leader. The four which are quoted in Matthew, Chapter 2, then provided a framework for imaginative story telling; since Jesus was the fulfillment of all these texts, his life must have been thus and so. It is then possible to build the midrash and get Chapter 2 as we have it today.

This line of thought was hotly contested in the group, with a majority finding it hard to believe that anyone could “get away with it.”

Melanie sensed that the evening had been rather successful and that her time as leader would have its moments. The group seemed inclined to continue after the appointed hour but she dismissed them and heard the discussions continuing as they left the room. She was about to leave when Webster, who had lingered behind the others, asked for “a quick word.” They sat down again and he began. “Melanie, things are going so well but I feel the need to apologize,” he said. “I am saying too much and I want you to keep me in check. Matty was good at that.”

Melanie smiled, partly with relief. She thought that perhaps she was going to hear something negative about her leadership. “Dear Webster,” she said. “You are so full of enthusiasm and when you spoke tonight, I watched the faces around the table. They were eating it up.” She paused and they exchanged affectionate glances before they, too, went on their way.