One Man's Web

Today, I've been working in Mark 3, looking at the translation of the disciples' names. According to NRSV, Jesus renamed Simon to Peter, but the Greek is uncompromising. He called him Rock. Until Rock, Cephas; that is, Peter,1 was not a proper name in Jesus' society. Names serve two functions in our society, and this applied in the time of Jesus, too. Sometimes, a name is just a label. When you say Andrea it is merely to signify that you are talking to me, or about me, rather than Fred. Andrea had a meaning, once. It meant manly, derived from the Greek aner, which is a bit ironic in my case. But mostly we have forgotten that. Andrea is just an identifier.

But there are also times when a name is loaded with meaning. In our Australian society, this is particularly clear in nicknames. In the generation before mine, to mention Blue was to reference a particular person, but the name always carried within it the fact that their hair was red, and maybe it also had a local hint of racial disparagement, because most red-haired people were of Irish stock... Read on >>>>

The back wall of the toilet proclaimed

FXXX RACISM
FXXX SEXISM
FXXX HOMOPHOBIA
FXXX TRANSPHOBIA.

I'm not sure what the author considered said fxxxing might actually entail, but did appreciate their disavowing of such prejudices. I then noticed the inscription on my left... Read on >>>>

Mark 2:23-28 and Mark 3:1-6 are artificially divided by the versification used in modern bibles. They occur one after the other. On the one Sabbath day, Jesus is followed into a synagogue by the same Pharisees who were criticising him in the grain fields. By the end of 3:1-6, although the Basileia Culture of God has been announced and is at hand; (Mark 1:14-15) although the Holy One of God is among us, (Mark 1:24) and the huios tou anthropou is here, (Mark 2:10, 28) and his healings point to the fulfilment of Creation; even so, at this very early point of Mark, he is rejected, and his death is decided. The disciples know nothing of this until Peter proclaims that Jesus is the Messiah, and recoils from the notion that the Messiah will be killed. That story in Mark 8:27-33 is also a central turning point in Mark, but Jesus' fate has been decided by Chapter 3 verse 6.... Read on at Mark 2:23 >>>>

From the text...

In our affluence, even as Christians, we have largely forgotten the time in a kairos sense. It's why we laugh to hide our discomfort at Billy Connelly's joke about his epitaph, "Jesus Christ, is that the time already!?" Connelly reminds us that in our unprecedented safety and affluence, we have largely forgotten the time. In Jesus' time, and even more so in the traumatic time of Mark, "the time" was an urgent question about life, death, and hope for a future. Mark lived in a time of massacre, a time of Shoah, or Calamity.  Where was God in that? When was the Messiah coming—was the Messiah coming? What is the time of our salvation?... Read the article >>>