biblicalia

Happy International Septuagint Day!

Mark it on your calendars for next year!

The International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies will thank you for it.

I completely neglected to notice that I’d missed last month’s Biblical Studies Carnival, the fourty-ninth iteration, which was hosted by Tyler Williams at Codex. This is not surprising, as it has yet to be posted. (Ahem.) Tyler does, however, post some interesting thoughts on the future (or non- thereof) of the Biblical Studies Carnival. I myself have hosted the Eighth and the Twenty-Sixth of the Biblical Studies Carnivals, the latter in particular being quite fun. I would recommend to all the same tactic that I used that month: start writing it on the first day of the month, and simply add to it day by day. That way the end of the month will meet you with a fully written post, rather than all ascramble to organize a pile of relevant and irrelevant links.

This month’s Biblical Studies Carnival, covering posts made over the course of January 2010 (that’s “Two-thousand ten” people!), is actually the fiftieth, and is hosted by Duane Smith at Abnormal Interests. He also abnormally expects readers to construe “XLX – 1″ as 50. I think.

Enjoy the carnival while you still have it. Who knows what the future may bring?

Tonight, we were greatly blessed to have had a visit to our parish by Reader Nektarios from Hawaii, bearing the Myrrh-streaming icon of the Theotokos, described here. Not only were we able to have a Paraklisis (Small Supplication to the Virgin, a service in which we ask the Theotokos to pray for all those whom we name, a list that we add to every week) and venerate this beautiful icon, but we were even anointed with the myrrh with which this icon is flowing, and to keep a bit of cotton soaked in the myrrh.

The scent of the myrrh is quite distinctive. I’d say the scent of a rose is the closest, but there is something more to it than that. In consistency, it’s a very fine oil, very light, working its way into the skin immediately. It’s beautiful!

Although this myrrh-streaming is a miracle, completely without rational explanation (I saw the icon removed completely from its case, and can say without a doubt that there is no trick involved), there seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary at all. It seemed as natural as the sunrise each day that an icon should be streaming myrrh, and that the faithful would benefit by it. I thank God that I had and have no doubts about its authentic nature. I hope that many others will be able to benefit from such a great blessing as this.

Let’s all pray for God’s mercy in that regard.

Athirst in soul for truth and grace
In desert gloom I walked alone,
And there a six-winged seraph shone
Upon the night before my face.
He touched my eyes with fingers light
And soft as sleep at eventide;
My eyes became with vision wide,
Alarmed as eagles in the night.
He touched my ears, I heard around
Me far and wide a tide of sound:
I heard a tremlbling fill the sky,
I heard the angel wings on high,
I heard the sap in grass and trees,
And reptiles moving ‘neath the seas.
He leaned above my mouth awhile,
And tore from me my tongue of guile,
And took from me my pride and lust,
And with his bloody hand he thrust
Between my dead lips withering
The serpent’s sharp and su’btle sting.
And with his sword he clove my breast,
And plucked the heart that trembled there,
And in my bosom rived and bare
A coal of living fire he pressed.
I fell upon the waste as dead.
And God spake unto me and said:
“Arise, O prophet! Hear and see!
Fulfill my will! Go forth again,
And, wayfaring, on land, on sea,
Burn with my words the hearts of men!”

Alexander Pushkin, 1826. Translated by Eugene Mark Kayden.

A man who sits in stillness and who receives experience of God’s kindness has little need of persuasive argument, and his soul is not sick with the disease of unbelief, like those who are doubtful of the truth. For the testimony of his own understanding is sufficient to persuade him above endless words having no experience behind them.

To our God be glory and majesty unto the ages. Amen.

St Isaac the Syrian, Homily 68, end.

This section on ‘Life and the Law’, itself a reformulation of Schürer’s own title, Das Leben under [sic] dem Gesetz, presents the reviser with a new kind of problem. He is faced here not so much with an antiquated account or a faulty historical reconstruction, as with questionable value judgements. It has been decided therefore not to reproduce § 28 unchanged, as a period piece: readers concerned with a late nineteenth century ideology can read the German original or the previous English translation. On the other hand, since to delete the chapter completely would be to deprive the revised volume of a great deal of interesting information, the subject has been treated in this new version from a historical rather than a theological vantage point. Moreover, the purpose of the Pharisees and their rabbinic heirs is obviously no longer represented as a trivialization of religion, but identified as an attempt to elevate everyday Jewish life as a whole, and in its minute details, to the sphere of cultic worship. It should also be noted that although in the historical survey that follows, Jewish observances and customs are referred to in the past tense, the laws on which they are based are still valid and practised by traditional Judaism.

The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, Revised English Edition, eds. Geza Vermes, Fergus Millar, and Matthew Black (T & T Clark, 1979), volume 2, page 464, footnote 1.

Professor Abraham Malamat passed away today in Jerusalem at the age of 87.

May his memory be for a blessing.

May the Lord have mercy on all those who come before Him.