Humor and Life

First Joke:This is pretty much what I feel like at camp all the time...except more so. And I'm also probably not usually as calm and organized as she is. I usually forget the first question after the third or fourth. :)

Second Joke:
An engineer, a psychologist, and a theologian were hunting in the wilderness of northern Canada. Suddenly, the temperature dropped and a furious snowstorm was upon them. They came across an isolated cabin, far removed from any town. The hunters had heard that the locals in the area were quite hospitable, so they knocked on the door to ask permission to rest. No one answered their knocks, but they discovered the cabin was unlocked and they entered.

It was a simple place -- two rooms with a minimum of furniture and household equipment. Nothing was unusual about the cabin except the stove. It was large, pot-bellied, and made of cast-iron. What was strange about it was its location: it was suspended in midair by wires attached to the ceiling beams.

"Fascinating," said the psychologist. "It is obvious that this lonely trapper, isolated from humanity, has elevated this stove so that he can curl up under it and vicariously experience a return to the womb."

"Nonsense!" replied the engineer. "The man is practicing the laws of thermodynamics. By elevating his stove, he has discovered a way to distribute heat more evenly throughout the cabin."

"With all due respect," interrupted the theologian, "I'm sure that hanging his stove from the ceiling has religious meaning. Fire LIFTED UP has been a religious symbol for centuries."

The three debated the point for several hours without resolving the issue.

When the trapper finally returned, they immediately asked him why he had hung his heavy pot-bellied stove from the ceiling.

His answer was succinct. "Had plenty of wire, not much stove pipe."

I can't tell you how often I have seen this sort of scenario played out here. Scholars argue over the smallest things, often reading enormous ammounts of information into the tiniest statement but ignoring the simplest and (to me at least) most logical answers. It kind of drives me crazy. Let me explain a bit.

The stove basically represents the facts on the ground, whether it be text from the Bible, archaeological or geographical evidence, or text from some other ancient source. The engineer, psychologist, and theologial all represent possible different interpretations of the facts on the ground. The trapper actually knows the truth about the stove, but unfortunately, all the "trappers" in this land died years ago and can't tell us why they built or wrote in such a way. So the different scholars argue about the proper interpretation. In all fairness, many times they probably do come quite close to the actual reasons. Sometimes, though, their theories seem as ridiculous as the three theories about the stove.

One example that comes to mind is from my Matthew class. You are probably all aware of the passage in Matthew where Jesus pronounces woe upon the scribes and Pharisees. (Matthew 23) Apparently this is a big deal. Here are some of the views I've seen represented on what this passage "means:"

1. Maybe it means that Matthew (or whoever the author was) and the small group of believers around (aka "the Matthean Community") him were upset at the Pharisees and other Jews for some reason. Maybe the Jews were persecuting this small group of Christians so Matthew included this scathing rebuke in his gospel.

2. Maybe Matthew meant to imply that all of Israel was utterly rejected by God (which could open the door to some pretty sever anti-semetism).

3. Maybe Matthew only meant to imply that the leaders of Israel were utterly rejected by God (thus preserving the gospel from being anti-semetic).

4. Maybe it was part of the attempt by Matthew to distance his community from the Jewish community and to set themselves up at the "true" followers of God.

...and my thought is, "Maybe Matthew included it in his gospel because Jesus actually said it, and maybe Jesus said it because the Pharisees at the time that he spoke were actually hypocritical." Which is not to say that the book and its contents can be completely separated from the time and location in which it was written. On the other hand, I don't think it can be separated from the time and place which is being written about, either. I think it is going too far to imply that some of these passages were made up by the author of Matthew in response to circumstances facing his community. Doubtlessly the gospel applied, but good grief.

Back to the stove joke, while the trapper probably has some ideas in all the areas the experts discussed, when someone has to choose between freezing to death or setting up a stove that works, well, that person isn't likely going to be considering all the symbolic and scientific implications of his stove placement. He's going to be pretty pragmatic about it. I could be wrong, but I would think that the same would be true of the authors of the texts we have. Most of the time they were probably trying to get the story down. They may have put a spin on it to teach a lesson or included some symbolism or some such thing, but I find it hard to believe, as some scholars seems to imply, that they wrote with 24 and a half different layers of meaning and that by the simple statement "X" they really meant "Y", "Z", and "A" ... and "B" for good measure. The scholars have far more time to discuss the stove than the trapper had to make it in the first place. I want more scholars who put themselves in the shoes of the trapper!

(Ok, I'll stop ranting now...that one has been building up for a while.)