Wednesday Update

The summer whittles away and projects inch forward at a snail's pace. Here's some miscellany this morning and then I will probably make myself post a review later today of the introduction to Larry Hurtado's Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity.

But first a couple things. First, Scot McKnight argues that James Dobson has skewed Obama's 2006 speech involving Christianity in the United States. Here's the link, which included the link to Dobson's site:

http://www.jesuscreed.org/?p=4008

I don't know if Obama will be a good president or not (I don't think McCain will win, so brace yourselves if you are an anti-Democrat like most evangelicals over 40). But I continue to be embarrassed by the stupidity of the pseudo-Christian rumor mill, like that Obama must be evil because his middle name is Hussein or that he's Muslim because he attended elementary school in Indonesia and yet he's also a liberal Christian who hates whites. Wait a minute, don't those last two claims contradict themselves?

Basically, people are going to believe what they're going to believe. The reasons they give are seldom the real reasons. Maybe we can have a rational discussion here some time in the Fall before the election.

Second, I haven't stopped reading Metaphors We Live By. The most important chapter since I stopped reporting is chapter 6 on ontological metaphors. We had orientational metaphors in chapter 4 (things being up down behind, etc...). Ontological metaphors compare things to, well, things. The mind is a machine (Boy, my wheels are turning today) or the mind is a brittle object (I'm going to pieces).

A kind of ontological metaphor is the container metaphor that places boundaries around things. Are you in the race. He's coming into view.

It seems to me that Mary Douglas' view of purity fits well into this type of metaphor. She basically analyzes the clean/unclean legislation of Leviticus in terms of boundaries. Leprosy blurs the boundaries of in and out, just as blood outside the body does. Eels, snakes, and ostriches blur the boundaries of things in the sea, land, and air. I don't know if she's right, but it's a fascinating read.

Her famous, "Dirt is matter out of place," is a paradigm changer. Dirt in the yard is not unclean, but dirt on the living room carpet is. The difference is not a matter of the dirt but of the boundaries we draw around reality, what belongs where.