For a paper that I am writing, I am trying to locate the following story, which is widely cited as appearing somewhere in the Palestinian Talmud (also called Palestinian Talmud or Talmud of Palestine). Usually this is no trouble, but this particular source is proving to be a bit fiendish to locate. Here’s the story as reproduced online without citation:

A rich tax-gatherer called Ma’jan had done many evil deeds. In the same city, lived a young. poor student of the Torah. They both died and had funerals on the same day. Ma’jan’s was splendid. Work stopped throughout the city as the townspeople followed him to his final resting place. However, no-one took any notice of the death of the student, let alone his funeral. Why should this be?

The answer is this …. Ma’jan had arranged a banquet to which he invited the city councillors – unsurprisingly, they refused to attend and eat with a tax-gatherer, and so, to show his contempt for them, Ma’jan invited all the poor, sick and beggars of the city to attend instead. As he presided over this magnificent charitable act, death overtook him, and all his evil deeds were forgotten by the people because of the good deed in which he was engaged at the moment of his death.

Now, one of the student’s friends had a dream, in which he saw the fate of the two souls after their death. The student was in paradise, the garden of the King, enjoying its beauty and the richness of its vegetation and streams. The man who had been rich in his life, Ma’jan, was also standing on the banks of the stream, trying to reach the water, but unable to do so.

Joachim Jeremias gives this reference for the story: j. Sanh. 6.23c par. J Hagh. 2.77d; critical edition of the text in G. Dalman, Aram. Dialektproben, Leipzig, 1927, pp. 33 f.

j. Sanh = Jerusalem Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin

Tractate Sanhedrin 6:9 in the Jerusalem Talmud is referred to as 23c – I’m supposing that it is folio 23c. There are many reference all over the place to Sanhedrin 23c, and yet Sanhedrin only goes as high as 6:10, so this explains it. I was very pleased to find that I can read Tractate Sanhedrin in the Yerushalmi (the Hebrew name for the Jerusalem Talmud) thanks to Google Books! “The Talmud of the land of Israel By Jacob Neusner” is available there, so I have been looking at it. Confirming the fact that this story is connected to Sanhedrin 23 is the fact that 6:9 is indeed about funerals. OK, so I’m getting close.

Here’s how close I am now. My reference that I started with is j. Sanhedrin. 6.23c par. J Haghadah. 2.77d. I have bolded the part of the puzzle that I have solved, for I have found Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin 6.23c. The finer detail will involve locating this Haggadah, which, alas, is not included in the edition I am able to read. But at least I know what I am looking for.

Are there any Talmud experts out there who might be able to provide a full bibliographical reference for an actual copy of the edition of the Jerusalem Talmud that contains this passage? Even better would be a scan of the actual page(s). Use the contact page or email me, info at beretta-online.com

Many many thanks for any and all help!

Norman Geisler wrote The Baker Encyclopedia of Apologetics. It’s basically an encyclopedia of Norman Geisler’s beliefs, in the sense that it offers Geisler’s perspective on the A-Z of Christian theology and philosophy (if you think that’s not a fair summary, have a look at the encyclopedia’s rather hostile and unfair treatment of Alvin Plantinga’s Reformed Epistemology. That is not a fair summary).

In the encyclopedia there’s an entry for “Annihilationism.” It’s a very short entry, just long enough for the author to tell us in several different ways that he doesn’t think annihilationism is true or biblical, but the exegetical issues aren’t unpacked in any detail. This, however, caught my eye under what Geisler calls the “philosophical arguments” against annihilationism (remember, Norman Geisler believes the traditional doctrine of the everlasting torment of the damned in hell):

Annihilation would demean both the love of God and the nature of human beings as free moral creatures. It would be as if God said to them, “I will allow you to be free only if you do what I say. If you don’t, then I will snuff out your very freedom and existence!” This would be like a father telling his son he wanted him to be a doctor, but when the son chose instead to be a park ranger the father shot him.

There are two issues here, and I’ll focus on the second. The first issue is that there’s much to be said for the thought that annihilationism is less like murder and more like suicide. If God is the source of all life and a person has freely and resolutely chosen to be without God, then neither that person nor Geisler is in a position to raise a moral complaint about anyone’s freedom being violated or not respected if that person loses their life as a result. In other words, the very thing that people freely choose when they reject God is ultimately the loss of their very being. God will give them what they have asked for, which is, to borrow C. S. Lewis’s phrase, “to leave them alone.”

But secondly, and forgive me if this sounds a little blunt but the situation is just so odd, I can’t believe that Geisler walked into such an obvious trap!

If Dr Geisler believes the doctrine of eternal torment, and is happy to use the above analogy of the way a father treats his son to provoke objections to the way annihilationists allegedly see God (as I’ve explained above, they need not see him that way, but let’s set that aside for now), how exactly should the analogy be re-cast to describe the way Geisler thinks God will treat people who reject him? Would this be akin to a father telling his son that he wants him to be a doctor, but when his son decides to be a park ranger the father drags him downstairs to the basement, straps him to a table and begins horribly mutilating and torturing him for the rest of his life, giving him medication to ensure that he never sleeps or passes out so that he must experience the maximum amount of excruciating suffering imaginable?

How could Geisler not have seen that coming?

(You can see Geisler’s piece on annihilationism reproduced here.)

Glenn Peoples

Whoops, I missed it by a couple of days.

On Friday the 26th of May 2006, the first ever blog entry appeared at Say Hello to my Little Friend. Has it really been that long? Actually, the first one you see was meant to be the second one. Being a bit of a blogging newbie, and insisting on installing the blog on my own domain, I managed to screw something up and lose the very first blog entry, which contained an introduction to the blog plus a short tribute to the then recently deceased Ron Nash.

Those were the old days when I didn’t even have a podcast! The first episode (a test episode) of the Say Hello to my Little Friend came on the 20th of May 2008, nearly two years after the blog started. Time flies! Although there is (obviously) still a blog here and hopefully a relatively interesting one at that (last I heard it was in the top 50 New Zealand blogs), the podcast has become the main attraction here (it rose quickly to become New Zealand’s top Christian podcast, which is a scary fact – and one that brings extra expenses).

I wish I had more time and resources to put into the blog and podcast, and I hope that my career direction in the not too distant future (sigh) will make that possible, but I think it’s fair to say that after three years things aren’t too shabby. I don’t know how long I would have kept it up had there been no signs of people actually reading and listening, which has been really encouraging. I’ve been blown away by some of the feedback I’ve received via my contact page (click “Main Site” in the right hand column to go to the front page where you can get to the contact page). So thanks to all of you who follow this blog and keep me going! Remember, if any of you want to write something for the site or the blog, let me know.

Thanks for being a part of this endeavour!

Glenn

According to Simon Clarke, religion is “the biggest obstacle to thinking clearly about social and political issues.” Yes, the biggest. [UPDATE 6th August 2010: that link no longer works. Here is a link to a different presentation of what looks like the same article.]

The main reason that he gives is roughly like this: Some people think that religion provides the foundation of morality, so rather then use their own mental steam to try to figure out the answers to moral and social questions, they simply appeal to a list of commandments, and that is that. No clear thought is required. When it comes to assessing the claim that religion is the basis of morality, Clarke declares, “Nothing could be further from the truth. What religion says is irrelevant to deciding what we ought to do.”

And how does Dr Clarke lay out and defend his case for this claim? Here’s where alarm bells start ringing.
Interested? Read the rest.

Here it is (at last!), part two of the series on philosophy of mind, In Search of the Soul. In this episode I introduce the viewpoint called emergentism, and I explore the argument for dualism from free will.

It’s not the most exciting of episodes, but it’s worth including and listening to if you’re wanting to get a decent overview of philosophy of mind because it lays out a major position (emergentism) and examines a pretty common argument for dualism. In episode 28 (I’ve decided that the whole series will be no more than five episodes long), I’ll look at William Hasker’s (among other people) objection to physicalism from the possibility of an afterlife, which I think will be a lot more interesting.

Glenn Peoples

Episode 027: In Search of the Soul part 2 [ 44:34 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

In Perth in the year 1559, John Knox preached a sermon that is credited by some with kick starting the Reformation in Scotland. Knox aroused the parishioners to destroy the religious idols and graven images of the saints in their churches. In reaction to the uproar, Mary of Guise sent troops to lay siege to Perth, but in defence of the new protestants, Alexander Cunningham, 5th Earl of Glencairn, defeated Mary’s troops by leading a force of 2,500 soldiers against them. These were stirring times where people were prepared to pay the ultimate price for their convictions.

Four and a half centuries later (today, in fact), I visited Knox Presbyterian church here in Dunedin, named after the Scottish Reformer himself. If you’re lucky enough to visit what is really a lovely church, here’s what you’ll see. First, before you enter the front door, you’re greeted with this:

It’s a bust of the Rev Dr D M Stuart, the conservative first minister of Knox church.

Once you enter the church, here is the stained glass window that dominates the view:

Click on the image for a larger view. Along with the four evangelists, the stained glass image features St. Andrew (Patron Saint of Scotland) and St. Margaret (11th Century Queen of Scotland). The figure on the bottom right is D M Stuart, and the man on the bottom left? John Knox himself.

Make a sentence out of the following words: his in grave Knox is turning John.

Glenn Peoples

Part 2 of the podcast series on philosophy of mind is well underway, and it’s shaping up to be an interesting series (for me, at any rate!).

In the meantime I wanted to share something with you purely for the sake of comic relief. I discovered this a few days ago (thanks Stacey!). My kids love it, and I have to confess to finding it thoroughly amusing. Enjoy!

If you’re one of the people waiting for the next installment of the podcast series on philosophy of mind, or you’ve notice that the rate of production for blog posts is fairly low at the moment, and you’re wondering “Glenn, why are we always waiting for stuff?” read on.

There are some really great Christian blogs and podcasts out there. Not as many as I’d like, but there are some fantastic ones. A lot of them have some (but not all) of these features in common: The people whose material appears there don’t work on the blog or podcast, which is handled by people who do that and get paid to do that; the blogs/podcasts are those of people who are currently working in their academic area of interest and who – as part of their time spent in their normal employment, are researching and writing material some of which will appear in their blog or podcast; the blog or podcast is itself part of a full time professional ministry activity so there is no day job to get in the way of that ministry; they are not themselves working full time, eight hours a day five days a week (perhaps they are students or they work part time), and as a result have considerably more time than some people to work on material for their blog or podcast; they are either unmarried or they do not have children, so they do not spend their time on their spouse and/or children; their blog and/or podcast is created by a team of two or more people so that they are not the only person creating posts or episodes. There may be other situations that escape me right now, but those are the ones that I can think of.

None of these scenarios resembles me and what I do at Say Hello to my Little Friend, as much as I might like one or two of them to.  I go out each morning at the start of the day and work eight hours a day in a job that has nothing whatsoever to do with my academic qualifications or areas of interest. I come home, have dinner, and get to spend just a couple of short hours with our children, I get a little quality time with my wife, and I’m left with precious little at the end of it. I use that time to write blog posts, respond to comments, do research for future blog posts or podcast episodes, write and record podcast episodes, search for academic job listings in my field of interest, apply for jobs (writing application letters, filling our application forms, tweaking my CV for specific roles, etc) and so forth. Unless I have something pre-written from another project, it can take up nine hours or so to write a podcast episode, and I have to get up the next morning to go to work again, so I can’t stay up to the wee hours to get it done.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining. I just want to make sure everyone realises the major mismatch between what I’d like to do here and what I’m able to do here, so they appreciate what they actually get here just that little bit extra, and also to temper any expectations I might have created for listeners/readers here with a dose of reality.

[Note: This blog entry also appears as a guest post over at MandM, the blog of Matt and Madeleine Flannagan.]

I take some things for granted. People with a background in theology, biblical studies and hermeneutics or literature will be familiar with theories of meaning, but not everyone has (or wants) this background, and not everyone is familiar with theories of meaning. I thought it might be interesting to some readers to say a few words about it. Think of this as a very introductory post to the subject.

The question has importance for scholarship in general, but as a professing Christian the issue has a special importance to me because I believe that in the Scripture of the Old and New Testament we have something with a unique type of authority, so the way we interpret it is important. The issue centres on the following question: What does a piece of writing mean? To some the questions seems a bit silly. If you want to know what it means you just read it and find out. It means what it says! But strictly speaking, even someone who says this is likely to admit that not everything means exactly what it says. Writing comes in all genres: literal history, biography, poetry, parable, apocalypse and so forth. There are cases where meaning is bound to be unclear to many readers. So what, in principle, does a piece of writing mean? To the unfamiliar reader, I’m going to outline two major alternatives: an authorial intent theory of meaning and a reader response theory of meaning.
Interested? Read the rest.

Out of concern that a Christian apologist was not responding fairly or charitably to him, John Loftus recently brought to my attention his comments about a man who prominently placed the ten commandments on his property, a move that some in his community called “courageous.” John’s comments are HERE.

Loftus doesn’t think there’s anything courageous about displaying the ten commandments on one’s own property because that’s a constitutional right. I don’t know about that. The fact is there may be any number of things that a person has a right to do but for which there may be negative consequences such as social pressure, ridicule, even in some cases vandalism and violence. Posting something as overt as this in a prominent location could easily attract discrimination in various forms, so there may well be something courageous to it (being unfamiliar with the community in which this took place, I can’t say for sure).

But it’s John’s apparent criticism of displaying the ten commandments that caught my attention. In spite of the fairly good education in Christian thought that John has, his comments about the ten commandments struck me as fairly dismissive and at times superficial. The first quick comment, although not developed or substantiated, is that there are three versions of the ten commandments, versions that disagree. This is not a new claim, others have made it, but it is not a substantiated claim. The three versions, says Loftus, are in Exodus 20, Exodus 34, and Deuteronomy 5. The claim is that Exodus 20 and Exodus 34 present conflicting versions of the ten commandments. This is highly dubious for two reasons. The first reason is that Exodus 34 is in fairly close proximity to Exodus 20, and the writer of the narrative portrays God in verse 34 saying: “Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.” The thesis here is that the writer or editor of this narrative apparently did not realise what was in the ten commandments as listed in Exodus 20 just chapters earlier, so came up with a list of instructions (very few – not ten), and called them the ten commandments. Ancients were not morons. Secondly however, a more obvious response is to actually look at Exodus 34 and note that the ten commandments are not spelled out at all, let alone in conflict with the list of commandments that recently appeared in chapter 20. What we do see in Exodus 34 are four groups of rules that God told Moses to write down (verse 27 where God says “write these words”). However the same chapter, as noted earlier indicates that the ten commandments were written by God. Why these other groupings of rules are placed here in the narrative as well I do not profess to know, but the suggestion that not only was the writer or editor so dull that he did not realise that within the space of a few chapters he had two conflicting versions of the commandments, but that within a few short verses he had two conflicting accounts of who wrote those commandments, is a stretch.

Interested? Read the rest.