Wednesday, May 26, 2010

So, What Did You Learn in Seminary?

Mostly, that I know ~ nothing.

But I think that this was my favorite, and I hope that I am doing Famous Matthew Scholar justice when I quote his ruminations on what we do and don't know about Jesus, after 2000 years of Scriptural writing, commentary, the Jesus Seminar, and whatever:

"I was up in Maine, sitting on the beach one day and looking at a huge barnacle-encrusted rock.  And I thought, you know ~ I can't see a single portion of the original rock; it is completely covered in layer upon layer of barnacles.  But if you asked me, I could tell you the general shape of the rock."

                                                                                                 ~ Dr. Dale Allison

He also pointed out in each of the classes I took from him that "Jesus is and does what he says, more consistently and authentically than anyone else.  Take a look at the Sermon on the Mount."

I might have learned a few other things.  But I think that those are the big ones.

7 comments:

  1. I always say that I didn't learn stuff in seminary, per se. I learned to use my resources.

    I love that photo...it's not just encrusted with barnacles, that's also the rock in whose tidepools some of my mother's ashes were scattered.

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  2. Then some of your mother and some of my son have been carried in the same tides.

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  3. So lovely. We were there last spring...so I wonder if you were scattering your precious ashes at the same time. In any case, it's sacred space.
    Congratulations - I hope you have plenty of time to sit with the "not-knowing" and rest, now.

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  4. When seminary was over for me I found that I wished I could do it all over again - that I had probably only absorbed the most basic of information but I wanted to go from there, deeper. Thankfully congregational life has afforded me that opportunity. (and then some)...

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  5. Picture and story go together nicely. I especially like your comment about your son in the tides with Teri's mother.

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  6. :-)
    may they play, swirl, and become pearls together.

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  7. tonight... seems like I am hoping to be consistent at times and some what authentic

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