What My 3-Year-Old Thought I Was Going to Feed My 1-Year-Old

Apologies in advance for the scatalogical nature of this post. But I’m trying to get back to Family Fridays on this here blog, and nothing says family (at least our family) like this actual conversation that took place in the kitchen yesterday:

3-year-old son: Daddy, can you help me?

Me: Hold on… I’m getting your sister some food.

3-year-old son: Some poop?

Me: <Trying to stifle laughter>

3-year-old son, wanting to be heard and still awaiting my response: POOP???

Me: No… some FOOD.

3-year-old son: OHHH. I thought you said you were going to give her some poop.

Can’t make this stuff up.

A Short Review of R. Bethge’s Bonhoeffer: A Brief Life

Bonhoeffer_A Brief Life

Renate Bethge’s Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Brief Life, is about as short a Bonhoeffer biography as there is. Renate’s husband was the late Eberhard Bethge, Bonhoeffer’s dear friend and biographer. Renate is also Bonhoeffer’s niece.

Whereas Eberhard’s bio is well over 900 pages, Renate’s Brief Life is under 90. It’s laid out nicely, with lots of photographs, wide margins, and quotations from Bonhoeffer’s writing and correspondence. Given how little text is actually on a page, it’s a quick read.

The book offers a succinct overview of Bonhoeffer’s life, yet it does not lack substance in its brevity. Highlights for me were the overview of his parents (and their character, and its effect on Bonhoeffer), a chapter called “Contacts with Jews,” and the personal touch of including some of Bonhoeffer’s correspondence. His beautiful poem “Who Am I?” is re-printed here in its entirety.

There are brief mentions of his writings: Life Together, Ethics, and Letters and Papers from Prison (but not, surprisingly, Discipleship). Page 87 offers a nice one-page summary chronology of Bonhoeffer’s life.

If you want to look at a couple sample pages from the book, Logos Bible Software has put some up here and here. (This book will soon be offered in Logos as part of its forthcoming Bonhoeffer Studies Collection.)

Someone looking for biographical detail will want to look elsewhere, but this only claims to be a “brief” biography, which has value especially for folks like me who are coming seriously to Bonhoeffer for the first time. As I continue to read through Eberhard Bethge’s biography, it was nice to put it aside for a bit to get a quick overview of all of Bonhoeffer’s life.

The above book was an unexpected  but welcomed gift from somebody (not a review copy from the publisher). It’s on Amazon here. See my other Bonhoeffer posts here.

In Memoriam: Bonhoeffer’s “Who Am I?”

Bonhoeffer in Prison

In July 1944, less than a year before Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s death (69 years ago today), Bonhoeffer wrote a poignant and self-probing poem called, “Who Am I?” It is found in his Letters and Papers from Prison. Here it is, in its entirety:

Who Am I?

Who am I? They often tell me
I step out from my cell
calm and cheerful and poised,
like a squire from his manor.

Who am I? They often tell me
I speak with my guards
freely, friendly and clear,
as though I were the one in charge.

Who am I? They also tell me
I bear days of calamity
serenely, smiling and proud,
like one accustomed to victory.

Am I really what others say of me?
Or am I only what I know of myself?
Restless, yearning, sick, like a caged bird,
struggling for life breath, as if I were being strangled,
starving for colors, for flowers, for birdsong,
thirsting for kind words, human closeness,
shaking with rage at power lust and pettiest insult,
tossed about, waiting for great things to happen,
helplessly fearing for friends so far away,
too tired and empty to pray, to think, to work,
weary and ready to take my leave of it all?

Who am I? This one or the other?
Am I this one today and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? Before others a hypocrite
and in my own eyes a pitiful, whimpering weakling?
Or is what remains in me like a defeated army,
Fleeing in disarray from victory already won?

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, thou knowest me; O God, I am thine!

See my other Bonhoeffer posts here.

Bonhoeffer’s Last Words, Before He Was Hanged (69 Years Ago Tomorrow)

Source: German Federal Archive
Source: German Federal Archive

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged in the Nazi concentration camp of Flossenbürg on April 9, 1945, just two weeks before the U.S. military came to liberate it.

John W. de Gruchy describes the lead-up to that day in his Editor’s Introduction to Letters and Papers from Prison (Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, volume 8):

On October 8 [of 1944], Bonhoeffer was taken to the cellar of the Gestapo prison on Prinz-Albrecht-Straße, where he stayed until February 7, 1945. From then on, all correspondence came to an end, and contact between Bonhoeffer and the family and [Eberhard] Bethge was broken. From there Bonhoeffer was taken first to Buchenwald and then, via the village of Schönberg in Bavaria, to the Flossenbürg concentration camp, where he arrived on April 8. That evening he was tried by a hastily rigged court and condemned to death. Early the next morning Bonhoeffer was executed along with several other coconspirators.

He was hanged April 9. His family would not learn about it for several months.

The July before he had written to his trusted friend (and later biographer) Eberhard Bethge, one day after the failed assassination attempt on Hitler’s life. He wrote:

How should one become arrogant over successes or shaken by one’s failures when one shares in God’s suffering in the life of this world? You understand what I mean even when I put it so briefly. I am grateful that I have been allowed this insight, and I know that it is only on the path that I have finally taken that I was able to learn this. So I am thinking gratefully and with peace of mind about past as well as present things. …

May God lead us kindly through these times, but above all, may God lead us to himself.

His final recorded words before his hanging–appropriate in this Lenten season that is about to give way to Easter–were:

This is the end–for me the beginning of life.

This post is part of “Tuesdays in Lent with Bonhoeffer.” See other gathered posts here.

Mark (NIGTC) in Logos’s Biblia.com

France NIGTC MarkFor an exegesis course in seminary, I was assigned R.T. France’s Mark in the New International Greek Testament Commentary (NIGTC) series. The assignment was to read the entire commentary that semester, and I read every one of its 700+ pages. It was that good.

Like the rest of the NIGTC series, France’s volume focuses first on the Greek text, including textual variants where they arise. France is a careful interpreter and keeps the other synoptic gospels in view throughout the commentary. This is not, however, to the exclusion of a keen awareness of and sensitivity to the literary context of Mark as its own book. Even as he unpacks the lexical range of a Greek word, he keeps the larger contour of Mark in view.

As I mentioned in another France review, despite the technical nature of Mark, France moved me deeply with his interaction with the text. He helped me to know and love Jesus more deeply, using the Greek text of Mark as a means to that end. You can find France’s commentary on Amazon (affiliate link) here. It’s in Logos here, where it is well-produced and thoroughly hyperlinked.

For as much as I’ve reviewed Logos Bible Software, I’ve barely mentioned Biblia.com. It’s a Web-based way of accessing Logos resources you own. This is especially helpful for those times when I just need to pull up a commentary (like France’s) but don’t want to wait for Logos to open, load, or index. It looks like this (click on image to enlarge):

NIGTC Mark in Biblia

I haven’t found a way to make the ads at lower left disappear. Nor is Biblia intended to be as full-bodied as Logos (note that it’s in Beta). Since you can access it through any Web browser, it’s fairly universally accessible. Only real downside I’ve experienced: unlike Logos on iOS, Mac, and PC, you can’t highlight or take notes in any resources. But for reading texts–two at a time, as shown above–it’s pretty handy.

You can see above how I’m reading France’s Mark on the right, with a Bible open on the left. Regarding the way that Mark introduces John the Baptist at Mark 1:9, France writes:

(ἐν ἐκείναις ταῖς ἡμέραις has an equally formal, ‘biblical’ ring; Mark stands in the tradition of the great chroniclers of the acts of God in the OT.) It introduces a new phase in the story and, in this case, a new actor in the drama.

This is one of many examples of France’s using Greek to help the reader better understand what Mark is up to in his Gospel. His command of Greek and obvious love for God make this the first commentary to reach for when reading, teaching, or preaching on Mark.

Thanks to Logos for the review copy of the NIGTC series. See also my post about NIGTC Matthew in Logos here.

Septuagint Studies Soirée #8: The One Week Late Edition

Translation is Required

Here are some posts from around the Septuagintabiblioblogosphere in March:

Lee Irons blogged his way through Translation is Required: The Septuagint in Retrospect and Prospect in six parts, accessible here.

T. Michael Law posted two more installments of his Septuagint Sessions podcast, here and here.

BLT blog wrote about God’s first Greek puns (brought to you largely by the letters γ and ν).

William Ross promises upcoming LXX Resource Reviews. You can see a resource page he has up now, here. Also, in the last soiree I missed his February review of Abi T. Ngunga’s Messianism in the Old Greek of Isaiah. (It’s on my shelf, too, and I’ve worked with it a little.) Here it is, in excerpted form.

Daniel Streett uses the LXX to venture an answer to the question: Did Enoch Die? He also mentions a couple options for a bound LXX-Greek NT combo.

Mosissimus Mose continues a review of  T. Michael Law’s When God Spoke Greek in dialogic form. The fourth part posted in March.

Here’s a post on “ditching flashcards” (via here).

Jacob Cerone has been posting his way through LXX Jonah. See here, here, and here.

Did I miss anything? Feel free to post an LXX-related link in the comments.

A 6-Year-Old (re)Learns Some Hebrew

Hebrew Learning

My now six-year-old has been asking again to learn more Hebrew. We started last spring (see here and especially here), but the Hebrew learning has been largely on hold.

We have some materials from Sarah and David’s Read Hebrew, an interactive program to help children (and others) learn Hebrew.

The other day, as you can see above, we reviewed the alphabet again and did some activities in The Aleph Bet Story Workbook.

Last year The Aleph Bet Story Audio CD was on heavy rotation on the way to school. It accompanies The Aleph Bet Story, which has creative illustrations and mnemonic devices for learning the shapes and sounds of the Hebrew letters. Even quite a few months later, the sweet boy pictured above remembered most of the letters. The system seems to be effective. And he really likes it!

The materials we’ve been using are these ones. As we pick back up again, I hope to post more in-depth about our journeys. See more of what Sarah and David offer here.

A Reason to Praise: “Vicarious Representation”

Sanctorum Communio

At the age of 21 Dietrich Bonhoeffer successfully defended his doctoral dissertation, Sanctorum Communio: A Theological Study of the Sociology of the Church. (Click on the cover image at right for more information about the book.) Bonhoeffer’s biographer Eberhard Bethge notes that Karl Barth said of Bonhoeffer’s early work:

I openly confess that I have misgivings whether I can even maintain the high level reached by Bonhoeffer, saying no less in my own words and context, and saying it no less forcefully, than did this young man so many years ago.

I’ve been reading excerpts from Sanctorum Communio (translated into English), from The Bonhoeffer Reader. And… wow. It’s unbelievably good–and would be even if Bonhoeffer had written it years later, but it’s especially remarkable coming at the age of 21.

For now, one quotation will suffice. This is Bonhoeffer on the “vicarious representation” of Christ:

God does not ‘overlook’ sin; that would mean not taking human beings seriously as personal beings in their very culpability; and that would mean no re-creation of the person, and therefore no re-creation of community. But God does take human beings seriously in their culpability, and therefore only punishment and the overcoming of sin can remedy the matter. Both of these have to take place within concrete time, and in Jesus Christ that occurs in a way that is valid for all time. He takes the punishment upon himself, accomplishes forgiveness of sin, and, to use Seeberg’s expression, stands as surety for the renewal of human beings. Christ’s action as vicarious representative can thus be understood from the situation itself.

In recent weeks I’ve gotten more consistent in fulfilling this blog’s original intent to offer Worship Leading Wednesdays each week. I’m not sure if in my capacity as worship leader–whether past or present–I would necessarily read the above paragraph in a service of worship… but it sure does inspire me to praise God, with a spirit of gratitude for the miraculous work of the cross.

Free Book in Logos: Jesus and Scripture, by Steve Moyise

Jesus and Scripure by MoyiseIn early February I finished reading Steve Moyise’s Jesus and Scripture: Studying the New Testament Use of the Old Testament. You can read what I wrote about it here. Here is the concluding portion of that review:

Jesus and Scripture would be perfect for a seminary course on the Gospels, or on the NT use of the OT. An advanced undergrad course would also do well to adopt this book. I’d also recommend it to a serious Bible reader–no biblical languages are needed here, and I found that even with my own knowledge gaps in historical Jesus studies, Moyise explained everything I needed to know.

Though this survey is short (less than 150 pages), Moyise gives plenty of sample passages and insights that have challenged me. I know this is a book I will come back to and want to read again in the future.

This month Logos Bible Software is offering their edition of the book for free. It’s a fantastic book, and I look forward to being able to use it now electronically (with keyword searchability and hyperlinked Scripture references throughout). You can get the book here.

Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Pacifist, Nazi Resister (MOVIE)

Bonhoeffer Movie

My wife recently checked out a Bonhoeffer DVD for me, which we started watching the other night. We’re halfway through, and it’s already quite moving. First Run Features put it out, called Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Pacifist, Nazi Resister (pictured above).

Here is the film synopsis:

The German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of the first, and strongest, voices of resistance to Adolf Hitler. An acclaimed preacher, pacifist and author, Bonhoeffer came to the famed Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem on a teaching fellowship. When Bonhoeffer returned to Germany in 1932 he had a new awareness of racial prejudice and challenged Christian churches to stand with the Jews in their moment of need. Bonhoeffer eventually joined the unsuccessful plots to assassinate Hitler and was executed three weeks before the end of the war.

Here’s part of the movie, “Bonhoeffer Speaks Out Against Hitler”:

You can find the DVD here (affiliate link) or, most likely, at your local library. With how much Bonhoeffer I’ve been reading lately, it’s been nice to watch a filmic representation of his life–although further study of his life and struggle against Nazism is not for the faint of heart.

This is the fourth post in “Tuesdays in Lent with Bonhoeffer.” See the first one (on forgiveness) here. The second post covers Bonhoeffer’s early life, here. Some brilliance from 19-year-old Dietrich is noted here.