So, last night five of us put on our hiking boots or wellies and trogged off to 'Thing in a Pub.' As we munched our butties and supped our coke/wine/guiness/lager we talked over various pastoral things, the fact that the bat-inspector has been unable to come put because of snow (holy cow, Robin, it's the wrong kind of snow - the bat mobile is stranded...(or words to that effect anyway)) and then moved on the the nonsensical legend of how Dibley got its name. This last one was interesting as someone then asked how we could be confident of Biblical reliability - they said OT but I added NT - the transition from oral tradition to written record, the challenges of translation and so on. I couldn't say it was a deep discussion but it was a start. So, we noted the Elhoist and Yahwist strands in the early part of Genesis (which creation story is "right"?! Look at Genesis 1 and 2 for anyone who's never compared), the parenthesis at the start of John 8 (woman caught in adultery) the various endings of Mark and so on. One person seemed mildly perturbed that I have a book of gnostic scriptures on my shelf, others were fascinated by the idea of (essentially) redaction. Good fun!
It is intriguing to see how we have moved and changed as a group of people, and how these sitting around food/drink initiatives somehow free us to talk more openly and honestly about faith issues as compared with the twee right-answers of a house group of Bible study. I think we must have made an odd sight sitting there in our boots and discussing elementary biblical studies, but it was well worth it.
Comments
Sounds interesting...I don't have a copy of the Gnostic gospels perhaps I need it when I'm a 'proper minister' and discussing biblical studies in a pub. Yes I'd have to agree sounds better than finding the 'right' answers in a bible study although probably not everyone's cup of lager/coke/wine or whatever!
Hi Lucy. Don't think you 'need' a copy of gnostic gospel, just that we looked at Thomas at college and I was then fascinated to find out more (plus post Da Vinci Code it was useful to be able to say 'oh that, it's old hat').
As you say, not everyone's 'bag of mashings' as they say around here, but we had fun. And I definitely value group Bible study too - just sometimes struggle to get it meaningful
Oh yes I can see it would be useful with the Da Vinci Code debate! Its ok I hope you know I was being 'tongue in cheek' about 'needing' the gnostic gospels:)