ἐνθύμησις

I haven’t blogged in a while.  This isn’t because I haven’t had anything to say, but because I have had a flurry of events take place and the task of recounting them here on the blog has loomed overhead as a daunting task.  I will nevertheless make an attempt.

1) My ability to study during work and thus my productivity has greatly diminished.  Due to a sequence of events and an impromptu, but necessary, reorganization of my company I have had to take on the role of Operations Manager on top of my duties as a file clerk, receptionist and courier.  This means that I have little free time during the day.

2) What little free time I have had has been spent preparing for Brooke and Andrew’s wedding.  The rehearsal and the wedding went off without a hitch (ha…ha…ha…yeah…it was a pun…I know), but there were a few bumps along the way.  I have one take away for ministers who perform their first wedding…DON’T LET THAT DETAIL BE KNOWN TO THE WEDDING DIRECTOR.  There are few things worse in the world than being told “I’m sure you will do fine,” but treated as if the couple made a bad decision when choosing you.  Do your research, come in with confidence, and be humble when you are corrected.

3) The “Young Adults” crowd at Cary Alliance celebrated our annual Christmas Party.  This happened to coincide with two other occasions: our decision to leave Cary Alliance and my birthday.  Scott Hess took this opportunity to make us (and me in particular) feel loved by celebrating my birthday at the party.  Thank you Scott and thank you Cary Alliance for understanding our departure and for being adamant about maintaining fellowship with us.  You truly understand what it means to be a part of the universal body of Christ.

4) Mary Beth and I attended Cary Alliance in order to hear my mother-in-law perform Rejoice Greatly from Handel’s Messiah.  This was an indescribable experience.  Yet, the thing I keep coming back to is the fact that it is a glorious thing when the form matches the message.

5) Yesterday my side of the family celebrated my birthday and showered me with Accordance gift certificates.  Part of that money has already been spent on NT-MSS Images (facsimiles of Alexandrinus, Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, Washingtonensis, and the original Codex 2882).  This will be a real joy to learn how to read Greek without spaces, punctuation and in Uncial (all-caps) script.

Some of you might be wondering, “Why no new posts?”  Well…as the title of this post suggests, it has been a long weekend.

Friday and Saturday were filled with work Christmas parties.  I guess the benefit of being outsourced labor is that you get to go to two Christmas parties.

Saturday evening was spent with the Massengill clan.  They treated us to a delicious meal, provided doggie socialization, and graciously celebrated my birthday.

Sunday was spent at my parents for brunch.  The rest of the day was consumed by painting shutters.  One coat has been applied…not to find some time within this coming week to apply a second (and maybe third) coat, reinstall them, take pictures of the work done, and finally get my bank to release our settlement check from the tornado damage.

Things to do:

1. Finish preparing my sermon for Andrew and Brooke’s Wedding.
2. Attend and facilitate the wedding rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner.
3. Officiate at my first wedding.
4. Finish Christmas shopping
5. Decide which Accordance modules will best serve my future studies.

This weekend I have attempted to lavish Mary Beth with my time.  Last night we met at Remington Grill before going to watch “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” at the $1.50 theater, which is now the $2 theater…just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

This morning we went to see the “Rembrandt in America” exhibit.  This excursion was entirely planned by me without her knowledge.  It was an attempt to make up for my negligence last year (I promised to take her to see Picasso last year but allowed my studies to overtake me and the days simply slipped by).

We were both taken a back by his mastery of lighting and his ability to paint in such a way that conveys intimacy.  When standing in front of some of these paintings, the viewer felt as if he knew the subject.  We were also fascinated that a great deal of controversy surrounds the authentication of a Rembrandt painting.  The formation of the Rembrandt Research Project in 1968 led to the de-authentication of at least 200 “Rembrandts” among a oeuvre of over 400 paintings.  That is to say that over half of the paintings thought to be painted by Rembrandt were not painted by his hand.

This number can be explained in part by two common practices at the time.  First, teachers had the right to sign their students art as their own and sell the painting.  This practice is paralleled in modern scholarship when a) a student does all the research for his major professor and receives little to no credit for his labors and b) when an individual new in the scholarly world writes almost all of a “collaborative” work.  Second, it was common for Rembrandt to work on a collaborative painting with one of his students.  This leads to confusion in analyzing the final product, which possesses Rembrandt’s techniques at points but diverges at other points.

Despite these explanations, we still came away with the impression that determining whether a work was of Rembrandt of one within his guild was a rather subjective task.  Many of the times it simply came down to “it isn’t good enough” or “this painting does not express the typical genius of a Rembrandt.”

Now to the point: It simply amazed me that the Rembrandt historians are so unsure as to whether a painting came from his hand or that of another, while biblical scholars are rather adamant that 1 & 2 Timothy, Hebrews, and Ephesians did not come from the hand of the Apostle Paul.  Rembrandt scholars have a corpus of 200 authentic works to establish a base line.  The Pauline corpus is ~6% of that size.  I know that the comparison breaks down.  We are dealing with two different forms of media, different means of analysis and authentication, different circumstances, and the fact that painters that might own a possible “fake” have a monetary interest in the piece.  Nevertheless, it makes one wonder about the reliability of internal evidence (style, word choice, literary devices, etc), especially when external evidence is shunned outright (testimony of the early church).