Catch me

We don't throw ourselves off buildings - but how is one prepared for the way that is prepared? Why did I read Job? The worst thing that happened to me during this reading was a $10 fine from the University for overdue books! When the public library fined me $0.35 - that's a nuisance amount - breaking the loony (the Canadian $1 coin), I stopped using them (Mr Pique is my name). But they didn't have much theology in their shelves anyway.

Worse question - why did I read Job with such little preparation? Few comments read before - and those read - like Jung's Answer to Job, and Mitchell's translation, largely forgotten. Simple answer - I read it in faith that I would find something good and just because it was 'there' as the single largest piece of poetry in the Bible.

This morning at UVIC I paid my fine and took out three more books. (To think I got fined for some crummy books on Matthew that I didn't even read!) I got out a new book on Job - Job and the Disruption of Identity - by Susannah Ticciati. She did some work at Selwyn, so I imagine my daughter has met her. And the first pages tell me her work will be better than Good - whose reading I liked - but not as much as I had anticipated. Anyway - I intend to read ST thoroughly - hoping it won't cause me to have to read Barth's Church Dogmatics in full. Every now and then it will stimulate me to do a word study - which I hope, dear readers, you are not bored with.

I also got out Solomon, Israel's Ironic Icon of Human Achievement by Bruggeman - on spec - to carry me back into other parts of the TNK I know the least, and Pryzybylski on Righteousness in Matthew and his World of Thought - finally a book that reasons from the Mishnah instead of from that ultimate red herring - the synoptic problem.