tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7495061397391629574.post946866955310306596..comments2023-07-11T08:25:16.645-07:00Comments on What I Learned From Aristotle: Inter-religious dialogueTheophrastushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04981876713019298465noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7495061397391629574.post-65221451186511486022009-01-26T22:38:00.000-08:002009-01-26T22:38:00.000-08:00You're very welcome, Theophrastus!I've just rememb...You're very welcome, Theophrastus!<BR/><BR/>I've just remembered to put a link there to you. Sorry about that!<BR/><BR/>You are among my Wunderkammern!Kevin P. Edgecombhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16590490181739464401noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7495061397391629574.post-21413352733648494182009-01-26T21:43:00.000-08:002009-01-26T21:43:00.000-08:00Kevin, thanks so much for your clarification, and ...Kevin, thanks so much for your clarification, and for your kind mention in your blog!<BR/><BR/>John, I am sorry I offended you with the title -- since the goal of this blog is NOT to offend, I have already failed. I'll be sure to use Waldensian pastor in the future.<BR/><BR/>Sewa, I suspect you are not so much "inter-religious" as someone who is open to seeing the varied truths of the "one who is a light unto all the nations."Theophrastushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04981876713019298465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7495061397391629574.post-39935452670180244822009-01-26T19:11:00.000-08:002009-01-26T19:11:00.000-08:00I'd like to comment on the first part of the post....I'd like to comment on the first part of the post. <BR/><BR/>My mentor in college, Ron Miller, is a former Jesuit priest who co-founded an organization called <A HREF="http://www.cg.org/default.aspx" REL="nofollow">Common Ground</A>. It's dedicated to inter-faith dialogue (he has worked for most of his career on Jewish-Christian relations; his co-founder is a Buddhist). <BR/><BR/>He always taught that the single indispensable factor in successful dialogue is openness — to be just open enough that you countenance the possibility that your most cherished beliefs might turn out to be wrong. At the same time, there is no effort to convince others that one's position (in this case, one's religious faith) is more correct or in any way better. It's mostly a place to listen and try to understand.<BR/><BR/>As for interreligious worship: I have friends who attend a local Unitarian Universalist fellowship. While I love their genuine acceptance of all religious perspectives, when they come together in worship, it's pretty much a lowest-common denominator approach: "offend none" seems to be their dictum. The problem, of course, is that it takes all the teeth out of everyone's tradition. No blood, no guts, no electricity, no reality.<BR/><BR/>On the other hand, because I am by nature a syncretist, I am comfortable in a synagogue, a Protestant church, a Hindu ashram, a Thai Buddhist temple, even (occasionally) something wild and paganish. I like the authenticity; and yes, I do worship there, using their words, their names for the great Mystery, their rituals. Is that then "interreligious"? Or am I just a man without a country, and so grateful for any port in the storm?Sewa Yolemehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05736250662604561083noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7495061397391629574.post-7081833502280937752009-01-25T23:55:00.000-08:002009-01-25T23:55:00.000-08:00What a delightful blog I have found. Brave new wor...What a delightful blog I have found. Brave new world, with such people in it.<BR/><BR/>The best part of this post for me personally was to be called "United Methodist minister Hobbins," which for some reason irks me though I have no reason to think it was meant to be so. On the contrary, I suspect it's better "United Methodist" than you-fill-in-the-blank.<BR/><BR/>You would think that, after being on loan from the Waldensian Church of Italy for more than 10 years now, and having grown up United Methodist in Madison WI as a lad, I would accept being called a United Methodist with greater equanimity. <BR/><BR/>The online moniker I have been given that I wear with greatest delight, the donor of which will go unmentioned, is "that wicked Mennonite." <BR/><BR/>"Waldensian pastor" is more accurate, but of course, no one knows what "that" might be, excluding, of course, the learned Esteban.John Hobbinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17011346264727684917noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7495061397391629574.post-21140288179571954452009-01-25T23:32:00.000-08:002009-01-25T23:32:00.000-08:00Yes, oh, the poor Catholics, to have to use that t...Yes, oh, the poor Catholics, to have to use that <I>thing</I>. The US Council of Catholic Bishops both owns the copyright and actually charges royalties for its use in all publications, incluing the printed handout "missalettes" which include the reading of the day for parishioners. So perhaps it is understandable and not so surprising that these bishops would <I>require</I> that translation to be used!<BR/><BR/>Fr Constantelos was involved in the committee that did the expansion to the RSV Apocrypha from 1972, which was first published in 1976, including Third and Fourth Maccabees and Psalm 151. He then continued on the Standard Bible Committee through the NRSV project, serving on the Apocrypha and New Testament committees.<BR/><BR/>The information on Fr Constantelos is from Bruce Metzger's interesting memoir, <I>Reminiscences of an Octogenarian</I> and from Robert Dentan's "The Story of the New Revised Standard Version" in <I>The Making of the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible</I>.<BR/><BR/>Looking in my editions of the New Oxford Annotated Bible, Fr Constantelos did the notes for the New Oxford Annotated Bible in the first, RSV, edition, for 3 Maccabees. These were reviewed and updated in the second edition of the NOAB, the first NRSV edition, by Fr John Breck, who did the same for Sherman Johnson's 4 Maccabees annotation from the earlier edition. George Barrois was a convert to Orthodoxy later in life and contributed the article "Survey of the Geography, History, and Archaeology of the Bible Lands" for the first NOAB, which was reviewed and updated by Philip King in the second edition. Looking at the third edition NOAB and the big Oxford Bible Commentary, I don't see any names of anyone I recognize as Orthodox, so the Orthodox element seems to have dropped out of the picture, though I may of course simply be wrong on that count. Perhaps a dual cause for this change could be the recent general trend away from ecumenical gestures on the Orthodox side, as well as a distancing from the NRSV, which several bishops banned its use for group Bible studies.Kevin P. Edgecombhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16590490181739464401noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7495061397391629574.post-59294874122224514312009-01-25T20:50:00.000-08:002009-01-25T20:50:00.000-08:00Kevin, thanks so much for your wonderful comment.D...Kevin, thanks so much for your wonderful comment.<BR/><BR/>Did the RSV team include Fr. Constantelos? I know he was on the NRSV team, but I was not aware he was on the RSV team. In fact, I was under the impression that there were not even Catholics on the RSV team (which is why the Vatican insisted on a special Catholic edition of the RSV.)<BR/><BR/>I understand your point about worship being based around dictionaries, and it is well taken. The same point applies to Roman Catholics as well, who are restricted to using a single liturgical translation in each territory (in the US in English parishes, I understand this to be the New American Bible.)Theophrastushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04981876713019298465noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7495061397391629574.post-72083050199743916622009-01-25T17:55:00.000-08:002009-01-25T17:55:00.000-08:00Welcome to blogging! I greatly enjoy the variety o...Welcome to blogging! I greatly enjoy the variety of your posts, and your gracious link to my own blog, Theophrastus!<BR/><BR/>A slight demurrer in the description of the Orthodox relation to Bibles for liturgical use: we (I'm Greek Orthodox, myself) don't use regular continuous-text Bibles at all in Orthodox services, but rather specially-produced internally-approved lectionary-based volumes. The thought of using something like the ESV or NRSV as our liturgical text is, to put it mildly, uncomfortable. But, of course, Orthodox do like to be part of such things for personal study, and both the RSV and NRSV translation teams included an Orthodox participant, in the person of Fr Demetrios Constantelos. The RSV is still often used in group Bible studies in Orthodox parishes.Kevin P. Edgecombhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16590490181739464401noreply@blogger.com