Reflections of a Canadian Churchman

 An Introduction to the Enochic Literature This week, we beginning studying 1 Enoch, a large collection of disparate materials, which took shape over about three centuries. The tradition centres around the old Testament figure of Enoch.   George Nickelsburg, in an important recent commentary on Enoch has stated: The sheer size, as well as the contents, historical contexts, and ongoing influence of this collection make it arguably the most important corpus of Jewish literature from the Hellenistic and Roman periods.   Roughly as large as the book of Isaiah it comprises an extraordinarily broad range of materials that we might define in modern categories as, religious, scientific, intellectual, and social.   In it we are given a unique window into the diverse world of Palestinian Judaism in the three centuries before the common era. (Nickelsburg,   1 Enoch 1 , p.1) Yet, such an important witness to early Judaism remains unknown to most modern Christians.   I...

The Maccabean Revolt After the death of Alexander the Great (323 BC), his vast empire was divided up amongst his generals, whose decendants subsequently became kings in their own rights.   For our purposes, let us take note of the Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty and the Syrian Seleucid Dynasty.   During this period, Judea was caught between these two rival dynasties to the south and north, with pressure being exerted alternately from each direction.   For much of the third century BC, Judea was under the rule of the Ptolemies.   Toward the beginning of the second century BC, the Seleucids defeated the Ptolemies, and Palestine was essentially brought into the Seleucid   empire. The Seleucid ruler, Antiochus IV “Epiphanes” (ruled 175-163 BC) began to interfere with internal Jewish religious politics.   In 175, Onias III, the Jewish High Priest was removed by power by his brother who had pledged fealty and financial revenue from the Temple to Antiochus IV.   S...

Homily for Pentecost 18 (Proper 27) Year A, 2020 Sunday, October 4, 2020 Trinity Anglican Church, Aurora St. Stephen’s Maple The Rev. Daniel F. Graves Text: Philippians 3:4b-14.   Perhaps I am not the only one who watched this week’s presidential debate. It was not a hopeful event.   Indeed, it seems to me that it was emblematic not only of the intense suffering faced by our neighbours to the south, but also of the suffering being felt around the world in these tumultuous times.   We keep saying, “it can’t get worse”, and then it does.   It is not only our political discourse that is suffering, but also the health and wellbeing of the people of this world, and the health and well-being of the planet, itself.   How did we get here?   Last week I suggested that perhaps, pride was at the root of much our suffering.   Pride destroys any constructive political discourse. Pride disrupts public health efforts and the curbing of pandemics. Pride allows us ...

“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus…” Phil 2:5 The struggle of the age we live in is: Who shall we be? We are in a time of uncertainty. We do not know what tomorrow will bring.   We do not know when this virus shall abate. We do not know when, or if, a vaccine will be available.   Our lives have been turned upside down and we cannot live the way we once did.   Is this forever?   Has the world irrevocably changed? We do not really know the answer to this question, except to say that the world is always changing. Our circumstances are always being upset. Our worlds are always being turned upside down in one way or another.   The difference this time, is that we are all going through this change together.   Unlike the many individual changes all of us face on a daily basis and in various seasons of our lives, we are not going through this alone.   In this one, we are in it together. But being in something together, while one may th...

The following is background reading for session one of my current course being offered via Zoom: The Apocalyptic Imagination The Apocalyptic Imagination - Introduction and Key Terms What do we mean when we use the word “apocalyptic”? The word “apocalyptic” may conjure up all sorts of images from zombies taking over the world, to nuclear wars, asteroids falling from the skies, alien invasions, or even the collapse of the environment from human exploitation.   The word seems to suggest something frightening, really frightening, but what does it mean? It comes from the greek word “apocalypsis”, which simply means “revelation”.   Most simply, when we say something is apocalyptic it is means something is being revealed. In the case of Jewish and Christian theology, it denotes divine revelation.   In an important 1969 article, the great German biblical scholar, Ernst Kasemann commented that “Apocalyptic was the mother of all Christian theology”.   What did he man by this? ...

I miss dancing.  It may seem trite, or perhaps even insensitive to say this when so many people have lost so much more than I have lost during this pandemic. Sometimes, though, it is the small pleasures that we miss the most and grieve over when taken away.  As the world tentatively begins to lurch back to something akin to normality, I know that dancing won’t becoming back anytime soon, at least social dancing. Oh sure, we can still cut a few figures around the house or on the driveway, but it’s not quite the same as dressing up and going out to a big dance hall with a wonderful sprung floor and dancing the night away with friends. I wonder if we shall ever get back to this.  I expect that social dancing, at least as we know it, will be one of the last things to come back. We probably won’t be dancing again until we have a tested and safe vaccine for COVID-19.  Even then, will dancing be considered an acceptable social activity?  Given that we may never go back...