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Letters from 12 to 18 January 2009

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Textual criticism

I am really confused as to the point of your diatribe around books and publishing. What is the point that you are trying to make? Is it that texts and dogmas are to easily changed at the whims of others? Is it that prayers and liturgy are being adapted to settings and contexts never imagined when some of the great thinkers of Anglicanism penned prayers and liturgies?

Let me draw your attention to Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, by Bart D. Ehrman. His theory, supported by other scholars, is that such editorial practices and revisioning of sacred text has happened all along. The Greek codexes of the Gospels and epistles display editorial changes as subsequent scribes penned parchment.

Far from being people of the 'WORDS' we are people of 'The WORD'. While books are important, they instruct and guide us in a living relationship with 'The WORD'. Such instruction is always, in my humble opinion, looking through a glass darkly. It is the best we can fathom of an eternal reality known as the Triune God.

Yes, people make some awful changes to prayers. Yes, people try to revise sacred text with the 'hard sayings'. This has happened throughout Christianity, yet 'The Word' remains eternal.

Reverend Donald Shields
Grace Church, Markham
Markham, Ontario, CANADA
planet_shields@gmail.com
21 January 2009

Earlier letters

We launched our 'Letters to AO' section on 11 May 2003. All published letters are in our archives.