Twelve top reasons why God can’t get tenure (from the Internet of Yesteryear)
- He’s authored only one paper
- That paper was in Hebrew
- His work appeared in an obscure, unimportant publication
- He never references other authors
- Workers in the field can’t replicate His results.
- He failed to apply to the ethics committee before starting His experiments on humans.
- He tried to cover an experiment’s unsatisfatory results by drowning the subjects.
- When subjects behavior proved his theory wrong he had them removed from the sample.
- He hardly ever shows up for any lectures. He merely assigns His Book again and again.
- His office is at the top of a mountain, and He doesn’t keep office hours anyway.
- When He learned that His first two students sought wisdom, He had them expelled.
- His exams consist of only ten assigments which most students fail.
Rebuttal: Why God Did Receive Tenure.
- The one publication was a Citation Classic.
- The Hebrew original was widely translated courtesy of the author.
- Being written before journals existed, references were hard to come by.
- Original treatises that found a new area often require their own monograph.
- Although research has been sparse since the Creation, the professor has taught a number of courses: Human anatomy 212; Ancient Middle Eastern History 101, 102; Hydrology 207; Human Development 350; seminar on Egyptology; extended field trips to the deserts between Egypt and Palestine; Politics of Theocracies 277; Military Science Special Topic: Use of Voice as a Municipal Assault Weapon; Criminology 114; guest lectures in the Vet School: Digestive Anatomy of Whales; Wisdom & Ethics 550; Special seminar: Fertilization without sperm; Winemaking 870; Healing by miracle 987; Theology 101, 102, 230, 342, 350, 466H, and 980.
- The substitute teacher (son) was highly committed to his work.
- The substitute teacher cancelled the original ten requirements.
- The twelve teaching assistants formed numerous discussion groups.
- The substitute teacher knew students names without an attendance sheet.
- The professor’s weekly Sunday lectures by surrogate instructors are attended by 974 million students.
What’s next? A David Letterman Top 10 list, featuring the Lord?
Stop handling the holy One this way, it’s probably a form of blasphemy, or at least foolishness….
Remember, Jews tend to avoid even writing or saying His full name and I think there’s a lot to be said for that approach…. refer to Him as the Lord in much of your talk and writing and don’t sling around his Name so casually as if you’re making fun of your weird uncle….
There is plenty of humor, in Him, in the world, in us… that doesn’t involve taking His name in vain…..
So “God” is his name, and “the Lord” is a respectful title? I don’t understand your complaint. You seem to be advocating a form of holiness that is not necessarily genuine, by which I mean, venerating a word is not the mark of the purest heart. Are there not plenty of Jews who respect the word “god” but live their lives without him?
well, if you see the commandment to not take the Lord’s name in vain as phony holiness, well.. I advise you to change your mind.
If you have a problem “venerating” a word,such as the name of the Lord, well,….Lord help you.
Don’t be such a smart ass that you think you can make the Lord the subject of some dumb joke about tenure.
I get the sense you have never trembled in His presence…. you should.
and by the way,I’m WAY more holy than thou…..
(joke….. with me as the subject…take note; laugh at yourself a little… I am)
what do you think He meant about not taking His name in vain?? To use it in meaningless ways, in drivel, to say it without thinking of Him, to use His name as a cheap prop to make a dumb joke about academia….
what’s next, a little bon mot about how the Lord is better than the Maytag repairman or more “faithful” than that geyser out west?
quit dickin’ around that way, is what I’m saying…
why do you think He devoted between 9 and 11 percent of the stone tablets to telling you to not
do what you are doing: taking His name in vain and protesting that, oh, ”’venerating a word is not the mark of the purest heart.’..
hey, worry about a much lower level of purity, work at that a little, and don’t worry about the “purest heart,” at this point in your journey.
Know what I’m sayin?
No, I don’t know what you’re saying, and your tone is insulting. Thank you for reading our blog. Have a good Eastertide.
The command is to not use the Lord’s name in vain. To do something in vain is to do it without accomplishing your intended purpose. Luther’s Small Catechism reflects this application of the command when it states the meaning of this commandment as,
Here we see the misuse of God’s name is using it for evil purpose or to put ourselves in the place of God. For example the curse word that sounds like a wall that holds back water literally means to condemn to hell for eternity. When a mere human uses that word he puts himself in the place of God, sitting in the judgement seat. It’s use is in vain since no mere human has the authority to make that declaration nor to enforce it.
On the other hand, the proper use of God’s name is to speak of him in praise or to call upon him in prayer. These are not in vain since the Bible promises that if we seek Him we will find Him when we seek Him with all our heart.
Phil: I apologize for sounding insulting… I was aiming at mild-but-firm asperity… However,I have a bad tendency to go too far… in person I think this would not have come off so bad, email does blur nuance:I meant it in a kind of good-natured teasing manner, albeit it pointed. But I regret the nasty tone…thought I was being wildly witty…..
I do have a kind of thing about this subject.
I appreciate Greybeard’s citation of that drunken anti-Semite Martin de Luth (just kidding, kind of) but I don’t think he’s even close to authoritative here… he probably thought about it for about 20 seconds and scribbled out this “what does this mean,” so he could get back to his tankard….
I think C.S. Lewis’ take with Aslan – remember how whenever his name was just spoken, creation and people in it sat up straighter, etc? and the wisdom that , “No, safe has nothing to do with it… but He’s good…..”
it’s that idea, that His name is holy, in a way that we shouldn’t say it in vain… as so many say Jesus’s name when they are angry.. and if asked about it..”well, I didn’t MEAN anything by it,” as if that is an excuse,when it’s really what the Lord was talking about… and the same way, this little post struck me as so seemingly innocuous, except it was treating the Lord like a David Letterman Top 10 list, just to make a point about another matter… like “USING” the Lord’s name… in vain… not really thinking of Who He IS…”
and in a way, I think this sort of thing from believers is worse than the outright curses from non-believers….
(Richard Wurbrand has a great story about a vile Russian persecutor who when he first heard the gospel – had never heard a word of it – he had only the blackest oaths and words in his vocabulary to express his outrage at how Jesus was treated at His arrest and crucifixion, and Wurmbrand said the four-letter-words sounded holier than anything….)
I know a very holy guy who tends to say, casually, “Oh, G-d,” meaning,, exaactly, nothing… as in ; gosh or golly or gads… and I think that is what we need to not do…at least when someone is cursing someone to hell, etc.. they are giving the Lord His place as the One in Charge over it all….
And you shouldn’t dismiss the Jews here, as you seemed to do.. I think they tend to be authoritative on this matter… wise in many respects..
from wikipedia, good stuff:
To avoid coming under guilt by accidentally misusing God’s name, Jewish scholars do not write or pronounce the proper name in most circumstances, but use substitutes such as “Adonai (the Lord),” or “HaShem (the Name).”[16] In English translations of the Bible, the name Adonai is often translated “Lord,” while the proper name Yahweh represented by the tetragrammaton is often indicated by the use of capital and small capital letters, LORD.[17]
Joseph Telushkin, a Modern Orthodox rabbi, wrote that the commandment is much more than a prohibition against casual interjections using God’s name. He pointed out that the more literal translation of Lo tissa is “you shall not carry” rather than “you shall not take”, and that understanding this helps one understand why the commandment ranks with such as “You shall not murder” and “You shall not commit adultery”.[18]
One of the first commandments listed by Maimonides in the Mishneh Torah is the responsibility to sanctify God’s name.[19] Maimonides thought the commandment should be taken as generally as possible, and therefore he considered it forbidden to mention God’s name unnecessarily at any time. Jewish scholars referred to this as “motzi shem shamayim lavatalah”, “uttering the Name of Heaven uselessly.”[20] To avoid guilt associated with accidentally breaking the commandment, Jewish scholars applied the prohibition to all seven biblical titles of God in addition to the proper name, and established the safeguard of circumlocution when referring to the Name of God.[21] In writing names of God, a common practice includes substituting letters or syllables so that the written word is not exactly the name, or writing the name in an abbreviated manner. Orthodox Jews will not even pronounce a name of God unless it is said in prayer or religious study. The Sacred Name (Tetragrammaton), is never pronounced by these Jews but always read as “Adonai (the Lord),” “HaShem (the Name),” or sometimes “AdoShem”.[22]
The Catholic Church teaches that the Lord’s name is holy and should be introduced into one’s speech only to bless, praise or glorify that name.[37] The name should be used respectfully, with an awareness of the presence of God.[38] It must not be abused by careless speech, false oaths, or words of hatred, reproach or defiance toward God, or used in magic.[39] Since Jesus Christ is believed to be the Messiah, and “the image of the invisible God,”[40] this commandment is applied to the name of Jesus Christ as well.”
sorry to be such a bore on this… but…hell’s bells…. (see, I don’t think that’s so bad)it’s a big deal.
Tim…
I’m sorry you disliked this joke.
Peace.
Tim,
Using false logic greatly undermines your ability to win others to your position. First, you apologize for “sounding insulting.” Then you immediately insult and dismiss the writings of one of the key figures in church history and a document that has been considered by millions of believers over the past 500 years to be a reliable exposition of Holy Scripture. Not only that, your argument is not based on the substance of his writing, but rather an ad-hominem attack, standing on the premise that because he engaged in opinions and practices that were common in his day, but now politically incorrect, therefore his writings cannot be received. With that kind of logic, we could easily toss aside the writings of virtually every writer in history, whether sacred or secular.
Greybeard:
Oh, come on… lighten up… I apologized for sounding – and perhaps being – insulting to Phil…
St.Martin in his field can handle a little friendly insulting, since he dished it out in spades himself and I meant it all as a friendly tease…and I was not using “false logic…” ?? whatever that is.
I didn’t dismiss his “writings,” but only the small catechism short-hand deal, in which he doesn’t delve very deep into the subject (for understandable reasons, but also illustrating why that particular writing – which you foisted on us all (we accept your apology, however belated) has nearly no usefulness for this debate, which is the point I foisted on y’all.
I didn’t dismiss that writing because of my ad hominem attack but because of the substance, as in lack of much substance, in this sentence on the commandment. By the way, there’s there’s nothing wrong with Luther’s brief on the commandment except he left lots out..there is much more that needs to be taught and said about it, as I kindly did.
My ad hominy and grits attack on him was ad hoc, heck, add bock, just for fun and not really having anything to do with my dismissing of his small, very small, catechetical teaching offered by you on the commandment. He had much more to say on it and I’m sure he did in many places at many times, especially in his Table Talk and I wouldn’t doubt he said nearly exactly what I’ve said about it, above.
He and I are like this, in many ways.
The anti-Semite riposte was simply a hilarious cheap shot mirroring a style he often used of hurling quick insults as an aside. No harm, no foul; I wasn’t serious about it.
And I did include it because of Phil’s poor choice of suggesting that many Jews are hypocrites when it comes to their understanding of the commandment. I think that is unwarranted; you might just as well suggest Christians or anyone else, too, shows similar dissonance between what they preach and what the practice: it doesn’t really tell us anything about the meaning of the idea or text or preaching.
More and more, I’m wondering if your inability to follow my logic is what’s undermining my ability to win you to my position.
Please try harder.
🙂
I still say, again, Phil: best to avoid jokes that use the Lord’s name….or refer to Him is a jokey way…
make jokes about people.
Seriously.
Would you, Phil, write and/or laugh at a similar bit of humor suggesting 10 reasons the Lord could not get hired by, say, a seeker-mega-church?
That’s the same concept, which I, boringly but logically pronounce a bad thing for believers to do.
We should not speak of Him as if He’s so “safe” that we can crack wise in such ways.
And, fair warning: I’m going to tell on you.
(that is a joke….pace email. There are a million other ways we SHOULD crack wise as believers… I believe Jesus did during His time on earth, as the scriptures show. “Let him without sin throw the first stone”…. “if I did nothing wrong, why did you hit Me?”