Forget the brickbats, the pond would like to hand out a few bouquets, and what about Ean Higgins and "environmental correctness", close kissing cousin to political correctness?
Ean raised the pond's dearest hope, that "correctness" can be applied to anything and anybody, as in "reptile correctness" or perhaps "dashing Donner correctness" or "Caterist correctness" …"politically socially environmentally correct correctness …"
Ean raised the pond's dearest hope, that "correctness" can be applied to anything and anybody, as in "reptile correctness" or perhaps "dashing Donner correctness" or "Caterist correctness" …"politically socially environmentally correct correctness …"
Moving right along, the pond would like to congratulate the reptiles for being avid ABC watchers …
WATCH?
Oh reptiles, not a link to that den of iniquity iView? You wouldn't be trading off on ABC content would you?
Oh reptiles, not a link to that den of iniquity iView? You wouldn't be trading off on ABC content would you?
We keed, we keed, and must skip over the bitterly disappointed bouffant one …
Uh huh. Meanwhile over at the Terror the "Marcus correctness" is on the move …
What a classic illustration, and what on earth is she on about?
Hmm, opinions change, and yet this celebration of abuse and misogyny must stop?
Hmm, this is a case for "dashing Donners' correctness".
Please, reptiles a serve of the master, surely dashing Donners is the key to a good larnin' …
Please, reptiles a serve of the master, surely dashing Donners is the key to a good larnin' …
Funny, the pond thought that Alice had found the key to learning:
But let's face it, if we're going to maintain Michael McCormack's views, and a decent celebrating of abuse and misogyny, the good book is always at hand …
Must be part of the national curriculum. Another must when there's no mustly or earthly reason apparent?
That's it? That's all Donners has got? Ten pars? That'd make up half a lesson …
Shakespeare and Milton? What no mention of Agatha Christie, who took three titles from the bible, but worse, four from Shakespeare and six from other works of literature …
That's it? That's all Donners has got? Ten pars? That'd make up half a lesson …
Shakespeare and Milton? What no mention of Agatha Christie, who took three titles from the bible, but worse, four from Shakespeare and six from other works of literature …
As for the the King James bible? Sadly, Xians themselves long ago abandoned the King James version, to the pond's consternation and to the eternal shame of Xianity. If you head off to Bible Hub, there's over twenty versions to chose from, and the KJV is just one of them, and anyway, what's a Catholic doing peddling the KJV.
Before anyone got going, there'd have to be a fierce, never-ending, exhausting theological debate about which bible to use.
Before anyone got going, there'd have to be a fierce, never-ending, exhausting theological debate about which bible to use.
In the pond's day, expressing an affection for the KJ Protestant version was akin to heresy and likely to lead to a brush with eternal damnation and hellfire. It was the Knox version or nothing, and in any case, as the church always knew better than the bible, there wasn't much of a problem if it was nothing …
Let's not get into the differences … just let it be noted that once upon a time, given a choice between parrot recitation of the catechism and a reading of the bible, the proper Catholic would always go the catechism …
Of course the real game isn't the study of literature or discovering the meaning of a few phrases that might be easily googled. The deeper game is there in that par …
"As important in a time of rampant materialism, anxiety and angst caused by social media and the new technologies, stories from the Bible also teach students the importance of a more transcendent and spiritual sense of life."
They never give up blathering on about their imaginary friends, do they, but if that's the game, why not just have lessons devoted to Zen koans … after all …
Well with Donners some distance from Buddahood, the reptiles must have felt Donners needed some back up, so they called on Chuck ...
Now right up the front, the pond should confess a problem with the name "Chuck". It's a diminutive of Charles that puts any Chuck in the company of the likes of Chuck Yeager and Chuck Berry.
It lacks biblical authority and a religious fervour … you know, an Aaron, an Abel, an Abraham, a Barak or even a Barnabas … if you want to do the numbers, they're all here …
Even "Charles" is suspect …
Charles is a masculine given name from the French form Charles of a Germanic name Karl. The original Anglo-Saxon was Ċearl or Ċeorl, as the name of King Cearl of Mercia ...
Sheesh, we don't just have to study the bible, we have to find out about Cearl of Mercia just to do a bit of etymology?
Never mind, the reptiles put stoic Rebecca Urban on the job, guaranteeing urbane coverage …
What's the bet that the mindless parrots on the ABC breakfast show will have picked up on the story and determined it's a "good thing", joining Chuck joining dashing Donners joining good old simple Simon ...
Just more of the usual blather. As it so happens, the pond didn't rely on the education system - the half hour a week with the Catholic priest in the public system saw him yearning to be off to the golf course and the nineteenth hole, and the very good English teacher who introduced the pond to the joys of English literature, including Gerard Manley Hopkins, never murmured a word about the bible … perhaps because he was a Catholic, so no need to worry about the bible …
And so in its own time, the pond sat down and read the bible from cover to cover, and was inspired to embark on a lifetime secularist devotion to atheism … which probably started around the point of all the 'begats' in the genealogies …so many chronicles, so little time ...
What a tedious, boring god She was …as any literary editor might have said, "could do with a deal of cutting."
Never mind, there is one Pope the pond religiously follows, and all his literature is worth a read, and there's much more papal instruction available here …
Rumour in the twittershere that Rupert is confined to bed and waiting his maker hence lotsa God stuff as of late dp?
ReplyDeleteNot quite awaiting his maker just yet, perhaps JS.
DeleteSee: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/01/rupert-murdoch-hospitalized-with-serious-back-injury
Indeed, indeed, it's not about religion by stealth, but cultural learnings of Judaeo-Christian Europe for make benefit glorious nation of Australia; for who could but value exposure to wisdom such as "and if a chameleon fall into your pot, it shall be unclean until the e'en"?
ReplyDeleteDonners, being a well-rounded reader, would also agree that other classics like Animal Farm can't be understood without first understanding the Communist Manifesto, so that should also be on the curriculum?
I've managed to grok much renaissance art without having read Vasari's "Lives of the Saints". OTOH, I've read (most of) the Bible, but somehow survived without reading any of his classics (Bunyan, really?) other than Canterbury Tales - perhaps Donners could remind me of the bit of the Bible I should read to understand the Miller's Tale:
"Derk was the nyght as pich, or as a cole,
And at the wyndow out she putte hir hole,
And Absolon, hym fil no bet ne wers,
But with his mouth he kiste hir naked ers
Ful savorly, er he were war of this.
Abak he stirte, and thoughte it was amys,
For wel he wiste a womman hath no berd.
He felte a thyng al rough and long yherd"
?
Hmmm, yes well there's bibles, and there's bibles and there's translators and there's renderers.
DeleteThough about 90% based on the original translation by William Tyndale - who was of course kidnapped and murdered by the authorities of the Roman Church for having the appalling effrontery to produce a vernacular Bible iin English - the Geneva Bible was very popular for extensive marginal notes and references so it became the first English "Study Bible". Such that even Will the Shakespeare was credited with quoting hundreds of times in his plays from the Geneva Bible.
But then, I've never heard anybody claim they can't understand Shakespeare because they never read the Bible. Have you ?
Anyway, amongst those marginal notes were some that were just a tad cynical about the 'Divine Right of Kings' so a large part of James I's motivation was to get a popular bible that was entirely free of revolutionary annotations. And he did.
Ref: http://www.greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-history/
The pond instantly regretted not mentioning the filching from Tyndale and his fate, so thanks for the reminder GB
DeleteA pleasure, DP. Though Tyndale is a bit of a religious nut (well, just about everybody was back then - in Europe, anyway) I'm fan enough to think he's been much under-acknowledged and much under-rated (and John Wycliffe also) and the Catholic Church has been much under-criminalised.
DeleteAnd also that the self-serving motivation of King James is under-appreciated. Yes, there was some element of 'fidei defensor' (much beloved of Henry VIII), but I've always considered his main aim was to defend his 'divine right' as king, and that's how the KJV got commissioned and we kinda 'lost' all those radical and highly instructive Geneva margin notes, postils and annotations.
Quite right, DP. As they say in the classics, 'You think you've read some boring books, let me read you The Bible...' It's hard to believe that any of these proselytisers have read it all,it takes superhuman strength. Similarly for Shakespeare - GBS and Pepys were right about him -no-one could read the first few scenes of Othello without laughing. And Milton! Please!
ReplyDeleteOur world is different from the Biblical world, and all that you learn from reading their writings is that they were complete nutters.
Some of it is readable: try Ecclesiastes and Revelation.
DeleteIn my experience, a reasonable knowledge of the New Testament contributes to a much more enjoyable view of The Life Of Brian, and surely that is important!
ReplyDeleteEspecially the bit where Brian gets to go for a ride in one of the two alien fighter space craft. If you haven't read your Ezekiel, that would be very hard to understand. Yes, Ezekiel is OT, but a little bit of flexibility never hurts.
DeleteWe live in time of relentless babble (babel). Countless trillions of words are loaded on to various electronic devices such as Iphones and computers every day.
ReplyDeleteThere are countless websites and blogs in computer cyber-space.
So somehow in the midst of all of that babble/babel, being biblical literate is going to make a positive or significant difference - LOL.
Meanwhile how many biblically literate people voted for the Insane Clown President? Especially influential "conservative" christian leaders who pretended that the orange monster was "god's" gift to Amerika.
Many biblically literate zomboids here in the land of Oz also are more than enthusiastic about the orange haired monster too - especially the Quadrant/Spectator loons.