The Woman at the Well, or how Duende and Lulul are going to get me expelled from Bible Study…

As I've said before, the main problem with the child-friendly Lutheran church I've found is that the pastor - and hence the preaching - are a good deal more sin-and-judgement focussed than my own theology tends to be. And with my well-known lack of tact and subservience, it's not surprising that Pastor has begun to flinch slightly whenever he sees me coming - though he covers it well. But today we did John 4.3-26 in Bible study.

For those who don't have a bible handy, here's the passage http://www.khouse.org/blueletter/Jhn/Jhn004.html#top or, for those who prefer a modern translation, http://search.absblc.org/versesearch.asp?selversion=cev&selbook=43&txtchapter=4&txtverse=3&txtchapter2=4&txtverse2=26&submit1.x=42&submit1.y=22 . The usual exegesis is, 'wasn't Jesus great for reaching out to this women in spite of her string of failed marriages and her currently "living in sin" with her latest love-interest.' It's always pointed out that the timing of her visit to the well during the heat of the day rather than in the cool of the morning, indicates that she is a social outcast, more proof that she is a sinner. Not evidence that she is a victim of a sinfully legalistic society, oh no! Note her apparent knowledge of scripture, and the flexibility of her mind in going one-on-one in theology with a Rabbi - rarely mentioned in Bible Study. No mention in exegesis either of Jesus' obvious delight in her quick wit and interest. And certainly no acknowledgement of her culturally-limited power to decide whom she was to be married off to next.

Pastor's addition this morning was that it shows Jesus obviously didn't approve of common-law marriage (like, hunh?), and that her string of divorces indicated she was seeking to fill a spiritual void (likewise, hunh?). We have no way to know if she was a widow or a divorcee! We always assume a divorcee (it lets us luxuriate a little more in our sense of superiority over her) but what if she was passed down from kinsman to kinsman like the hypothetical woman in Matthew 22.23-28? How objectifying! What if the latest of those kinsmen didn't really want her, but didn't set her free either? What if this legalistic violation of social justice had left her in a perpetual limbo between the economic and emotional security of marriage, and the freedom to form a satisfying liaison (as Ruth was trapped until Boaz bought her in Ruth 4.7, and as James Michener recounts in modern-day Israel in The Source)? It may very well be that Jesus was not so much calling her to face her sin, as letting her know that he understood her victimization. Look at the Lord's words as recorded in Scripture (as opposed to the ones we hear in commentaries and sermons) - is there even one hint that he sees her situation as sinful or attributes any blame to her? Is it not rather, in the light of verses 23-24, more clearly a condemnation of the legalism by which she has become a pariah?

I suggested most of these ideas in Bible study today - you should have seen people light up as the concept of this encounter as a "love over law" teaching resonated with their own experience. They started talking about the importance of ignoring peoples sin long enough to get to know the person; of showing solidarity without showing blame. They started talking about the fear of blame and judgement that keep divorcees and single mothers away from church. Pastor left the room early and took his wife with him. On the up side, several people came up to me and thanked me for my "unusual insights". Maybe the flip side of why God brought me to this church is to be a counter-voice for social justice.

But think how different the church would be if the normal understanding of this passage were "Christ's example is to stand beside social outcasts, **against** the judgementalism of the institutional church"!

-------------------------------- Now, all the above seems to have little to do with the canon of the scripture. But Pastor also, rather contemptuously it seemed to me, discounted the woman's scripture knowledge as "Samaritan Scripture". I had pointed out that the canon of the scripture was still unsettled at the time and that this was why my bible has 81 books but dh's has 66 -- Pastor flinched again. DH joked that obviously the canon *still* isn't settled. Do you know, Lulu, when (if ever) the Diaspora Jews finally abandoned the Alexandrian canon? And were these "Samaritan Scriptures" something else again? Both Pastor, and the footnotes in another member's study bible alluded to them as something different than the "Jewish Scriptures".

I had it in my head that the Jewish "canon" was settled in the middle of the eighth century; but reconsidering, I realize I had that second hand from my sister's RC catechist who had a vested interest in proving the RC canon was more authoritative than the Protestant canon. On the other hand, I had the impression that the Jews always made a clear distinction between the Torah (with its accompanying expansion in Mishnah and Talmud), and other relatively unimportant Scriptures. But these impressions are unscholarly constructs derived from The Source and Chiam Potek's The Chosen, not to mention various comments by a couple local rabbis at Canadian Council of Christians and Jews meetings. Do our Jewish brothers and sisters really have a "canon" in the way that most Christians understand the term?

Which leaves me with only a handful more burning questions: Does anyone know why the Vulgate's 3rd Esdras and 4th Esdras (which Anglicans still accept as deutero-canonical) got dropped from the Roman Catholic canon? And where did the Prayer of Manasseh come from -- was it in the Vulgate? And what about third and fourth Maccabees -- I've heard of them but only in passing as being "non-biblical".