What happens when you ask a relatively obvious question in a room where everyone is under a false assumption? Well, usually not what one would expect. Consider the scenario, a crowded room, many tables and chairs with not one available. Other people milling around, standing, leaning on the wall or room pillars, while there is a gentle haze above their heads from the exhaust of their breath. Throughout the crowd, uniformed attendees pass seeking to provide service in exchange for payment. From outside one single word is heard, "FIRE."
What happens next? That depends on whether you the reader assumes that the crowd hears a noun or a verb. If a noun, the room will empty as people rush madly for the exits. If a verb, the room will be a mad rush of falling bodies trying to get on the floor as quickly as possible. The assumption predicates the response.
In class this week the question was asked, How did Jesus know that the man had been lying there a long time? The first voiced response was the typical Sunday School answer that originates in a semi-gnostic view of Jesus, "Because He was God." While that may be part of the response, there are other possibilities if the respondent will only change their assumptions.
First Assumption: Jesus had never been to Jerusalem before. With this assumption in mind, it is only possible for Jesus to know this fact from divine knowledge.
Second Assumption: Jesus was a law practicing Jew who went to Jerusalem throughout his lifetime in accordance with the customs of the festival celebrations. With this in mind, it is entirely possible that Jesus had encountered the man before this time.
Third Assumption: The accounts of the miracles are only there to provide reports of actual, historical events. With this assumption in mind, the reader misses the entire message of John 5, that Jesus is not threatened by external factors that could affect his ritual purity through association with pollutants. Nor is Jesus limited by the restrictions of the cultural practices of Sabbath. Instead, Jesus enters the Temple compound in complete control of his surroundings, his actions, and his behaviors, so that those who are limited by cultural restrictions are unable to recognize what they have encountered.
SO then, what assumptions of cultural restrictions are preventing you from the encountering the Jesus of the Gospels?
Or, another way of looking at it: What assumptions or "Priors" do we not have that are keeping us from the Jesus of the Gospels? Just like not knowing about Deuteronomy 17.16 makes on miss what the writer of 1 Kings was saying in 10.28 about the importation of Egyptian horses. I think (and if all of my Harstine classes have taught me anything about you, so do you) an understanding of the culture and the ancient mindset is just as important as not assigning our own modern mindset to ancient peoples.
ReplyDeleteRadical, At the heart of my question I suppose is the issue of the knowledge cycle. How can one (you, I, or anyone) change what we (pre)assume if we never have our presumptions challenged by 'outside' information? If I never read Deuteronomy (its too boring) I'll never connect it to 1 Kings. When does real learning begin, and when does real learning end?
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