Reflecting on John's Gospel

One more semester done working through the Gospel of John with a class of bright undergraduates.  What did I learn as the teacher?  That is probably as important as what they learned as students. One key element is that if you want them to improve their writing skills it does take considerable work.  First, as the grader I must spend considerable time on each paper identifying basic errors that are correctable.  My favorite this year is the verbal noun substitution.  What do I mean by that?  A few examples will illuminate. The use of the phrase "the concern of" instead of "concerning", "the indication of" instead of "indicating", etc.  Isn't it interesting that one who uses spoken English is characterized as "verbal"? The problem is that one who writes English is said to be "literate". Just putting "verbal" expressions on paper does not one literate make (intentional Yodaism).

On the other hand, whether students improve their writing skills does not lie/lay/lying/lieing/laid in my domain. To improve writing skills students must write a draft, revise their draft, edit their revision, and revise their "editation" (Yes, new words is a fun part of the process as well.  My text editor just highlighted "Yodaism", "lieing" and "editation").  It also helps to have the spell check feature of a modern word processor turned on when one is word processing! (But at the same time, isn't word processing the same as 'hearing' and/or 'reading'?) A typist is someone who types on a typewriter.  That makes sense to me.  Is a keyboardist one who keyboards on a keyboard?  Is that related to a snowboard or a surfboard?  Is a surfer one who surfs using a surfboard?  Then a snower is one who snows on a snowboard?  Maybe this paragraph makes no sense except to illustrate the obnoxious manner by which the verbal lack of imagination to name new items leads to a confusion in the language.

So too, one of the more interesting rabbits I chased (also known as a bunny trail?) was when I discussed with them how long it would take to "learn" John.  The students were not impressed when I told them that to learn John's Gospel they would need to read it once, read it again and revise their first revision, edit their second reading using new information from other sources, then revise their edit through a third reading, edit the Nth reading using new information from other sources, then reveise their edit through an N+1 reading.  In other words, the only way to learn is to continue the process until infinity or death, whichever might come first.  The problem is that as N increases the perceived learning actually decreases thus creating the perception that learning is actually inversely proportionate to N.  This perception causes one to summarize that the most learning takes place on the first effort so why continue to attempt to learn more?

I suppose real progress arrives on the Nth effort when one pauses and decides that the entire writing/learning effort makes zero sense in the current configuration and instead of editing to the Nth degree one chooses to scrap all previous understandings and efforts that are genetically flawed and simply start over with a new set of preknowledge to create something similar but Brand New.  That is what the New Testament might call 'repentance'. (the previous sentence is also flawed, it should read "The New Testament might call that 'repentance.' Introducing the 'That is what' introduces a relative clause with a relative pronoun rather than speaking in a direct sentence.)  The Fourth Gospel represents a message that requires the same result.  All previous understanding about God must be scrapped because it does not make any sense in the new paradigm of God Incarnate.  Jesus can not simply be added to my world view and over time edit my world view to remove the genetic flaws.  At some point I must willingly scrap my "sin infested attempts" at understanding God and start brand new.  When that happens and my preknowledge starts with God Incarnate, then real transformative progress can begin.  (James Bryan Smith refers to this as changing your narratives).

Hope you followed that.