stranger: Actually, I have.Tim: (stopping on the double yellow line, directly in the path of stranger, who turns as he continues walking past) What did you read?
stranger: (walking backwards, as Tim and Linda turn and follow stranger to the side of the road) Well, I skimmed through a whole bunch looking for a particular passage, and wound up reading the beginning of all the gospels.Tim: What passage were you looking for?
stranger: I think it was the beginning of Mark or Luke, “in the beginning was the word and the word was god and yadda yadda yadda."Tim: That’s the Gospel of John, “In the Beginning was the Word and the Word was with Go—“
stranger: Well, I guess it would have to be, wouldn’t it; if I read the beginning of all the gospels looking for it, it would have to be John.Tim: You know, what’s interesting is that in the original Greek, the “Word” is not a word like we’re speaking in now, but the Logos.
stranger: Huh.Tim: Yeah. And the beginning is not the beginning but the Archae. So suddenly instead of having nothing and God, you have the Logos emanating from the Archae, and then that’s a much broader interpretation.
stranger: Huh. You know, nowadays it still seems like we have logos emanating from the archons. Crazy.Tim: Not crazy: God’s truth. You see, when you look into where the words come from, like the archae and the logos, you can really broaden your perspective on the word. And with the Internet and translation technologies, you can see how the bible you’re reading got to be that way.
stranger: Well, my Greek’s a little rusty –Tim: I don’t even know Greek, but you don’t have to to benefit from the linguistic perspective.
stranger: --but this is an issue of significant interest to me, the provenance of the words in the Bible.Tim: Je—
stranger: I argued at length with a guy I lived with once who described himself as a non-denominational Christian and claimed that his understanding (and mine, if I understood it right) of passages written in his bible, was manifested directly in his mind according to the intention and will of God, despite the council of Nicea, the so-called Protestant Reformation, the many translational and editorial concerns, and his entirely learned ability to read English, which didn’t make sense to me, not least because everybody understands every symbol and signifier from a unique perspective, and I have two bibles that say different things.Tim: We’re setting up a ministry, and do a Bible study –
stranger: Well maybe you can explain to me about the Books of Wisdom and Maccabees that appear in my grandfather’s Catholic bible, but not in the Good News Bible that was issued by my Presbyterian church to every teenager, without, as an uninformed evangelist did last week, committing the error of suggesting the Council of Nicea’s editorial decisions, which, as I understand it, were made about a millennium before the Protestants became something different than the Catholics.Tim: Um. I don’t know.
stranger: Me too.Tim: I’m Tim. And this is my wife Linda.
stranger (shaking hands): Hello Tim, pleasure. Nice to meet you Linda. I’m Oomph. Where are you from, Tim and Linda?Tim: We’re from Pennsylvania.
Oomph: No shit. I grew up in Pittsburgh.Tim: Our home is not too far from Altoona. But we’ve been called, and have set up a ministry in Philadelphia and one in Raleigh, and now we’re working on one here in Washington: We hold a weekly bible study at our ministry over in Northeast.
Oomph: Huh.Linda: Why were you looking for that passage from John?
Oomph: Because I am interested in language, and was reviewing source material on the first word. You see, it occurred to me that fish aren’t aware of water, and land-crawling animals aren’t aware of the air they breathe or yesterday or tomorrow, but just instinctively live as they are supposed to without worries. Humans on the other hand, have words for air and water and yesterday and tomorrow and live in pretty much constant misery as far as I can see, so it seems to me that that first word must have been a doosey.Linda and Tim: Huh.
Tim: Well, you found the answer.
Oomph: I found a source. The book Genesis says different, the first word is either God’s fiat lux, or else Adam’s naming of the animals (not quoted) or his recognition of Eve as flesh and bone of his flesh and bone, which, according to ethicist Leon Kass, is not so far off from the answer the Beatles suggested, in turn, different from what Buddhists or Hindus might say. A lot of different people have a lot of different things to say about that first word.Tim: What did The Beatles say about the Word?
Oomph: (singing) It’s so fine, it’s sunshine, it’s the word, “love.”Linda: (joining singing, perhaps in harmony) It’s the word, “love.”
Tim: I wasn’t familiar, uh, what song is that?
Oomph: The song is The Word –Tim: I didn’t –
Oomph: from the album entitled, uh, Rubber Soul . . . which may not, uh, be your bag, come to think of it.Linda: The question is, Oomph, are you terrified about your immortal soul like I am terrified about mine?
Oomph: Yep. Well, of course I cannot know about your specific experience of terror, Linda, but I have terror associated with notions of the soul, like humans do.Linda: Terrified by eternal damnation.
Tim: Jesus promises security from the threat of Hell.
Oomph: Probably doesn’t cost a billion dollars a day either.Tim: What?
Oomph: Jesus’ security, probably not as expensive as national security. And yet we’re all terrified here and now and about the hereafter, whereof we cannot know. I suspect it is by design.Linda: We can know of it. Jesus tells us.
Oomph: I don’t remember Jesus saying too much about Hell in particular. His buddies talked some about it.Tim: Hell is a certainty.
Linda: But Jesus promises salvation.
Oomph: Salvation from eternal damnation, whatever that is.Linda: You don’t want to know.
Tim: And you don’t have to find out, if you accept Christ.
Oomph: That sounds like Pascal’s Wager.Tim: What’s Pascal’s Wager?
Oomph: Pascal was a natural philosopher, mathematician, and atheist who reasoned that, knowing nothing of what happens after death, one is better off espousing a belief in the christian afterlife and risking having been wrong, than denying that afterlife at risk of christian-depicted eternal damnation.Linda: We do know. Jesus tells us.
Oomph: So, Linda, if, as you say, Jesus promises that salvation in exchange for your belief, and you have given him that belief, why should you still be terrified of the eternal damnation of your immortal soul? I'm afraid I'm not convinced.