                           20020126.00

     1. When I placed myself and the reader in the midst of the
"men of Galilee" of Acts 1:10, I was oblivious of the
circumstance that they were in fact the Apostles (Acts 1:2) and
it did not occur to me they might consider me non-Jewish and ask
me to leave. Over the years, I have become accustomed to being
considered a Jew by the Christians and a Christian by the Jews.
It makes no difference: I consider myself neither and both.

     2. In citing Acts 1:10, I was attempting to confront the
questions that arise in the context of literal interpretation of
the Bible. I turned to the description of Jesus' ascension to
heaven, because it seemed to me the most consequential of the
miracles with which we are tempted.

   9. And when he had spoken these things,
   while they beheld, he was taken up;
   and a cloud received him out of their sight.

   10. And while they looked stedfastly toward
   heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood
   by them in white apparel;

   11. Which also said, Ye men of Galilee,
   why stand ye gazing up into heaven?
   this same Jesus, which is taken up from you
   into heaven, shall so come in like manner
   as ye have seen him go into heaven.


     3. I interpret Acts 1:10 to mean that the men of Galilee
looked stedfastly toward heaven because they could not believe
their eyes, and it was because they could not believe their eyes,
they were challenged by the two men in white apparel who
supplemented the overwhelming and objectively incomprehensible
vision with a prophecy comparably overwhelming and objectively
incomprehensible. Let us distinguish comprehension from faith.
Comprehension is objective and we properly discuss it among
ourselves. Faith is inward and is nobody's business but God's and
my own, and even so much as to presume to speak of faith is with
respect to God a breach of trust.  But I _am_ in hopes that the
reader and I can agree on the incomprehensibility of Jesus'
ascension into heaven; however if the reader finds it
comprehensible, then I, for my part, am confronted with not one,
but two incomprehensible miracles.

> ... many Christians believe that what is said in
> the "old testament' about God's relation and actions
> with the Jewish people now applies exactly to them
> and in some way they can place themselves historically
> in the same position/relationship with God as he
> created with the Jews.

     St. Paul, the Church Fathers, and of subsequent Christian
theologians, if I understand correctly, hold exactly the
opposite: that Jesus' crucifixion brought about a radically
different relationship between God and man. I myself, however,
must recuse myself from any judgment in this matter. If I find my
own childhood and adolescence inscrutable, how can I possibly
presume to fathom, for example, what went on in the Old
Testament, or for that matter, in the New?  I consider histories,
and not just theological histories, which we tell each other to
be just that: stories, myths, fantasies, which we invent and
cherish to promote our own psychological and political agendas.

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