All I ever wanted in life was to be classified as “very conservative” by Bishop Wrong. It was a grave disappointment to attain to “conservative” only in Wrong’s latest rankings. I propose an irreverent rating scheme of biblical bloggers.
A trichotomy
(1) Fundies of the pro-Bible
persuasion
(2) Fundies of the anti-Bible
persuasion
(3) The
confused middle, everyone else
A dichotomy
(1) People who were non-plussed
by N. T. Wrong’s “te adoramos maria” post (google the phrase if the reference
is unclear)
(2) Those who
got all flustered by it, positively or negatively
A second dichotomy
(1) People who were non-plussed
by the positive press biblical bloggers gave to Crumb’s Genesis
(2) Those who
got all flustered by it, positively or negatively
A second trichotomy
(1) People who think N. T. Wright
is almost as good as rhubarb pie
(2) Those who think N. T. Wright
is over-rated
(0) Those who
don’t like rhubarb pie
A third dichotomy
(1) Those who don’t read the
Bible in the original languages and are honest about it
(2) Those who read the Bible in
Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, and blog accordingly
(0) Those who
don’t read the Bible in the original languages any more, or never did, and never
let on to the fact that they don’t know what they are talking about when it
comes to the untranslated texts
Add up the numbers associated with the multiple choices that fit you. A perfect score: 11.
If you do not attain that score, it means that you are a fundie and/or have reached what Italians call “la pace dei sensi”* and/or don’t like rhubarb pie. Is a person who doesn’t like rhubarb pie worthy of trust? I have my doubts.
*“Sentient quiescence.” Aver raggiunto la pace dei sensi means to have no sexual drive anymore.
I want to add an additional choice to the third dichotomy (thus making it another trichotomy):
(3) Those who read the Bible in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek and get all flustered by it, positively or negatively
This brings the perfect score up to 12, a good biblical number.
Posted by: Jim Getz | January 12, 2010 at 11:30 AM
You numerologist, you! Thanks, Jim.
Posted by: JohnFH | January 12, 2010 at 11:38 AM
N. T. Wrong is Maurice Casey.
Posted by: Jaira | January 12, 2010 at 12:11 PM
This is as good as or better than Clotilde's "Edible Idioms" at Chocolate & Zucchini (http://chocolateandzucchini.com/archives/cat_french_idioms.php). I'm not quite sure how to characterize a "dilettante" in your scheme.
Posted by: Carl W. Conrad | January 12, 2010 at 01:39 PM
You only got 'conservative'? I got the 'very' part. I'll trade you.
Posted by: Joel | January 12, 2010 at 02:19 PM
Jaira,
You don't say?
Carl,
Not too hard, really, to figure out when someone is classifiable as a dilettante. It has to do with their attitude to rhubarb pie.
Joel,
You lucky son-of-a-gun. That's a compliment coming from Wrong.
Posted by: JohnFH | January 12, 2010 at 02:35 PM
Yeah...and who want to tweak it, will be hotter
Posted by: Jaira | January 12, 2010 at 04:56 PM
Ha ha :-) to Jaira but you're wrong. And he wasn't even using internet when Wrong started blogging. However Maurice does know who NT Wrong is. ;-)
Posted by: steph | January 12, 2010 at 05:01 PM
(1) People who were non-plussed by the positive press biblical bloggers gave to Crumb’s Genesis
(2) Those who got all flustered by it, positively or negatively
Add to this, those who were grossed out and moved on to something else. Not everyone who dislikes Crumb is "flustered" by him.
Posted by: Clark | January 12, 2010 at 05:20 PM
Mr. Crumb, besides selling a lot of books and having many admirers, has many detractors. Most people would be pleased with such a fate.
Posted by: JohnFH | January 12, 2010 at 06:26 PM
Rhubarb, like cocunut, is among those foods that I simply do not understand. I was in very good shape until the rhubarb fiasco, which has apparently done irreperable damage. Which, of course, is just what you'd expect such a nasty fruit to do.
Posted by: Colin Toffelmire | January 12, 2010 at 09:19 PM
Hi Colin,
In this neck of the woods, people pick rhubarb in season from their gardens, or harvest wild rhubarb. The older recipes, 150 years old in some cases, are not too sweet and not too tart for my palate. It's one of the perks of being a pastor in this part of the Wisconsin wilderness to receive first-fruit offerings of this kind in season.
It reminds of carciofi, artichokes. It takes a properly traditioned person to transform the raw into the cooked such that the result is truly edible.
Posted by: JohnFH | January 13, 2010 at 08:27 AM