The Long Way to the Words from the Cross

Closing

Let me set the terms. This is not an argument about doctrinal correctness. It is one reader's account of what the text can be made to yield. I am going to leave the ending open on purpose.（知恵の書 18:8-11）

33騎兵たちは、カイザリヤに着くと、手紙を総督に手渡し、さらにパウロを彼に引きあわせた。

34総督は手紙を読んでから、パウロに、どの州の者かと尋ね、キリキヤの出だと知って、

35「訴え人たちがきた時に、おまえを調べることにする」と言った。そして、ヘロデの官邸に彼を守っておくように命じた。

使徒行伝 23:33-35（口語訳（日本語））

Leaving the question open

Some people are consoled by this verse and others are wounded by it, often in the same room. The writer almost certainly did not anticipate that. It is left for readers to carry.（ダニエル書 9:1-3）

Now set it back into its own century. What was the community that first heard this actually worried about? Simply imagining that changes the temperature of every line.

This is where I stopped. I could not go forward, so I stayed with the same few lines for a long time. I have come to think the staying was the point.

Finally, back to the text. No amount of commentary competes with the texture of the sentences themselves. Read it out loud once before you read anything else about it.

In an ordinary week

A word about ordinary life. I think about this passage in the kitchen and on the train, almost never in a pew. I have come to suspect that is not accidental.

Finally, back to the text. No amount of commentary competes with the texture of the sentences themselves. Read it out loud once before you read anything else about it.

In its own century

Put the translations side by side and the same verse arrives differently each time. One is soft, another is severe, and the original is a third thing that is neither. That difference is itself a way in.

A word about ordinary life. I think about this passage in the kitchen and on the train, almost never in a pew. I have come to suspect that is not accidental.

Finally, back to the text. No amount of commentary competes with the texture of the sentences themselves. Read it out loud once before you read anything else about it.