Raymond Brown text about the Gospel of St John

Being married to a man who has a Masters of Divinity, there are some wonderful books that are tucked away in bookshelves all over my house, and I found a wonderful copy of "The Gospel According to St. John" translated and introduced by Raymond Brown. The Introduction reads like one of our articles for our class, and I read it last night when I couldn't sleep and got some interesting things from it.
Brown carries on the conversation about human authorship of the Bible that was brought up to us in class. There is no question that the text is divinely inspired, but to whom was it inspired? As Brown writes, "Is the Fourth Gospel as it now stands the work of one man?" He carefully and masterfully puts down all the arguments for and against this question, but MY question was, "Why does it matter?"
Why do we care if the events are out of sequence? The way they are told and have been arranged have emotional equity in them, and perhaps tell a deeper story than if they were sequential. Why does someone say they might have been "accidentally put out of sequence" (i.e., dropped on the floor and picked up in a completely diff. sequence)? I feel John is the most poetic, masterfully mystical Gospel, and it's the book I go to most often in my own Biblical reveries. AND, if God is in all details and this book is Divinely inspired (which we believe it to be, as Catholic Christians), this thought of there being an "accident" bothers me in its lack of understanding about Divine inspiration. In terms of "Multiple Sources", I'm okay with the fact that it came from the "School of John", as Father referred to it in class on the 30th. This makes perfect sense to me, and doesn't negate the fact that the book is divinely inspired.
I approve of Brown's handling of the text, that he "shall comment on the Gospel in its present order without imposing rearrangements". That he knew what the arguments against this action would be is impressive; that he respects God's divine mystery in the Inspiration of the book, I agree with. I'm looking forward to reading "The Tradition behind the Fourth Gospel" later.

Divine Revelation

After today's thoughts on Biblical Revelation, I wanted to get down on paper some thoughts about how God's Revelation could be both complete and ongoing (our homework assignment's context). How to explain Revelation in terms of it being both COMPLETE and ONGOING...

-God is outside of time; he created Time when he created us, but he is mystically outside of it. He looks at us, as his Creation of all the Earth, as whole and complete... yet we are linear and inside of time. Throughout our lives parts of God's Revelation are revealed to us, in places where we are able to hear b/c the passage of time has enabled us to better understand certain parts of The Story, yet we cannot ever fully grasp the eternity and eternal significance of God and his Revelation b/c of our own finite lives and understanding, as such, is finite.

-Just as Jesus is "Eternally Begotten of the Father", so eternally and in perpetuity He is the Word that comes from God and returns to God and comes from God (etc.), so is the Revelation Complete (in the person of Jesus) and yet ongoing (in the eternal begotten-ness of it all).

-Just as the Sacrament of the Eucharist is eternal and yet here on Earth finite (with a beginning and an end), so is Revelation Eternal ("complete") and Ongoing (it has a beginning for us and ends with our Death here, so it is "finite" for us here...yet continues even after our death)

-In a basic sense, the Bible as Word of God is "complete", yet our Church Tradition is "ongoing", thus proving that Revelation in the most basic works of our teachings are both "complete" and "ongoing", still informing us and working within our own context of faith and the current times.

My First ACM Blog

re: blogging: I finally figured it out! yipee! I'm not such a troglodyte after all. ;-)

I'm beginning my paper this week after wading through all of the articles we were given to read, and I'm feeling like my image of God has been given new terminology and been somewhat expanded through reading what others have explored in their own faith and theological reflections. I certainly understand that not all people care to call God "Father", even though that is my favorite understanding of who God is in my life and the best way I can describe the relationship I feel exists between us. I'm looking forward to writing my paper, and I'd better get started, b/c later in the week is swallowed up with children and their Halloween preparations... and I don't want to get swamped on Friday night.

Cheers, and I'm so excited to have begun this journey! "A journey begins with a single step"... this might be a baby step, but I am on my way somewhere.