The painting above is The Good Shepherd by Bernhard Plockhorst. I remember a print of this painting, or one just like it, hanging in Fellowship Hall at Redeemer Baptist Church in West Los Angeles, the church I grew up in.
It’s an interesting painting. I didn’t notice when I was a kid, but I can’t help but notice now that Jesus looks awfully, well, German. The setting looks very un-Middle Eastern as well.
Why point this out?
Hebrew Scriptures was one of the first classes I took when I began my theological studies. The class was devoted to what many Christians refer to as “The Old Testament”. But the class began with much time spent on Close Reading.
Close Reading means reading only what is printed on the page, without resorting to any interpretation or overlaying of a Tradition’s understanding of what the words on the page mean. Just read the words. How hard can that be?
The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name…
-Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, translated by Stephen Mitchell
When Moses met God in the form of a burning bush, Moses asked God to tell him God’s name.
God declined to tell him.
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