From: John Burgeson (burgythree@hotmail.com)
Date: Sun Feb 23 2003 - 15:10:55 EST
You are a Seminary student. Suppose you're travelling to work and you see a
stop sign. What do you do? That depends on how you exegete the stop sign.
1. A postmodernist deconstructs the sign (knocks it over with his car),
ending forever the tyranny of the north-south traffic over the east-west
traffic.
2. Similarly, a Marxist sees a stop sign as an instrument of class conflict.
He concludes that the bourgeoisie use the north-south road and obstruct the
progress of the workers on the east-west road.
3. A serious and educated Catholic believes that he cannot understand the
stop sign apart from its interpretive community and their tradition.
Observing that the interpretive community doesn't take it too seriously, he
doesn't feel obligated to take it too seriously either.
4. An average Catholic (or Orthodox or Coptic or Anglican or Methodist or
Presbyterian or whatever) doesn't bother to read the sign but he'll stop if
the car in front of him does.
5. A fundamentalist, taking the text very literally, stops at the stop sign
and waits for it to tell him to go.
6. A preacher might look up "STOP" in his lexicons of English and discover
that it can mean: 1) something which prevents motion, such as a plug for a
drain, or a block of wood that prevents a door from closing; 2) a location
where a train or bus lets off passengers. The main point of his sermon the
following Sunday on this text is: when you see a stop sign, it is a place
where traffic is naturally clogged, so it is a good place to let off
passengers from your car.
7. An orthodox Jew does one of two things:
1) Take another route to work that doesn't have a stop sign so that he
doesn't run the risk of disobeying the Law.
2) Stop at the stop sign, say "Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, king of the
universe, who hast given us thy commandment to stop," wait 3 seconds
according to his watch, and then proceed.
Incidentally, the Talmud has the following comments on this passage:
R[abbi] Meir says: He who does not stop shall not live long.
R. Hillel says: Cursed is he who does not count to three before proceeding.
R. Simon ben Yudah says: Why three? Because the Holy One, blessed be He,
gave us the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings.
R. ben Isaac says: Because of the three patriarchs.
R. Yehuda says: Why bless the Lord at a stop sign? Because it says: "Be
still, and know that I am God."
R. Hezekiel says: When Jephthah returned from defeating the Ammonites, the
Holy One, blessed be He, knew that a donkey would run out of the house and
overtake his daughter; but Jephthah did not stop at the stop sign, and the
donkey did not have time to come out. For this reason he saw his daughter
first and lost her. Thus he was judged for his transgression at the stop
sign.
R. Gamaliel says: R. Hillel, when he was a baby, never spoke a word, though
his parents tried to teach him by speaking and showing him the words on a
scroll. One day his father was driving through town and did not stop at the
sign. Young Hillel called out: "Stop, father!" In this way, he began reading
and speaking at the same time. Thus it is written: "Out of the mouth of
babes."
R. ben Jacob says: Where did the stop sign come from? Out of the sky, for it
is written: "Forever, O Lord, your word is fixed in the heavens."
R. ben Nathan says: When were stop signs created? On the fourth day, for it
is written: "let them serve as signs." R. Yeshuah says: ... [continues for
three more pages]
8. A Pharisee does the same thing as an orthodox Jew, except that he waits
10 seconds instead of 3. He also replaces his brake lights with 1000 watt
searchlights and connects his horn so that it is activated whenever he
touches the brake pedal.
9. A scholar from Jesus seminar concludes that the passage "STOP"
undoubtedly was never uttered by Jesus himself, but belongs entirely to
stage III of the gospel tradition, when the church was first confronted by
traffic in its parking lot.
10. A NT scholar notices that there is no stop sign on Mark street but there
is one on Matthew and Luke streets, and concludes that the ones on Luke and
Matthew streets are both copied from a sign on a completely hypothetical
street called "Q". There is an excellent 300-page discussion of speculations
on the origin of these stop signs and the differences between the stop signs
on Matthew and Luke street in the scholar's commentary on the passage. There
is an unfortunate omission in the commentary, however; the author apparently
forgot to explain what the text means.
11. An OT scholar points out that there are a number of stylistic
differences between the first and second half of the passage "STOP". For
example, "ST" contains no enclosed areas and 5 line endings, whereas "OP"
contains two enclosed areas and only one line termination. He concludes that
the author for the second part is different from the author for the first
part and probably lived hundreds of years later. Later scholars determine
that the second half is itself actually written by two separate authors
because of similar stylistic differences between the "O" and the "P".
12. Another prominent OT scholar notes in his commentary that the stop sign
would fit better into the context three streets back. (Unfortunately, he
neglected to explain why in his commentary.) Clearly it was moved to its
present location by a later redactor. He thus exegetes the intersection as
though the stop sign were not there.
13. Because of the difficulties in interpretation, another OT scholar emends
the text, changing "T" to "H". "SHOP" is much easier to understand in
context than "STOP" because of the multiplicity of stores in the area. The
textual corruption probably occurred because "SHOP" is so similar to "STOP"
on the sign several streets back that it is a natural mistake for a scribe
to make. Thus the sign should be interpreted to announce the existence of a
shopping area.
Burgy
www.burgy.50megs.com
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