Who’s Honoring Me Now

I. Let us start with the beginning: I have won a Lingy! This coveted award is handed out by Lingamish, also known as the Rev Mr Ker, annually on February 29. (Source: Lingapedia) Upon learning the glad (and altogether unexpected) tidings, my soul was filled with a melody, and I sang:

Lingy loves me, this I know,
For his blog post tells me so!

But then I noticed the category in which I was placed: “Pseudo-anti-orthodox.” Frankly, I don’t even know what this means, even though the Rev Mr Ker attempts to explain himself thusly:

“You might think the Orthodox [C]hurch is all about priests with big beards and funny hats. These guys [myself and one Mark Olson, also awarded in this category] show that it is just a bit more than that.” (brackets mine)

What stumps me, of course, is that I do indeed believe that the Orthodox Church is only about clergymen with impressive beards and funny (as in “awesome”) hats; I am unaware of where or how the Rev Mr Ker might have collected a different impression. Be that as it may, and given the actual description of the award, I suppose I could make my own Sally Field’s legendary acceptance speech at the 1985 Oscars:

“I haven’t had an orthodox career, and I’ve wanted more than anything to have your respect. The first time I didn’t feel it, but this time I feel it, and I can’t deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!”

N.B.- This was Fields’ second Oscar, even as the Lingy was my second award. In a week.

II. My superfriend Juhem has stated publicly that mine is, hands down, the best biblioblog he’s ever read. That mine also happens to be the only biblioblog he’s ever read is irrelevant to the veracity of the claim, as proved by the following quote, in which our hero, the infallible Moisés Silva, recounts an episode from his seminary career:

“During my student days [at Westminster Seminary], Galatians was used as the basis for the New Testament exegesis course—a practice going back to Old Princeton—a course for which I prepared during the summer of 1967 by going through Lightfoot’s wonderful commentary on the epistle. My middler year, I submitted a paper on Gal. 5:13-26, which was awarded the Thomas E. Welmers Memorial Prize in Biblical Languages and Exegesis (and I was assured that the decision had nothing to do with the fact that I was the only student that year to submit a paper for that competition).” (Moisés Silva, Interpreting Galatians: Explorations in Exegetical Method [Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001], page 13; brackets mine).

I should note that Juhem made this remark in order to introduce his retelling of a story from our high school days. (So if you’ve been aching to know what kinds of things 14-year-old Esteban was up to, this is your chance!) There is one detail of the story that deserves further comment: note that we chose Pluto as the subject of our Earth Sciences solar system project. Therefore it is no wonder that, as Juhem notes, our presentation had “little science content”: as we now know, Pluto is not, in fact, a planet. In this we showed ourselves to be far ahead of the science then available to us, and I believe that, on account of this, we deserve extra credit to be retroactively applied to our grade.

III. My local Borders has bestowed upon me an exceedingly great prize: during a flash visit to the store this weekend, I found that they had placed in the clearance section a pristine copy of Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses which was quite obviously meant for me, and I was thus able to obtain this important book for a mere $17! Clearly Borders is trying to make amends with me after sabotaging their formerly wonderful Bible section and earning a sound prophetic condemnation from Yours Truly. This is undoubtedly a good start; but ah, if only they would restore their Bible section to its former glory!