From: jtownsle@iupui.edu
Date: Thu Dec 31 1998 - 14:49:31 EST
Found this at the following web-site, and thought the Biblical scholars
among you might enjoy this as much as I did...
http://www.webcom.com/~ctt/comic.html
How many Form critics does it take to change a light bulb?
Unfortunately, I cannot get them to act. I show them the Maintenance
Request Form, from the tenant, requesting the change,
but they dismiss it as being a 'pious fraud' created by big and powerful
lightbulb companies who think bulbs should be replaced
BEFORE they burn out...
How many Form critics does it take to change a light bulb?
I still cannot get them to take the Request Form seriously! This time they
decided that it could not be authentic since the request
had come from the new apartment 10A and there were no prior incidences of
this at all. They concluded that someone must
have borrowed the form from some OTHER apartment, and simply put the
request "on the lips of the tenant in 10A"...
How many Form critics does it take to change a light bulb?
I still cannot get them to act! This time they dismissed the darkness as a
'late apocalyptic image' that obviously was being
appropriated to describe something much less severe, like indigestion or
something.
How many Form critics does it take to change a light bulb?
I still cannot get them to act! This time they said that there PROBABLY
had been some flicker in a bulb somewhere (or maybe
a diming of light from a cloud passing overhead), but that the oral
tradition behind the Maintenance Request Form had
developed so freely that it was now historically impossible to find the
actual apartment in which the problem PERHAPS showed
up, and that we could not even be sure that it had occured in THIS
landlord's tenure.
How many Form critics does it take to change a light bulb?
I still cannot get them to take the Maintenance Request Form seriously!
This time they detected a 'contradiction' that was a sure
sign of inauthenticity. They summarily dismissed the Form with the remark
that "If the light bulb had been burned out, the tenant
would not have been able to see to fill out the Form, silly! And arguing
that they went into another room would be 'special
pleading' or 'harmonization' of the most tendentious nature!"...go
figure...
.......................................................................................................................................................
How many textual critics does it take to change a light bulb?
We don't actually change the bulb, we simply emend it.
How many textual critics does it take to change a light bulb?
My professional opinion is that we should leave the original bulb as it
is. The probability of someone replacing a good bulb with
a bad one is much lower than the opposite, and hence the bad bulb most
likely reflects the oldest (and therefore better) bulb..
How many midrashic writers does it take to change a light bulb?
Fourteen, because the word for "pelican" has had fourteen cycles of
meaning through the ages.
How many Qumran covenantors does it take to change a light bulb?
They wont do it--too Hellenistic for them...
How many apocalypsists does it take to change a light bulb?
Tons--some have to block the sun, some have to cover the moon with a dust
cloud, some have to start a volcanic erruption,
some have to generate the thunderstorm...but when it is changed, you will
never be the same again!!
How many Talmudic Sages does it take to change a light bulb?
R. Abiva heard from R. Millerstein, who heard from Rab Josy, who got it
from R. David, who got it from Moses, that it would
take three.
Whereupon, R. Marshmallow said that Moses said 'three' but meant 'two'
since "light" has three radicals, but the vaw in the
middle separates the light from the dark.
How many biblical 'minimalists' does it take to change a light bulb?
Grow up, guy--it never WAS a unitary light bulb, it was only a pack of
fireflies flying randomly around the room until a fan cut
on and they all started flying in synchronization...
How many pre-Maccabean Jewish writers does it take to change a light bulb?
None. There is no need. Abraham invented the light bulb (right after the
plough), and Moses invented the first eternal light bulb
(after inventing irrigation for the Nile).
How many translators of the LXX does it take to change a light bulb?
Depends rather radically on whether they were the translators of Daniel or
of Jeremiah, dont you think?!
Jeramy Townsley
Indiana University
http://php.iupui.edu/~jtownsle
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