New Wine. Old Coats. Joe Snyder Bible Study

RantWoman is always well-fed spiritually when there is Joe Snyder Bible Study available. RantWoman is deeply grateful for this season’s Wednesday night Zoom mediated trek through the Gospel of Mark.

RantWoman out of an abundance of caution has removed the Zoom directions. For information about how to join the meeting, please leave a comment with a return email address and RantWoman will ensure that you get the information.

New Wine

RantWoman means to chew at some themes of repentance and forgiveness, but tonight’s meditation is about new wine, old wineskins, and whether or how to mend old coats as rendered in different translations. Verses are toward the end of Chapter 1; RantWoman may or may not suggest readers just rely on their search bars; RantWoman does recognize that providing precise citations would be tidier editorial practice. Sometimes RantWoman even aspires to editorial tidiness.

Metaphor 1: new wine is all the wonders of online conferencing. New wineskins is all the technogoop that one has to assemble and learn in order to handle, drink the new wine.

Metaphor 2: basically same metaphor but new wine is all the wonders brought about by assistive technology.  New wineskins is all the technogoop vocabulary and other tools that one has to assemble and learn in order to handle, drink the new wine. Urk.

Here other people’s eyes glaze over. “RantWoman why MUST you talk about it, and the same way we talk about our cars and traffic?” Because without it, RantWoman can do almost NOTHING in the new wine mode and because RantWoman tires of explaining this for example to a certain Care and Accountability Committee who thought there role has nothing to do with disability. Oh wait, RantWoman repeats herself. RantWoman will be reminding herself that one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. RantWoman will also be looking for ways to apply the metaphors here to her vast reservoir of pent-up steam about this topic.

Mending old coats

Turning now to coats with thanks to Friend who carries many translations, two versions of the same passage.

King James Version: No man also seweth a piece of new cloth on an old garment; else the new piece that filled it up taketh away from the old, and the rent is made worse.

New Catholic Study Bible: No one uses a piece of new cloth to patch up an old coat, because the new patch will shrink and tear off some of the old cloth, making an even bigger hole.

RantWoman is perplexed because in the study group, someone made the leap that one of the passages suggests one just needn’t mend old coats. RantWoman does not read that at all. RantWoman does not find a wide chasm between the meanings of the actual text. Alas, interacting with the actual text in a group means asking someone to reread the text. Sometimes RantWoman is comfortable asking. Sometimes she is not. RantWoman likes it very much when others also express interest in having the texts reread.

RantWoman also figures it really helps to have quilters in the house to explain about preshrinking cloth patches.

What Light would readers bring to the next session?