What Makes Me So Stupid

I can't believe that TWO copies of John MacDonald's English translation of the Memar Marqah have been sitting on the shelves of the university library I visit practically every week. I think FINDING BOOKS IN A LIBRARY CATALOG is THE MOST BASIC ACADEMIC SKILL. That I have literally spent hours trying to find individual pages from this work that somehow got lost from the original photocopying I did back when I was like ten years old is only half the story.

I would find a single page of this work between old gas receipts and then two pages in a sock drawer.

Even with all these bits and pieces I would have like pages 70, 71, 72, 73 and then page 76 and then 80 through 85.

It was like using the limited preview on Google Books only with a hard copy!

One of the reasons why this work is SO IMPORTANT is that the Samaritan Mark (Marqe) can provide a context for the Letter to Theodore. Indeed I don't think the reader appreciates HOW MUCH of Mark's writings I didn't cite simply because I had only half of the original photocopies.

The pages that were most critical to my greater argument outside of the whole To Theodore debate is Mark's explanation of the 'Great Song' of Moses (Deut 32). It is here that the Pauline character of Mark's teaching is most evident. However I will take this one step further in the coming days.

I will show that Mark MUST HAVE taken the title 'Paulos' owing to his interpretation of TAMYM PO'OLO (Deut 32:4) in Book Four Chapter Two of this work. The basic point being that at the end of time God will reform the man created after Adam into a 'perfect work' through the agency of his glory.

The one recreated will be called his 'perfect work' or - as we can imagine - simply the work PO'OLO of his glory.

In any event more to come ...