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In lugnet.announce.moc, Brendan Powell Smith wrote:
Again, I think I need to voice my discontent with the liberties you take with
the text. Previously the offending portions were arguably consistent and
attributable to some form of interpretation. This, while I may not agree with, I
can at least accept.
In this latest addition, you have portrayed Christ in a very unsympathetic and
bad light by only including a part of the entire story. This I find to be
intellectually dishonest and entirely unacceptable.
Here is the entire story for those who are curious what I am talking about. I
have bolded the omitted portion:
‘21 And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and
Sidon. 22 And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and cried,
“Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely possessed by a
demon.” 23 But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged
him, saying, “Send her away, for she is crying after us.” 24 He answered, “I was
sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” 25 But she came and knelt
before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” 26 And he answered, “It is not fair to take
the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” 27 She said, “Yes, Lord, yet
even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” 28 Then Jesus
answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.”
And her daughter was healed instantly.’ -Matthew 15:21-28 (RSV)
A very disappointed,
Steve
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In lugnet.build.ancient, Stephen Bishop wrote:
> In lugnet.announce.moc, Brendan Powell Smith wrote:
>
> > http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_life_of_jesus/canaanite_dogs/mt15_21.html
> > Canaanite Dogs
> >
> > Enjoy,
> >
> > -The Rev. Brendan Powell Smith
>
> Again, I think I need to voice my discontent with the liberties you take with
> the text.
Please take and keep any discussion of the source material for Brendan's Lego
work to the off-topic section of Lugnet.
The .build area of Lugnet is for discussing Lego building techniques.
Thank you,
Clark
.build curator
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Hi, Steve.
I’ve moved this over to off-topic.debate since that seemed more appropriate.
In lugnet.build.ancient, Stephen Bishop wrote:
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In this latest addition, you have portrayed Christ in a very unsympathetic
and bad light by only including a part of the entire story. This I find to be
intellectually dishonest and entirely unacceptable.
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I am presenting the story of how Jesus insulted a Canaanite woman. I grant that
this can also be seen as part of a larger story about how Jesus exorcised the
demon from the daughter of the same Canaanite woman, just as that exorcism can
be seen as a part of the larger story of Jesus’s miracles, which is in turn a
part of the story of Jesus’s life, which is in turn part of the Bible story as a
whole.[1]
By this point in the Gospels, Jesus has already exorcised many demons (and, of
course, also
explained that when a demon is exorcised from a person, it goes out and gets a
whole team of even worse demons to re-possesses the same person, leaving them
worse off than they were to begin with).
Since Jesus’s demon exorcisms have already been covered in The Brick Testament,
what stood out to me as new and noteworthy about Jesus’s trip to the region of
Tyre and Sidon is not that he merely performs another exorcism, but that when a
Canaanite woman begs him to help her daughter, Jesus first coldly ignores her,
and then makes a racist insult while refusing to offer help. That’s the novel
part of this story to me because it reveals something new about Jesus’s
motivations and character. We already know he can exorcise demons at will, but
it is not until this story that we learn of Jesus’s general policy of not
providing help to non-Jews[2], and his thinking of Canaanites as subhuman.
(Though considering
what his father had to say about them, I suppose that’s not too surprising.)
I certainly do not deny that the text goes on to have Jesus finally break that
policy and deign to exorcise the Canaanite woman’s daughter after she continues
to beg Jesus for help even after being racially insulted and refused help. But
to have the illustrated story end with Jesus’s relenting to perform the exorcism
would shift the focus and make it seem more like just another exorcism story and
thereby diminish what is new and interesting about it.
-Brendan
[1] Any time someone presents only part of the Bible, they will have their
reasons for selecting only certain parts of it and not others, and for
presenting that selected material in a particular fashion. This holds
true for priests, preachers, theologians, and lay religious believers as
much as it does for anyone else, myself included. I would argue that I am
much less selective than the vast majority of others about which Bible
content I choose to present. My style of presentation is also notably
different than most others. All too common is for a small selection of
Bible content to be presented amidst a large amount of exposition and
interpretation. I, on the other hand, have aimed to present a very large
amount of Bible content with an extreme minimum of exposition or
interpretation (limiting myself direct quotes of scripture and the LEGO
illustrations).
It is my estimation that the vast majority of people presenting Bible content
are moved by their own biases to be extremely selective, only presenting about
5% of all Bible content. Their audience is left to assume that this 5% of the
Bible’s content is truly representative of the Bible as a whole. When I
actually read the Bible for myself, it occurred to me time and time again that
the vast bulk of the Bible is not at all represented by the 5% of it that
usually gets presented. In fact, that 5% is often in stark contrast to other
95%. It occurred to me that people do not really know the Bible if all they are
ever presented with is that selected 5% of it, so I thought it would be a
worthwhile project to make my own presentation of the Bible that focuses on “the
other 95%”. The Bible’s “silent majority”, if you will.
So, yes, I have my biases, and I don’t pretend not to. There will probably
always be that missing 5% of biblical content from The Brick Testament, just as
there will continue to be a missing 95% from almost all other presentations of
Bible content. People tend to notice the missing 5% more in The Brick
Testament, because that 5% is the famous part of The Bible. They don’t tend to
notice the missing 95% of Bible content from other Bible presentations because
most people aren’t familiar with it.
The only way for someone to get a full knowledge of the entire content of the
Bible is to read the entire thing oneself. Although gruelling at times, I do
heartily recommend that option for anyone who thinks the Bible is an important
book.
[2] This policy is also seen in the story in Mark 7 where Jesus racially
insults a Greek Syro-Phoenician woman, and is strongly suggested in
Matthew 10 when Jesus sends out his disciples to heal the sick and raise
the dead in “all the towns of Israel”, and specifically tells them not to
go to any of the non-Jewish towns.
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After continued discussion with others about this matter (not on LUGNET), I’ve
decided to add two more illustrations to the Canaanite Dogs story. I now
realize that my original version really makes it appear as though Jesus does
not heal the woman, when it is plain from the text of Matthew that he does do
so.
Creating that false impression was not my intent in ending the story where I
originally did. As my previous e-mail stated, my intent was to shift the focus
to the racial insult and revelation of a general policy against helping
non-Jews. But that shift of focus should not come at the expense of making the
story appear to say something other than what it does.
I stand corrected.
-Brendan
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Brendan Powell Smith wrote:
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After continued discussion with others about this matter (not on LUGNET),
I’ve decided to add two more illustrations to the Canaanite Dogs story. I
now realize that my original version really makes it appear as though Jesus
does not heal the woman, when it is plain from the text of Matthew that he
does do so.
Creating that false impression was not my intent in ending the story where I
originally did. As my previous e-mail stated, my intent was to shift the
focus to the racial insult and revelation of a general policy against helping
non-Jews. But that shift of focus should not come at the expense of making
the story appear to say something other than what it does.
I stand corrected.
-Brendan
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That’s very decent of you. Great work as ever, Brendan!
Marc Nelson Jr.
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Enjoy,
-The Rev. Brendan Powell Smith
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You are perhaps the consummate artist in the medium of LEGO. I never fail to
find delight in you depictions, despite the fact that I might not quite go along
with all your interpretations. I think your book will probably be around until
the “End of the World”. Great work. Love it.
Tommy Armstrong
www.brickengraver.com
...with the method of science one beholds what is generally true about
individuals, but art beholds what is uniquely true.
Walker Percy
Signposts in a Strange Land
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Hi, Tommy.
In lugnet.build.ancient, Tommy Armstrong wrote:
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You are perhaps the consummate artist in the medium of LEGO.
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Gosh, thanks. I definitely think there are more impressive builders than me out
there, but I guess I take some nice photos and tell a good illustrated story.
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I never fail to find delight in you depictions, despite
the fact that I might not quite go along with all your
interpretations.
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It pleases me that The Brick Testament has been enjoyed by people with all sorts
of their own interpretations of the Bible. It’s always especially nice to
receive praise from fellow adult LEGO builders.
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I think your book will probably be around until the
“End of the World”.
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You mean 2017?
Thanks!
-Brendan
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Hey Brendan,
Great to see new installments so soon.
Canaanite Dogs - I like the building on the right in the first picture quite a
lot. What’s the bowl on the left in the second picture, by the way. It’s nice
to see a little bit of landscaping in the background. One of my complaints with
BT is that often your landscaping is all flat baseplates.
Disciples Sent Out - Hmm, the green flame thing is kinda cool but it says more
“Emperor killing Luke” than “Jesus blesses disciples” to me. I love the
expression when the disciple is being fed a bug. The raining flames with burnt
bodies in the background scene is very effective.
Lazarus Reanimated - Great hammock solution. In MM&L’s house i like the beams
offset by half a stud quite a lot. Good cave and cliff. It took a bit for me
to figure out what the grill tile was at Lazarus’ feet - I’m not sure if that’s
effective. Switching in the Vader head for the mummy head works well.
Jesus and the Poor - Funny but sick take on the leper. Those offset bricks are
nice in the wall and the doors-as-table is surprisingly effective.
Jesus Curses a Tree - Hmm, I’m not sure if the withered tree works. I think it
would be better if you recreated the camera shot from the first pic in the story
with Jesus walking away and the tree in soft focus in the background.
Temple Tantrum - LOL on the name. This is probably my favorite of this batch,
as everything in here works really well. The action is particularly well
portrayed in the “turning over the tables of the moneychangers” scene.
The End of the World - Along with Temple Tantrum, another very well done story.
I like the building in the first scene quite a lot, and the earthquake is cool.
Bring out your dead brought a smile to my face. In Matt. 24:9, the column made
of twisted technic ribbed hoses doesn’t really work, IMO. It looks like it
should be in a sci-fi, rather than ancient, setting. The clouds and the rapture
scenes are really good, but the most effective scene of all is the fires of
Hell. Great work.
Bruce
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Hey Brendan,
I appreciate the fact that you added the final two illustrations to the
Canaanite woman story. I think that it was right to do so, as to leave those
out seriously misrepresented the story. While your commentary on how everyone
selects what to present is well taken, in many stories there are markers
embedded within the narrative that set them apart, and to simply choose a random
place to end your presentation isn’t the best policy. In that story, the scene
definitely goes on until verse 29, which says that “Jesus left there and went
along the Sea of Galilee,” leading to the next scene. I think your presentation
of Acts 20 has the same problem, btw. You’re left with the story of Paul being
such a boring speaker that the kid falls asleep and falls out the window to his
death. But the story in Acts goes on another three verses with Paul healing the
kid and doesn’t naturally end until Acts 20:13, where Luke writes that they then
took a ship to another place.
I certainly agree that everyone should read the whole bible for themselves.
Both religious and non-religious people often respond to caricatures based on
incomplete readings.
Bruce
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Hi, Bruce.
In lugnet.build.ancient, Bruce Hietbrink wrote:
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Great to see new installments so soon.
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Yeah, it feels good to be back in the swing of things. I hope to start in on
the final installment of the Life of Jesus stories soon and keep this momentum
going.
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Canaanite Dogs - I like the building on the right in the first picture quite
a lot. What’s the bowl on the left in the second picture, by the way.
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The dark gray thing? That’s the same ball-joint piece I used as the water jars
in The Transmutation story. The earth orange bowl on the left is the another
part of the ball joint.
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It’s nice to see a little bit of landscaping in the background. One of my
complaints with BT is that often your landscaping is all flat baseplates.
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Particularly with this revamp of the New Testament stories I’ve been trying to
make better use of landscaping. Part of my motivation for redoing a lot of
these stories was that some the original photos were embarrassingly simple, just
a few figures plunked down on a tan baseplate. I don’t think I’m among the best
LEGO landscapers out there, but I’m doing what I can to make the scenes a little
more interesting.
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Disciples Sent Out - Hmm, the green flame thing is kinda cool but it says
more “Emperor killing Luke” than “Jesus blesses disciples” to me.
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Well, the text doesn’t really say anything about blessing here. This passage is
generally translated as Jesus “gave them power” or “gave them authority” over
evil spirits. I guess I envisioned that as some sort of transfer of magical
powers. But who knows what that sort of thing would look like?
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I love the expression when the disciple is being fed a bug.
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That’s one gag from the original version of Instructions to the Disciples that I
tried to keep exactly the same. I couldn’t think of a way to improve on it.
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The raining flames with burnt bodies in the background
scene is very effective.
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Ever since I stumbled upon that way to connect flame pieces to each other, I’ve
been tempted to go back and redo the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah from
Genesis. I don’t know if I will, since that’s now a published story, but at
least least I got to do this Sodom-like scene in this story.
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Lazarus Reanimated - Great hammock solution.
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Thanks. I originally tried to create the hammock without cutting a net, just
folding one in half instead. But is was very bulky much less elegant.
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In MM&L’s house i like the beams offset by half a stud quite a lot.
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Had to think for a moment just to decipher MM&L. :) I like how their house
looks, too. Those are 1x2 tiles hung vertically rather than offset bricks.
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Good cave and cliff. It took a bit for me to figure out what
the grill tile was at Lazarus’ feet - I’m not sure
if that’s effective.
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Hmm, OK, yeah, I wondered if that would be clear or not. I took some photos
with it there and some without, but ended up thinking it worked. Maybe I was
wrong.
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Switching in the Vader head for the mummy head works well.
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OK, good to hear that worked. :)
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Jesus and the Poor - Funny but sick take on the leper. Those offset bricks
are nice in the wall and the doors-as-table is surprisingly effective.
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Ah, yes, Simon the leper. I searched through the gospels to see if there was
any other info provided about him. Was he someone Jesus had cured of leprosy?
If so, there’s no mention of it. And he isn’t called Simon the former leper, so
I had some fun making a LEGO leper (hosting a dinner). I liked how the doors
worked as the table top. It’s pretty hard to otherwsie get a rounded dinner
table.
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Jesus Curses a Tree - Hmm, I’m not sure if the withered tree works. I think
it would be better if you recreated the camera shot from the first pic in the
story with Jesus walking away and the tree in soft focus in the background.
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Hmm. Interesting idea. Though I can’t say I was unhappy with how the withered
tree turned out.
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Temple Tantrum - LOL on the name. This is probably my favorite of this
batch, as everything in here works really well. The action is particularly
well portrayed in the “turning over the tables of the moneychangers” scene.
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Thanks. I was glad I was able to figure out something for the “whip of cords”
there. My first several attempts didn’t look so hot. I’m kind of fascinated by
the Jerusalem Temple structure in Jesus’s time (built by Herod the Great in 4
BCE, destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE), and really wanted to capture what the
temple courts might have looked like.
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The End of the World - Along with Temple Tantrum, another very well done
story. I like the building in the first scene quite a lot
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That would be my attempt to capture the great Temple complex from the outside.
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and the earthquake is cool. Bring out your dead brought a smile to my face.
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Fun stuff to build.
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In Matt. 24:9, the column made of twisted technic ribbed hoses
doesn’t really work, IMO. It looks like it should be in a sci-fi,
rather than ancient, setting.
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I’ve had that twisted column sitting around for maybe six months now. Maybe
this wasn’t the best place to use it, and maybe you’re right that it’s not
really ancient-looking enough. But this scene seemed appropriate enough to me,
with Jesus making such a vague prediction. He doesn’t say who will be carrying
out this presecuting and putting to death his disciples, but he says that they
will be “hated by all the nations”. So I picked the dark peach colored people
to represent one of these unspecified nations that will hate, persecute, and
kill Jesus’s disciples. Since I was dealing with an unkown nation, I felt I
could take some artistic liberties with their architectural style.
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The clouds and the rapture scenes are really good, but the most
effective scene of all is the fires of Hell. Great work.
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Thanks, hell scenes are always fun, though this one maybe looks more like a lake
of fire than a fiery furnace, which is the description given in that verse.
It wasn’t until I’d finished that scene that I realized I’d made a hell scene
without using the standard LEGO fire piece!
Much thanks as always for your comments.
-Brendan
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Hi, Bruce.
Thanks for the comments on this matter, too. I will probably redo the Acts
story as part of my revamp of the New Testament part of the site, and will add
the missing panels there as well.
I think it’s not just that it would be misrepresenting these stories, but also
that I wouldn’t want people to dismiss The Brick Testament as a whole just
because these two questionable instances of editing down the stories.
-Brendan
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Just wanted to chime in again and say I appreciate your thoughtful response to
my concerns. I also wanted to say I really enjoy your work, even when I don’t
agree with the commentary and editing decisions. And I look forward to more
entries.
Thanks,
Steve
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