Dan. 3 57-88 The Song of the Three Jews

 Reading today in my Psalter (which happens to be Catholic), I found this passage that I have never read in my Protestant Bible.... a beautiful song of praise.  I said to myself, I have never read this in 40 years of reading the Bible.  Why is that?  Is it Apocryphal or Deuterocanonical?

It turns out that yes, it is.   There are three sections of Daniel left out of Protestant Bibles.  I wondered why.... 

I guess in an argument around Purgatory, Luther claimed Maccabees 2 was non canonical.  From what I read he was going with Jerome on this who was skeptical of certain books of Scripture because they were not included in the MT-The Hebrew Masoretic Text. 

However, they were included in the Greek Septuagint, the version of the Apostles, and the version based on a lost older copy of the Hebrew Bible.  

Jerome didn't know there were other copies of the Hebrew Bible circulating in the old days, so he based his conclusions on the one he felt was most reliable when he created the Latin Vulgate. 

The MT is a complete Hebrew text, whereas, the Septuagint is a Greek version of an older (than MT) Hebrew text.  Which was is more accurate has been the question.  

That being said, now I know why I never heard the "Song of the Three Jews," but it's quite beautiful and it reminds me of St. Patrick's Lorica especially when it says:

 "all winds, bless the Lord.  

Fire and heat, bless the Lord; 

chill and cold, bless the Lord.  

Dews and rains, bless the Lord; 

ice and frost, bless the Lord...

Ice and snow, bless the Lord;" 

--It would have made a nice addition to my Field Study classes' nature journals last year.  

Out with the new, in with the old!

One mistake the young often make is to think that the popular ideas of their time trump the ideas of yesterday.  They have no perspective to compare the ideas professors' convincingly portray as vital and important.  Take post-modernism.  College grads think that the idea that questioning the philosophy of the modern age is so novel.  If you study the history of Greek philosophy, you will see that a trend of speculative thought was often followed by a trend to believe "we can not know".  It happened over and over.  

 

In contrast, I am discovering many "old ideas" have more merit than the modern ones-take family for one.  Today we are talking about "marriage equality" and redefining marriage.  These ideas flow out of a general decline of interest in the family begun in the 70's.  Hippies and that generation redefined "love," removing it from the context of marriage and applying it to a relationship without responsibility.  They bought birth control and free sex and divorced the idea of sex and family.  Their self focused "love" resulted in selfish marriages.  Then their selfish marriages failed and they introduced a 50% divorce rate and handed that down to my generation.

So now family has taken all shapes and sizes and various genders, and its all supposed to be ok and  acceptable and tolerated.  If you want to follow the Bible's view of family, you are the oddball.  Seeing as how I have often felt marginalized, I take alot of comfort from the voices of the past that contextualize the crazy of today, "...much of the confusion that characterizes our society is the result of the violation of God's design.  The blueprint has been lost.  Everybody is guessing at how the building is supposed to look" writes Elizabeth Elliot who mothered during the 70's and grew up in another time--before the rejection of family.

This is the time the peaks my interest.  The time when the family was prized and valued.  When men came back from war and wanted the simple things of life--home and family.   The view of the family has changed profoundly.  A popular author of family books, Hilda Van Stockum  lost her career in writing due to the change in society:

"It was after the move to England (c. 1974) that the last of Hilda's books were published by both American and English publishers. While these books were well received, it became apparent that "family" stories were less and less in vogue."

Why?  Because the traditional family wasn't trending anymore.

But I love the traditional family, all that it is, all that it does for humanity.  I really enjoyed Hilda's "Pegeen" about a wild little girl that was adopted by a loving family. 

 

 

 

I love reading Laura Ingalls Wilder books about the frontier family.  Or these days, I'm reading a more masculine series by Ralph Moody called, "Little Britches" and "Man of the Family.  The Dad is a real man with struggles who triumphs through ingenuity and hard work.  He carefully teaches his son how to be a man.  The son struggles with his character, but grows in determination and is a massive help to his family in hard times.


These days you have to hunt for literature, movies and stories that are family themed.  Because media is such a huge influence on children, I was delighted to find the film,   "Five Little Peppers" that is taken from a classic children's book.  In this old 1939 film, the family has lost their father, the mother is supporting the family, and the oldest girl is happily taking over the domestic work at home.  Her cheerful attitude about making pancakes and taking care of her sister shows the attitudes we hope to instill in our girls.  Home is important.  Home is fun.  Home is a delightful place to spend your days.