Graves

I’m doing it again, but I’ve returned back home so late from a party, I just can’t be bothered to write on inerrancy. Tomorrow. And I’ll respond to your comments then too.

Besides, far more interesting things have distracted my attention today ...

First, I visited the Stadt Friedhof, Tübingen cemetery, just opposite the Theologicum, and I was fortunate enough to bump into the chap who designed the layout of the grounds. More importantly, he was also kind enough to show me around all of the ‘theologically significant’ graves!

I took pictures of the graves of Johann Sebastian von Drey, Felix Himpel (Catholic OT theologian), Johannes von Kuhn (another Catholic), Karl Friedrich von Hügel and J T von Beck. However, I was particularly interested in those of Adolf Schlatter, and F. C. Baur. I was so thrilled by this, and by all of the great pictures I took (69 in all), that afterwards I walked into the library with a big smile on my face. A friend bumped into me and asked for an explanation as to why I was so happy, but when I attempted to detail my visit to a graveyard by way of explanation ... Yes. I think he’ll be avoiding me in the future!

Jim West has posted on his blog one of the pictures I sent him (one of Schlatter’s grave), but I wanted to upload one tonight too. This is Baur’s tomb stone. The cemetery designer told me how Albert Schweitzer visited Baur’s grave, and stood on this very patch of grass in front of the tomb. The building covered by the tree in the background in the Theologicum in which many famous theologians worked, and, gladly, still do.



Seond, a rather exciting post by Ben Myers today, who met and interviewed none other than Tom Greater then Bultmann Wright. However, I found Tom’s joke, as retold by Ben, a bit lame (All the vital ingredients for a good joke were missing: no one was made to look utterly stupid, not even a single chancy word like ‘tit’, ‘nigger’ or ‘shit for brains’, no mention of nuns, the German word for fluffy, inerrancy, ... need I go on. C’mon Tom, you can do better than that)

Lastly, does anyone ever have dreams of profound theological content? Well, I did last night. In my dream I had a chat with Eberhard Jüngel about animism, the praise of God in nature and such things. I woke up all edified! And, as part of my Tübingen experience today, when I visited the second hand book shop, I found a copy of Jüngel’s Das Evangelium von der Rechtfertigung des Gottlosen als Zentrum des christlichen Glaubens for just 5 euro!

At the end of this long day, I was so tired that, before my party tonight, I signed the birthday card as Anja and Christ - just one ‘t’ too much! So, one friend thinks I get kicks from sniffing around the local tombs, and another thinks I have a messiah-complex, and you all think I write too much.