On toleration

There is some debate as to who [amongst Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy] said what in the following three stage witticism, but whoever said what, it is worth pondering:

• God is dead
• If God is dead, all things are permitted
• If all things are permitted, we will believe what the man with the most guns tells us

Patrick J. Buchanan has written a solemn piece drawing out the logic of this witticism in terms of the current situation in global affairs. It is sobering reading for anyone living in the West. I commend it to you, but will understand if you don’t have the stomach for it.

In the course of his argument, Buchanan writes this:

A people’s religion, their faith, creates their culture, and their culture creates their civilization. And when faith dies, the culture dies, the civilization dies, and the people begin to die.

Note the interconnection of four realities: faith, culture, civilization, and people.

Quite apart from noting my own agreement with his observation, I want to highlight the distinction Buchanan makes between culture and civilization. Often confused and thought synonymous, these terms indicate very different things.

Civilization: a type of society developed by a particular nation or region usually at a particular historical time period.

Culture: a set of assumptions adopted, often unconsciously, by groups of various sizes within a civilization  

Making a distinction between these two aspects of human communal existence is, I am suggesting, a critical ingredient in understanding real tolerance.   

Note carefully: a civilization is a type of society while a culture is a set of assumptions. The former entails a structure for social health, welfare, and security. The latter implies a mindset regarding meaning, purpose, and fulfillment.

For a civilization, real tolerance is not a mindless endurance of any and all things. Why not? Because some things may make the “type of society” which glues all its members together no longer functional. That is to say, as John Locke pointed out long ago [using the then more common word, “toleration,”] the civilization itself is eroded from within and soon dies. Tolerance is not for the sake of tolerance, but for the sake of the civilization. Tolerance which kills the tolerant is quite simply suicide.

How very different it is for a culture.  In this context I and a few friends may adopt a set of weird and almost idiosyncratic assumptions [that the earth is flat, say, or that the moon is blue cheese, or that only males should be ordained clergy, or that sexual identity is a matter not of biology but of will] and my friends and I simply create a culture of and for the like-minded within the civilization. No harm is done. [Think the hippie culture, the rural culture, the celebrity culture, etc.]

There is, of course, a limiting factor, and Buchanan mentions it in fourth and fifth terms to be added to the two I have highlighted …. “a people” and “religion.”

What constitutes “a” people? What is a “religion”? How do each of these relate to civilization and culture?

An issue for another day.

The invisible partner

“The Bible says …. !”

This phrase normally introduces an alleged Ace card argument. You have been arguing for a position and your “Bible-believing” opponent comes away with it. The Bible says blah blah blah. There; end of discussion.

Take government spending on defense, for example. You have been making the case that we will need to increase spending, strengthen the military, etc., and the Bible believer comes away with, “But, the Bible says, beat your swords into plowshares and your spears into pruning hooks. See? We need to increase spending on agriculture and decrease the devil’s money, the money we spend on militarization.”

The best reposte, in this case, is to say, “Well, the Bible also says, Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. You were quoting Isaiah, but I am quoting Joel. Both are in the Bible. So, what is the Bible saying? Nothing about the proportioning of the US federal budget in the twenty first century. Isaiah and Joel had something else in mind.”

 Now, the table has been set for a real discussion about biblical relevancy for contemporary life.

A text without a context is a pretext. [I have many times reminded readers of these posts of this fundamental rule for sound biblical reading. Disregard it and you can make the Bible say whatever you want it to.]

But, there is a more radical [I mean “at root”] issue than the twisted self-interest that motivates much Bible invoking in the discussion of social or political issues.

The Bible was not written in English [or any other contemporary language.]  Biblical Hebrew and a little Aramaic constitute the Old Testament while koine or common Greek is what we read in the New. If you cannot read these languages then what you assert “the Bible says” is a translation.

Translations, not just of the Bible, are problematic.

Various translation methodologies have evolved as to how best to express a source language in a target language. Should the translator seek to express a source word with the same word in the target language whenever it occurs? If X means Y once should it not always mean Y? Some translators think so. Others argue, that the translating task is not to translate words or even sentences, but to express the source meaning of a passage in the appropriate words and sentences of the target language.

When you read a Bible in English do you know what philosophy of translation lies behind it? Is it literalistic or more paraphrastic?

How confident can we be when using a translation we claim to know what “the Bible says?”

Consider:

There are no capital letters in Biblical Hebrew. God is the same as god, lord as Lord, spirit as Spirit, just to give three examples.

In Greek manuscripts of the New Testament there are either only capital letters [like old-fashioned elementary school printing] or there are only lower case letters in cursive.

Furthermore, both Biblical Hebrew and Koine Greek are vocabulary impoverished, in comparison to English certainly and many other contemporary languages. In Hebrew, for example, comparative and superlative forms of, the relatively few, adjectives are not found and these modes must be expressed otherwise.

I could go on, but based on these consideration alone, examine two familiar passages.

Genesis 1:1 & 2 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth …. and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.”

• Note: the word “God” translates the Hebrew elohim. There is no capital at the beginning and the form of the Hebrew is plural.
• Note: the word “Spirit” translates the Hebrew ruach. There is no capital at the beginning and the word in its frequent occurrences in the Old Testament can be found translated as here, Spirit, but also as “spirit, wind, and breath.”

Which leads to ….

John 3: 4- 8:

4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

• Note: the Greek word for “spirit” is pneuma [which I have highlighted in red above] and in this passage it is translated as spirit, Spirit, wind. Look especially at the end of verse 6!
• Note: the Greek form, humas, of “you” in the famous phrase at the end of verse 7 is plural! How can this verse be used to justify the necessity of you singular taking Jesus as your singular personal Savior and Lord [note the traditional capitals!]
• Note: as for being born “again,” it is now a common observation that the Greek word, anōthen, need not have a time-related meaning and often has a space-related one, i.e. “from above.”

All these examples are given, and many, many others could be listed, to lead you:

to respect the difficult task of translating and also to be aware of the agendas, hidden and not so hidden, that color decisions they are called upon to make with every sentence, and

to hesitate to be blindly dogmatic tinged with judgmentalism in declaring that you know with certainty what “the Bible says.”

to remember that between you and the page there is always an Invisible Partner …. the mind, preferences, and prejudices of the translator/s.

Passing over Passover?

Two seemingly deceptive sentences:

• Easter was celebrated early this year, March 27^th to be exact. 
• Easter commemorates the Resurrection of Jesus which followed his Crucifixion which took place on the day after the evening of the Last Supper in the Upper Room, a meal pictured as a Passover meal, for which Jesus had made arrangements as witnessed to in the story about the disciples finding a man with a donkey who would lead them to the house.

Both those sentences [the first short and direct, the second purposefully long and more complicated] are highly problematic.

First, the date of Easter.

Not all Christians celebrated Easter on March 27th. Catholics and Protestants did, but the Orthodox did not. For them, or rather for most of them, Easter will not be celebrated until May 1^st. The differences amongst Christians are due to the idiosyncrasies of three calendars, the Gregorian [followed in Western Christianity,] and the Julian, which has two forms, the traditional and the revised. This despite the dictate of the Council of Nicea in 325 which stated that, “Easter would be held on the first Sunday after the first full moon occurring on or after the March equinox.” This entailed some agreement as to the timing of the actual equinox and that agreement proved elusive. Moreover, Easter has always been postponed for one week if the full moon falls on Sunday.

Second, coinciding with Passover.

If there is a postponement because of the coincidence of the equinox and Sunday, then Easter will not correspond to the date of Passover, for the establishment of the date of which Sunday is irrelevant.

More than that, however, is the fact that both the Gregorian and Julian calendars are solar [or in revisions, solar-lunar.] The rabbinic calendar is a solely [pun intended] lunar calendar. Lunar calendars require some form of make-up time because of the lack of regularity in the lunar orbit in relation both to the Sun and to Earth. In Judaism an extra month, Adar 2, is added to the calendar every so often based on a nineteen year cycle. There are seven such 13^th months in a nineteen year cycle. Adar 2 is placed before the month of Nisan, on the fifteenth day of which the Feast of Passover begins. In Reform Judaism and in Israel it lasts for seven days and elsewhere for eight.

Observation: The Last Supper coinciding with Passover is not all that important.

One of the crucial aspects of John’s Gospel which distinguishes it from the Synoptics [Matthew, Mark, and Luke] is his chronology. For example, it is in John’s Gospel, based on the number of Passovers it describes, that the usual understanding evolves that Jesus’ ministry lasted three years. This is in stark contrast to the whirlwind one year of the Synoptics.

Another chronological difference is that in John the Last Supper was not a Passover meal. He agrees that it took place on a Thursday evening, but Passover for him did not fall until Saturdsay for the next day, Friday, he describes as the “day of preparation for the Passover” as in John 19:14. John also differs as to the actual time of day that Jesus died on the Friday, placing it at noon, the traditional time for the slaughter of the Passover lamb to take place, rather than the 3 PM of the Synoptics.

The Passover connection for John is the slaughter of the Lamb. For the Synoptics is is the eating of it.

Thus, there is no supper of bread and wine in John’s Gospel. Instead, the “Do this” command is conjoined with the Foot-washing act, which becomes a sacramental act in some branches of Christianity, the Pedilavium.

Conclusion:

Either way [the Synoptic or the Johannine] the connection of Jesus’ last days is intimately connected with Passover.

Rip either the Last Supper or the Crucifixion out of the Passover context and we are left with mere sentimental paganism.

Words mean things

Among the courses I teach to undergraduates one is The Bible as Literature. The institution is a state university, you understand, and so the “as Literature” is both defining and limiting. The Bible becomes a novel in which one character happens to be a chap named God.

Fine. It’s the price of doing business, as they say.

As the course progresses I point out to the class various “glossary items” which they need to know for test purposes. [My similar glossary for my Introduction to World Religions class is both more extensive and less narrow.] The final version took shape at the end of last week. One student mentioned that her pastor had said that if she knew these items she would “know more than most members of his church.”

This comment prompts me to provide the glossary here. Who knows? How many did you know? Even if you are an anti-Bible person, it is important to know what it is you are against. Not all like-minded opponents do!

Bible as Lit. Final Glossary

Ascension: both the event and the doctrine about it during which the Risen Christ appeared to some of his followers for the last time, described as his rising up into heaven

Apocalyptic: a genre of fantastical imagery expressing the view that the state of the world is so bad that only a divine act of intervention can rectify it; it relies on an ideology of them and us, and now and then.

Apodictic law: absolute, non-negotiable commands

BCE: a term now often used in preference to BC, meaning “Before the Common Era” (see CE)

Betrayal: the act of Judas by which he identified Jesus to the police in the garden of Gethsemane in order to facilitate his arrest

The Bible: the book that is not “a” book, but a redaction of redactions, from many centuries over many centuries, mainly in two languages (Hebrew and Greek) and reflecting various contexts

Casuistic law: conditional and changeable law

CE: “the Common Era” a term now used in preference to AD.

Collision Context: the conflict between Davidism and its advocates of national self-confidence, on the one hand, and, on the other, religious purists and traditionalists some of whom expressed their unease through the genre of prophecy.

Context: the total frame of reference for any text

Covenant: not a contract (an agreement between equals with different responsibilities) but a conditional offer of protective custody from a superior partner to a weaker. (In the Hebrew Scriptures, with Noah, Abraham, Moses/Israel, David, written on the individual heart Jeremiah and captured in the Christian Scriptures as the “new covenant.”)

Crucifixion: the event of Jesus’ execution by being nailed to a cross

Davidism: utilizes the notion of Covenant to establish political power and worldly success as the criteria for right-standing with God. (Named after the policies of King David.)

Denial: the act of Peter during the trial of Jesus in the courtyard of the high priest by which he three times denied that he knew Jesus [as Jesus had predicted he would]

Diaspora: Following the destruction of Jerusalem in 70CE Jews fled across the then known world to try and find homes and work.

Ehyeh asher ehyeh: the name of God: “I am here as the one who will be there.” The name captures the meaning of the Incarnation Principle (see below.)

Evangelism: the two fold task of the early church, to make non-believers followers and to transform followers into disciples

Etiology: a story told in the past tense to explain a present phenomenon

Eucharist: meaning “thanksgiving” the term most widely used to refer to the central sacrament of the Church which celebrates and reenacts the Last Supper. [Variously referred to as Mass, Communion, Lord’s Supper, The Sacrament]

Foot-washing [pedilavium]: in John’s Gospel the act of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet in the upper room on the night he was betrayed

Genre: a particular category with its own motifs, style, and themes. [The Bible genres examined in this course are: Myth, History, Torah, Wisdom, Prophecy, Poetry (Psalms,) Apocalyptic, Gospel, Acts, Letters.]

Geschichte or History 2: history understood as the meaning of what happened [see Historie]

Gethsemane: a small garden/orchard/pardes in Jerusalem where Jesus was arrested

Historie or History 1: history understood as what actually happened [see Geschichte]

Gospel: Two separate meanings. (A) One of the four books of the New Testament [Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John] which report the meaning of the life and work of Jesus of Nazareth and (B) the entire revelation of God’s truth for the world through the Christ event.

Great Commission: The words of the Risen Christ from Matthew 28: 16 – 20, which lay out the mission of the church [to go, make disciples, baptize, and teach.]

Gnosticism: In the Greco-Roman world a religious/philosophical movement, expressed in various mystery religions, which viewed matter as the root of all evil and thus espoused salvation as an escape to a realm of pure spirit. [It derives from the Greek word gnosis which means knowledge and thus its doctrine is that I am saved by what I know, namely the secret passwords to get me through the various spiritual realms to eternal bliss.]

Incarnation Principle: God makes the power of his help present in and for the world

Invisible Partner: the translators and their agendas (theological and ecclesiastical etc.) which stand between the reader and the words on the page.

L: the material found only in Luke (not Luke!)

Last Supper: In the Synoptics the last meal, a Passover meal, Jesus had with his disciples in an upper room on the evening before he was arrested; this becomes the foundation of the Eucharist

Literary Criticism: a self- aware, consistent methodology applied to written work for the purpose of gaining understanding

M: the material found only in Matthew (not Matthew!)

Mk: The Gospel of Mark, the earliest gospel written

Myth: the intentional use of words to speak of that which cannot be spoken (alternative term is “archetypal tale”)

Passover: the meal eaten by the Hebrew slaves the night before the Exodus from Egypt

Pentecost: Means “fiftieth.” Originally a harvest festival of the Jews [Shavu’ot] as described in the Hebrew Scriptures, occurring 50 days after Passover. In Christianity it refers to the events of Acts 2 which took place on Pentecost and is sometimes referred to as the “birthday” of the church.

Prophecy: the genre giving voice to those who brought a message from God, which was based on piercing analysis of the present situation and calling for a change in attitude to avoid an otherwise inevitable future.

Resurrection: the unwitnessed event and the doctrine about it by which the dead Jesus was raised from the dead to become the living entity experienced by some of the early church as the Risen Christ

Q: an unknown theoretical source of mainly quotations of Jesus found only in Matthew and Luke; total of about 250 verses; e.g., the Lord’s Prayer or the Beatitudes

Reciprocity Principle: as you ….. so will you be ……

Redaction: the end result of a process of collecting and editing

Righteousness: standing-right with God and others/the neighbor

Septuagint: the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures done by rabbis in Alexandria, Egypt in the second century BCE, plus some books found only in Greek; abbreviated LXX

Shema: the Jewish declaration of faith (Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord our God with all your heart, with your all your soul, and with all your strength, and your neighbor as yourself.)

Synoptic: can be looked at (optic) together (syn)

Synoptic Gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke

Synoptic Problem: the combined understanding of two observations: (a) that the Synoptic Gospels all share a chronology, geographical structure, and a stylistic presentation and (b) that John departs from each of these characteristics

Synoptic Solution: SGs = Mk + M + L +Q; meaning Mark was used independently by Matthew and Luke to which each added material known only to himself and also Q [see entry in this Glossary for definition of Q.]

TaNaK: The Jewish name for the Old Testament; their Bible. The Law (Torah), the Prophets (Nebiim) and the Writings (Ketubim)

Textual Criticism: the [highly skilled] effort to determine the best, authentic text, usually of an ancient writing, based on many manuscripts, sometimes fragmentary and in other languages

Torah: (a) the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures; (b) The Law (written and oral) given to Moses on Mt. Sinai; (c) The faithful Jewish way of life, the way to walk through life to be in right-standing with YHWH

Wisdom: God’s will understood as practical, useful knowledge

On biblical nonsense

The American Library Association has revealed that the Bible is amongst the most challenged books in their collections.

They say that users object “to its presence in libraries and schools over its ‘religious viewpoint’”. The text has not previously appeared in the ALA’s annual citation of challenged titles.

So, are we to assume the objection is to religion per se? In that case is the Tao Te being challenged? The Analetics? The Upanishads? I doubt it.

It goes along with the fact that this has “not previously” happened?

It is part of the current anti-Christian movement.

Don’t believe there is such a movement? Read this.

I could multiply examples so that this post would look like link confetti.

Get it out of our culture. That seems to be the message.

At the same time I read this morning that a Caravaggio painting was found in the attic of a house in Toulouse. The couple were inspecting the attic space for a leaking roof problem. As the article says, “a leaky roof has proved to be as good as a lottery jackpot.” Everybody’s dream.

What was the painting? It is described as a “bloody biblical scene,” of a woman cutting off a man’s head.

It is, of course, portraying the great Jewish heroine Judith killing the despotic murderer Holofernes.

Two points:

the Bible is fine if it ignites creativity from which I can make a bucket load of money; it has value.

the Bible is not fine if it espouses a “religious viewpoint;” it has no value.

Judith’s assassination of Holfernes [not the painting, but the painting and the act] is at the intersection point of these two utterances and reveals their shallowness and the shallowness of the “religious viewpoint” it wants to object to.

But wait, you may be thinking, how is this “biblical?” That story is totally unknown to me. It’s not in my Bible.

A word of explanation:

One of the consequences of Alexander the Great’s conquest of the Holy Land, after the Battle of Actium in 333 BCE, was that many Jews left Jerusalem and the Holy Land altogether, foreshadowing the Diaspora which would occur after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 CE.

One place large numbers of these displaced Jews settled was in Alexandria in Egypt. By the end of the period of the prophets [300 – 250 BCE] they numbered in the tens of thousands. By this time the normal language “on the street” was Greek. And yet, the rabbis insisted on still using Hebrew in synagogue, for praise, prayers, and for reading the Scriptures.

The Jews in Alexandria went to their rabbis complaining that they did not understand their worship language, that they all spoke Greek, and they asked for a Greek translation of their Holy Scriptures. After resisting for some time, the rabbis agreed to produce a Greek translation. [Alternatively, one legend says that the Greek ruler of Alexandria, Ptolemy II, asked for a Greek copy for the famous library of Alexandria.]

The translation was produced and given the title in Greek kata tous ebdomekonta meaning “according to the seventy.” This echoes the legend that the translation was produced by 72 [!!, I know??] rabbis. This phrase is translated into Latin as Septuagentia which becomes in English The Septuagint often abbreviated in writing as LXX.

Thus:

• In translating the books the rabbis had to decide which books to include because in addition to the books of the Law and the Prophets there were others which the people loved, regularly used, and revered as holy, most, but not all of which, of which existed only in Greek. The rabbis took all these books and added them to their translation. In doing so they changed the order of some of the books, placing Ruth, to give but one example, in order of its historical context right after Judges. Because the LXX went through many redactions it is hard to give a list of its original books, but amongst those not found in the Hebrew Scriptures are: Baruch, Wisdom of Solomon, Ben Sirach, Susanna, Tobit, others, and Judith.
• By the way, this accounts for the differences in what Christians refer to as the Bible. The LXX was the Bible of the early church and is what is quoted in the New Testament. Roman Catholics include the LXX books in their Old Testament, Orthodox Christians included the same with even some others, while the Protestants follow the later, rabbinic Jewish standard, adopted at Jamnia [another story] and accept only the Hebrew Scriptures.

I labor this point so that the shallowness of what I have written about earlier in this post will be thrown into even sharper focus. Lack of knowledge and information is always fuel for prejudice.

Pebbles in the pond

Let me throw these four pebbles out there into the calmness of your Tuesday. Maybe there will be meaningful ripples in your mind.

First, how is it going with Muslims becoming part of Western societies as their numbers increase, as with previous migrants from other countries and cultures?

Take a glance at this piece. The opening sentence hits the point:

The former head of Britain’s Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), Trevor Phillips, has admitted he “got almost everything wrong” on Muslim immigration in a damning new report on integration, segregation, and how the followers of Islam are creating “nations within nations” in the West.

Add to that this:

Even left-wing columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown told him: “[W]e [liberal Muslims] are a dying breed — in 10 years there will be very few of us left unless something really important is done.”

And finally:

Phillips comments: “Some of my journalist friends imagine that, with time, the Muslims will grow out of it. They won’t.”

Ripple? Ripple?

Second, this explosive piece from Brett Stephens in the Wall Street Journal. Please read the entire article!

Writing of the mindset of homegrown jihadis [like the Brussels crowd,] Stephens writes:

They are also sons of the West—educated in the schools of multiculturalism, reared on the works of Noam Chomsky and perhaps Frantz Fanon, consumers of a news diet heavy with reports of perfidy by American or British or Israeli soldiers. If Islamism is their ideological drug of choice, the political orthodoxies of the modern left are their gateway to it.

He concludes:

We’ve become lazy in our thinking about Islam and the West. Whether the Islam practiced by al Qaeda or ISIS is “radical” or merely traditional isn’t the question. It’s whether the West can recognize that the moral nihilism of today’s Jihadi Johns is the logical outgrowth of the moral relativism that is the default religion of today’s West.

Ripple? Ripple?

Third, put alongside these two pieces, this startling news out of Stanford University.

Students there want traditional western civilization studies [dare I call such “the liberal arts”?] returned to their curriculum. Note my emphasis in the sentence below:

At Stanford, a backlash against this censorious student culture is taking shape in the form of a petition to reinstate the university’s Western Civilization curriculum.

Ripple? Ripple?

Fourth, I am so fed up with the election crap all around us that I have hit on an idea.

A write-in campaign!

Oh that, I hear you mumble. Yes, but this is a campaign with a difference.

Zaphod Beeblbrox 2016.

How about this for a bumper sticker?

“Zaphod: For democracy, for people, and for stuff.” [Oh wait! That’s Bernie’s slogan. Hey, have you ever seen Zaphod and Bernie at the same time and place? Just asking.]

Thanks Douglas Adams: RIP.

Hillary: laugh or cry?

First, let’s set the scene. I quote (italics are my emphasis):

The Constitution, Article II, Section 4:

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

The Constitution, Article I, Section 3:

The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside:  And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two-thirds of the Members present.

Judgment in Cases of Impeachments shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust, or Profit under the United States, but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment, and Punishment, according to Law.

Second, the mood of the country. Increasingly, ordinary folks are debating the question about Hillary Clinton and the FBI investigation of her emails.

Famously, Bernie Sanders said he didn’t “give a damn about” her emails. But, the FBI does. And so do more and more people. Bernie may be a minority of one!

People are concerned and their concern is framed as a series of questions:

• Will she be charged?
• Should she be charged?
• How serious will the charges be, presumably serious?
• Could/should/would she go to prison?
• Will the Justice Department protect her from the FBI? Would they do so under the full glare and focus of history’s microscope?

All very interesting. Consider another aspect of it all, however. This was brought to my attention in all its urgency in discussion with my younger son who pinpointed the absurd possibility, noted below.

Third, consider the timing.

Especially consider her being charged in the very particular time context of her candidacy, possible nomination, possible election, and inauguration.

Let’s look at the possibilities, not in chronological order, but in the order of legal complexity and chaos potential. [Bear in mind for all of these, the possibility of President Obama pardoning her. A pardon, as I understand it, is usually given for someone already convicted, but … you never know.] 

During candidacy.

If charged as a pre-convention candidate it is very difficult to see how she could continue as a viable candidate. Yet, she has many more delegates than Bernie. The Democratic Party’s disarray at their convention would make the GOP potential disarray a Sunday School picnic.

As nominee.

If charged as the nominee prior to the election it is equally difficult to see her continuing as a viable candidate. In this case would the VP on the ticket automatically be the presidential candidate?

As president, after inauguration.

Now Hillary would be President Clinton. Impeachment would be the legally appropriate response. Would it be instituted? What if there is a GOP House [which impeaches] and a Democrat Senate [which tries the case]? Just like her husband’s case! Or, would she go for the Nixon option. Once again, very important who the VP is.

The absurd possibility, after the election [which she wins] and before the inauguration.

President-Elect Clinton is not yet subject to impeachment. A process through the court system would be lengthy and all-consuming. Her VP colleague has no real legal standing in the succession as yet. Would she resign as President-Elect? Would that entail the resignation of her VP-Elect? If so who then is to be inaugurated? The current Speaker [who happens to be Paul Ryan]? My reading of the Constitution does not detect clarity for this eventuality.

Know why?

The Founders did not contemplate this possibility: of a potentially impeachable candidate, one who is chargeable for or has been charged with, let alone convicted for, “high crimes and misdemeanors,” ever being remotely considered as a candidate for the highest office in the land.

Makes you stop and think.

Or cry.

Or laugh.