In the name of everything holy. Please don’t!

It is at this time of the year that I wish I didn't find some poetry so ponsy. Clever people are putting sonnets on their blogs, and I am left with an Evil Santa Competition.

My subtle feel for this literary art clearly has not done me any favours. My colleague Jane Williams (wife to accomplished poet Rowan!), didn’t even smile when reading my Ode to Barth. My (I thought rather moving) Death Haiku haven’t really caught on, and the less said about reactions to my Bultmann poem the better.

But you see what I have to put up with: I announced to my wife today that I planned to write a Christmas poem.

“Please don’t”, she responded. “In the name of everything holy. Please don’t”

If I wasn’t so sure about my talent, I could get quite hurt.

Let me remind you what you are dealing with, before I post my Christmas 2011 poem:

*Clears throat*

A Letter of Christ

It is not clear how ἐπιστολὴ Χριστοῦ
should ever be read as precisely
a subjective genitive
as the subjective/objective genitive debate
should revolve around
the relation
of the given genitive to a verbal noun,

- Not to be confused with an infinitive,
which is syntactically a verbal noun -

such that the head noun
has a verbal idea
and is thus transformed into a verb.
While the noun ἐπιστολή does have
a verbal cognate (ἐπιστέλλω),
it appears rarely in the NT
(only in Acts 15:20; 21:25 and Heb. 13:22)
and is never
used by Paul
who instead
always prefers to use the verb γράφω
Cf. Rom. 15:15; 1 Cor. 4:14; 5:9, 11; 7:1; 9:15; 14:37;
2 Cor. 1:13; 2:3f, 9; 7:12; 9:1; 13:10; Gal. 1:20; 6:11;
Phil. 3:1; 1 Thess. 4:9; 5:1; Philem. 19, 21.
Cf. also 2 Thess. 3:17 and 1 Tim. 3:14

(Chris Tilling, © 2008)

I thank you.