Social media and a plastic alphabet tiled notice board. The language of the people?

Let me introduce you to Father Rod Bowers!

Father Rod has become something of an institution in Australia in recent years thanks to social media. He is the master of the pithy comment.  Many, many love him.  Many, many loathe him.  I am pretty certain that to-day's comment (the Islamic equivalent of Merry Christmas or Happy New Year for Christians) will drive the fanatics and the bigots nuts.  However, that doesn't both Father Rod.  Go here and you will find a mass of his epigrams for people to enjoy or be driven nutty.  But he won't be stopped!

If you want something a little bit longer and meatier than Father Rod's succinct signage, you can get his sermons. They are erudite and meatier and you can get a feel for the man himself in action.  People sometimes wonder out aloud what Father Rod's boss, the Bishop, thinks of all this. First of all, I think everyone in the Diocese of Newcastle is used to all this.  Second of all, thanks to electronic media, he has acquired as much or more fame than Jesus did in His day and - what is more - he uses it wisely and well.  

So, please join me and many other Australians tonight at 9.35pm.  Father Rod - or to give him his precise title the Venerable Rod Bower - when he appears on the ABC current affairs television program, Q and A.

.... and a little more over here. 

EARLIEST LATIN COMMENTARY ON THE CHRISTIAN GOSPELS REDISCOVERED

The earliest Latin commentary on the Gospels, lost for more than 1,500 years, has been rediscovered and made available in English for the first time. The extraordinary find, a work written by a bishop in northern Italy, Fortunatianus of Aquileia, dates back to the middle of the fourth century.

The biblical text of the manuscript is of particular significance, as it predates the standard Latin version known as the Vulgate and provides new evidence about the earliest form of the Gospels in Latin.

Despite references to this commentary in other ancient works, no copy was known to survive until Dr Lukas Dorfbauer, a researcher from the University of Salzburg, identified Fortunatianus’ text in an anonymous manuscript copied around the year 800 and held in Cologne Cathedral Library. The manuscripts of Cologne Cathedral Library were made available online in 2002.

Scholars had previously been interested in this ninth-century manuscript as the sole witness to a short letter which claimed to be from the Jewish high priest Annas to the Roman philosopher Seneca. They had dismissed the 100-page anonymous Gospel commentary as one of numerous similar works composed in the court of Charlemagne. But when he visited the library in 2012, Dorfbauer, a specialist in such writings, could see that the commentary was much older than the manuscript itself.

In fact, it was none other than the earliest Latin commentary on the Gospels.

Please read the whole article here

Lukas J Dorfbauer - Curriculum Vitae

See also the blog of Roger Pearse