The Apostle Paul's Address from Dublin Hill - A Targum by Seán Mullen

At the EAI conference last weekend, Seán Mullen read a brilliant Targum that he put together for Paul's address on Mars Hill in Acts 17. Seán didn't mention anything about Targums, but as soon as he began reading, it reminded me of what I've heard of the Jewish tradition of translating Hebrew scriptures into Aramaic. They're essentially an effort to re-hear God's voice in a particular context. The following is Seán's "Targum," his effort to speak scripture into the Irish context:

"People of Dublin! I see that in every way you are very busy. For as I walked around and looked carefully at what you dedicate yourselves to, I found your city jammed with frazzled, hassled people pursing what they see as a better life. Now what you pursue as something unattainable I am going to proclaim to you.

"The God who made the world and everything in it is the entrepreneur behind all of human life and he is not found in the unceasing pursuit of financial security. And he is not kept happy by occasional visits to church or money in the collection plate as though he needed a little bit of your time and money, because all the time and money and everything else you have, come from him. He has been responsible for the whole human story from the beginning until now, and he decided that you should have the place that you now have in his story, Ireland in 2006. And the reason he did this was so that you would seek him as the source of life and joy and maybe even find him, because he’s not as far away as you may think. He has already been giving you a lot more help than you can even imagine. As one of your own poets has said, 'Sometimes you can’t make it on your own.'

“Therefore since we were made for God and to find life in a relationship with him, we should not think that life will be found in a successful career or making lots of money; these are mere human plans. In the past God was willing to let that foolishness go, but now he has done something so we can no longer ignore his call. He has set a time when a life spent pursuing stuff rather than pursuing him will be shown to have been useless, a waste of time. He has given proof of this to all of us by Jesus’ life death and resurrection and by bringing into existence communities of Jesus apprentices who, in this city, live radically non-materialistic lives and who dedicate themselves to pursing life with God and the justice of God in this city and country.”

Not only did he do a clever job of quoting one of the most popular of contemporary Irish "poets," but he also brilliantly speaks the passage from Acts into the Irish economic context that has had such an amazing impact in the culture at large. Now that I think of it, this could easily be read in the context of a lot of other Western cities/countries as well.