After i wrote the last post on scribe-ness it hit me about the whole "scribe and pharisee" thing. The scribe-ness i'm drawn is not that of the "scribes and pharisees" who were in a sense lawyers and in a place of judgement. Thats not the draw at all. But i feel a real need to look there and see what that was about. First from here:

"Their functions were to copy, read amend, explain, and protect the law. The scribe keeps record of work done and goods paid, of prices and costs, of profits and loss; he counts the cattle as they move to the slaughter, or corn as it is measured out in sale, he draws up contracts and wills, and makes out his master's income tax.

The Scribes (Hakamin, learned) were not a sect but a profession; they were scholars learned in the law, who lectured on it in synagogues, taught it in schools, debated it in public and private, and applied it in judgment on specific cases. A few of them were priests, some were Sadducees, most were Pharisees, they were in the two centuries before Hillel what the rabbis were after him. From being transcribers and expounders of the Law, they supplied, after the captivity, the place of the prophets and the inspired oracles, which had ceased; and from them arose those glosses and interpretations which our Lord rebukes (such as the cold belief of it being wrong to help one another on the Sabbath etc, or the equally cold typicalness with which "putting away one's wife" was supported in this distorting of the law by thge scribes and pharisees)"

The scribe-ness i am drawn to is not these judges but rather a tradition that evolved especially in middle ages, a tradition not of judgement but of carefully and prayerfully carrying forward Christian beauty in things like manuscripts and icons. It IS really similiar though in its love of "law", but in a very different way. I keep thinking about how Christ never attacked the holy laws in themselves (rather the very opposite). What he attacked instead was how they had been so abused and distorted and used to detach and harm. And the scribe-ness i am drawn to does have a great love of sacred law and Lady Wisdom and the like, its at the heart of it...but God willing this sort of scribe feels no right or desire to distort that into the detachment and legalism as the pharisees did. In their ideal, Medieval scribes were in fact mega careful to carry forward and beautify only and not to distort... that was at the very heart of being a scribe.

They say next to the poison is the cure and i believe it. I feel this latter form of "scribe" is a healing for the former somehow. Maybe those of us drawn to it know deep down we could be in danger of sadly becoming (or even already have become) "pharisee like" and seek its antidote in this healing form of scribeness instead, who knows.

Inserted later: I really think this is the case, that this latter scribeness is meant to heal..... but whats more thats its also about longing to retrieve somehow the more original spirit of the scribe, rather than what it got corrupted into. More and more i just really feel the original scribeness was a beautiful thing, and we all know how the enemy loves to go after these things to corrupt them. Some stuff from here:

"In the New-Testament period the scribes were the professional interpreters of the Law in the Jewish synagogues. The origin of the profession dates from the return of the Captivity, and its subsequent growth and importance resulted naturally from the formal and legalistic trend of Jewish piety during the post-Exilic period. The Law was revered as the precise expression of God's will, and by its multifarious prescriptions the daily life of every pious Jew was regulated in all its minute details. Love of the Law was the essence of piety, and the just or righteous were they who walked "in all the commandments and justifications of the Lord without blame" (Luke, I, 6). But as these commandments and justifications were exceedingly numerous, complicated, and often obscure, the needs of popular guidance called into existence a class of men whose special occupation was to study and expound the Law. The earliest mention of the title occurs in I Esdras, vii, 6, where Esdras is described as a "ready scribe in the law of Moses". What this meant is set forth in verse 10: "For Esdras had prepared his heart to teach in Israel the commandments and judgment". This description doubtless applies to the subsequent scribes of that period. They were pious men who through love of the Divine law occupied themselves in collecting, editing, and studying the sacred literature of the Hebrews and in explaining it to the people. The earlier scribes, like Esdras himself, belonged to the class of priests and Levites (Ezra 7:12; Nehemiah 8:7, 13; 2 Chronicles 34:13) who were originally the official interpreters of the Law, but unlike other priestly duties, the study and exposition of Holy Writ could be engaged in by pious laymen, and thus little by little the scribal profession became differentiated from the priesthood, while the latter remained chiefly occupied with the ever-growing sacrificial and ritualistic functions.

When under Antiochus Epiphanes Hellenism threatened to overthrow the Jewish religion, the scribes joined the party of the zealous Assideans (1 Maccabees 7:12, 13), who were ready to die for their faith (see account of the martyrdom of the scribe Eleazar, 2 Maccabees 6:18-31), while not a few aristocratic members of the priesthood favoured the Hellenistic tendencies. This resulted in a certain opposition between the two classes; the scribes, through their devotion to the Law, acquired great influence with the people while the priesthood lost much of its prestige. As a natural consequence, the scribes as a class became narrow, haughty and exclusive. Under the Asmonean rule they became the leaders of the new party of the Pharisees, and it is with the latter that we find them associated in the New-Testament records. They never wielded any political power, but they were admitted to the Sanhedrin on a par with the chief priests and elders and thus enjoyed official recognition. With the increasing formalism, which their influence doubtless helped to develop, the character of the scribes and their activities underwent a marked change. They neglected the deeper and more spiritual aspects of the Law, and from being men of sacred letters they became mainly jurists who devoted most of their attention to mere quibbles and subtle casuistry. Together with the Pharisees they are represented in the Gospels as being very ambitious of honour (Matthew 23:2-7, Mark 12:38-40; Luke 11:43, 45, 46; 20:46), and as making void the weightier precepts of the Law by their perverse interpretations by means of which they had gradually laid a most heavy burden upon the people. They are also rebuked by Christ because of the undue importance ascribed by them to the "traditions of the elders".

Can't help but note the far more humble position of the latter Medieval etc scribes, and how they were much more invisible. Part of the healing for this "scribe-ness" sure must be a need for humility. Maybe becuase we should love sacred law at its precious heights, not think to become at its level. I wonder if that's the mistake the pharisees made? Feels so similar to the eastern/new age "ye are gods" sort of thing. Really, we are never God of course, we are always being parented snd cared for and taught really. We are but children. I feel a true scribe should have that childlikeness at the center, not just an understanding of it but a longing for it.

Its funny, today there was a co-in-see-dance here. As i was exploring this scribe stuff earlier i happened to play a podcast of Thomas Kempis, not knowing anything about him yet. And it started out with the danger of focusing too much on a life of learning, not that knowledge is wrong but that it can't stop there, that its our inner qualities, how we actually live and how we are with one another, that is most core. And it looks like that is a real wound of the pharisees, one which a true scribe needs to so badly anchor in healing/avoiding. Big time....