Do you ever question the 'received knowledge'?

I know Marc has mentioned on his blog, about how we accept other people's theology without really questioning it: that our understanding often comes from others without us really learning it for ourselves. In the past I've certainly questioned ideas that form part of church tradition with no biblical basis, and I'm sure it'll happen again after this.

I was reading in Luke this evening about the events surrounding Jesus birth and the period shortly afterward. It's an interesting section because of the stories surrounding that time, as the actual birth is simply recorded as happening at Bethlehem, almost as though it's a side issue. The story of the shepherds and angels is also well known, and much is made of that in Sunday school plays round the world.

But there's 2 interesting stories that are effectively ignored, possibly because they are less susceptible to cuteness or commercial application: Simeon and Anna. They MUST have been included because they carried meaning for Luke, and they're a little like looking through a keyhole for me, seeing there's a 'world' beyond the door that I'm getting little glimpses of.

The bit of received knowledge that these stories break down for me is the idea that between the last book of the bible (Malachi) and the coming of Jesus there was a period of 400 years when God did not speak to Israel. I don't know exactly where I got this from: it may be baptist tradition, orthodox theology or just something peculiar to the church I grew up in, but I've heard it talked about by others. Yet here are 2 people, Anna and Simeon who are both clearly hearing God speak in an accurate and direct way, both full of the Spirit. Anna is even described as a prophetess.

Now it would be true that Israel didn't have a prophet/judge character to lead them like Moses or Samuel in this period, but both these characters were OLD, and were clearly not novices in hearing God and speaking about Him. In fact Anna is described as telling everyone who was withing range about who Jesus was and what He was going to do: not the typical actions of an 84 year old lady.

This makes me think back to when I read the Apocrypha a couple of summers back. The books were pulled together from materials produced during the intervening years, and bits of it have the ring of biblical truth to them, while other parts feel like religious mythology. Now I'm not interested in material from this period, other than from a purely historical perspective - I certainly don't believe there are mysteries tucked away or significant truths to be discovered, just like the other 'gospels' are of no value outside historical interest. But it seems entirely likely that *some* of this was genuine prophesy, given to Israel for those years, and no longer carrying authority like the words we currently recognise as scripture. just like prophetic words now do not carry the same authority as the bible, but instead need to be checked that they line up with it.

If you read this far - well done!