I was reading some of John Hegley's poetry this morning. He really is a wonderfully funny, thoughtful and clever man.
I see I haved mentioned him before. I recommend both his shows and books to anyone with a love of language and a sense of humour, which is hopefully most of you!
One of his poems (I believe it is called "The Gospel According to St Bernard") was about a naughty dog running off with the ear that one of the disciples cut off the soldier when he attempted to arrest Jesus. Of course in the story Jesus sticks the ear back on. I can't remember the soldier's reaction to this (possibly he converts to Christianity, but I don't know), but it struck me for the first time how weird it is (assuming that this happened) that the soldiers went on to arrest Jesus. They must all have seen the ear being cut off - and one of them definitely witnessed it with terrifying proximity - and then also can't have failed to notice Jesus picking it up and magicing it back on again. They had witnessed an actual factual miracle and rather than falling down on their knees or running away in terror or questioning their orders they arrested the man in question anyway. It was definitely not a magic trick as it involved one of their own number. I am telling you if someone cut off my ear and then someone else came and stuck it back on again I would pretty much accept straight away that he was a god of some kind. I wouldn't then arrest him and lead him to his death. I would try and inform my superiors that they were almost certainly making a mistake.
So either all those soldiers were stupid and the one who got his ear back was a bit ungrateful, or more likely it didn't happen. I read in some book some time ago that this story is only in the New Testament as it helps fulfil one of the Old Testament prophecies. I think one of the gospels names the bloke who had his ear cut off (which ties in with some prophecy involving the name), but if you think about it, it's unlikely that any of the disciples asked him, or if they did that they would have remembered it.
Essentially it's an incident that makes no logical sense and yet it is one that many people take on board without question.
Do you think there was a scar left round the ear or was it totally fused back as normal like in Star Trek or something. Presumably the latter. Jesus wouldn't do a sub-standard miracle. It would be interesting to know whether the ear developed super hearing or anything like that. I would imagine that after being touched by Jesus the ear became immortal and even long after the soldier had died the ear lived on. It is probably somewhere around still today, hearing things and so on.
If anyone knows any more about this story then do feel free to let me know.
