Tuesday, February 05, 2019

Pelosi pseudepigrapha

OLD TESTAMENT PSEUDEPIGRAPHA WATCH? Nancy Pelosi Keeps Quoting Her Favorite Bible Verse. The Mystery: It’s Not Actually in the Bible (Ruth Graham, Slate).
“To minister to the needs of God’s creation is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us.”

OK, actually, she said, it might not technically be from the Bible. “I can’t find it in the Bible, but I quote it all the time,” Pelosi said as she introduced the quote. “I keep reading and reading the Bible—I know it’s there someplace. It’s supposed to be in Isaiah. I heard a bishop say, ‘To minister to the needs of God’s creation … ’ ”

To clarify: It is not “there someplace.”
No, it isn't, but it is sort of a modern midrashic expansion of one or two biblical verses. The article discusses some possible inspirations. And it notes that the issue of the Speaker's quote also came up back in 2008. I posted on it then here and here.

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