Your Rabbi's Dust

My junior year of high school Ron Howard starred in the movie Eat My Dust. It was definitely a B movie (meaning they did not bring their A game). It didn't go straight to video, but became drive-in fodder for the masses. Its only redeeming value was one of the wildest car chases ever filmed. You can probably still find a copy in Betamax.

Rob Bell is the king of the wild evangelical ride. His Nooma videos present that quirkiness in an ingenious way. He criticizes anyone who wants to paint the ultimate picture of Elvis. He says they end up "freezing the faith."(1) And the only place for a frozen faith is the same spot his velvet painting of a pre-doughnut Elvis now occupies: the basement.

Bell says the only thing that is absolute is God (not Elvis, and not the faith—which is his shorthand way of referring to your interpretation of the Bible). That is why doctrines of the Christian faith "aren't the point"(2) (or at least not RB's point).

Now, lest you think I am just grinding my axe (pull that spark out of your hair), there is a lot to admire in Bell's brief book, Velvet Elvis. Not least is his desire to reverse the curse of cynicism and stagnation in much of evangelical Christianity. Robbie would never put it this way but, after all, we are living in the "Laodicean age."

Worthy of equal praise is any attempt to strip away the varnish of traditional interpretations and get back to the true meaning of Jesus' words for disciples today. For this attempt we give kudos to N.T. Wright as well. Both of them have taken the fruits of the "third quest" for Jesus (don't worry, I didn't know Jesus was lost, either) and extracted their relevance for mainstream believers.(3) But in striving to be insightful Bell focuses on the novel.

I think I said something; you better read it again. In the effort to be profound he resorts to novel interpretations. Like, quirky. "Private interpretation" I think Peter calls it.

Is that a fair criticism? Let me start with one example for this post.

The fifth "movement" in Bell's book is entitled "Dust." This is his reference to disciples attaching themselves to rabbinic learning by saying that they wanted to be covered in the dust of the rabbi’s feet. Since the idea of Biblical open-endedness is a key assumption in Bell’s thesis, what RB is really getting at is the concept that the disciples' job was to follow their rabbi, who was constantly repainting their faith so it would not brickify. I'm not sure that was ever the case in Judaism (although they certainly do have a lot of inherently self-contradictory positions inherited from the sages and the oral tradition), but let's play along with the fantasy.

Bell quotes exactly one rabbi to give us an experiential exegesis of this idea. There is just one thing wrong with his extrapolation. Well, two things, actually. First, that's not what the rabbi said. Second, that is not what he meant.

Okay, don't get mad and stop reading; just stop reading. Or, even though I have touched your idol, read on and evaluate for yourself.

On page 130 Bell states, "One of the earliest sages of the Mishnah, Yose ben Yoezer, said to his disciples, 'Cover yourself with the dust of [your rabbi's] feet.’" Now that Rob has grabbed the palette of your imagination in his engaging, fluid style, he goes on to paint a picture of the disciple being covered with dust from "a day of walking in the dirt directly behind" the rabbi.

Let me give you the actual quotation. Rabbi and Sanhedrin leader Yose ben Yoezer, in the first tractate (we would say chapter) of the Mishnah named Perkei Avos (Ethics of the Fathers), discusses the validity of the oral Torah by saying,

"Let thy house be a meeting-place for the wise [or sages], powder thyself in [or sit in, wallow amid] the [very] dust of their feet, and drink their words with eagerness [or thirst, or gusto]."(4)

So this does not mean (as Bell says) to “cover yourself” with their dust as they walk around, binding and loosing doctrine and casting their particular theological spell, excuse me, "yoke" on people. It means to sit in the dust at their feet humbly and attentively. Just like Mary did in Luke 10:39.

Oh. I guess some things are better illustrated by Scripture. As a matter of fact, the Bible will usually keep us from getting wrong ideas from misapplied quotations.

Okay, I know you're tired, but here's my point. Instead of anchoring his images in Scripture, Robbie approvingly quotes Sean Penn (did you know he was also a theologian? At Ridgemont High, I think) that, “When everything gets answered it’s fake. The mystery is the truth.”(5) Hmmm. Glad my physician doesn't think so. Wish my theologians didn't either, because the whole point of biblical revelation is to answer essential questions with certainty (Prov. 22:20-21—and don't take that just as a "proof text,” actually read it and meditate on the meaning).

Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis is kind of like Ron Howard's Eat My Dust. It doesn't get a lot of traction, but the ride is wild enough. What it has in common is quirkiness. Some people thrive on that, but like the movie, I think it is designed to instill maximum vertigo.


1. Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), 13.

2. p. 22-23.

3. As might be gleaned in N.T. Wright’s, The New Testament and the People of God, or his dialogue with liberal theologian and Jesus Seminar member Marcus Borg in The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions.

4. m. Avot 1:4, Neusner. The entire tractate can be viewed online at http://www.anshe.org/avos.htm.

5. p. 33.