My dog’s got no nose…

… how does it smell? Awful.

Inspired by Scott Bailey’s take on an age-old question, here are some Biblical and theological snippets ripe for redaction. But go read Scott’s, it’s better.

Moses: Take a dog, a male one year old without blemish, and bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting. There Aaron shall cut off its nose.

Isaiah: And I said: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a dog of unclean nose, and I live among a nation of unclean noses…” Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. The seraph touched my nose with it and said: “Now that this has touched your nose, your sense of smell has departed and your aroma is blotted out.”

Amos: And the LORD said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A dog with no nose.” Then the LORD said, “See, the stench of injustice rises in the midst of my people Israel, yet they smell it not.”

John of Patmos: Then another portent appeared in heaven: a great dog, with seven heads and ten tongues, and no nose on any of its heads.

Origen: But since our present object is not to make inquiry about every case, but about the passage before us, let us, adopting a figurative interpretation, consider who we may say the dog was, and what was his nose which was absent, and what is meant by the dog smelling.

Augustine of Hippo: Canis extra ecclesiam naris non habet.

Bultmann: Our task is to demythologize such accounts of noseless dogs.

Girard: Mimetic rivalry dictates that a dog must be singled out. The one with no nose is the obvious victim; see how quickly a pretext of its foul smell is adduced as evidence of its guilt! Through this mechanism of scapegoating and violence, harmony is restored to the community until the mimetic cycle begins once again.

Hauerwas: In the colony, the community founded upon non-violence, the stinking dog has no need of a nose.

Jesus: Let those who have noses, smell.