Wayne Leman has published the first part of his report on the survey he has been taking on Biblical teachings about headship. While this was not a scientific poll it did point to some interesting things. I’d suggest reading it with a primary focus on what people understand as an “explicit teaching” of scripture. What does that phrase mean?
It appears to me that people use the phrase without any concrete meaning, but that’s just my general, unscientific observation!
Jody has already announced this, but our texts Monday night will be: Lectionary texts: 1 Kings 3:5-12 Psalm 119:129-136 Romans 8:26-39 Matthew 13:31-52 Opening question: What is THE treasure? Or: is the kingdom seeking you or are you seeking the kingdom? No, not the same question, but they may shed light on one another.
Update (1/15/09): For those in the habit of reading posts and skipping comments, I want to note that there is an important and substantial exchange of comments between Peter Kirk (Gentle Wisdom), Jeremy Pierce (Parableman), and myself that helps clarify this issue substantially. In my first post in this series, I made the following comment…
These discussions seem to come up all the time about learning Greek, but the discussion also applies to Hebrew. How one can imagine it’s critically important to learn Greek if one is to preach or teach, but not so much to learn Hebrew, I don’t know. But the degree requirements of various colleges and seminaries…
This post by Eddie Arthur from Kouya.net makes and illustrates clearly an important point, one that is missed by many Bible students. You can’t just grab glosses or even definitions from a lexicon/dictionary and apply them to the verse of your choice.
Read the full story on The Christian Post. This is an interesting development, especially considering the region involved.
A few days ago Wayne Leman blogged about translating Hebrew poetry, and referred to an article by Philip C. Stine Biblical Poetry and Translation. The article is really excellent, and nothing I’m about to say here is intended to criticize that article as such. I’ve been very interested in translation of Hebrew poetry, but I…
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Henry, although I greatly respect Wayne, I think he has got a bit confused on this one. He seems to understand “explicit teaching” as what others might see as the literal or formal correspondence meaning of the passage, but elsewhere he has repeatedly questioned the validity of such an understanding. See my comment on his post.
In general I agree with your comment. I did not respond to the poll myself simply because I don’t know what “explicitly teaches” means. If it means what it says to me, then I’d be looking for something that is clearly a Biblical teaching without doubt or contradiction possible. I get that because I relate it to something like “the professor explicitly said that we were supposed to do ____.” Thus it wasn’t implied, there is no room for issues of context or audience, and so forth.
In my view, there is no such statement in the Bible. At a minimum I would have to say “teaches explicitly when read according to ______ view of interpretation. Otherwise I’m led to believe that the Bible “explicitly teaches” that the trees one day got together to select a king.
Peter, I have only used the English translation glosses as shorthand for the Greek terms. Perhaps you can see my wrestling that that issue in the second or third post. You are right–and I was trying to accomplish that with my shorthand wording–that we are really discussing the meaning of kephale. This Greek word refers to a body part. It has been metaporically extended. I tried in my post to indicate that my current position is that Paul’s intended meaning for this Greek word is that of the body part, head, in its relation to the rest of the body.
kephale does mean ‘source’ in some contexts. I don’t know whether or not it does in the head-body passages. For me it doesn’t matter, since, as I posted, I currently lean toward understanding these passages to refer to the organic unity of head and body. Of course, these two referents refer to different individuals or groups of individuals, such as Christ (head) and church (body). As much as I dislike people jumping to the conclusion that when we use the English word “head” as translation in these passages, I don’t know any way to avoid using the word “head” to refer to the organic unity the head of a body has to its head. I suppose this might be a place where a footnote is required.
As for “explicit teaching,” I consider that not to have anything to do with formal correspondence or literal translation, but, rather, the propositional content of a teaching passage. That propositional content is found in the autographs as well as accurate translations of the autographs. For me, there is a difference between what a passage communicates in propositional content, and what its interpretation or application today might be. I do not consider that Torah laws about not putting two different kinds of cloth together in the same piece of clothing is applicable to me today. That is my interpretation. But I still consider that the Hebrew text said not to put two different kinds of cloth together.
Or am I missing what you are saying?
Henry, you wrote: “It appears to me that people use the phrase without any concrete meaning, but thats just my general, unscientific observation!”
At least you were explicit about your observation! 🙂
I won’t speak for Peter, but based on the responses, I don’t think those who responded to your poll used the same definition you have just stated.
But what is the explicit teaching of an ironic passage, for example? I understand the example of mixing two kinds of thread, but still even determining that this was a law that was meant to be obeyed at the time is interpretation, albeit a very clear case.
What, for example, is the explicit teaching of “99 righteous people who need no repentance” (Luke 15:7) Are there any such people?
Wayne, thanks for the clarification, also for what you have written on this at BBB. The problem I see is that you presuppose that the propositional content of a passage is clear and unambiguous, and this is clearly not true of many of the passages you had in mind during the survey. I don’t think we can safely say that “the Bible explicitly teaches X”, without further qualification, when the propositional content of the passage in question is disputed. The most we can say is that “the Bible explicitly teaches ” when those Greek or Hebrew words are a quotation from the original text.