Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • A Just Claim?

    9We are confident concerning you, loved ones, that you have the greater salvation. That’s why we speak in this way. 10For God is not so unjust that he would forget your works and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints and continuing to do so. 11But we want each one of you to show the same zeal toward the fulfillment of your hope to the end 12so that you might not become lazy, but rather imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. — Hebrews 6:9-12 (my translation)

    St. John Chrysostom interprets verse 10 as requiring our aid to those who are in need, without inquiring as to the reason:

    Having then heard these things, let us not care only for “those that are of the household of faith” ( Gal. vi. 10 ), and neglect others. So then also thou, if thou see any one in affliction, be not curious to enquire further. His being in affliction involves a just claim on thy aid.

    τὸ δικαίωμα τῆς βοηθείας For if when thou seest an ass choking thou raisest him up, and dost not curiously enquire whose he is, much more about a man one ought not to be over-curious in enquiring whose he is. He is God’s, be he heathen or be he Jew; since even if he is an unbeliever, still he needs help. For if indeed it had been committed to thee to enquire and to judge, thou wouldst have well said thus, but, as it is, his misfortune does not suffer thee to search out these things. For if even about men in good health it is not right to be over-curious, nor to be a busybody in other men’s matters, much less about those that are in affliction. — On the Epistle to the Hebrews, X (CCEL)

    I think that is an interesting stretch, though there is some merit in the idea, it seems to me. I have also seen much need for good stewardship and wisdom in dealing with limited resources used to help the poor.

  • Dimly in a Mirror

    Every Bible student should go see this. Really!

  • A Liberating Theology

    Liberation theology gets improperly defined and beaten up on a regular basis. Some complain that it ignores the spiritual element, ignores Jesus as savior, and tries to ignore sin. It’s fairly easy to make this case out of the Bible. There is, after all, Romans 13, in which Paul tells Christians to submit to the authorities, or the experience of Peter as he is told to render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s (Matthew 22:21). Generally interpreters miss the irony in that one.

    They also miss the pure politics of Romans 13. In this case Christians are hoping for the protection of Rome. The Roman authorities are the ones who are more favorable to Christians. We tend to think of them strictly as persecutors, but at the time the letter to the Romans was written, Rome was the best hope of Christians for protection.

    On the other side, it would be easy to point out the many cases in the Bible in which people refuse to obey the authorities. Slavery, for example, was clearly Egyptian law when the Israelites left under Moses. The Israelites than entered Canaan as illegal immigrants and began a crime spree, or so I imagine the Canaanite perspective might be. But the higher powers all over were very annoyed by what God’s people did.

    While David respected the person of Saul as God’s anointed, he wasn’t at all opposed to violated all kinds of laws and customs, and was even prepared to fight for his Philistine masters. Prophet after prophet stood up to power and some of them died for it. The apostles, when told not to preach, were not subject to the higher powers. Instead, they told the authorities that they should obey God rather than man.

    Law and custom has repeatedly been used in opposition to liberation. One could point out in the early 19th century that slavery was according to the law, but liberators chose not to obey the law–they obeyed God rather than human beings. During the civil rights movements there were many laws and customs that were discriminatory and just plain wrong. The folks who brought liberty were not the ones who said, “It’s the law.” They were the ones who said, “The law is wrong.” They proceeded to break those immoral laws.

    When Jesus spoke in Nazareth and quoted Isaiah 61:1-2 “liberty to the captives” (Luke 4:16-21). Generally, established governments don’t like it much when you liberate their captives. They think their captives are captive for a reason. Those who preach liberty and mean it are often not popular with the powers that be, because they are preaching liberty to people that government thinks should be captive.

    Liberation theology was sometimes abused. It is easy to become a liberator with no theology, to free men’s bodies and forget about their souls. If the church becomes that kind of liberator, then we’re merely another social organization, except that we carry a lot more baggage. We can also become stupid in the way in which we liberate. Many would-be liberators either become oppressors themselves or enable actual oppressors through their lack of good sense. A number of left-wing liberators have fallen into that trap.

    But Christianity has a much greater tendency, I believe, to fall into the trap of becoming an arm of the government. We like the status quo, and we produce theology that helps keep it established. And unless the laws we support are so absolutely just that they deserve the backing of a divine mandate, tragedy often results. In the same way when a truly moral crusade receives the backing of state force, it will often go astray.

    In America I think we have tied both the gospel and its liberating power far too much to a particular political process. We should comment on politics, we should be a prophetic conscience for our politicians, but we should not allow ourselves, as a church body (in the broadest sense) to become identified with particular parties and institutions. Our consciences cannot be in the pay of established power.

    A liberating theology, in my view, provides a divine mandate to hold everyone’s feet to the fire and demand that they live a life worthy of the gospel. When torture happens, we should be like the ten plagues on Egypt, until people are let go, are treated with dignity and respect. When we see oppression, we should be there to proclaim liberty. Our theology should continually challenge our society to be better than it is.

    I think that is what Martin Luther King did to us in the 50s and 60s, and it is what the church needs to do today. No person, no society is so right and so good that it does not need the annoyance of a sensitive conscience, speaking to it prophetically.

  • Sub Ratione Dei on Scot McKnight

    A good first look at McKnight’s book A Community Called Atonement.

  • Obama at Ebenezer Baptist

    The entire text is available on Levellers, and it’s a good one. Head over there and read it. I have the same reservations that Michael Westmoreland-White indicates, but that doesn’t detract from the quality of the speech.

  • The Bible, Christianity, and Me (Briefly)

    I have seen a few comments lately from both sides of the spectrum about just where the Bible should stand in relation to Christianity and to a person’s personal beliefs. It seems that not only are Christians willing to define the role of the Bible for other Christians, but non-Christians try to explain to Christians, especially those who are not conservative, just how they should view the Bible.

    Basically, if I don’t take a very literal and direct view of scripture, these folks believe that I am not sincerely and really a Christian.

    Now the first answer to that, of course, is that it’s really not their decision to make. I don’t have to prove to anyone else that I’m a Christian. To the extent that I do so, I do so to the congregation of which I’m a member, and none of them are in any doubt on the matter. But ultimately, the only person to whom I must give account for my spiritual state is God.

    But there are a couple of simple facts involved as well. First, there is no Bible without a community. The Bible doesn’t define and create the community. The community defines the Bible. Inspired by God, in fact, the community creates the Bible. There are really no Biblical Christians, just a Christian Bible.

    There is no external way to determine just how one should take the Bible. One has to look into the Bible, as well as at the communities that have formed and interpreted it to discover that. Modern fundamentalism has tried to pretend that they are somehow historical Christianity, but they are not. They’re just another community using the Bible in their own way.

    Nobody does everything the Bible says. Nobody can. It is a document that reflects and in some cases records a history of belief, not a systematic belief system. Nobody can make good use of it without intelligently applying experience and their own reason. Unreasonable people with a Bible will tend to become more unreasonable. It really helps much more with the process of asking questions than in finding final answers.

    Some will suggest that only the extreme literalist approach is valid. I hear this even from those who have left the Christian faith entirely after rejecting that approach. I understand how they could reject that approach, I do not think such an approach has any hope of making sense out of scripture at all. I fail to see where they imagine that they get a mandate to take that approach. Normally, they present me with texts interpreted their way to prove that I should interpret the Bible their way. Having rejected their way, however, I am unimpressed. My preference is to discover from scripture just what it is and how it has come to be, and to learn from both the experience it records, and the experience it reflects in the history of its text.

    It’s what makes sense to me, and that is all it really has to do.

  • Isaiah 49:5 – An Insignificant Variant

    So why do I want to talk about an insignificant variant? The answer is simple. In many cases the reliability of Biblical texts is stated simply in terms of the number of variants that exist in the manuscripts. This number is quite high, but most of these variants are not significant. They may involve identical meanings, orthography or spelling, or be so unlikely to be the original text that nobody would claim they were.

    I’m sometimes asked just what such insignificant variants might look like. This is an example. First, however, let me mention the range of variants, in this case working from Hebrew scripture.

    1. Variant spellings; no matter what text you choose the meaning is the same.
    2. Variants in vowel pointing only. At least most Christian scholars place less emphasis on the vocalization than on the consonantal text. Some translations will alter the vocalization without a footnote, but require a note if they use something other than the Hebrew Masoretic consonantal text.
    3. Ketib / Qere variants. The Masoretes included notes in some cases indicating that a word included in the consonantal text (ketib) should be read (qere) as something else. Different scholars judge the value of these variants differently.
    4. Variants in the consonantal text over one or two words.
    5. Variants in whole passages.

    At some later date I may provide examples of each of these, but right now I just want to establish the range. Examples of each one do exist.

    Once someone hears that the vast majority of the textual variants are insignificant, they are sometimes tempted to believe that textual variants really aren’t important. But some of the variants are very significant.

    In this case, we have the Hebrew phrase, consonants only, WYSR’L L’ Y’SF,* in Isaiah 49:5. Now if I rendered this literally, without other considerations, it would read “and Israel not will-be-gathered.” A glance at the context will indicate that this is precisely the opposite of the intended meaning. If I then look in the margin, where the Masoretes provided me with a very useful note, I will find LW instead of L’. (For those not used to transliteration that’s lamedh-waw insteand of lamedh-aleph.)

    Now generally first year Hebrew students could translate the two words. LW means “to him,” and L’ means “not.” What is less clear, unless you know Hebrew, is that both are pronounced the same. The probability is so high that the intended meaning is “to him” (And Israel will be gathered to him), that normally that is simply translated without any note. I checked all the translations in which I expect to find notes, and there was none. And that is as it should be.

    Nobody makes a case for the alternate rendering because the evidence is so strong. Besides the logic of the passage, ancient versions also translated this as do modern versions. Translators should not convey every such instance, and they don’t.

    *I am not distinguishing samekh from sin, as that does not impact this point.

  • Thinking about Hell

    . . . in fictional form on my Jevlir blog.

  • Isaiah 49:2 – Mouths and Sharp Swords

    One basis I use for comparing Bible translations is the way in which idioms are handled. It’s difficult to measure this precisely, because you have to consider several things:

    • Is the idiom as used comprehensible to modern readers?
    • Does it mean the same thing to modern as to ancient readers?
    • Is there a reasonable English (or other target language) equivalent?
    • How good is the equivalent that was selected by the translation?

    Simply noting that an idiom in one language is translated by an idiom in another is not sufficient. Figures of speech work in essentially the same way and require that one ask the same questions.

    In Isaiah 49:2 we have a fairly simple figure of speech. In Hebrew, this very literally reads:

    He set my mouth like a sharp sword.

    Now I don’t know how natural that sounds in English to others, and I’m already running another poll, but to me “sharp” and “words” do go together in a figure of speech, and using mouth for the words spoken is also pretty standard. For example, I don’t think anyone has trouble understanding “potty mouth.” I have only rarely heard that combination with “sharp,” however. There I think we more commonly use “tongue” with “sharp” than “mouth.”

    So I classify the translations of the figure of speech in three categories. First would be those that translate the figure of speech or idiom completely literally. (I’d ignore the idiom if the figure of speech is common also in the target language.) The second group adjusts it somewhat to make it more comprehensible. The third translates the figure into natural, but not necessarily idiomatic language. The fourth group (of which I have no examples in this case) would provide an alternate idiom. The following list is not exhaustive:

    Translating the words and not the figure

    “He made my mouth like a sharpened blade;” (NJPS)

    “He made my mouth like a sharp sword,” (NRSV)

    Adjusted slightly

    In this case, the adjustment is generally “mouth” replaced with “tongue.”

    “He made my tongue a sharp sword” (REB)

    Translated into clear language (drop figure of speech)

    “He made my words as sharp as a sword.” (TEV) [Note here that one figure (mouth for words) is replaced, while the second (sharp) is retained.]

    “He made my words of judgment as sharp as a sword.” (NLT)

    “He made my words pierce like a sharp sword” (CEV) [In a sense another figure of speech is added, or perhaps “sharp” is merely enhanced, by the addition of the word “pierce.”]

    “He made my words like a sharp sword;” (HCSB) [The HCSB regularly surprises me, sometimes with incredibly obscure translations, and sometimes with exceptionally clear ones.]

    This comparison also raises a question with the NLT text. Should the words “of judgment” be added here? Is it perfectly clear that it is words of judgment alone that pierce like a sharp sword? On first reading, I am not happy with the NLT addition there. It makes plain something that is not plain in the text, and may even be incorrect. My mind could be changed, however.

  • And Why Shouldn’t They?

    A Canadian training manual for diplomats includes the United States on a list of countries where prisoners are at risk of being tortured.