Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • ADELFOI = Brothers and Sisters

    I’m probably beating a dead horse to death, but I encountered the following quote in reading Victor Paul Furnish’s commentary on 2 Corinthians:

    . . . adelphoi is used quite inclusively by Paul when he addresses a congregation; he is thinking of all those, female as well as male, who are in Christ. . . . (p. 112, on 1:8)

    Since I’ve discussed this before, I’m going to be brief. This is simply another fine scholar telling us what should be quite obvious. Adelfoiwas used to address audiences that included both genders. There is no need to imagine just how much Paul was addressing one group or another. In modern English, the standard is becoming “brothers and sisters” to address that same type of group.

    I think this should be a relatively uncomplicated issue, but certain theological positions seem to complicate it.

  • Why I Don’t Like Left Behind

    Hat tip to Gentle Wisdom for this quiz on eschatology:

    What’s your eschatology?
    created with QuizFarm.com
    You scored as Amillenialist

    Amillenialism believes that the 1000 year reign is not literal but figurative, and that Christ began to reign at his ascension. People take some prophetic scripture far too literally in your view.

    Preterist
    		100%

    Amillenialist
    		100%

    Moltmannian Eschatology
    		60%

    Postmillenialist
    		35%

    Dispensationalist
    		25%

    Premillenialist
    		25%

    Left Behind
    		0%

    Now I know why I don’t like the left behind books! It was also mildly funny to discover that I don’t have an “eschatology” category. I think I’ll leave it that way and just use the tag.

  • Why People Hate Hillary

    During the 1992 presidential campaign that gave us Bill Clinton, I remarked to a friend that if they would just swap out the candidates for their wives, they would have my vote. In particular I thought Hillary Clinton was substantially smarter than her husband.

    Since then I have lived in the south and watched eight years of pretty raw hatred of Bill Clinton, but ever greater hatred of Hillary. Now it happens I’m not a Hillary supporter, though I will almost certainly vote Democrat in this election regardless of their nominee. Yet Barack Obama attracts me a good deal more. At the same time, I would only suffer a minor moment of annoyance should the tide turn yet again and Hillary Clinton became the nominee. (One key issue on which I prefer Obama is simply that he voted against the war in Iraq from the start. He neither claims deception (Clinton), nor a change of mind (Edwards), though Edwards is to be congratulated for the almost unheard of step of announcing he was wrong.)

    When I listen to liberals (other liberals?) rage on about Bush in many of the same terms, I just tell myself that this is what people are like. Of course it’s also quite possible that other people have higher expectations of politicians than I do. I never vote for someone I like completely. I always feel that I’m choosing the lesser of two evils. Thus I’m also less disappointed when the person who is actually elected fails to live up to the campaign rhetoric.

    But I have never figured out just what makes people hate Hillary Clinton so much. She isn’t the most liberal Democrat, for example. If she were, that would explain many of my conservative friends who despise her. I had come to the tentative conclusion that the combination of opposition to her policies and various levels of dislike of a strong woman in leadership have led to this intense hatred. Of course for some people it’s more obvious!

    I followed this link from a trackback to another post to find this feminist blog which actually looks at some data. There has been a tendency to think that women are voting more for Clinton than men, in other words, women are voting their gender. We hear less about men voting their gender. (I wonder why.) But according to the blog post, it seems quite possible that men are voting their gender more than women. I don’t know as this is terribly profound, but it’s worth thinking about.

    Making issues like this conscious and explicit rather than subconscious is an excellent way to make our thinking more rational and reality based. Maybe a few folks ought to check their views against Hillary’s and see whether she’s not closer than you think.

    Having done that, I must say that one issue–the war–will leave me closer to Obama. Oh well! It was an interesting exercise!

  • Anchor Bible: 2 Corinthians – Introduction

    One of my more esoteric goals in life is to complete a study of every book of the Bible form the original languages working with a commentary that takes critical issues into account. I have read the Bible through in its original languages. This is a different type of study. I will generally read other sources, but I choose one critical commentary that I think should be pretty solid, and I study the book with that on.

    In the case of 2 Corinthians, I chose the Anchor Bible Commentary by Victor Paul Furnish. It’s a 620 page (without front matter) volume that does interact intensively with some of the major critical theories, and also looks carefully at the theology of the book. I have used the Anchor Bible commentary in a number of my studies, and generally have found them to be fine volumes.

    This time I’m going to blog a bit about the experience as I study through. Using my own study methods, I’ve been reading the book through daily for the last couple of weeks, using different translations and getting an overview. Today I read the introduction, which occupies 57 pages. Most of it is fairly straightforward, dealing with dating the book and looking at where it fits with what we know of the life of Paul. Of those pages 18 deal with the history and the culture of Roman Corinth. Following that we get a substantial history of Christianity in Corinth as it is known from other sources.

    The entire introduction is good, and is expected of an Anchor Bible volume. But the section on the literary integrity of the book is exceptional, working through the logic that has been applied, and should be applied to various theories of authorship. One important point is made on page 38: “Any proponent of a partition hypothesis is under an obligation to offer some plausible explanation(s) of how originally independent units could have come to be combined into a literary whole.” That’s an often disregarded point.

    Dr. Furnish does accept one partitioning of 2 Corinthians. He believes chapters 1-9 represent one letter, and 10-13 a follow-up letter. His hypothesis for the combination of the two elements is that the two were put together as a collection, and joined by the simple expedient of dropping the ending salutations of one and the opening salutation of the other. He even provides examples of such collection practices in the ancient world. In doing so, however, he rejects a large number of very complex hypotheses.

    I’ll be reading the comments on the relevant passages with some interest to see how strongly he bolsters his case.

    For those interested, the introduction is followed by about 35 pages labeled “Select Bibliography.” All I can say is that I would hate to imagine what would have happened had the author not been selective!

  • Becoming Righteous and Becoming Rich

    I’m currently doing some study in 2 Corinthians for some of my personal study, partly because I became interested in the structure of the book when studying 2 Corinthians 5:21. I blogged about that previously, looking at the interpretations of Wright and Piper. In that post I obliquely questioned whether 2 Corinthians 5:21 was such a good penal substitutionary atonement (PSA) text in the first place. Some further reading has made me question this further.

    The specific verse that started me thinking is 2 Corinthians 8:9. Here we have the following:

    For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that he became poor for our sake, though he was rich, so that we, through his poverty might become rich. [my own very formal translation] — 2 Corinthians 8:9

    In English translation, the verse looks more grammatically parallel to 5:21 than it is in the Greek. In fact the vocabulary and structure is not very parallel at all, but semantically it seem to be it is. In the one case Jesus is made sin, so that we can be made “righteousness,” while in the other he becomes poor (Trinitarians should have no problem with the change from “made” to “become” in this case), so that we might become rich. On the off chance that someone might suspect me of teaching a prosperity doctrine let me note that in the context of 2 Corinthians, this is clearly a spiritual state of riches.

    Now in this second verse, would we talk about either impartation or imputation? We might, of course, talk about impartation, though in fact the spiritual riches are probably to be seen as a gift. But more likely it’s a change of state; riches are imparted, not richness, if that makes any sense. (Remember these are preliminary thoughts!)

    I would note further that 3:18 refers to a continuing transformation, i.e. a process, while 5:17, we have the reference to new creation. Frankly throughout the book it looks to me as though Paul is talking about something more like radical transformation than like imputation. If it’s impartation, it’s something that can happen over time.

    I would suggest that the best interpretation here would follow something along these lines: There is a transformation when one becomes part of the community of Christ. This is what is referred to as the “new creation.” This transformation continues as one lives inside that community or is a citizen of the kingdom of God. A citizen of God’s kingdom is by definition rich. The transformation continues until we leave this body behind, and put on the new one, where we also face God’s judgment (5:1-10). This is the soteriology that lies behind Paul’s defense of the apostolic calling.

    As of the moment, I see no proper place where one can import the forensic elements of PSA into this passage, and thus whatever one decides on the meanings of specific terms in 2 Corinthians 5:21 it is not a text about forensic justification.

    Of course, I continue to study the book. In my next post I’m going to start blogging my way through a commentary I’m currently using in my study of the book.

  • From my Blogroll: Better Bibles, Baptists, and Brothers

    Better Bibles was one of the earliest entries on my blogroll, and one of the blogs I read before I began blogging myself. I look to the authors for lots of challenging material on Bible translation. They often go much deeper than I would. But these posts are not just about explaining who’s on the blogroll. My plan is to interact with a post.

    Wayne Leman posted the Baptist is in. In which he discusses the “clarification” provided by the New Living Translation in John 1:6, in which “just plain John” (John in the text), gets the added identifier of “Baptist.” There’s no doubt that this is a reference to the person we call John the Baptist, so just what precisely is the problem with more clearly identifying him?

    On the surface, there doesn’t seem to be a problem. The identification is true, and the identification is true. This isn’t an issue of a difference between the ambiguity in Greek and in English. Whether it’s Greek or English, the same clarity is achieve with name, or the combination of name and title.

    Doug at Metacatholic brought up some excellent issues in his post The NLT and the intrusive baptist. The author of John apparently did not see the need for clarity here, and in fact may have had some reasons for expressing things precisely as he did. Now I’d normally comment about now that rhetorical devices that are not noticed by the audience are irrelevant. In other words, if a test audience got no different meaning from a translation that included “baptist” and one that did not, what difference does it make? In this case, however, I think that because there is, in fact, no essential difference between the Greek and English usage, in other words, the inclusion of the title or not has the same impact in both languages, we have a clear choice. In this case we would not be expressing the same thought as was in the Greek using different English wording. Rather, we would justly be accused of modifying the intention of the Greek author.

    Let me contrast this to another controversial translation issue where I would make the opposite choice. I happened to encounter this today in 2 Corinthians 13:11, in which Paul’s address of “adelphoi” is translated “brothers and sisters” with the unfortunate footnote, “13:11 Greek Brothers.” Actually “adelphoi” was the proper form of address to an audience of mixed genders in the Greek of Paul’s day. In the dialect of English most dominant where I work, “brothers” would refer to men. The Greek doesn’t say “brothers” it says “adelphoi” and the best English expression available to convey that meaning today is “brothers and sisters.”

    I think there would be little controversy if we just happened to have three words, brothers, sisters, and _____, a word used to address an audience of both men and women. I think few would doubt, in that case, that we should use _____ as a translation in this case.

  • Literal Nonsense – the HCSB of 2 Corinthians 8:11-12

    I’m doing some studying in 2 Corinthians right now, and I encountered the following translation while reading it through in the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB):

    11But now finish the task as well, that just as there was eagerness to desire it, so there may also be a completion from what you have. 12For if the eagerness is there, it is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what he does not have.

    If you get additional context, more than I want to quote here, it will make it just a bit clearer, but it is still somewhat hard to follow. Also, I don’t intend this particularly as a criticism of the HCSB, though obviously I think such a translation in a major Bible version should be fixed. Rather, I think it is a good example of how a very literal (or formal equivalence) translation can be nonsense in the target language.

    This HCSB version follows the Greek fairly closely. In fact, it looks a bit like a student Greek exercise, following which I would tell the student, “Now that is a good draft and shows me you have found the words in your lexicon. Now we need to make it into English.”

    The English Standard Version (ESV) is only slightly better:

    11So now finish doing it as well, so that your readiness in desiring it may be matched by your completing it out of what you have. 12For if the readiness is there, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have.

    Now compare those two translations to a dynamic equivalence version, the New Living Translation (NLT):

    11Now you should carry this project through to completion just as enthusiastically as you began it. Give whatever you can according to what you have. 12If you are really eager to give, it isn’t important how much you are able to give. God wants you to give what you have, not what you don’t have.

    Now certainly the NLT has made some choices is clearing up the confusion. I don’t think the text as it is even suggests the real possibilities for translation. This isn’t preserving ambiguity–it’s nonsense.

  • Rounding Up My Blogs

    I’ve written two posts that might interest readers of Threads. The first is on how we listen and read, and the second is on capitalization in translation of the Hebrew scriptures. (And no, the Hebrew doesn’t have capitalization, so what gives?)

  • J. Barton Payne on Theistic Evolution

    A friend of mine e-mailed me a link to this post on Higgaion. It’s an interesting discussion, and Payne’s attitude is far from dead today. To the excellent article, I would add only a couple of questions.

    First, on what basis do people determine that Genesis 1 & 2 must be narrative history? I am regularly asked to prove that it is something else, as though by default it must be considered narrative history. But the way one usually identifies a literary genre, especially in the ancient world where things didn’t come labeled “mythology,” “history,” or “fiction,” is to build an acquaintance with related literature. Ever since I became acquainted with a much broader range of ancient near eastern literature, it has always seemed to me that this process should be reversed. Why should something that looks so very much like other ancient near eastern creation myths be regarded as narrative history?

    Note here that I do not regard it as identical to those other myths, nor as directly copied from them. Rather, I regard it as the same general type of literature, which often shares common elements of cosmology and other symbolism. If we did not have the current Genesis creation account, and we found it inscribed on clay tablets in some ancient near eastern city, we would have no hesitation identifying it as a new creation myth. (Note also that I think the genre is more precisely “liturgy” for Genesis 1:1-2:4a, and “myth” for Genesis 2:4bff. See my essay Genesis Creation Stories – Form, Structure, and Relationship.)

    Second, and closely related is this: Why do we have a prejudice against fiction and myth as a way to convey spiritual truth/value? One potential answer to my first question is that we Christians believe the Bible is inspired, and it must contain truth (or be true), and fiction is false. For protestants, I think there is some loss through lack of exposure to the apocrypha. Reading Judith or Tobit can help one gain appreciation for the use of fiction in the ancient world.

  • English and Greek Ambiguity: 2 Corinthians 5:21

    This relates to my previous post on translating ambiguous passages.

    The last clause of this verse reads, formally translated, “so that we might become [the] righteousness of God in him.” I’m interested in the range of meanings that might be heard by a modern English reader for the final phrase, “in him.”

    A number of translations, even my beloved REB, translate this simply “in him.” The NLT gets bold and reads “so that we could be made right with God through Christ.” The CEV uses “so that Christ could make us acceptable to God.” Now both of those latter translations do mean something in English, while in common speech, I don’t think “in him” means very much at all.

    I must admit that “in him” does mean something to me in church language, and it gives me the picture of being in the body of Christ, the church, as being a part of being reconciled to God. How exegetically sound that is will have to wait for another day. Suffice it to say that I don’t think I’m directly on target with Paul’s intent here. Other than that, however, “in + any reference to a person” only works rarely, in such statements as “the bullet was in him.” I’m pretty sure that’s not the intended meaning here.

    I’m not looking here for the precise meaning of the verse, but rather the range of meanings that might be suggested by that particular phrase in this context. I’m thinking that the Greek will suggest a number of possibilities, such as agency or instrument that the English does not. I note that BDAG offers “before, in the presence of” (1e), instrument (5), agency (6), and marker of cause or reason (9). One could glean more, but I’d be interested in examples in which these latter meanings could apply. (Note that some, such as instrument, do not apply here in Greek either. I’m pointing that one out to show the substantially different semantic range of the Greek “en.”)

    Comments, examples, and notes on your particular dialect of the English language would be appreciated.