Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Unimpressed and Clueless

    That seems to be a good description of the voters in response to the current Democratic congress. I’m amazed at these numbers–well, no, that’s a lie. I’m depressingly unsurprised by these numbers. From a CQPolitics report of a Pew poll:

    Yet the Pew survey, conducted before the budget action, found that American voters appear unimpressed with the Democratic majority’s legislative achievements thus far. Nearly seven out of 10 people could not name anything important that the new Congress has accomplished.

    . . . and . . . [snip a couple of paragraphs]

    But the poll found a silver lining for Democrats: While respondents were hard pressed to point to any of the “Six in ‘06” legislative goals the Democrats set prior to the midterm election, the party’s leaders have made striking gains over the GOP leadership in public perceptions.

    Forty-one percent of respondents said the Democratic Party had stronger leaders versus 36 percent for the Republican leadership, a reversal from the GOP’s 27 percentage-point lead last April. Democrats also ran ahead in terms of having “better” leaders (44 percent to 29 percent), more ability to manage the government (47 percent to 31 percent) and being more honest and ethical (43 percent to 25 percent).

    Summary? We don’t know what they’re doing, but we trust them a little bit more than the previous crowd, though we didn’t know what they were doing either.

    And we trust ourselves to elect a government! 🙁

  • Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007

    I received an e-mail alert from the Traditional Values Coalition regarding this bill, H. R. 1592. It took me a little bit of time to find the actual bill, because, silly me, I thought there would be a link to it on one or another press releases. However, you can find that link here.

    The TVC alert, which you can find here (PDF), tells me:

    Without your action, this anti -Christian legislation will pass — under the guise of hate-crime prevention — and accomplish
    the following homosexual goals:

    • Silence the Bible-believing Churches, Pastors and Christians
    • Criminalize so-called “hate speech,” – which is any speech that is critical of homosexuality or cross -dressing
      behaviors. The suppression of free speech will be justified by the claim that such speech “incites” individuals to
      commit violence against homosexuals, cross -dressers etc. Any remarks about homosexuality, such as reading
      Bible passages, preaching on these passages, telling a person they can come out of the homosexual lifestyle, etc.
      will be deemed critical remarks and will be ruled to be outside the bounds of First Amendment protections for
      pastors, business owners and individuals.
    • Elevate homosexuality and cross -dressing behaviors such as drag queens, transsexualism, she -males, etc. to the
      status of federally-protected minorities. These behaviors will be considered equal to race under the federal law.
    • Interfere with local law enforcement by elevating every alleged incident of “hate” against a homosexual or
      cross-dresser into a federal crime.
    • Fund anti-Christian curriculum for children K-12, through the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice to
      promote homosexuality and cross -dressing as normal behaviors.

    In addition, you can reference the House Judiciary Committee release on this here, presumably largely from the chairman, John Conyers, who introduced the bill.

    Now it’s interesting to observe the difference between the language of the alert, and the language of the bill itself. First, the bill refers to acts of violence, rather than to speech or thought. I fail to see precisely how this is going to impact Christian pastors, even fundamentalist Christian pastors, and what they preach from the pulpit, unless that preaching manages to amount to incitement to violence, and interesting possibility.

    I tend to be suspicious of hate crimes legislation, nonetheless, because it seems to me that the actual violence is a sufficient reason for action, and if that violence gets out of hand, then one can increase the law enforcement. This should occur no matter what the motivation for the violence is. Further, there seems to be a bit of a stretching effort here to justify federal involvement in these crimes.

    I’m especially suspicious when hate speech gets involved, but I’m not seeing that here. “Speech codes” strike me as both unliberal and unconservative–just plain unsound and dangerous.

    That said, I simply do not see where the TVC gets their alert from the text of this bill. I would think it would be a clear, Christian duty to oppose violence against people irrespective of what we think of their lifestyle, character, sexual orientation, or anything else. The sole debate should be one of strategy. How do we best protect people from violence?

    It may well be that this bill is not the best strategy, and as I said it raises certain questions with me. I would like to know just how much accomplishment we expect from the grants that will be given and the use of federal resources, and how such success would be measured. Will we revisit this particular item of spending after a period of time and see if it has accomplished its goals? You see, I’m not at all certain that it will accomplish those goals, or that it is the best way, and our representatives in Washington have this interesting way of making the spending look good, but leaving out the measurement of success.

    One option that occurs to me for dealing with violence is increasing law enforcement generally, not so that we can have big brother looking in every window, but so that we can give every crime of violence due attention, and pay professional police officers the wages due their professionalism, and hire new ones where officers fail to live up to that standard. Perhaps some reprioritizing might be useful, for example, from prosecuting minor drug offenses and in favor of dealing with more serious, violent crimes.

    But what is most clear to me is that the TVC response is not so much about the bill as about their own agenda. Let me ask this: How will holders of “traditional” values (as defined by the TVC) deal with violence against gays, lesbians, cross-dressers, and so forth? Or is that not an important issue to you?

  • Learning the Answer or How to Find It

    Joe Carter provides some thoughtful suggestions on sex education. He suggests that it is more important to teach children how to make moral decisions than it is to indoctrinate them into the particular solution you want them to accept.

    If forced to choose I would be firmly on the abstinence only side. But I believe the debate is rooted in a misguided focus on a false dilemma. Both approaches are primarily concerned with indoctrination toward a particular viewpoint and inoculation against the effects of certain behavior. Neither is concerned with providing an “education”, in the truest sense of the term. The abstinence advocates, for example, want teens to “just say no” while the comprehensive crowd want students to “just wear a condom.” Both are more concerned about “effectiveness” than with teaching teens how to think for themselves about human sexuality.

    I couldn’t agree more. I do, however, have one bone to pick. Why do certain conservatives have to find in practically everything a reason to attack the theory of evolution? Under heading Teleology Carter asks:

    . . . Is sex a gift from a benevolent Creator or merely evolution’s way of tricking us into passing on our genetic material? . . .

    Perhaps we might instead ask whether my responsibility to deal responsibly with what I have is dependent on the precise process by which I got it. Is my responsibility to be sexually responsible diminished if I am the product of evolution? I don’t think so, and I wonder about the “responsibility circuits” of those who think it is.

    To add a slightly different angle to this, I wonder why it is that Christians so often talk negatively about sex. By this I don’t mean that suggesting abstinence or fidelity is a negative way of talking. In fact, I believe that we have in Christianity fine ways to talk about joy and sexual fulfilment in a positive relationship. I think we would accomplish more by extolling the joys of committed relationships rather than railing against the evils of promiscuity. And note, again, that I do regard promiscuity as harmful.

    Let me ramble around one more corner. In an article titled Uganda’s Early Gains Against HIV Eroding, the Washington Post reports that early efforts against AIDS in Uganda were very successful, but that success has begun to erode. What were the characteristics of the early anti-HIV programs? At a concert shortly before he died, singer Philly Lutaaya performed a farewell concert and . . .

    [b]etween songs, he warned the stunned crowd that having several sex partners was a sure way to die in the age of AIDS, echoing pleas also made by political and religious leaders of the time.

    This fidelity, in the case of Uganda included asking polygamous families to remain with their circle of wives. The spread of AIDS was reduced by sticking to fidelity. Surely this is a message that Christians could get ahold of.

  • Isaiah 64:6 – Menstrual Cloth

    I was planning to leave my comparisons with just Isaiah 63, as I believe that continued comparison charts will largely show the same thing. I’m still reading the translations side by side, and if something seems different I will bring it up.

    But today in reading Isaiah 64 in several translations I came across Isaiah 64:6 (5 in Hebrew) in which the phrase “all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” (KJV) occurs. Now having just read this in Hebrew I was reminded that the literal translation of this is “menstrual cloths” or something similar. These cloths would be unclean, as was the woman in her menstrual period. One extended discussion of the issue of uncleanness can be found in Leviticus 15:19-33.

    In the passage, there is clearly meaning in the fact that these are not merely dirty pieces of cloth. For example, had someone washed their hands and dried them on these cloths after digging ditches all day, by modern standards we might call them dirty. If I repair the car and then wipe the grease on a rag, we would escalate that to filthy rag. But the menstrual cloth implied ritual impurity, however odd that might seem to us today.

    So having read the TNIV translation:

    All of us have become like one who is unclean,
    and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
    we all shrivel up like a leaf,
    and like the wind our sins sweep us away. — Isaiah 64:6 (TNIV)

    Now this doesn’t disturb me much. In the course of the verse they have gotten in the words “unclean” and “filthy” and I would assume that the TNIV translators, along with all the modern versions I checked (quite a number), simply don’t think that “menstrual cloth” is going to be meaningful to modern translators.

    But when I turn to a translation that prides itself on word for word renderings, that “seeks as far as possible to catpure the precise wording of the original text” (ESV Preface), I thought perhaps things would be different. But here the desire for literal translation escaped the ESV translators:

    We have all become like one who is unclean,
    and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. — Isaiah 64:6 (ESV)

    Now I definitely think “polluted” is better than “filthy” in the context. But we have still replaced one metaphor in Hebrew with a completely different English expression. The Message carries this the furthest, using “grease-stained rags,” which does not reflect the basic idea all that well, but has the advantage of conjuring an immediate image in English.

    Though I found only one modern version, the Complete Jewish Bible, that uses any word referring to menstrual cloths (menstrual rags), I did find that ancient translators used that. The LXX, Vulgate, and the Peshitta, all translate with something that includes the original literal meaning in its semantic range. Interestingly enough, the Isaiah Targum, according to the text I have available, uses an even better euphemism than any of the English versions, “cast off garment” or I might prefer the translation “garment thrown far away” (Stenning, The Targum of Isaiah, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1949).

    So is there an element of meaning in the actual Biblical wording here or not? Is it possible to convey that meaning accurately in a literal translation? Such a literal translation does not appear common in modern translations.

  • When Adrian is Right He’s Really Right

    . . . and on the subject of enjoying God, he’s really right.

    I don’t mean to throw more fuel on the fire of this “hearing God” thing. Personally I think John Piper’s original article should be much, much less controversial than it is. The main thing that seems to be happening is that people are extending what he actually said to cover a great deal more ground. He may be right or wrong on many other things, but on this one he’s right, and I enjoyed that article.

    Adrian is also right about enjoying God. What is it with gloomy Christians? It seems almost as though some people are afraid that we might enjoy ourselves too much in church and miss out on all the serious stuff. In a perpetual search for doctrinal correctness, they fail to call people to joy as well.

    Now I’m not suggesting here that truth is unimportant. I think it is very much important to be right. Otherwise I would not respond to things in Christianity that I think are going dangerously wrong–even, for example, to respond to some of the hostility I sense to joy. I think it is true that we are supposed to enjoy God.

    My seminary experience, however, tells me that one can get a great deal of knowledge of God without enjoying him and without finding a relationship with him. My own seminary experience, heavily focused on Biblical studies was a progressive experience of learning more and more scripture and becoming more and more isolated from the community, and even from private devotion and worship. My life became totally centered around knowing stuff about God, and God himself faded into the background.

    Again, don’t get me wrong here. The knowledge is good, but it needs to go with a living experience, and I think that experience will be reflected in joy, a joy that stays with you even in sorrow. Without that joy I would not have made it through the last several years of my life, and I thank God for it. The same several years have made it clear to me also, however, that a sense of euphoria based on little or no foundation won’t work either.

    I hope all Christians will seek the joy that comes from experiencing God’s presence and hearing his voice, wherever and whenever they can.

  • Using God as a Label for our Fears

    Way back in the prehistory of this blog I posted an entry about fear and human-animal hybrids. Yesterday I got the latest edition of this type of fear in my Breaking Christian News e-mail. In it was a story headlined Prayer Alert: Ethical Outrage as Scientists Create “Human-Sheep”. Now I’m always mildly skeptical when I see an article that doesn’t so much report the event as it reports the outrage of the reporter to the event.

    For example, consider this quote, part of a preface to the story from reporter Teresa Neumann:

    I will never forget my feelings of disbelief and revulsion when I read Toffler’s assertion that in our lifetime we would not only witness the advent of human cloning, but fully human-animal hybrids as well. Those feelings returned with a vengeance yesterday when I read that researchers in America have just “created” a sheep with half-human organs. Who does man think he is? Where will this lead? What must God think? What should our response be? Do we run to the caves and cower in shame, calling for the wrath of God to come quickly upon the earth, or—like Abraham or Jonah—do we plead forgiveness and ask God to change the hearts of man, thus changing the society we live in? Let us pray…

    So much, I guess, for objective reporting. Personally, I think I will pray for those Christians whose fear and revulsion somehow allows them to think that man is getting too close to God. I’ll let you all in on a secret–getting to the point of assuming God’s power is quite a distance away from us humans.

    The link from the BCN story is to CBN which takes essentially the same approach. Again, the primary story is about the debate:

    A bio-ethical debate is raging at a Nevada university, where scientists have created the world’s first sheep with half-human organs.

    For a more news-oriented report, see this story in The Mail.

    We often use God as a convenient label for what we don’t know, and as long as that’s not all he is, I don’t have a major problem with that use. But when God becomes the label for our fears, then I believe we have a problem in our faith walk. Somehow God has made it through the crusades, the inquisition, and the mutually assured destruction policy with nuclear weapons. I doubt he’s particularly threatened by a few human organs grown in sheep. It does make me think about a nice horror movie based on the idea of killer sheep with superhuman intelligence, chasing sheep dogs and farmers from their land and taking over the world. Baaaaaaah! Sheep Rule!

    There’s a continuing residue of thinking from the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11) that often makes Christians believe that we might get too close to God and bring on his wrath and destruction. Perhaps we should apply a little logic. Any tower in the ancient near east would be considerably less lofty than the Empire State Building, or the Sears Tower, or the Twin Towers. The Twin Towers fell, but it was evil human beings using natural weapons that accomplished their fall.

    Interestingly enough, the builders of the Tower of Babel were also not so much trying to usurp God’s power as they were trying to get protection from God’s wrath. Their fear was driving them.

    There is the very valid question of safety, but safety concerns do not come from the possibility of offending God by mismanaging his universe. There is a concern with the possibility of viruses. I have no knowledge in the relevant areas, but I found this blog entry that discusses a few of those issues. My plan here is not to lay all fears to rest, but rather to suggest rational discussion leading, I hope, to appropriate safety measures. Fear will produce retreat; wisdom will produce caution. Progress means risk–it’s worth taking just a little.

  • Translation Comparisons in Isaiah 63

    Why Isaiah 63? Well, I was reading it in Hebrew for my devotional time this morning, and then I compared some modern versions purported to be readable, and I thought it would be valuable to provide a complete comparison.

    Note that I’m not attempting to provide a comprehensive list. I’m just comparing some poetic and idiomatic phrases that caught my eye. The versions I will use here are the ESV, TNIV, CEV, and NCV. Of these, I have recommended the TNIV, CEV, and NCV as options for outreach Bibles, that is, Bibles suitable for people who are not well versed in the church environment and dialect.

    I would first note that all four of these versions capitalize “Holy Spirit” suggesting divinity in an Old Testament passage in which this was likely not in view. That is not terribly surprising, but it does illustrate the evangelical Christian roots of all four of these versions.

    I am only going to post the phrases I’m comparing, so you may need to get out your own Bible and work with the context.

    Verse Version Phrase;
    1 ESV crimsoned garments
    TNIV garments stained crimson
    CEV clothes stained red
    NCV dressed in red
    In this verse, the ESV strikes me as not quite being English, and I’m not certain of the value of its text in literal terms. Just what does “crimsoned” mean? I believe I know, but I read the text in Hebrew first. The NRSV uses “garments stained crimson” just as the TNIV does. Both the CEV and the NCV simplify with “red.” There is a significant difference in meaning between “clothes stained red” and “dressed in red.” In context one can still get the picture, but the phrase itself is a bit weak. I give the CEV points for both “clothes” and “stained.”
    2 ESV and your garments like his who treads in the winepress
    TNIV like those of one treading the winepress
    CEV your clothes look stained from stomping on grapes
    NCV as if you had walked on the grapes to make wine
    The ESV wording in this verse is extremely awkward, and I don’t think they gain poetic value from it, though it does follow the KJV tradition “and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat.” TNIV is again content to provide natural English, though treading the winepress is no longer a common term. NCV is the most explanatory.
    9 ESV In all their affliction he was afflicted
    TNIV In all their distress, he too was distressed
    CEV It troubled the Lord to see them in trouble
    NCV When they suffered, he suffered also
    This is another completely non-radical rendering by the TNIV. CEV and NCV are much bolder, and with good effect, in my view. I would ask the ESV translators whether when their child is in pain they would say, “In all your affliction I am afflicted,” or whether they might instead say “I’m hurting with you” or something similar.
    10 ESV and grieved his Holy Spirit
    TNIV and grieved his Holy Spirit
    CEV and made his Holy Spirit sad
    NCV and made his Holy Spirit very sad
    One thing I’m noticing in this chapter is how frequently the TNIV and ESV have the same reading. With all the exaggerated criticism, you might expect more radical renderings from the TNIV team, but they seem quite restrained.
    14 ESV to make for yourself a glorious name
    TNIV to make for yourself a glorious name
    CEV The name of the Lord was praised for doing these things.
    NCV and by this you won for yourself wonderful fame
    Note that the CEV rendering combines thoughts in different lines of Hebrew poetry and thus doesn’t fully correspond with the phrase cited from the other versions. NCV conveys the information that “name” in this context refers to fame or reputation.
    15 ESV the stirring of your inner parts
    TNIV Your tenderness
    CEV Show us that you care about us
    NCV your love
    This is a clear instance of an idiom translated word for word in the ESV, but idiomatically in the other three versions. The difference in the amount of text I quoted is based on other issues in the translation of the verse, in which the CEV and NCV both deal with repetition in poetic lines by combing them into more standard English style. That type of translation of Hebrew poetry, which loses the form, but may well convey the meaning more clearly is not my topic here.
    17 ESV and harden our heart, so that we fear you not
    TNIV and harden our hearts so we do not revere you
    CEV Why did you make us want to disobey you?
    NCV Why do you make us stubborn so that we don’t honor you?
    Again, combination of parallel thoughts into single elements tends to make it difficult to quote precisely the phrase desired. I think TNIV’s “revere” is better than “fear” in this context.

    I would have just a few observations on this. First, of course, studying a few instances that caught my eye in a single chapter does not fully characterize Bible versions. That should be obvious, but I don’t want there to be any mistake.

    Second, one of the clearest differences between formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence comes in the translation of idioms. Do we preserve the source language idiom, however little sense it may make in the target language, or do we find a good target language idiom to convey the same meaning. Depending on what the reader is looking for, one could answer that question either way. The ESV consistently translates idioms word for word in this chapter, while the TNIV takes a few steps away from that, but the NCV and the CEV generally seek a new idiomatic way of expression.

    While it was not my focus for this comparison, the same differences could be noticed in handling poetic lines. ESV and generally TNIV reflect the Hebrew poetic lines, while the NCV and CEV scramble them as necessary to express the meaning. That conveys certain elements of meaning to audiences who are not acquainted with Hebrew parallelism–a very large percentage of Bible readers–but at the same time it loses the opportunity to see the structure of the Hebrew poetry.

    The differences occur on a scale, i.e. there is not a clean break between the two styles of translation. If you compare the CEV and the ESV, it looks like two completely different approaches, but the TNIV is somewhat mediating, and I know that if I added several more translations, the scale would be even more evident.

    Being aware of such differences, we can more intelligently select a Bible version for any particular setting and use.

  • Science Fiction gets Further Behind

    It’s amazing to see things like this during my lifetime. New Mexico is considering a small local tax to develop a spaceport. More power to them if they can draw this strong new potential business to their region.

    I can still recall being taken to a neighbor’s house to watch the moon landings, and my father, who passed away less than a year ago, saw the introduction of the automobile and electricity to his home town. (Note that’s not the invention of either, but their introduction into a small town in Canada.

    It seems to me that change is still accelerating. What will the world look like in another decade?

  • A Response to The God Delusion

    Bruce Alderman has a humorous response to The God Delusion. Check it out here. I’ll reserve further comment until I have finished reading the whole book myself.

  • New Conservative Group Challenges Expansion of Executive Power

    The American Freedom Agenda sounds like a very interesting new group with a positive agenda, in my view. Many of the principals have fine, long-term credentials in American conservative politics.

    Their material is worth a look.

    HT: Dispatches from the Culture Wars.