Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Isaiah 27: Accomplishing Redemption

    I’ve been at this series on Isaiah 24-27 for some months now. It’s taken so long mostly because I’ve been working at it slowly as I have time, and not because my series is that in-depth. The thing that has struck me in studying the passages for this series is the richness of the material. The amount of material I find that ends up only as an entry in my notes or an underlined passage in one of my reference sources is quite astonishing. In this chapter I will cite a few translations that in themselves provide creative suggestions for translation difficulties in this passage.

    I would suggest reading this chapter in several translations and trying to follow the logic through the chapter. Very often we don’t in Isaiah, because in many of these poetic passages it is hard to make sense of what’s going on in context. But I would suggest that there is a context, that the combination of the verses and passages is not accidental, but because of the literary style of the text, and the fact that so much is written in poetry it’s simply difficult to follow that logic.

    The basic logic that I see in this text is the move from a people who are not definitely on any side. They might be faithful to their God and then again they might not. We have almost a precursor to the concept of the remnant as presented in 2nd Isaiah (chapters 40-55), in which only a small portion of the people are faithful, and the whole is to be reduced to that remnant who then bring restoration.

    This theme occurs often in apocalyptic literature. The good guys and the bad guys have to be separated and clearly distinguished. As a result it is very, very right that God destroys the bad guys, and it is also imperative that God avenge the good guys. This theme has guided my translation in a couple of places. Theology should follow translation rather than precede it, but translation is impossible without sense, and if you compare several different translations of this chapter you will see quite a difference in the sense that is portrayed. A sparse Hebrew text leaves us to fill in the holes based on our understanding, and that is not an easy task.

    Places where this passage is quoted in the New Testament are indicated by red text and allusions are indicated in blue text with the reference in {braces}.

    (1) On that day —
    YHWH will take vengeance with his sword,
    harsh, great, powerful,
    On Leviathan the slithering snake,
    On Leviathan the slimy snake.
    He will kill the sea-dragon.

    The critical thing to note about this portion of the text is that its use of Leviathan and “sea-dragon” or “sea-serpent” indicates that we’re talking in the language of creation-myth, and thus also in the language of eschatology. In scripture God’s creative power is also his authority and power to destroy and to recreate. By starting out to state that the sea-dragon will be killed on that day, the writer tells us the setting is eschatological.

    I take this indication as definitive. I believe there is enough indication that the chapter is a unity. True, it is made up of individual elements from various sources, but they have been combined into a unified whole. By opening the next section with the same phrase “on that day” the writer tells us that the pleasant vineyard and the slaying of Leviathan are tied together. This means that the vineyard, the abandoned city, and YHWH’s actions as told in verses 12 & 13 should all also have an eschatological setting.

    (2) On that day —
    “There’s a pleasant vineyard,”
    Sing for it!
    (3) “I YHWH watch over it.
    I water it as needed.
    Lest harm come to it,
    I watch it day and night.
    (4) I have no anger.
    Oh that I had thistles and thorns,
    I would come against it in battle,
    And burn it all together.
    (5) Or instead it could seize my protection,
    It could make peace with me.
    It could make peace with me!
    (6) In coming days Jacob will put down roots,
    Israel will blossom and bloom,
    And will fill the face of the earth with fruit.

    There are several questions in this passage. Are the thistles and thorns a defensive wall? Are they part of the vineyard? Is YHWH attacking the enemies of the vineyard, or is he threatening to attack the vineyard?

    In my view, the eschatological sense, and also the parallels with the vineyard of Isaiah 5 indicate that the thistles and thorns are themselves part of the vineyard. YHWH wishes that his vineyard was either one thing or another. This calls to mind Revelation 3:15, and God wishing that the people of Laodicea were either hot or cold. In this case, he wishes that he either faced thistles and thorns, against which he could vent his wrath, or that on the other hand his vineyard would make peace with him. God’s anger is spent, but he still does not have the desired result.

    Notice, on the other hand, the NCV translation of this passage:

    I am not angry.
    If anyone builds a wall of thornbushes in war,
    I will march to it and burn it.
    But if anyone comes to me for safety
    and wants to make peace with me,
    he should come and make peace with me.”

    That is taking the thornbushes in quite a different sense than I have, and I have some difficulty comprehending how “I am not angry” fits in with the rest of the passage. This is simply one of many options. The NCV translation can certainly be justified linguistically. I’m just not certain it can be fitted properly into the context. On the other hand, some might accuse me of bending the evidence in order to fit a patter with my own translation.

    Again compare the JPS Tanakh:

    There is no anger in Me:
    If one offers Me thorns and thistles,
    I will march to battle against him,
    And set all of them on fire. –Isaiah 27:4

    That’s a third option, and there are more. I’m not going to try to exhaust the options either here or in the abandoned city. There are simply too many.

    (7) Has he been struck with the same blows
    as the one who struck him?
    Has he been slain in the same way
    as the one who slew him?
    (8) With measured acts you contended as you sent her away,
    Speaking harshly like the east wind.
    (9) So in this way only will Jacob’s guilt be purged,
    In this will all the results of his sin be turned aside. {Romans 11:27b, LXX}
    When all the stones of the altar are shattered like limestone,
    When sacred poles and incense altars no longer stand.

    Reformation is the only way in which things in Judah can be made right. Forgiveness is tied to repentance, and repentance means changing one’s life. God has exercised judgment on his people. He has now exercised judgment against those who oppressed Israel. But after all has been said and done, the only thing that will result in a new people is for them to turn from their idols and to become totally God’s possession.

    (10) For the fortified city stands alone,
    An emptied pasture,
    Abandoned like the wilderness.
    Oxen graze there.
    They lie down and eat her branches.
    (11) When her cuttings are dry and break off,
    Women come and light them on fire.
    Because it is not an understanding people,
    So their maker will not have compassion,
    The one who formed them will show no mercy.

    The key issue in this passage is whether this is Jerusalem or the “other city” that stands against it, Babylon in apocalyptic imagery. I believe this is the opposing city. The dominant expression about Israel in this entire chapter is hope, though there is the desire for repentance and for them to become fully reconciled to their God. The other city is the one that will be completely destroyed. In later apocalyptic, of course, that “other” city would be portrayed receiving a much more explicit judgment.

    (12) It will happen on that day —
    YHWH will beat out the people like grain, {Matthew 3:12}
    from the Euphrates to the brook of Egypt.
    And you will be gleaned one by one, Israelites!
    (13) It will happen on that day —
    The great shofar will be blown,
    and those who are lost in the land of Asshur,
    and those who are scattered in the land of Egypt
    will come and worship YHWH,
    on the Holy Mountain in Jerusalem. {Matthew 24:31}

    Verses 12 and 13 to me confirm the remainder of my interpretation of the chapter. Compare verse 12 to the preaching of John the Baptist in Matthew 3:12, separating wheat from chaff, so that the wheat can be saved and the chaff burned. Besides the scattering, however, there is an ingathering, as people are brought from all corners of the earth to return to God’s people in their home.

    As I see it, and as I have translated it, Isaiah 27 serves as a “little apocalypse” portraying the world at its end, when God is stepping in to do judgment.

  • National Religious Freedom Day

    I should have known about this, but hat tip to Dispatches from the Culture Wars. Today is National Religious Freedom Day. I wonder why there is not more publicity surrounding this.

    Our freedom is a good thing to celebrate and defend.

  • Behind Every Peaceful Protester . . .

    . . . is someone who is willing to fight for it.

    I don’t mean disrespect to peaceful protest. There is a great value in it, and in civil disobedience, though civil disobedience has been somewhat tamed since the days of Martin Luther King. When I was stationed at Offutt AFB, Nebraska, a protest leader told me that she informed the security police before a nuclear protest about how many would be there, and how many would cross over the line onto the base. That way the SPs could have the right number of vehicles along with lunches to feed the protesters before they received whatever letter they were going to get or they were charged. Gandhi and Martin Luther King never had it so good!

    Nonetheless, such protesters do have a definite role in holding our feet to the fire on a variety of moral issues. The desire to protest is not limited to the left or the right, though the causes are different. Neither is the impulse to move toward violence if things don’t change, or don’t change fast enough.

    What is often missed, I believe, is the fact that peaceful protest requires an ally: The conscience of the people one is protesting against. If those people are without consience, then the peaceful protester quickly becomes a dead protester. Gandhi was successful because whatever their faults, the British had limits beyond which they would not officially go. Certainly there were atrocities, but those were embarassments to the administration. I know some will say that it’s simply the shame that makes this work–the rulers don’t really have a conscience, they just don’t want to get caught. But even the fact that they don’t want to get caught indicates some conscience.

    (more…)

  • Translation, Paraphrase, and Transformation

    I’ve been using a term about Bible translation, or rather, about a form of presenting the message of the Biblical text without taking the time to rigorously define it. That term is “transformation.” I want to throw out this post for some comments, and explain why I started using that term. Has it been used elsewhere in a similar way? Might there be a better term to use.

    Here’s the problem, as I see it. Typically we use terms like literal (not a very good one), formal equivalence, functional equivlanece, or dynamic equivalence for various translation methods. Loosely hanging around somewhere in that semantic space is the term “paraphrase” which means “excessively loose” in popular speech, but “rephrased from a text in the same language” in more technical discussions. But paraphrasing looks like just another part of translation. I know that when I translate a passage for my own use, or because I want to post some text on my blog but don’t want to deal with copyright issue, I first translate more literally, then I paraphrase, and then I compare that paraphrase back to the text in the original language to make sure I didn’t miss something. I do that even when I’m producing a generally formally equivalent translation.

    (more…)

  • What Happens in the End

    I think Fareed Zakaria is right on point with his Newsweek commentary We Might ‘Win’ But Still Lose. He notes:

    If the 20,000 additional American troops being sent to the Iraqi capital focus primarily on Sunni insurgents, there’s a chance the Shiite militias might get bolder. Colonel Duke puts it bluntly: “[The Mahdi Army] is sitting on the 50-yard line eating popcorn, watching us do their work for them.”

    This has been the problem from the first. The question is not how many battles we can win. Doubtless we can win battles. The question is what the final result is going to be, and just how final it will be.

  • Paraphrasing as a Study Method

    Via a link from Wayne Leman, I found this post from Greg Lamm’s blog STAYINGTHECOURSE.

    I think this is an exceptional idea to aid with serious study of a passage. It relates well to both the reading and sharing phases. Of course under sharing I would include sharing your paraphrase with others and even challenging them to try this for themselves.

    A variant on paraphrasing is praying the scriptures, putting them in your own words.

  • Gender Accurate Translation and Interpretation

    Wayne Leman has an exceptional post on women and Bible translation. We talk a great deal about gender accurate (or I still like gender-inclusive) language, but it’s men that are doing most of the talking. That’s because there are more men than women involved in translation. I’m in full agreement with what Wayne says in his post, but I want to carry things just a step further.

    First, however, I want to make sure you understand what I mean when I say I’m an egalitarian. It doesn’t mean that I believe men and women are the same. Thank God they are not! What it means is that I believe that each person should be start on a level playing field and be appreciated and used in accordance with their gifts. So how could I support putting more women on Bible translation committees any more than I could support putting more men on them? The problem is that we are human, and some of us are guys, and we may not think of all the gifts. Since I believe men and women are different, we need to go out of our way to hear what the other gender is thinking. Since translation is dominated by men, as is interpretation, we may tend not to think of the need for women’s gifts in our activity.

    There’s no big wall here. Men can have some of these gifts, just as women can have gifts we consider the province of men. My wife and I reverse some of the activities that you might expect. In the properly male dominated home the guy drives, I’ve heard. I generally let me wife drive. She likes to, I don’t. We divide financial responsibilities. But stereotypical folks do exist, I suspect. The best way to be sure is to be inclusive.

    I stated this in book on Bible translation:

    I believe that the best translation is likely to result from a committee of persons with diverse beliefs, all of whom are committed to translating without allowing those beliefs to interfere. (A bias in favor of accurate translation would be entirely appropriate, and could not be said to interfere.) Since I believe nobody is entirely free of bias, the best defense against bias is diversity. However, diversity in which one simply averages out the results of the various biases still leaves too much room for inappropriate results, so I believe the one commitment all members of a translation committee should make is to accurate translation within the context of the methodology they have chosen. (This extract from pages 39-40 can be found at the Energion Publications Announcements Blog.)

    I now believe this diversity should definitely be extended to include gender.

    But shouldn’t this be extended to interpretation? If the Bible message was presented only to men, then perhaps only men should listen and understand. But if that was not the case, perhaps we lose something by not including the voice of women in our interpretation.

    The last step of my method of interpretation is sharing. Some people wonder why I include sharing as part of the method of interpretation. There’s a level of accountability that results simply from expressing your understanding of scripture and listening to other people’s reactions to it. You can learn how you might be misunderstood. Others may point out things you had missed in studying the passage. You may learn of implications of your interpretation that you hadn’t comtemplated.

    Ideally such sharing should include the entire community so that diverse people are heard from. Not just men and women, but people of different ages, races, and cultures should be included. Many errors of Biblical interpretation might be avoided if we learned to listen to the broadest and most diverse possible community.

  • Comprehending Divine Inspiration

    I’ve been discussing translation in its relationship to inspiration over the last couple of days, and I just wanted to present a couple of thoughts on how we think about inspiration, especially in practical terms. By “thinking in practical terms” I mean the way in which we apply our understanding of inspiration in our application of what we learn from inspired writings. I had my attention directed to this issue when I discussed inspiration with a friend of mine who believes in inerrancy. We expressed considerable disagreement when we defined inspiration and discussed how it worked, but in the vast majority of controversial texts, we found that our interpretations were identical.

    This is the similar to the conclusion I have come to about translation, though I would say that one’s beliefs about inspiration are of almost no value as a predictor of that person’s translation philosophy, while they are a predictor to some extent of how one will carry out interpretation. They are, however, less accurate of a predictor than I would imagine had I not done a little informal testing.

    I think the problem here is with the way in which we talk about inspiration. We do so in an extremely God-centered (source centered) way. Now being God-centered is not a bad thing, but in this case it can be misleading. I would suggest that while our theories of inspiration center around God and what he can and does do, our processes and principles of interpretation generally center around us as human beings and what we can do. This shouldn’t be surprising, considering the amount of effort that must go into understanding any message, especially the message of scripture.

    No matter how accurately we believe God gave the message, in practical terms the issue is much more how accurately we can understand it. Let’s say that 2% of the message of the New Testament is lost by copyists. I think that number is fairly high, because that is closer to the percentage of the text that is in dispute. But even if that is the case, I suspect that if we compare interpretations, we will see that a much higher percentage must be lost by somebody in the process of interpretation.

    I think this extends to the great divide between types of revelation, even the big one between general and special revelation. The question is not in the accuracy of the content, but rather in what is to be conveyed, and how well we are capable of understanding it. I would presume God would write his character quite perfectly in nature (though we have the ever-present question of the fall), and yet that may be the hardest message to interpret. Some people prefer the immediate revelation of modern prophets or of dreams and visions. I too believe that God is as capable of speaking today as ever, and as likely to do so, but in that case we have the additional burden of deciding on the authenticity of the message, and we still need to interpret what we hear, especially if it is a vision or dream.

    This is one of the reasons I opposed the doctrine of inerrancy. It seems to be a way of guarding the barn door after the cattle have departed. Interpretation has gone in a thousand directions while some are arguing that the message was absolutely correct at the starting point. In addition, somehow it’s OK for us to lose part of the source in the process of copying–something acknowledged when inerrancy is postulated solely of the conveniently missing autographs–and yet if one supposes that instead something got altered on the way from God to the prophet, all revelation must immediately fall apart.

    Revelation is of value when I comprehend and apply it, and assertions of its validity apart from adding the line “and you can understand it” seem pointless to me. I think that is part of the point of the wisdom literature in the Bible. It’s God’s message, but you have to think about it and comprehend it. Who you are, and how you have exercised your mind will make a difference.

    No matter whether you are listening to a new idea, a message someone claims to have received directly from God, or the interpretation of a passage of scripture, your individual mind, enlightened by the Holy Spirit, is the final filter to separate sense from nonsense. Even the firmest believer in the detailed accuracy of the text of scripture will realize that many interpreations of that scripture are nonsense.

  • John Webb Winter Golf Tournament 2007

    This morning I want to get a bit personal, which I don’t usually do on this blog, but this is something important and close to my heart. Many of my readers already know that my son James Webb (step-son for you people who get technical) passed away in 2004 after a five year battle with cancer. He fought the battle with cancer with courage and faith. His father passed away early in that battle, and in 2003 some of his dad’s friends looked for a way to raise some money to help John Webb Sr.’s son. They decided on a golf tournament.

    James Webb at worship, Myrtle Grove United Methodist Church
    I like to remember James this way. I use it as my computer wallpaper. James is in worship at Myrtle Grove United Methodist Church and just lifts his hands and lets the music flow.

    The money was supposed to have gone to help us with James’s medical bills, but those were in control at the time of that tournament, so James made the choice to have the money given to Sacred Heart Children’s Hospital, and particularly designated the money to the children’s morale services. James knew better than most how important morale is in fighting a life-threatening disease.

    James Webb Courage in Life Award 2005
    The 2005 and 2006 Courage in Life Awards were won by a group of James’s best friends who also were informally named the best-dressed team.

    The other day I was going through digital video and I found a tape we had recorded shortly before James’s death. It was just before Hurricane Ivan struck here in the Pensacola area, and the marching band at Tate High School in which James had been a drummer wanted to play their fall show for him, knowing that he probably wouldn’t live to see the first performance. With Ivan approaching they were unable to do what they wanted, which was to perform on the football field in uniform, but they gathered in the band room. James could barely get himself out of bed, but we used a wheelchair and got him there, and he took the sticks and launched the band on the school fight song. It was difficult for me to watch it. That was the way he lived, and his choice for the way to go out of this world. That attitude stuck to the very last as the Tate drumline came to the funeral and escorted him to the cemetary to an upbeat, victorious rhythm.

    Because of this in 2005 we first gave the James Webb Courage in Life Award each year to the team or individual that brings in the largest amount of donated money to the children through this tournament, and also to the largest single corporate sponsorship. For more information on all of this, see John Webb Winter Golf Tournament.

    James Webb Courage in Life Award 2006
    The best dressed team again wins the James Webb Courage in Life Award in 2006.

    It’s with that attitude that we, his family, have kept the John Webb Winder Golf Tournament going. Nearly $20,000 later, the tournament continues to serve the children at Sacred Heart Hospital. The “John Webb” is now my older step-son, a professional pitcher, this year signed with the Chicago Cubs with a minor league contract and an invitation to big league training camp. (He has a few innings of big league time, but has played largely at AAA). John will be here for the ceremonial first drive. He will bring a number of his friends and they will visit the children and sign baseballs and just spend time with them. Then a bunch of regular guys and gals will play golf and the money will go to the children.

    If you’d like to come to Pensacola, or you’re already here, you’ll be welcome. If you’re interested in participating, you can also donate directly to the cause. My organization, Pacesetters Bible School took the program under its wing for financial and accountability purposes from the second year. Any donated money goes directly to the children. The tournament pays all the expenses and brings in money, so there is no administrative cost whatsoever to donated money.

    More importantly, I like to remember every year the challenge of living life to the full, and leaving this life as though you’re triumphantly going on to glory. That was hard for a 17 year old. I remember a day early in the summer that year when James asked me to take him to dinner somewhere. He wasn’t one for long conversations, but I knew when he said that he needed to say something. The one thing he had wanted to do before the end was march in the band for one last season, but that wasn’t to be. As we drove to the chosen restaurant, he said simply, “I don’t think I’m going to be able to march. I don’t have the strength. I need to get out of the band now, so someone who can actually march will be able to practice.” He did give his place to someone who would be able to march, but he continued to attend practice and help out with the developing program. He was more interested in seeing “his” band succeed than in his own wants.

    I’d like to ask this: What am I doing to live triumphantly and make an impact? What are you doing? Maybe this particular cause is not your thing. I guarantee that there are similar needs in your own neighborhood. Be active and make a difference!

  • Christian Carnival CLVI Posted

    Christian Carnival CLVI has been posted at Parableman. It looks like a rich list again, and as I have for weeks and weeks and weeks, I hope to manage to post some responses, links, and comments to a number of these posts. Reality being what it is, however, I probably will do a miserable job on that task.