Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • 1 Corinthians 12-14

    These three chapters are the most critical chapters in the Bible in reference to spiritual gifts, and they are not actually primarily intended to teach about them. We tend to read the three chapters separately, especially because 1 Corinthians 13 is such a wonderful composition by itself. Chapter 12 is often treated as an essay on gifts, 13 on love, and 14 on order in the church service. But the three are intended to go together as a unit, and that unit fits into the overall theme of the book of 1 Corinthians.

    Paul is dealing with the problems in the church at Corinth. They have become divided, and the main cause is spiritual pride based on various distinctions in the church. In these three chapters Paul talks first about unity, illustrated by the fact that all the gifts are needed, yet they are divided amongst the member of the church. The church needs to work together in order to make all the gifts available. Spirituality is determined not by which gift a member has, but rather by the fact that they work under the control of one spirit, the Holy Spirit.

    The test for the Spirit at work is then covered in 1 Corinthians 13, which tells us about love. The one Spirit works in accordance with love. (I discussed this same test from another perspective in my post Complementarian Translation.) Chapter 14 continues this thought by showing how the gifts would display themselves in public worship in accordance with the principles already described.

    In several posts following this one I’m going to present some notes on 1 Corinthians 12-14 and also on other passages related to the gifts of the Spirit. I won’t provide a directory here. To find all the posts look at category 1 Corinthians.

    (Added May 17, 2018)

    Follow-up notes:

    1 Corinthians 12-14 Greek Terms

    Notes on 1 Corinthians 12

    Notes on 1 Corinthians 13

    1 Corinthians 14

    Background:

    An Alternative Outline for 1 Corinthians

  • Fear and Human-Animal Hybrids

    In an article titled Raising Beast People, subtitled “Science is blurring the line between humans and animals, Lee Silver has pointed to some of the aspects of science that raise our greatest fears. All of the science fiction stories of humans turning into monsters, all the stories of alien interventions, and all of our nightmares are brought to the surface by the kind of research described by this article.

    The main subject of the story is some mice. Biologist Fred Gage is experimenting on these mice to learn about how human neurons degrade or die as in Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s syndromes. As silver says,

    Inside their brains are living human neurons that help them to see, hear and think.

    And there the fear awakens. As we’ve watched various horror movies that involve humans being slowly changed into some horrifying monsters, or animals becoming intelligent, but remaining basically hostile, we’ve had that certain knowledge that what we were watching was imaginary, that science would never progress to the point where it could do what we imagined. But science keeps on progressing, and there’s no end in sight to the possibilities of genetic research.

    Quoting Silver again:

    Many people, however, are deeply disturbed by this research. U.S. President George W. Bush believes that scientists like Gage have stepped across a moral line that must be defended, even at the cost of biomedical progress. In his 2006 State of the Union address, he implored Congress to “pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research [including] creating human-animal hybrids,” because “human life is a gift from our Creator” that should never be “devalued.”

    “Deeply disturbed” may be an understatement. But I think that President Bush is going overboard by suggesting that this kind of research devalues human life, or lessens the gift of life from the creator. Each new scientific discovery, especially in biology, makes some people nervous. There have been repeated fears that just around the corner there would be some scientific discovery that would take us that one step too far, and have us stepping over some unknown boundary set by the creator.

    I’m not particularly overjoyed by the sound of this type of research, but I think that my visceral reaction is one that is emotional, and not based on reflection. It’s the “ooh ish” reaction of someone seeing an autopsy for the first time. It’s not that the autopsy is actually dangerous, or that it is more threatening than many other things. It’s just that it gets to some of our most basic emotional reactions. Human organs growing in test tubes just don’t seem, well, nice.

    I would suggest two things. First, this is not the most threatening scientific discovery that we’ve made recently. If I thought anything would step over some invisible boundary set by God, I would suggest it would be the invention of the atomic bomb and its successors. Human beings have been managing the capacity to destroy all life many times over for several decades. Even now, when the cold war is over, and we could afford to destroy much of our arsenal, there is little effort made to do so. Why? We’ve grown used to it. It was done in secret and out of necessity, and we’ve simply gotten used to it. But in silos in the United States and Russia it’s still there.

    We’ve had to work on some standards, some ethics for living with nuclear weapons. Personally, I think we need to improve those standards considerably. The science was there. Once the science is there, someone is going to use it. The best thing to do is to learn how to make use of it and to live with it. We are not going to be able to prevent such knowledge from coming into existence.

    In the case of nuclear weapons it was the necessities of war. Now it’s the necessities of deteriorating human bodies. This science is going to happen, and in the end we’ll find a way to live with it. God’s glory will be undiminished, because after all he’s the source of all of it in any case. We’re going to be much better off working on reasonable safety standards and appropriate controls on this type of research so that it can be done as safely as possible.

    I’m not certain of all the ethics. I’m not an ethicist. Bioethicists need to look at and discuss this. But we won’t prevent it. One more scary category of “thing” has come into the world, and we’re going to learn to live with it. Set aside the fear, think constructively, and move forward. Otherwise the world will do so without you.

  • Complementarian Translation?

    Peter Kirk has writtten that he finds a complementarian bias in the TNIV. He says:

    A major aim of the changes made in Today’s New International Version (TNIV) was to avoid the danger of such misunderstandings. I don’t think anyone can complain about TNIV’s rendering of 2 Thessalonians 3:10: “Anyone who is unwilling to work shall not eat.” This is after all closer to KJV’s “if any would not work, neither should he eat”, and it avoids any possible misunderstanding that this applies only to males.

    However, TNIV does not always make such changes. For example, in Titus 1:6 TNIV has “a man whose children believe”, in this phrase identical to NIV. But there is no word here to be translated “man”; the Greek is tekna ekh

  • Why I Like the REB

    A friend recently e-mailed with the following request: Tell me why you like the REB.

    First let me qualify what I mean by liking a translation. There are many factors that go into making a translation suitable for a particular purpose or person. Without knowing that context, it’s impossible to give a meaningful answer to the question, “What is the best translation?” In this case, however, we’re talking about what I like, and so I can speak freely. I just want readers to know that I’m talking about personal preferences here, and not about some kind of public standards.

    I use the REB as a serious reading Bible. That means that in my study it comes at the top of the list of those Bibles I use when I am not studying the Bible from Greek or Hebrew, but I want to do serious reading. To put this in context, I would use the NRSV when I want a translation that follows the form of the source languages rather closely, and the CEV when I want to read rapidly to get an overview with less concern for details.

    The REB fits that purpose for me because it:

    • Has language that is easily readable for me, but nonetheless doesn’t sound like it has been simplified. It holds my attention and doesn’t jar me with excessively short sentences, abrupt breaks, or long phrases expressing relatively simple thoughts.
    • Has a faintly British flavor. I spent my teen years in Guyana, formerly a British colony, and I find some British English attractive in reading.
    • I am almost always comfortable with the textual choices. That means I can be comfortable that I’m getting a reliable text.
    • The translation included interfaith cooperation which improves its value for reading.
    • I regard its presentation of Hebrew poetry is one of the best. (The The New Jerusalem Bible provides some good competition.
    • I enjoy the sound of the REB read aloud. It has a literary feel and a good flow. My selfish view is that it’s too bad more American audiences are not attuned to it. I’d love to hear it for scripture readings!
    • Despite the fact that I support efforts to use gender neutral phrasing where possible, as the NRSV does, my ears are a generation older than that, and I’m more comfortable with the less aggressive uses of gender language in the REB.

    I can’t call it the best translation for everyone, but it has become a constant part of my own program of Bible study and my own devotional life.

    (For more information on various translations, see my Bible Translation Selection Tool.)

  • Drawing the Boundaries of Translation

    A frequent criticism of The Message or The Living Bible is that they are not really translations, but rather paraphrases, and thus should not be regarded as Bibles. Often “translation” is contrasted to “paraphrase” almost as though the two are antonyms. Others draw the boundaries in a much narrower way, calling translations like the Good News Bible “paraphrases” so as to discredit them as real translations.

    I’ve been thinking of this recently, and I’m beginning to change my mind somewhat. I’ve been sympathetic to the use of “paraphrase” as part of the vocabulary in discussing Bible translations, even in the colloquial sense of “loose translation.” The term gives one a title to use regarding translations that seem very loose to us.

    The boundary between interpretation and translation has already been eliminated to a large extent. Translators certainly recognize that a translator does interpret, and the general public is becoming more aware of this factor of translation. Understanding is interpreting, and a translator can hardly express and understanding of the text without engaging in interpretation. At the other end of the spectrum, there is no real boundary between those versions called paraphrases and those called translations. The difference is really a matter of degree. How much freedom does the translator allow himself from the form and structure of the text in the source language while he endeavors to convey the message? There is no boundary at which the translator steps from no freedom over to no attachment to the text at all. It is a continuum.

    I’ve said all of this before, and have been criticized for calling “paraphrases” translations. But recently I’ve been thinking more radically. I’m beginning to believe that even more of our boundaries between “teaching” and “translation” are arbitrary. One of the tools I use in teaching is a video tape produced by the American Bible Society that is a multimedia presentation of the story of Jesus and the Gerasene Demoniac (Mark 5). Is this a translation? Well, the words of the Bible passage are narrated over the sights and sounds of the video, but much of the message is conveyed in ways other than words. Nonetheless, I would call it a translation.

    I experimented with the idea of transferring a story or passage into another form over on my poetry and fiction blog, or better my “write whatever I think is fun and don’t worry about the consequences blog.” 🙂 I produced a form of the story of Susanna (Daniel 13 in the apocrypha). Is the form of the story itself significant? To a certain extent, yes. But at the same time the form of the story is different from what would be expected of a modern short story. I’ve experimented with telling it with the main character, Daniel, present throughout the story. This may be easier to take for those who don’t regard the apocrypha as inspired, but I like the thought of presenting Bible stories in modern terms.

    The doctrine of inspiration, in whatever form, can actually get in the way of conveying the message. Perhaps it would be useful to be concerned first with what message a particular form conveys, and only secondarily with whether or not it is “a Bible.” I appreciate the large numbers of creative ways of conveying the message of scripture that various people are producing.

  • Dangers of Comparing Translations

    I am frequently asked to compare various translations. Generally my questioner wants me to declare one translation correct, and the other incorrect, or at least to state that one rendering is better than the other. Translators know that this is frequently difficult to do, because there is no one-to-one relationship between source language and target language.

    The non-expert can easily be confused by the fact that two translations of a single passage can both be justified, or even many different renderings. The reason for this is that there are many different things that are conveyed by the text in its source language, and a translator will not be able to transfer all of those elements into a translation.

    • Each word has a range of meaning that is unique. Any word or phrase used to translate it will necessarily shift the emphasis.
    • The form of the source text may emphasize one thing or another, and the form is even more difficult to “translate” than are the words themselves. For example, the chiasm is a common structure in the Bible (a form in which the parallel thoughts are placed in a sort of V–ABCB’A’). You can maintain this chiasm in the translation, but does a chiasm mean the same thing to readers of modern English or another target language? Is there even a form that would emphasize certain phrases as the chiasm does?
    • There are different types of discourse/writing that are involved, and they may not totally correspond to forms in the target language.
    • The purpose of the translation itself may impact what is the best translation in any particular case.

    For these and other reasons it is very hard to tell something which of two translations is better, and even more difficult to label on right and the other wrong. It is important to remember that in answering that question I can only provide my opinion, as can anyone else. It is worthwhile to consider that with respect to most translations that provides the opinion of one person against an expert translation committee. It’s not certain that the individual will be wrong, but one ought to give careful consideration to all the issues before determining that the entire translation committee was simply out to lunch.

    A better question is to ask which of the two translations best communicates the intended message of the source text to the target audience of the translation. On this many people can have a valid opinion. In fact, as Wayne Leman from Better Bibles Blog regularly comments, this can be objectively tested by surveying the appropriate target audience. It is not my purpose here to discuss the details of such testing. I just want to point out that it provides some opportunity for objectivity in a complex situation.

    One final comment is that there must be a standard against which a translation is tested, and some goal for that translation, so that we can test to see if something particular is achieved. Without both of those elements any comments are pointless. In general for translations within the Christian tradition this means that the standard against which the translation is to be tested is the source text in the original languages–Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic–and the goal is that the meaning of the text is conveyed to some defined target population.

    An example of the failure of this process involves the KJV-Only comparisons of various modern versions to the KJV. There is no point in such comparison, because the KJV itself is a translation, and its rendering should be tested according to the source text and the goal of communicating that message to a particular audience. Similarly, modern readers now often compare new renderings against that of the NIV, or some other translation that has become standard in their community, and complain about the differences. The question again has to be how well the NIV conveys the meaning to the audience in comparison to how well the compared (usually newer) version does at the same task.

  • Working in your Call

    And YHWH spoke to the fish, and it spit Jonah up on dry land.
    Then YHWH’s word came to Jonah a second time, saying, “Get up! Go to Nineveh! . . . ” — Jonah 2:11-3:2a

    I knew a man who almost got a law degree, but dropped out during the last year of law school. He was incredibly intelligent and creative. He could have done many things. His parents thought a law degree was a good idea so that he could make money and have a respectable profession. Once he dropped out of law school he lived a life of frustration, always “almost getting there” with the things he really wanted to do.

    In secular life and in the church, you can create a life of frustration for yourself by not doing what it is that you’re actually called and gifted to do, something that usually corresponds to what you want to do deep down in your heart. I’m not talking about that desire to go fishing, or to spend your life on the beach and get someone to pay for it, but your genuine desire the accomplish something with your life.

    Too often, the people who are already out there, living their own frustrating lives, take out their frustration on the next generation by telling them that their goals and their dreams are somehow not respectable enough or important enough. We tell the talented musicians, artists, and actors that the church really needs pastors, secretaries, and administrators, and if they want to earn enough money and make it in the world, they need to be doctors, lawyers, or nurses. Sometimes instead we point them to easier paths than they would choose, because we think they can’t make it.

    I don’t mean we don’t need to encourage our young people to count the cost and decide on a realistic basis what they really want to do. I do mean is that we need to let people look inside themselves, listen to God, and choose where it is that they can really be fulfilled and can really make a contribution that counts eternally.

    As a Christian and member of the United Methodist Church, I believe I see this in our church structure. We are overwhelmingly focussed on the offices of the church and church staff positions that are aimed at maintaining what we already have. If we want to see revival in the United Methodist Church, and in the broader Church we need to start recognizing roles other than pastors and our standard staff. We need to have career paths for evangelists, teachers, apostles, and prophets, the other four from the traditional five-fold ministry. But that’s not enough. We also need paths for artists, dramatists, multimedia experts, and internet specialists.

    And when we have all those paths open, we must encourage people to find their call and follow it, and gear up the church membership to support it financially and with their time.

    Business as usual isn’t working now, and it’s not going to start working. For the church to answer God’s call we need members who answer God’s call. We need to let God out of the box, get out of our box, and be ready to affirm and empower others as they apply and share the gospel in the 21st century.

    Avoid the frustration! Get with God’s program!

  • Professional Arrogance

    Over on Locusts and Honey, John has a post On the Dangers of Being a Professional Wiseman, that I think should be read by everyone involved in pastoring, spiritual formation, professional counselling, or even just prayer ministry.

    The temptation to believe that because one has certain professional training, experience, ordination, licensure, or any one of many professional rites of passage is with us all. I know I don’t have that good of insight into other people, and yet the temptation is there to have the answer without taking the time to get to know the person. That makes me wonder about the temptation level for those who are gifted with insight. The call to go beyond one’s knowledge and wisdom and just solve the problem must be incredible. Time factors get involved as well, and that’s especially dangerous with spiritual formation.

    In any case John has given us all some things to think about.

  • Resources for Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible

    I’ve just located a wonderful series of blog entries on Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible online through my own complete laziness and the hard work of someone else! (Hat Tip: Suzanne McCarthy at Better Bibles Blog in her entry Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible. Suzanne’s entry is worthwhile itself for its list of resources.)

    This series covers textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible in much more detail than I have here and with excellent references. I’m sure I’ll go on popularizing the material, but Tyler Williams at Codex has now provided something to which I can refer those interested in spending a little more time. (I’ve found that the attention span of most church members on textual criticism is somewhere between a paragraph and a page, for which I don’t blame them, even though the topic fascinates me.

    In any case, the series begins with Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible – An Introduction (TCHB 1), and the most recent entry is The History of the Biblical Text. I list them this way, because if you start with number six, you will find links to all the previous entries. If you’re just interested in the basics of what textual criticism is and why we need to do it, you can just read the first article. The interevening articles are excellent–just follow the links.

  • Does KJV-Only Honor the KJV?

    One frequent accusation I hear because I prefer modern translations over the KJV for most purposes is that I hate the KJV. Presumably, the people who say such things think that they honor the KJV by means of their doctrine. Nothing could be further from the truth.

    I believe that the KJV was probably the single greatest achievement in Bible translation. It provided a sold English Bible for use by the church. It was a Bible written in language that the people could understand. Its translators developed substantial ideas in translation theory which they expressed in their document, The Translators to the Reader. Amongst their accomplishments was the understanding that the same Greek or Hebrew word need not be translated by the same English word each time it appeared.

    In addition, this group of men developed some of the basics of a committee produced translation and performed their job exceptionally well. They managed to eliminate much of the polemic from the notes, something that had been a major barrier to general acceptance of prior translations. They worked from the source languages throughout, though comparing existing translations and using the wording of the Bishops’ Bible wherever it expressed the thought of the original well.

    Now the KJV-Only camp wants to deny their accomplishments in an attempt to continue the use of the translation they made at a time when it was not appropriate. While they searched for the best translation, KJV-Only advocates try to defend whatever they found ad-hoc. The KJV-Only camp has no theory of translation, no understanding of textual criticism, no understanding of linguistics, and no respect for the accomplishments of the translators.

    The KJV translators used the best scholarship they had available. Scholarship has advanced since that time. We now have additional resources. A modern translator producing a translator using less than the best materials and scholarship available would be failing in his mission. He would be shirking his responsibility to the word of God. And yet this is precisely what the KJV-Only advocates want modern readers to do. They think to honor people who put out heart, soul, and mind in order to produce a wonderful new translation of the Bible to be satisfied with the old, to accept less than the best.

    It does not honor good translators to use their work in the promotion of ignorance. It does not honor them to expect people to read a Bible version that is not in their common, everyday language. Their memory is not honored by stubborn ignorance.

    I love the KJV, I just don’t recommend it to modern readers unless they are proficient in its language and anxious to read it either for its literary beauty or because they are familiar with it. I honor it as what it is–I don’t insult it by claiming it’s something it is not.

    (For more information, see the pamphlet What about the KJV?.)