The Wesley Daily has posted an entry by Jason Woolever (post-methodist) entitled The Unforgivable Sin. If you read this blog regularly,or if you look over the entries right now, you’ll realize that I don’t post something that just says, “Go look!” all that often, but this is the time for an exception.
This is a good post! Go read it!
One issue that is commonly neglected in comparing Bible translations is the text used. Translators are well aware that differences in translation can be the result of differences in the text used, but in modern times, the approach to the text used by most translations has been very similar, and thus tends to be ignored by non-professionals. One major distinction is between those translations that follow the Textus Receptus, and those that use a more modern, eclectic text in the New Testament. The NKJV is a good example of a modern translation that follows that text.
But in discussing the RSV, ESV, and NRSV, I was reminded of another textual difference that is less well known: The attitude of the translators toward conjectural readings and readings in supported only by an ancient version or one of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Typically, in translating the Hebrew scriptures, Christian translators have followed the Masoretic Text, the text printed in the vast majority of Hebrew Bibles, unless they find it impossible to translate the MT intelligibly. In that case they will look to the versions, the scrolls, or even to a conjectural emendation in some translations. The tendency in New Testament textual criticism, because a large amount of external evidence is available, is to study each variant and determine the best text, but this procedure has not yet carried over into Old Testament studies.
(More conservative translations tend to produce more of a “conjectural translation” as opposed to a conjectural emendation. By “conjectural translation” I mean a translation that is simply one’s best guess at what a text may mean. In many cases, I find these translations no less questionable than a conjectural emendation. I will try to write a blog entry sometime soon on some examples of difficult texts in the Hebrew scriptures and how they are handled by various versions.)
So a significant difference between translations may be their handling of the text, in particular the text of the Hebrew scriptures. I’m going to look at two examples, from two different translations. In each case, the particular text accepted is accepted only by the version cited amongst modern versions.
The first is an added paragraph between 1 Samuel 10:27 and 11:1. In this case we have an explanatory paragraph that comes between Saul becoming king and the situation in Jabesh Gilead which is Saul’s first problem as the leader of Israel. The NRSV alone among the modern translations includes this paragraph as part of the text. It is noted in a footnote in both the NLT and the CEV.
The paragraph reads:
Now Nahash, king of the Ammonites, had been grievously oppressing the Gadites and the Reubenites. He would gouge out the right eye of each of them and would not grant Israel a deliverer. No one was left of the Israelites across the Jordan whose right eye Nahash, king of the Ammonites, had not gouged out. But there were seven thousand men who had escaped from the Ammonites and had entered Jabesh-gilead. (NRSV)
In favor of adding this paragraph to our current text are the following:
Against adding this paragraph are the following:
The NRSV shows its tendency here to be nearer the leading edge of modern scholarship than are other versions. I think in this case they made the correct choice, though I’m sympathetic to the considerations that probably led the NLT and CEV teams to place this additional text as a footnote.
A second case involves the text of Isaiah in the Revised English Bible (REB) and the New American Bible (NAB). Isaiah 41:6-7 are transposed in that version to follow Isaiah 40:20. This is a correction supported by no external textual evidence at all. Presumably the change is based on a copying error involving miscopying part of a column, but the mechanism by which the change could occur is a bit obscure. It would have had to occur very early in the text.
In favor of this change:
Against the change:
Here, though I like the REB generally, I think that the translators’ choice was not the best one.
Change is a feature of the modern world. This has practically become a cliche. We have become used to technological change, though we’re still not certain how to deal with it. But there is political change as well, and transportation and communications together tend to speed political change. Newsweek calls attention to one aspect of change in an article titled Putin’s China Problem.
To political analysts, this development was probably not a surprise. After all, it would be extremely surprising if Russia, formerly a superpower in at least equal partnership (or enmity) in dealing with international issues, would passively allow all of its power to slip away. There are relatively few options for Russia in seeking power in the world, and China was the obvious option. It’s not certain that the China relationship will be a plus. As things stand, Russia could wind up a junior partner in a Chinese sphere of influence.
In the same way, Bush’s India trip was certain a likely, if not necessary move, providing the United States with alternative partners in the region. One wonders when Vietnam will be given consideration for a similar detente? China’s dominance can hardly be palatable to them.
But I’m not really an analyst of international affairs. The reason this story caught my eye was simply the increased complexity of world affairs. At the same time American voters are generally uninterested in international affairs, and also generally not that well educated. International affairs commonly rate very low in importance on various polls, except for counter-terrorism activities (see, for example, this Fox News Poll).
Changes are likely to come even faster in the future, and to be more international in character. It’s no longer going to be adequate to know only the home issues. Which brings me to my favorite topic: Education. We are struggling with an educational system that has a very hard time keeping up with these changes, particularly in technology, which costs money. Knowledge of the world is still extremely limited amongst most of our voters. If we don’t improve and update our educational system, we will very quickly find ourselves losing the title of the world’s last superpower.
I would like to suggest a complete review of our educational process in America. Right now we are training people for a world situation that doesn’t exist. Everything in the educational system needs to be examined with the question of whether it contributes to making a student a good citizen and whether it prepares that student for life and work. Then we need to put the right resources into the right place.
And it will be critical to think bigger than the local community. Things happening in Siberia and China will have an impact on our lives, and that impact will come sooner rather than later. Let’s not let it be a surprise.
My wife and I often approach things differently. I know that’s a really shocking admission, likely to stun our family, friends, and neighbors. 🙂 We even like different styles of worship services. She tends to embrace new things quickly. I’m rather conservative. I can be persuaded, but you need to prepare a good case first! We knew this when we were going out together. For the most part, it has been one of the strengths of our marriage. It could be a weakness, something to fight about. We’ve learned, however, to balance our approaches, and we find that at different times and circumstances each of our approaches works for the best. Don’t get me wrong, though, there can be some substantial debates along the way!
Today while I was looking around at some things on the web and waiting for time to go to church (I’m an early riser, she gets up later), I came across an article in Christianity Today, Four Words that Make Me Cringe: What’s so great about their old church back home? And why should I care?. The author, Marilyn Yocum, tells of an encounter with those stories of a parishioner’s “old church” and how it became a positive thing. Go read it. It will make you think about how you respond to suggestions.
Now “in my old church” can be used as a critical, progress-stopping phrase, just like “we ain’t never done it that way before.” There is a certain desire for the “old ways” when everything always worked so much better than it does now. It’s amazing how our memories filter out the things we’d rather not remember. Once we have survived a situation, we tend to remember surviving, and not the struggle that went into it!
One of my college professors used to require students of church history to read the book The Good Old Days–They Were Terrible, which presents a much more realistic picture of what it was like to live “back then.” I am always amused, as a student of the ancient world when people talk about what is traditional. Inevitably, what they’re talking about is what their church or community was like when they were a child. And a glowing picture it always is for them. When some want to go back to the 50s, they often forget that life expectancy was much lower, that treatments for cancer and heart disease that we now take for granted were unknown, and that communications that we would find hard to live without were nonexistent.
There can be an advantage to looking back. It involves learning from experience and being challenged by the accomplishments of the past. But there can also be a deadening disadvantage: We can be held back by what they did not accomplish and what they did not know.
More than once I have been told by an elderly church member that multiple generations (the number varies) of his or her ancestors were buried in the church cemetery, that they had built the church, and that they would not approve of what was being done with it. It’s really very safe to invoke the dead as support for an argument. They have better things to do now, and we’ve probably forgotten exactly what they were like in any case.
Let me commend two texts to you:
“Don’t remember the former things, don’t think about the past.” — Isaiah 43:18
“Remember the former, ancient things, for I am God and there is nobody like me! I am God, and there is no other!” — Isaiah 46:9
Classic Biblical contradiction? Go back and read each of those passages. Try reading both chapters from start to finish. I think you’ll see the point when you get the verses in context. And at the same time you’ll see what we have to look for in order to balance the “good old” and the “bad old” and mix in the “good new” and the “bad new.”
The church is the church of the living. Let the living take all the available ideas from the past, all the experiences, all of God’s leading, and then add all the creative new ideas and excitement of the present, and select the things that will best accomplish God’s work in the present, listening to the Holy Spirit all the way.
This is a very different sort of blog entry for me. I’m used to writing heavy and sometimes obscure entries on religion, Biblical studies, or politics for this blog. So bear with me . . .
My wife Jody and I spent a couple of hours today at the Fairhope Arts and Crafts Festival in Fairhope, Alabama. This is a wonderful art show that is popular enough with exhibitors and with visitors that they can afford to be selective in who they allow to exhibit. Artists from all over the country come there to show and sell their work. It’s well worth the time to take a good look around.
One of the exhibitors at the show is a good friend of ours, Cheryl Foster. Her business is called C. Foster’s. Cheryl is an artist with a whimsical sense of humor and a wonderful talent for expressing it in art. Her art ranges from ugly mermaids–a humor item that I don’t think I quite get (my wife gets it, and so do many others) to fine paintings. Art for just plain fun is a wonderful thing.
Here are some of Cheryl’s paintings on display. Note the presence of Dusty the cat sitting on the chair. You can find out more about Dusty on Cheryl’s web site.
But Cheryl is also a woman of faith, taking as much joy in her faith as in her art. In fact, she also expresses her faith in art. One example of this is her collection of crosses. I have one of these on display in my office, and so do many others among our family and friends.
This time, however, Cheryl has introduced a new concept–Garden Towers, or scripture theme clay towers. The wonderful pieces of artwork take a scriptural theme and express it in art.
I am coveting the garden tower that is based both on the vine and branches and the fruit of the Spirit. (I guess that considering it’s about the fruit of the Spirit I should covet it, should I?) 🙂
Jody really likes the Noah’s Ark Garden Tower.
And one more picture just to finish this whole description up!
This is Betty Portzer (right), who works with Cheryl, with my wife Jody.
We’ll begin our discussion of specific tools within the historical-critical method by looking at form criticism. I’m going to try to present this in a way that will be useful to lay students of the Bible, so note that I will be ignoring the more obscure forms and some technicalities of the method. The general outline I provide should help in the use of various critical commentaries. The key is to read critical judgments critically. (I would note that form criticism generally becomes less certain and therefore less useful in my view as it tries for greater and greater detail.)
In my previous overview entry, I looked at the different phases of the production and transmission of a text, and showed that form criticism referred to the oral transmission stage. There was a time when I would have said that form criticism applied only when there was an oral stage of transmission, but more recent studies have shown that it can be applied to some texts that did not have an oral stage, such as epistles. There is a danger, however, of finding special oral forms everywhere just because one wants to apply form criticism. Watch out for this when you use critical commentaries.
Form criticism is possible because in oral transmission and in some types of written transmission, particular types of material tend to take specific, repetitive forms. This is best illustrated in the beginning for children’s stories, “once upon a time.” Because these materials tend to take particular forms, we can discover something about their intended meaning and use from identifying the forms, and then comparing them to other material that displays the same form.
In discussing the Parable of the Sower I mentioned the form only briefly, but now let’s look at some of the forms in the material that Jesus used. Parables, for example, could come in at least two types, the short, pithy comparison, or the illustrative story. The parable of the sower is of the second variety. So we would compare it in terms of form to parables such as the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, or other similar longer stories. This may not seem terribly profound, but it does lead us to ask just what differences there might be in interpretation of the two types of parables. For example, many interpreters (I’m one of them) will tell you to look for the one main point of a parable, and be very careful when trying to assign meaning to the details. But would there not be a difference in how one might understand the simple comparison and the longer illustrative story? Certainly there should be. The details of the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32; note that this is a good example on which to study the boundaries of the passage to be studied) are far more important to interpretation than the Pearl of Great Price (Matthew 13:45-46), for example.
Most interpretation can be reduced to finding good questions to ask, and then looking for the answers. Often we look for answers in Bible study before we have considered our questions carefully. So what are the questions of form criticism?
There are basically four three things we look for:
You may need to go through these elements a number of times. It’s convenient to start with someone else’s divisions of the text and someone else’s division of the forms into named types, but I would suggest trying to practice this yourself before simply accepting someone else’s division. You will find it especially helpful to reconsider your division of the text into individual passages after you have compared it to other similar passages.
In the case of parables, I’ve already made some suggestions of types. But let’s look at another form–the proverb. This is a good early example to work with, because with the book of Proverbs we have many examples already laid out for us. Note, however, that not all of Proverbs consists of proverbs. Especially in the early chapters there are some other forms, such as the hymn to wisdom in chapter 8. But now consider some other examples of proverbs elsewhere in scripture.
Ezekiel uses a proverb in Ezekiel 18:2, “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are dull from grinding.”
Now it’s very much in the form of a proverb. It’s a short, pithy saying that illustrates a point of common wisdom. What would it’s original setting be? We can imagine a situation in which children suffer for their parents’ actions, something that is not all that uncommon. This one is fairly easy. Ezekiel, on the other hand, is using it in another setting. He is using the form of a prophetic oracle. How do I know that? Well, the first clue is in verse one, when he says, “The word of YHWH came to me.” In his case, he’s using the proverb that was probably originally about the general human condition to discuss God’s action; God’s judgment is not going to fall on the children for what the parents did, but rather, God’s judgment will fall on the person who has committed the wrong. We can gain some understanding of the passage by realizing that this proverb was first an expression of an aspect of the human condition. It was probably first used by the Israelites to express how they felt that God was dealing with them, and then is reused in this oracle in Ezekiel to express how God was going to reverse that. The use of this one form in another can be considered an element of redaction, which I’ll discuss later.
Now consider an instance in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. There he uses what is probably a proverb, “Nothing beyond what is written” (1 Corinthians 4:6). Now there is some question about the meaning here. Some would suggest that this is a call to use nothing outside of scripture. But considering when Paul wrote this, is it likely that Paul is saying to stick to written scripture? He’s still dealing with an oral form of the gospel message itself. So we can ask what might this parable have meant in its original setting. I’m going to suggest that there was a possibility that this is used as a statement about someone who is working entirely on material that has been passed on. It is not a compliment to someone who is sticking with the letter; it’s a criticism of someone who has nothing original to contribute.
Paul is now bringing this to the Corinthians. Is it a criticism in his use? In one sense. He’s saying that the Corinthians have not (yet?) contributed anything to the message of the gospel, and yet they are acting as though they had created an original contribution and attained spiritual superiority. It would be like a student who presented a research paper consisting entirely of quotations, and then claimed to have accomplished original research.
Let me conclude by listing some benefits of form criticism and some potential problems.
Benefits:
Dangers:
The best way to build your skills with this type of criticism is to get good commentaries that include use of this methodology (most commentaries in the Old Testament Library or the Anchor Bible series do so, see my reader’s guides on Bible Study, Old Testament, New Testament, and Biblical criticism), then do your own work, and then compare that work to the results in the commentary.
Eleanor Clift in Newsweek has a new column, Dem Feingold Tosses GOP a Life Raft, in which she points out that Feingold’s bid to censure Bush is not good political strategy. It certainly is not, and especially for any politician or political party that is trying to reach out to the center. I’m a passionate moderate, and this kind of thing makes me run looking for someone else. Unfortunately, we are very short on “someone elses” in politics right now.
I think we need to look beyond the politicians to find out what the problem actually is with government in this country. In the same article, clift points out that 50% in a Wall Street Journal/NBC survey indicate that they would like the democrats to control congress. I think there is a big problem with that number, or any number that simply states what party we want to control congress. Because the parties are so diverse at this point, it can only be the result of a vague feeling we have about the two parties, and not a principled choice of particular candidates.
In my own congressional district, I’m never sure which party I want to hold the seat until I know who has been nominated. My feeling about the national Republican or Democratic parties (usually very negative) doesn’t really play much in the decision. The question is whether this person will represent me and this district well in congress. But there is clearly a body of people in this country, large enough body of people in this country to sway elections, who are going to vote based on how they feel about a party. I say that because the politicians keep on winning, and they keep on playing games. The Republicans did it with Clinton, and now the Democrats are doing it with Bush.
I’d like to be able to say that if either party wants to truly win the center, they will need to start behaving responsibly, as a party. In fact, however, I’m afraid I’d probably be wrong. The evidence is that politicians get elected by behaving like politicians. Both parties engage in this type of petty behavior, and both continue to have success with it. The primaries continue to produce the same type of candidates.
That pushes the problem back to us, the people. Why is it that we allow our opinions to be swayed so much by the latest shenanigans of either party? Why is it that a politician that manages to smear his opponent best with negative ads can win? Why is it that politicians must avoid specifics about what they would do in office, resorting instead to vague generalities?
I believe it’s because we, the people, don’t have the patience to really study the issues, and then choose the person who has the best grasp of them, and who reflects our values. What we vote for is the person who can give the best impression of supporting our values without tying himself down too much.
That’s how we get politicians who promise major educational reforms without ever spending more money.
That’s how a politician can say with a straight face that he will increase services and decrease taxes, and what’s more, get re-elected after failing to do it!
If we, the people, don’t spend more time studying the issues, making intelligent choices, and then expecting our politicians to do likewise, we will continue to get the type of government we currently have, in which politicians spar over petty things instead of grappling with serious issues in a serious way.
Anderson cooper is blogging over on CNN getting ready for a program on a case that’s being called “Roe v. Wade for men.” The idea is that a man should have a choice about having a child, and about whether he should have to pay child support. I suppose there’s going to be a long discussion complete with handwringing and emotion, but I’m not going to watch.
But let me give you one more links, to a story that has all the details in one place. Men’s activists launch ‘Roe v. Wade for Men’says a story on MSNBC.com.
The story says that a group calling itself the National Center for Men is supporting this lawsuit. I don’t usually get this annoyed at a story. But is this the national center for men, or is it perhaps the national center for irresponsibility?
This guy had a choice. He could choose whether or not to have the fun of making the baby. Now he wants out of the responsibility that results. I hear his arguments about the woman having the choice of an abortion. But I would make two points about that. First, even if one does support abortion rights, the situation of the man and the woman when pregnancy occurs is hardly comparable. But second, one type of irresponsibility is not the solution to another.
Let me note simply that my position on the moral issues of abortion is different than my position on the legal issues. I think the proper moral place to make choices about reproduction is before you engage in sexual activity that might produce a pregnancy. This is true for the man or the woman. After that, your moral choices are different. At the same time I do believe that the best approach to preventing abortion is through education and support. By this I mean education in making responsible choices, and the necessary social support when the right choice, or for that matter when the wrong choice is made.
In this case, the woman has made a responsible choice, and the man wants permission to make an irresponsible one. Well, he can. He can irresponsibly decide not to pay child support, and then like anyone else who doesn’t face his responsibilities, he can face the legal consequences.
The following chart is designed to allow persons who are not skilled in Greek to work with the parallel accounts of the parable of the sower, Matthew 13:1-9, Mark 4:1-9, and Luke 8:4-8. Notes cover very basic cocepts of textual criticism, form criticism, source criticism, and redaction criticism. In future entries I will expand on these issues and also discuss literary, tradition, genre and canonical criticism.
As background, consult my pamphlet What is Biblical Criticism? which provides an extremely basic overview of the method. To that discussion, I need to add that not every portion of the general history of a document takes place with each document. For example, in the case of one of Paul’s letters, for example, there is no oral stage. In general, there are no sources, or sources provide only a very limited portion of the text. There are also no further redactions or editions of the text. Paul writes or dictates the letter, and then it is delivered. In this case form, source, and redaction criticism have very little to say. Sometimes scholars try to make use of these techniques on literature to which they are not well suited, and the results are not terribly helpful.
If we limit ourselves to the limits of this single pericope (or short, defined scriptural passage), then most of our questions relate to form criticism. We are asking what the form of the parable is. A good way to think of this is to ask yourself what it was about this that told you it was a parable. In this case, it is labeled “parable.” But what if you just heard the starting point: “A sower went out to sow.” Would you still recognize it as a parable? Did Jesus very likely say, “I’m going to use a parable now?” So the phrase that introduces the parable, as well as the setting is part of the redaction, or a result of editing the text.
To deal with sources we would have to look at more text. Within this parable, we can ask whether it is more likely that Mark was first, and Matthew and Luke copied from him, or was Matthew first? It would be a rather odd view these days, but logically one must consider whether Luke was first, and the others copied him. But in the passage in question, we see very little indication of who copied whom. Mark’s vocabulary and style is a little simpler, and Luke’s is more complex, but those changes could be made by any of the three.
There’s a likely reason for this. On the assumption that Mark is first (which I might argue with, but I want to work with the consensus for right now), this parable is probably part of the ‘Q’ source. (Q is an abbreviation for German “Quelle” which means “source.”) This parable is also repeated in the Gospel of Thomas, verse 9, which provides support for the possibility that it was part of a sayings source. Note also that Thomas does not include either the setting (one would expect it not to) nor does it include the final “He who has ears, let him hear.”
One major benefit of this sort of study is that it forces you to look in detail at every word and ask precisely how it fits into the intent of the author. Whether you agree with the work of any critical or scholar or not, that study cannot help but benefit you.
The Parable of the Sower |
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|---|---|---|---|
| Matthew 13:1-9 | Mark 4:1-9 | Luke 8:4-8 | Notes |
| 1On that day, when Jesus had gone out of the house, he sat beside the sea,2and large crowds came together to him,so that he into a boat embarked to sit. And all the crowd stood on the shore. |
1And again he began to teach beside the sea,and a large crowd was coming to him,so that into a boat he embarked to sit on [in] the sea, and the whole crowd by the sea on the land were. |
4Now a large crowd gathering, and people from various towns came together to him, | Note that the setting of the story differs in Luke. One of the functions of form criticism is to find the boundaries of the orally transmitted unit. In the gospels, we are aided in this process by having the units embedded in three different documents that we can compare. In this case, Matthew and Mark place this parable in the context of Jesus teaching in a boat by the sea. Luke uses the same setting (Luke 5:1-3) but with different teaching.Redaction criticism then deals with the way in which the parable is used to express the theme of the particular book or document, while the individual differences in the story itself aid us in source criticism, as we ask the question of who, if anyone, copied from whom.In Matthew, compare verses 1 & 2 to verse 1 in Mark. There are manuscripts of Matthew and Mark that make them read alike in each of the cases. Why do we not accept the variants that make the two passages more similar? Besides the fact that they do not have the best text, scribes had a tendency to accommodate texts rather than differentiate them. See further discussion of textual criticism at my previous entry, Textual Criticism – Briefly. |
| 3And he spoke to them many things in parables saying, Look, one who sows went out to sow. 4And while he was sowing, some [of the seeds] fell by the path, and when the birds came they consumed them [the seeds]. |
2And he taught them in parables many things and said to them in his teaching,3Listen! Look! Went out one who sows to sow.4And it happened in the sowing that some [seed] fell beside the path,and came the birds and ate it. |
he said by means of a parable, 5“Went out one who sows to sow his seed. Some feel beside the path and was trampled, and the birds of heaven ate it. |
Now we get to the start of the parable. Just like “once upon a time” at the start of a children’s story “he spoke a parable” or something very similar begins the actual parable. There are frequent textual variants that accommodate the various passages. |
| 5But some, fell on the rocky grounds, where they did not have much dirt, and immediately sprouted leaves because they didn’t have deep dirt. 6But after the sun rose, they were scorched and because they did not have root, they withered. 7But some others fell among the thorns, and when the thorns grew up they choked them. |
5and other [seed] fell on the rocky where it did not have much dirt, and immediately it sprouted because it didn’t have deep dirt. 6And when the sun rose, it was scorched, and because it didn’t have root, it withered. 7And other [seed] fell in the thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and fruit it didn’t bear. |
6and other [seed] fell on the rock, and when it grew, it withered, because it didn’t have moisture. 7And other [seed] fell among the thorns, and the thorns grew together and choked it. | Note that Luke has the shortest version and that there are minor grammatical differences between all three stories. These differences are to be expected in orally transmitted material. |
| 8But others fell on the good ground and bore fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, and others thirtyfold. 9Let the one who has ears hear. |
8And other [seeds] fell into the good ground, and it gave fruit when it grew up, and got larger and bore one thirtyfold, and one sixtyfold, and one a hundredfold.9And he said, whoever has ears to hear, let him hear. | 8And other [seed] fell into the good ground and when it grew it produced fruit a hundredfold.Having said these things, he called out: “Let the one who has ears to hear, hear!” | All three parables end with the command for those with ears to listen, though Matthew leaves out “to hear.”Note that I do not include the interpretation of the parable as part of the unit. The parable itself is a unit used in teaching, and Jesus did not include the explanation in the original statement for it. In the gospels, the explanation is given very shortly afterward to the disciples. Many scholars believe that these longer explanations are the product of the early church, and were not part of the explicit teaching of Jesus. |
In future entries I will discuss the methods further and also bring examples from other texts, then eventually take a look at Isaiah 24-27 as a passage that can benefit from the work of form, source, redaction, and canonical criticism.
Over on the Pacesetters Bible School News blog I have posted an entry on prayer teams and prayer training.
Prayer training seems to be quite rare in churches. Its possible that we generally feel that prayer isnt something that should be taught, but rather is something that just happens. Many pastors that Ive talked to over the last few years tell me that they had no training in prayer prior to taking up their first parish, and that it is one thing they really wish they could have known more about.
Basic prayer training, in my view, is largely a matter of clearing the ground. We have so many ideas about what we can or cannot say to God that it interferes with our ability just to commune with our heavenly Father. (Pacesetters offers programs on prayer, which I teach with my wife.)
But when it comes to prayer ministry, there is a great deal more that can be said. . . .
Read more at Prayer Team Training.
