brick-a-brack 19/11/10

• Tim has a couple of complaints about the way we tend to censor the Bible
• John Byron exposes dishonest seminarians
• And Steve acheives a whole new magnitude of esoteric, with his discussion of Gothic translation methods
• And a really helpful post from Marc on "what is theological interpretation of the Bible?"

Enjoy

Quote of the day: John Hobbins on Bible Translation

Welcome back John, nice to see you blogging again,

Most widely used Bible translations are products of committees that adjudicate by bowing to consensus. They are products of a herd mentality.

Tee hee, he is cheeky.  Read the rest here.

brick-a-brack 24/10/10

• Duane has some advice for those frustrated with big business
• Jim West has some advice for youth pastors, pastors, parents, and everyone else
• A rather depressing article about the proliferation of Bible "versions" HT
• Get an insight into Paul Windsor's work as a trainer of preachers
• A Lutheran pastor ponders evangelism (or lack of it)
• Marc raises a pertinent question about PhD students who have no hope of getting jobs after

Brueggemann on the Hebrew Text of Scripture

I think i've come across this quote or one like it a few times before, but just found it again and thought it well worth sharing.

The text, in its very utterance, in its ways of putting things together, is completely unfamiliar to us.  The utterance of the primitive God of scripture is an utterance that is in unfamiliar mode.  Let me say what I mean.

Hebrew, even for those who know it much better than I do, is endlessly imprecise and unclear.  It lacks the connecting words; it denotes rather than connnotes; it points and opens and suggests, but it does not conclude or define.  This means it is a wondrous vehicle for what is suggested but hidden, what is filled with imprecision and inference and inuendo, a vehicle for contradiction, hyperbole, incongruity, disputation.  Now the reason this may be important is that in a society of technological control and precision, we are seduced into thinking that if we know the codes, we can pin down all meaning, get all mysteries right and have our own way, without surprise, without deception, without amazement . . . without anything that signals mystery or risk.

from Walter Brueggemann, Deep Memory, Exuberant Hope, 2000, p3

Koine Greek Anyone?

If you are thinking/dreaming of learning NT Greek one day, have a read of this list of things you need to know and take note of Daryl's very pertinent commentary.

drifting in on the tide

Happy birthday to Jim West, whose 50th birthday apparently means the end is drawing nigh, at least by all the end times speculation that it has sparked, so get your rapture pak ready.  But Jim needs to know that 50 is probably the new 40, at least according to Don Miller.  KVB offers some funding advice ostensibly for PhDs but it should work for just about anything and some great Petersen quotes. 

Richard Beck has some thoughts about Bible translations and would probably like IVP's biblical theology blog, which is back on track and well worth a look, not least linking to Peter Leithart on mission and a review of this children's Bible which I bought and mostly like - although it over interprets sometimes, e.g. the snake in the garden is Satan, but has the best introduction of any children's book I've ever read, like ever.  Tall Skinny Kiwi also talks about "mission shaped mission" while Marc Cortez muses on Volf's eschatological theology of work.  Which brings us nicely back to the end times where it is worth considering your sins on this helpful chart before it is too late, or imagining a different scenario altogether.

Blogs of note

• An incredibly helpful comment on modern translations of the apocrypha.
• A Chesterton quote on things that people think are in the Bible but aren't.
• John Scott on what we are learning (or should be learning) from mission among unreached people groups.
• Dewi Hughes on ethnic identity and land in Wales and Kenya, not to mention nonviolence.
• The church is called out of its consumerism.
• Shauna Niequist kicks the princess out of church.
• And Don expounds the benifits of reading, while John just goes for learning, full stop.

To be or not to be in your mother tongue?

What the biblioblogosphere gives with the left hand, it takes away with the right.

Faith in or of Jesus?

The subjective/objective genetive debate has kicked off again recently as Steve responds (here, then here) to Loren.  Independent of that conversation James Gregory reviews two articles from a rather tasty looking book on the subject.

The debate simply centres around an ambiguity in the Greek when Paul talks about the "faith (of) Christ" it is not clear (purely in terms of grammar) whether he means Christ is the object of that faith, i.e. that he is the one in whom we have faith, or that he is the subject of the faith, i.e. he is the one who has shown faith(fulness).  Loren thinks the objective reading is nonsense, and Steve disagrees.  James Gregory finds the objective reading presented better in the book he reviews, but I suspect that he might feel the subjective reading would be a stronger case if argued rightly.

Because grammatical indicators cannot solve the problem, it has to be solved by exegesis.  Which is fun but time consuming.  And that is my excuse for not having an opinion on the matter yet.  One interesting idea that comes through in the review is the possibility that Paul uses a "plenary genitive," i.e. at that he intends both meanings.  Probably the key passage to think this one through is Gal 2:15-21.  Read it through with each possibility in mind, keep an open mind, and see which you think makes the most sense in context.

¹⁵"We who are Jews by birth and not 'Gentile sinners' ¹⁶know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by (the) faith in/of Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by (the) faith in/of Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.  ¹⁷"If, while we seek to be justified in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! ¹⁸If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a lawbreaker. ¹⁹For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. ²⁰I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. ²¹I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!"

PS. Steve also has a great post on this subject in Heb 11:1.  I know it is your favourite verse, so check it out!

σκεῦος = penis

Most of your Bible translations have two possible rendering of 1 Thes 4:4, something along the lines of either

that each one of you know how to control your own body in holiness and honour (NRSV)

or

that each one of you know how to take a wife for himself in holiness and honour (NRSV, note)

But the word translated variously "wife" or "body" is σκεῦος, which is a very strange word to use for either.  Of course the "wife" translation is especially wierd, as "knowing how" to take a wife presumably has little effect on your behaviour unless you actually do so!  And they are both wierd because if σκεῦος is a metaphor for either, what does the use of that metaphor add to the discussion?  σκεῦος is essentially a word for a useful object and has a semantic range broad enough to cover ship's rigging, kitchen pots, and human functionaries!  Instead, as both FF Bruce and Gordon Fee argue in their respective commentaries on 1&2 Thessalonians, σκεῦος is here best understood as a euphemism for penis.  There is even an example of this usage in the LXX (the Greek version of the OT) in 1 Sam 21:5-6.  

My contribution to this discussion is simply to concur with Fee's (much more detailed- this is just a very brief summary) argument and to point out that this would help explain Paul's use of τιμή (honour) here as in 1 Cor 12:23 he also talks about how the less presentable parts need to be treated with special τιμή (honour).

My translation suggestion?

that each one of you know how to control your own thingy in holiness and honour

Let me know what you think, :-)

Speech Marks in 1 Corinthians 6:12

If you have a Bible that has been printed in the last century and you turn it to 1 Cor 6:12 you will probably see some inverted commas around the first few words of text. The general assumption has been that these words are Paul quoting the Corinthians and so they are placed in speech marks in order that the reader does not mistake them for Paul's own words. The problem with this is that Paul does no such thing. In the Koine Greek in which Paul was writing there was no speech marks as such, but they were more than able to show when they were starting a quotation by the use of some other signifier. In fact in 1 Corinthians Paul clearly signals that he is making quotations 32 times for the Corinthians' words, OT citations, and even for hypothetical dialogue partners. So why when no such signal is given do we still get quotation marks in our Bibles? Good question. It seems like it is just one of things that has been repeated so often that now no one questions it, but if you trace it back to the first person to suggest it, Johannes Weiss, you realise that he based it on a minor grammatical point, that doesn't hold any water. Now that is enoguh for me, but Brian Dodd goes further in his excellent article "Paul's Paradigmatic 'I' in 1 Corinthians 6:1" in Journal for the Study of the New Testament, (no. 59, 1995, 39-58) and also makes an excellent and thorough positive argument why these words are not a quotation but Paul's own.

The JR translation of 1 Cor 6:12-20

OK so here is a translation I have done as part of my work on my thesis. This passage doesn't actually use 'the body of Christ' explicitly as a metaphor for the church (and neither does the nest one I will do). However I will be arguing that that metaphor is implicit in these verses. Compare it to your usual translation and let me know what you think. Translation is part science and part art, and doing this has made me realise just how hard the translation process is, it seems like every decision you make highlights one feature of the original text but obscures another, so you have to decide which features you think need to be prominent and which are permissible to obscure. Obviously the danger here for me is that I am highlighting the parts which support my thesis. Happily, I'm sure my supervisor will shoot me down in due course if that is the case! The parts in quotes are thought to be the Corinthian church's justifications for the actions that Paul is taking issue with.

1 Cor 6:12-20
“There are no rules for me,” but not everything is to your benefit. “There are no rules for me,” but I will not be ruled by anything. “Food is for the stomach and the stomach for food, and both will be destroyed by God.” But the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. For God has raised the Lord and through his power he will raise us. Don’t you know that your bodies are Christ’s body-parts? Then should I remove one of Christ’s body-parts and make it the body-part of a whore? No way! Don’t you know that when you join with a whore you are one body with her? For it is said: “The two will be one flesh.” But when you join with the Lord you are one spirit with him. Flee sexual immorality! All sin a man might do is outside the body except the sexually immoral man who sins against his own body. Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit (in you!) which you have from God, and you are not yours. For the price has been paid for you, so you must praise God in your body.

Matt 6:9b-10: The Lord's Prayer Revisited

πάτερ ἡμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς
ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου
ἐλθέτω ἡ βασιλεία σου
γενηθήτω τὸ θέλημά σου
ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς

Which we uually translate something like:
Our Father, who is in Heaven, hallowed be thy name
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.

But we tend to read 'hallowed' as being a stament of fact, i.e. 'your name is holy.' But this takes us away from the original Greek where the archaic 'hallowed' is perhaps better rendered 'sanctified.' Our English translation also misses two other things present in the Greek. 1) The repetition of the word σου (your/of yours) at the end of three phrases which links together name, kingdom and will. and 2) the use of the imperative form of each verb. Perhaps my translation here (which is poor English) demonstrates those features.

Father of ours, who in Heaven is,
Sanctified must be the name of yours
Coming must be the kingdom of yours
Happening must be the will of yours
As in Heaven, so on Earth.

Reading it like this the prayer takes on a different shape. 1) Reality is reflected, in that God's name is often not (as it should be) holy but often treated as a swear word and used casually. 2) The inevitability of God's name being sanctified, the Kingdom's arrival, and the accomplishment of God's will, shows our prayer not to be a request for God to do something but an alignment of ourselves through prayer to the future certain promise of Heaven coming to Earth. If God's name will one day be treated with total holiness then we antipate that day by doing so now. If God's kingdom and will will one day be supremely manifested on Earth then we anticpate that day by living according to them now.

[Disclaimer: I am still a novice when it comes to Bible translation and so take my translation as being a provisional attempt of a learner rather than the work of an expert, please!]