Thanks to the Boston Bible Geeks for bringing to our attention the availability of study notes by Craig Keener for a beginner's class he did in Africa on Biblical Interpretation. They are made available through The Pneuma Foundation. The notes are in pdf form and, if printed, come to 88 pages. It is also available in a zip file (link is available at Boston Bible Geeks). I did a quick scan and they look very good. Of course, I would expect nothing less from Keener. Here are a few paragraphs in discussing the importance of context:
"Many people assume that the thief in John 10:10 is the devil, but they assume this because they have heard this view many times, not because they examined the text carefully in context. Of course, the devil does come to steal, to kill, and to destroy; but we often quote the verse this way and miss the text’s direct applications because we have not stopped to read the verse in context.
When Jesus speaks of “the thief,” he speaks from a larger context of thieves, robbers, wolves, and strangers who come to harm the sheep (10:1, 5, 8, 10, 12). In this context, those who came before Jesus, claiming his authority, were thieves and robbers (10:8); these tried to approach the sheep without going through the shepherd (10:1). This was because they wanted to exploit the sheep, whereas Jesus was prepared to die defending his sheep from these thieves, robbers, and wolves.
The point becomes even clearer if we start further back in the context. In chapter 9, Jesus heals a blind man and the religious officials kick the blind man out of the religious community for following Jesus. Jesus stands up for the formerly blind man and calls the religious leaders spiritually blind (9:35-41). Because there were no chapter breaks in the original Bible, Jesus’ words that continue into chapter 10 are still addressed to the religious leaders. He declares that He is the true Shepherd and the true sheep follow His voice, not the voice of strangers (10:1-5). Those who came before Him were thieves and robbers, but Jesus was the sheep’s true salvation (10:8-9). The thief comes only to destroy, but Jesus came to give life (10:10).
In other words, the thief represents the false religious leaders, like the Pharisees who kicked the healed man out of their synagogue. The background of the text clarifies this point further. In Jeremiah 23 and Ezekiel 34, God was the shepherd of His scattered people, His sheep; these Old Testament passages also speak of false religious leaders who abused their authority over the sheep like many of the religious leaders of Jesus’ day and not a few religious leaders in our own day." (11)
Francis Beckwith has written an excellent response to Time magazine's latest issue where it asks if America is Islamophobic. Here's part of what he wrote:
"There is, of course, no actual ailment called 'Islamophobia,' as there is with claustrophobia and arachnophobia. The latter two are diagnosable irrational fears that people acquire for a variety of reasons. The first is a rhetorical invention intended to marginalize factions of the American public so that the rest of us will feel shamed into believing we should not take our fellow citizens seriously. It is, in short, an argument stopper, and thus is meant to undermine and not advance rational discourse on a matter of public controversy. This is not say, of course, that there are not people who in fact hold false and bigoted beliefs about Islam, just as there are people who hold false and bigoted beliefs about Catholicism, Protestantism and Mormonism. But it should go without saying that offering critical comments about a religion or its beliefs and practices is not automatically the result of inaccurate observations and/or bigotry. For if that were the case, then the worst bigots in the world would be the New Atheists who maintain that all religious beliefs and practices are not only false but harmful. Because the New Atheists seem to be the darlings of the Time magazine set, one can only conclude that the difference between a bigot and a respected intellectual is that the former rejects one less belief than the latter. This results in the amusing judgment that it is intolerant and bigoted to believe one religious belief is true and all others false, but the pinnacle of tolerance to believe that none are true and all are false. This is, of course, perfectly stupid, though considered the height of sophistication by the most cerebral custodians of our public culture. This is why they prefer power over reason; they can only win with the former but not the latter.
If there's one thing you can always count on in contemporary America, it is this: some enterprising political spin doctor will invent a short-hand insult (disguised as an assessment of your sub-rational motives, as if they can actually be known) in order to insulate his own opinion from legitimate criticism. In fact, I have a name for it: 'Rhetorical McCarthyism.' Now, if anyone calls you 'Islamophobic,' you can then accuse them of 'Rhetorical McCarthyism.' That evens the playing field so that perhaps a rational discussion may break out. It can happen."
"As a side note, it's interesting that there isn't a well-accepted term for prejudice against Christians, an absence that may reflect an unwillingness to condemn it. Maybe we need to come up with such a word. Any suggestions? How about 'Christophobic'--an irrational fear of the Christian gospel and those who believe in it." (184)
I subscribe to a monthly newsletter from the Christian Law Association (CLA). In the August issue they had a “Ministry Q & A” which I found very interesting. Here’s what it said:
Q: Why does my church need to put the phrase ‘All donations are non-binding suggestions’ on their giving envelopes?
A: Alerting contributors that their designated offerings are considered by the church to be non-binding suggestions helps both the church and the contributor. It allows churches to use the designated funds for a possible church financial emergency without violating legal requirements for implied trusts. An implied trust is the legal requirement to use any designated funds only for their designated purpose. Even if a church were to borrow designated contributions for a financial emergency and later replace the entire amount, the legal requirements for implied trust would be violated.
Treating designated contributions as suggestions also assures that the contributor will be able to get a tax deduction for the gift. Unless the church has full control of donated funds and has the discretion to use the funds as needed, the monetary gift may not be tax-deductable for the contributor.
If you’d like to know more about this issue you can contact the CLA office at 727-399-8300. You can find their website here.
John Dickson is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers. I just finished Life of Jesus which is due out any day now. In one of the chapters he covers the now common complaint from the New Atheists that Christianity inherently perpetuates violence. He looks at two events in particular: the Spanish Inquisition and the North Ireland conflict. Here’s how he puts it:
“The Spanish Inquisition is often thought to be Christianity at its most bloodthirsty with hundreds of thousands of heretics killed (trawl the Internet and you will even find estimates of a million or more). However, it is 350-year history, the Spanish Inquisition probably killed around 6,000 people. That comes out at eighteen deaths a year. Of course, one a year-one ever-is too much, but the figure hardly sustains the monstrous narratives we often hear. Or take the iconic Northern Ireland conflict. The thirty-year ‘troubles’ led to the deaths of fewer than 4,000 people. Again, one death ‘in the name of Christ’ is a blasphemy, but how did the Northern Ireland conflict ever come to symbolize the ferocity of the church? Compare it with the thoroughly secular French Revolution. As many people were executed in the name of ‘liberty, equality and fraternity’ in a single year of the Revolution (the ‘Terror’ of September 1793-July 1794) as were killed in the entire three decades of the ‘troubles.’ And I am still in favour of liberty, equality and fraternity.
And this is my second problem with the complaint of Hitchens and others. The violence of Christendom is dwarfed by that of non-religious causes, such as World War I (8,000,000 deaths) and World War II (35,000,000 deaths). Then there is the very awkward fact that the twentieth century’s three great atheistic regimes were hotbeds of unrestrained violence. Joseph Stalin’s openly atheistic project killed at least 20,000,000 people, which is more people each week than the Spanish Inquisition killed in its entire 350-year history. Pol Pot, another avowed atheist, is known to have slaughtered 2,000,000 people out of a population of 8,000,000. I must emphasize that this is not to claim that atheists are more violent than Christians. It simply underlines that violence is a perennial human problem, not a specifically religious one. And those like Christopher Hitchens who suggest that these communist regimes were quasi-religious in their zeal and so provide further evidence of the pernicious effect of religion have abandoned sincere investigation into the problem and settled upon crass anti-religious apologetics. Better to state the obvious: religion or irreligion can inspire hatred.” (68-69)
Earlier this week I told you about a book I'm reading on the subject of Bible translation. And God Said is written by a linguist and expert in Hebrew, Dr. Joel Hoffman. Last time we looked at the issue of italics and Hoffman explained how it was not only not necessary but misleading to the reader. This time the issue is how the advancement of punctuation affects translations.
"One of the most common words in the Hebrew Bible is leimor. The word literally means 'to say,' and it's most commonly translated as 'saying.' This is where we get (terrible) translations like, 'God spoke unto Moses, saying . . .' Let's look at the context of leimor and see if we can't figure out what it really means.
The first thing we see about leimor is that it is indeed used for things that are said. It's used for what people say, as in Genesis 27:6 (to pick one of many examples at random): 'And Rebekah spake unto Jacob her son, saying [leimor], Behold, I heard thy father speak unto Esau thy brother, saying [leimor] . . .' (KJV) or, more colloquially (and accurately), 'Rebekah said to her son Jacob, 'I heard your father say to your brother Esau . . .'" (NRSV). The word is also used for what God says, as in Genesis 1:22 'And God blessed them, saying [leimor], Be fruitful, and multiply . . .' (KJV) or 'God blessed them, saying [leimor], 'Be fruitful . . .'" (NRSV and NAB).
But it's also used for songs, as in Exodus 15:1: 'Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song unto the LORD, and spake, saying [leimor], I will sing . . ." (KJV). Here the KJV has a problem, because in English songs aren't 'said'; they're sung. The NRSV and NAB do better: 'Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the LORD: 'I will sing . . .'"
The word is also used for questions, as in Genesis 37:15: 'And the man asked him, saying [leimor], What seekest thou?" (KJV). Again the KJV has a problem, because in English one doesn't say questions; one asks them.
But a picture begins to emerge. The word leimor is used for questions, statements, songs, blessings, commandments, etc. In fact, leimor is used for anything that involves direct quotation. Indeed, it introduces direct quotation. We don't have a word like that in English, but quotation marks is to mark direct quotations. This is why the NRSV correctly uses quotation marks where the KJV has the misleading (that is, wrong) translation 'saying.' (Surprisingly, the authors of the NRSV, who seem to have understood leimor, still get it wrong sometimes in translation, as we just saw in Genesis 1:22).
English quotation marks can be used for words of a speech, question, song, whatever. So, too, the Hebrew leimor was used for any direct quotation. So leimor doesn't mean 'saying . . .' at all. It means, 'comma, quote. . . "" (37-38)
I’ve always been intrigued by Matthew’s account of the guards at the tomb of Jesus (Matthew 27:62-66). In this clip we have an interview by John Ankerberg of William Lane Craig on the issue. It’s interesting that Craig begins by saying this question would probably be “best left out of the program since the vast, vast majority of New Testament scholars would regard Matthew’s guard story as unhistorical.” He continues, “I can hardly think of anybody who would defend the historicity of the guard at the tomb story.”
D. A. Carson in his commentary on Matthew in the Expositor’s Bible Commentary gives five reasons in favor of the historicity of the event. (By the way, the revised edition of this commentary is slated to appear this October. The old edition had Matthew thru Luke. The revised edition will only be Matthew and Mark.) On the two issues that Craig gives why some doubt the historicity of the story, it’s only recorded in Matthew and this makes it appear as if the Jewish authorities understood the resurrection predictions which from all accounts prior to the resurrection the disciples themselves did not understand, Carson explains:
“Matthew has regularly given information in the passion narrative that the other evangelists omit (e.g., 27:19, 34-35, 62-63); and it is methodologically wrong to doubt the historicity of all details that lack multiple attestation—not least because such ‘multiple attestation’ may sometimes go back to one literary source.”
“The objection that this scene is implausible because it shows the Jewish leaders believing something the disciples themselves cannot yet believe is insubstantial. They may have heard something on the content on 16:21; 17:9; 20:19 from Judas. Whatever the source of their information, they certainly do not believe Jesus prediction, they are merely afraid of fraud—a fear fostered perhaps by the report that Jesus’ body, against all judicial custom had been taken down from the cross and returned to Jesus’ disciples by Joseph and Nicodemus. This could also account for the delay in the request to post a guard (v. 64). The disciples disbelieved Jesus’ words about rising again, not because they could not understand the plan words, but because they had no frame of reference capable of integrating a dying and rising Messiah into their own messianic expectations.” (585-86)
There are a number of these clips on YouTube of John Ankerberg and William Lane Craig. All are very short but very good. Here's two more that are must viewing.
Noted theologian Clark Pinnock passed away this past Sunday. See here for more details and some thoughtful and endearing comments. We will keep his family and friends in prayer.
I’m reading a book by Joel H. Hoffman called And God Said: How Translations Conceal the Bible’s Original Meaning. Hoffman holds a Ph.D. in linguistics and has served on the faculties of Brandeis University and Hebrew Union College. One of the issues he discusses is the use of italics in translations to indicate words that are not in the original text. This is not a common feature in modern translations but was very common, and inconsistently used, in the King James Version. His discussion is very good. (Incidentally, the Geneva Bible was the first Bible to use italics.)
“Linguists know that there are two kinds of languages. One kind, like English, almost always requires a subject. When the subject is the one doing the verb, as in ‘God said,’ every language includes a subject. But the question arises of what happens when on one or nothing in particular is the one doing the verb. The answer is that, in languages such as English that required a subject, a pleonastic subject serves as the subject of the sentence. In English, the pleonastic subject is usually the word ‘it’ or ‘there.’
The clearest example in English is ‘It is raining.’ The ‘it’ is not ‘raining.’ Rather, the pleonastic ‘it’ is included in English only because English always requires a subject. Similarly, we see a pleonastic ‘there’ in ‘There is no reason to panic.’
French, which behaves like English, similarly requires a subject even when the subject isn’t doing the verb. ‘It’s raining’ in French is il pleut. Il—a pleonastic subject here—means ‘it’ or (‘he’), and pleut means ‘rain.’
Other languages do not require a subject. Spanish is such a language. Accordingly, the Spanish equivalent of ‘It’s raining’ or il pleut is the one word llueve—literally, ‘rains.’
How should llueve be translated into English? Obviously, the only reasonable answer is ‘It’s raining.’ Italicizing the ‘it’s,’ or marking in some other way the difference between English and Spanish grammar, would do only that: mark a difference in grammar. It would not make the translation more accurate or in any other way better.
Hebrew is like Spanish. It does not require a subject. That’s why ‘There will-be light’ in Hebrew (y’hi or) doesn’t have a word for ‘there’ and literally ends up ‘will-be light.’
The KJV gets this right and, perhaps surprisingly in light of Genesis 1:4, does not italicize anything in Genesis 1:3, offering as a translation the fairly accurate ‘And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.’
Unfortunately, in the very next line, the word ‘it’ is italicized: ‘And God saw the light, that it was good. . . .’ Like ‘there’ in the previous line, there is nothing unusual about ‘it’ (or ‘was,’ for that matter). There is nothing missing in the Hebrew. There is nothing extra in the English. And italicizing ‘it’ leaves the English reader with the mistaken impression that the ‘it’ is somehow less a part of the original than other words.
From the point of view of studying Hebrew grammar, there might be some merit to that claim. The italicized ‘it’ might remind students of Hebrew that Hebrew doesn’t require pleonastic subjects, whereas English does. But from the point of view of translation, it’s simply a mistake. It leaves the English reader not with a better understanding of the original but with a misunderstanding of the original.” (73-74)
I'll give another example later this week.
And God Said is a hardcover from Thomas Dunne Books with 256 pages and sells for $25.99. Walter Brueggemann says this of Hoffman's work
"Hoffman is wise and gentle as he exhibits the issue of distortion by way of translation. Short of all readers learning Hebrew, Hoffman's work is the best gift for a careful reader of a text that defies easy contemporary rendering."
