Suzanne's Bookshelf

Women's orientation to work: part 5

2011-09-25T17:10:00.000-07:00

Spinning was something that occupied every woman in ancient culture. It could be taken with you everywhere, in the same way that the women of my mother's age all knit. I anticipate your protest, that women today knit. That is true, but often the cost of the materials is equal to the cost of a finished product so there is no commercial value to knitting. It has lost the function that it had in the last generation.

However, in addition to spinning, women wove. Weaving was an essential skill that all women and some men learned. Clothes, bedding, carpets and tents were all woven. Weaving made up a major part of commercial production in ancient societies. While all women would have to know how to weave, some weavers, men and women, were apprenticed for several years to a master weaver to specialize in the art.

Woven products supplied the household with a major part of the furnishings. Woven products, garments and fabric, had a religious function and were dedicated to the building of the tabernacle which was a tent, after all. Woven products were traded between groups, and were presented to royalty. Purple yarn or fabric was on the same level as gold as a commodity. According to strict laws in the Roman Empire only the imperial family could wear all purple. Magistrates and officials, as well as Roman priests could wear purple bands woven into their togas and robes. The production of purple yarn was a specialized industry.

Weaving was a skilled artisan activity and was undertaken in groups. It brought income into the family. No woman today can imitate the function of weaving in ancient nomadic society by setting up a loom in her home. I know many women who weave, and most do it as a hobby, an expensive hobby. A very few design and sew custom clothing which they sell at a premium.

Although men also were involved in the weaving industry, it was a domain where women participated fully. We see in Proverbs 31 that weaving was an important skilled activity. In the New Testament, Dorcas was known for sewing for the poor, and Lydia was known as a trader in purple. This may have been purple yarn, fabric or clothes - I can't tell for sure.

Not only was weaving extremely important - essential, that is - it was also a highly creative activity. This article gives you some idea of the complexity of fabric and carpet production. This was the domain of women.

In short, if we were to imitate biblical womanhood today, it would not be about staying at home to care for the children in isolation from society and commerce. The woman would still be integrated into the commercial life of the community. Its hard to think of how we could imitate that today and stay at home. Some women renovate their house, taking on building tasks, and then reselling, or buying and renovating rental property. Others work in education so that their hours of work imitate the hours that their children are in school. In my view, there are no hard and fast rules about how women today can reconcile different commitments. However, I do know that staying at home, raising children and creating a supportive atmosphere for one's husband by keeping an attractive home, worthy as all this is, does not imitate the lifestyle of a biblical woman.
Biblical women were driven by the entrepeneurial spirit, to work, to initate and complete their projects. We need to follow that model.

refuting female superiority

2011-09-05T19:05:00.000-07:00

After writing about 1 Tim. 2:12 on the BLT, in response to this post about Wright's explanation of this passage, I found myself asking a few questions about 1 Tim. 2:14. It seems counterintuitive. Women are crafty, women are gullible, which sexist notion is more easily supported by the biblical text?

1 Tim. 2:14, "And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner," is one of the most puzzling verses in the Bible. It does not describe the women of the Bible at all. In fact, quite the reverse. First, women who considered wise counsellors, and second, women deceived men all the time in the Bible. Let's look at these two situations.

First, the wise women of the Bible are the wise hearted חַכְמַת-לֵב or skilled women of Ex. 35,

²⁵ Every skilled woman spun with her hands and brought what she had spun—blue, purple or scarlet yarn or fine linen. ²⁶ And all the women who were willing and had the skill spun the goat hair. NIV

²⁵And all the women that were wise hearted did spin with their hands, and brought that which they had spun, both of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, and of fine linen. ²⁶And all the women whose heart stirred them up in wisdom spun goats' hair. KJV

Clearly, women had skill (wisdom) in the same way that men had skills (wisdom.) Other women who give much needed and respected advice are Deborah, Esther and Huldah. But recently my attention was drawn to the wise woman of Abel.

¹⁶Then cried a wise woman out of the city, Hear, hear; say, I pray you, unto Joab, Come near hither, that I may speak with thee.
¹⁷And when he was come near unto her, the woman said, Art thou Joab? And he answered, I am he. Then she said unto him, Hear the words of thine handmaid. And he answered, I do hear.
¹⁸Then she spake, saying, They were wont to speak in old time, saying, They shall surely ask counsel at Abel: and so they ended the matter.
¹⁹I am one of them that are peaceable and faithful in Israel: thou seekest to destroy a city and a mother in Israel: why wilt thou swallow up the inheritance of the LORD?
²⁰And Joab answered and said, Far be it, far be it from me, that I should swallow up or destroy.
²¹The matter is not so: but a man of mount Ephraim, Sheba the son of Bichri by name, hath lifted up his hand against the king, even against David: deliver him only, and I will depart from the city. And the woman said unto Joab, Behold, his head shall be thrown to thee over the wall.
²²Then the woman went unto all the people in her wisdom. And they cut off the head of Sheba the son of Bichri, and cast it out to Joab. And he blew a trumpet, and they retired from the city, every man to his tent. And Joab returned to Jerusalem unto the king. 2 Samuel 20:16-22.

Is there any suggestion here that women are more vulnerable to deception than men? Did the ancient Israelites believe that? I find it hard to accept that it was a pervasive belief that women were more prone to being deceived than men. However, perhaps this had shifted by the time 1 Timothy was written.

On the other hand, since women had less political and legal power than men, they often attempted to exert control over men in other ways. A man could overrule his wife, and it would be thought of as normal and right. But a woman could not overrule her husband. If desperate, she must resort to some other means. She did not have the same legal power as a man.

Some women who deceived men, and in this way furthered the narrative in the Hebrew Bible, and possibly the will of God, are Rebecca, Leah, Tamar and Delilah. Perhaps you can add to this list.

An alternative reading for 1 Tim. 2:14, then, is that, instead of declaring female inferiority, it simply refutes female superiority. This view is well represented here,

Paul follows his ban on women teachers by reiterating sound teaching that counters the false teaching. For Adam was formed first, not Eve, like the cult of Artemis and the gnostics taught. He then points out that Eve became deceived and sinned. This is hardly the basis upon which to claim female-superiority and divine knowledge. Eve did not do a noble thing or liberate the world; she was tricked into violating the command of God. It’s important to note that Paul is not arguing for male superiority, just refuting female superiority by pointing out the facts of the creation account. He is not implying that because Eve was deceived all women are prone to deception or because she was created second that women may never be entrusted with the ministry of the word. Directly after refuting this false teaching, he moves onto the childbirth subject.

New blog on the block!

2011-09-04T23:19:00.000-07:00

I am delighted to announce the debut of a new blog, BLT - Bible*Literature*Translation at BLTnotjustasandwich. The bloggers are Theophrastus, of What I learned from Aristotle, also long known as an erudite commenter on many biblioblogs; Kurk from Aristotle's Feminist Subject, now #24 in the top 50 biblioblogs, and Craig R Smith, translator of the The Inclusive Bible, The First Egalitarian Translation.

Theophrastus introduces the blog and its purpose here,

Welcome to the blog named BLT. It is not just a sandwich. It stands for a set of topics that we hope to discuss: Bible, Literature, and Translation. We’ll talk about the Bible as literature and the literature of translation and the translation of Bibles and the translation of literature and literature of translation and Bible as a translation and literary translations of Bibles and so on. And we are certain to throw in the arts, the sciences, philosophy, mysticism, religion, and pretty much everything else.

The initial crew of bloggers represents a diverse set of viewpoints but one that is unified in our openness to new ideas and a fundamental belief in the dignity of all humans. This blog is open to all: Jews, Catholics, Mainliners, Evangelicals, Eastern Christians, Atheists, Theists outside the Judeo-Christian tradition, etc. For me a strong underlying theme of this blog is that everyone has a voice — especially people that have been traditionally marginalized.

I’ll let my co-bloggers (currently J. K. Gayle, Suzanne McCarthy, and Craig Smith) introduce themselves, but I’ll simply mention that I am a professor at a US university with strong interests in applied issues in linguistics.

There won’t be any bacon or other treif meat in my posts, but there will be lots of substance. I look forward to hearing from you.

And here is a provocative first post about translation.

The original 1926 title of this artwork is La Négresse blonde, which SFMOMA translates as “The Blond Negress.”

Is this a good translation of the French title? How women of African descent feel when they see this title? The word “Negress” in 2011 is shocking to see – certainly it does not have the same meaning that Négresse had in 1926. Or is the title meant to be ironic (in the same way that the sculpture certainly is)?

What do you think would be a better way to translate the name of this sculpture into English?

(Bonus question: what is the best translation of Ἰουδαῖος (Ioudaios) as it occurs in the New Testament into English?)

I am going to hop over and continue commenting. Come join us!

Sky Burial

2011-09-03T23:40:00.001-07:00

I have just read Sky Burial by Xinran. In The Blue Sweater, I read about Africa, and in Sky Burial, about Tibet. Surprisingly, there are few constants in gender roles globally. In Africa, women till the ground and harvest. They run businesses and provide for the children. The real problem has been that they were often not able to carry out banking or take out loans without the signature of their husband. In Tibet, according to Sky Burial, women carried water, cared for animals, made butter and cooked, but the men acted as midwives and undertook complex embroidery. This contrasts with China, where the detailed embroidery is done by girls and women. In Egypt men wove, but in Israel, usually women wove.

Women's orientation to work: part 4 - the spinster

2011-09-03T09:37:00.000-07:00

Originally, the term spinster did not mean a single woman, but any woman spinning. And women spun. If you want to refer to the mother's side of the family, you could refer to the distaff side. This was work that was firmly in the woman's domain. However, once it came to dyeing and weaving, that could belong to either men or women, depending on the technology and culture.

In agricultural societies, women spun and wove flax. In nomadic societies they spun wool. The traditional belief about women and work has always been that just as men had work, so did women have work, and women also nursed their babies. That's just the way it was. There was no contrast between the orientation of men and women regarding work. Both worked with their hands. If the family was wealthy, neither worked with their hands.

The notion that it is right and good for men to go out to work and seek a career, that men are generally oriented to work; and that women, by contrast, are generally oriented to relationships of support and companionship, is about one generation old.

The man as provider, and the woman as receiver, is a paradigm that does not exist anywhere in the Bible, or even in history, until now. Perhaps, at this point in time, where women are equal before the civil law, some are trying to find a way to withdraw women from the mainstream.

Women's orientation to work: part 3 - the tent peg

2011-09-02T23:28:00.001-07:00

In the ancient world women harvested, threshed and ground grain as well as preparing and cooking meals. Women also cared for animals and carried water. Everyone worked. It's the same on a farm today. Rebecca cared for animals, and provided water for Eliezer's camels. This is the kind of work that all women were responsible for.

But women also specialized. Many were midwives and nurses, and a few were prophets, judges, musicians and queens. At least one woman built cities, ^{1 Chronicles 7:24, "}His daughter was Sheerah, who built Lower and Upper Beth Horon as well as Uzzen Sheerah."

In times of crisis, women worked alongside men, repairing the walls of Jerusalem, Neh. 3:12, "And next unto him repaired Shallum the son of Halohesh, the ruler of the half part of Jerusalem, he and his daughters." Jael put a tent peg through the enemy's head. It was woman's work to set up the tents.

Woman's work was comparable to man's work. Both were physical and tiring, requiring strength and endurance. For those living a subsistence lifestyle, many tasks, those of both men and women, were repetitive and mindless. The goal was survival.

For those with wealth, there were different patterns. In Proverbs 31, the husband was a scholar or judge, and the wife was a business woman with a household of servants or slaves under her direction. Both held positions of influence and dignity. Among slaves, men and women both worked hard. But even then, among the poor there was specialization, some women adept at being midwives, others at composing songs, performing music and dancing. Women were known for their specialization, just as men were.

The children were not simply cared for. They worked alongside their parents. Young children were often cared for by grandparents as is the case in many cultures today. This frees up the mother to work at a wage-earning job and contribute financially to the family. Women in the Bible were not simply consumers of goods, and carers of children. They contributed economically to the family.

I am hardly advocating that we return to this state of affairs. I had a friend who grew her own wheat and ground her own flour. But she had the advantage of technology. I wouldn't want to work in the fields all day, or carry water on my head, or grind grain. But this is a large part of women in the Bible did. We can't all of us be judges, prophets and musicians.

One thing is clear, however. Women have an orientation to work. At least, they should have. Just as men should. Women need to work to provide for their family. The only catch is that they have to do this while also bearing and nursing children.

Women, like men, are driven to work. It is a part of being human. They are like men in this way. However, they are unlike men, in that they also have to figure out how to do this at the same time as reproducing.

A curriculum which contrasts men and women, and teaches that men have an orientation to work, and women have an orientation to nurture, is not honest. It does not prepare women for the reality of both work and children.

Unfortunately, not all women resolve the tension between working and bearing children. Some women never do have children, and other women stay home and restrict their work to caring for their husband and children. But many women have the opportunity, or the need, to combine an expanded working life with raising children. It is not always possible to control the pattern that your life will take.

The only thing we can say about a woman's life in the Bible and today for a certainty, is that it includes both an orientation towards nurturing and an orientation towards work.

The Blue Sweater

2011-09-02T00:42:00.000-07:00

I am reading The Blue Sweater by Jacqueline Novogratz. She has worked in Africa and Asia for over 25 years, learning how to administer funds, providing grants and loans to small businesses. She is the CEO of the Acumen Fund. The Blue Sweater is a must read for anyone interested in donating funds.

This book is an account of one woman whose energy for work and innovation has contributed to changing the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. She speaks solemnly of the waste and detrimental effects of donated funds unless they are properly invested in income producing industry which is shaped by the recipients themselves, and creates and sustains profit. She openly discusses many failures that she has seen or been a part of, as well as the successes. This is a book rich in detail and example.

Women's orientation to work: part 2 - the hoe culture

2011-08-29T22:42:00.000-07:00

I had no intention of discussing women tilling the soil when I first thought of women working in the Bible. This is for the very simple reason that women of the Bible did not typically participate in this labour. As I mentioned, it is not a universal truth that women do not till the soil. But it is particular to certain cultures, including the cultures of the Bible.

This is the general pattern internationally and historically. When tilling the soil is a task accomplished with a hoe, then women tend to be the major workers in the field. When tilling the soil is done with a plough and oxen or slaves, then men are the major workers of the soil. Plough cultivation is male dominated, and hoe cultivation is female dominated.

Although we cannot imagine that Adam and Eve had oxen and plough, the narrative of Adam and Eve was composed within a culture in which farmers did use oxen and plough. Tilling the soil was a male dominated activity as a consequence of the technology available in the Middle East at that time.

Today, hoe cultivation dominates globally, and women make up the majority of those who work the soil. It is therefore not a universal truth that women are oriented to the family, in contrast to men who are oriented to work in the fields. The pattern that is most prevalent in the world today is that women are oriented to their family and to the soil at one and the same time. These patterns are dependent on culture and technology.

We might, on the other hand, think of Adam and Eve as occupying the transition era between hunter-gatherers and farmers. In this case, it is likely that men were still hunting and women both gathering and experimenting with the cultivation of plants and intiating the first planned crops. In this case, Eve would likely be the first farmer, and not Adam.

These are speculative thoughts that present some of the difficulties in imagining that Adam and Eve exited the Garden of Eden, whereupon Eve stayed in the home and cared for her children and Adam tilled the soil with a hoe. Such a scenario presents serious questions and is not consistent with what we know about the development of agriculture. But as I said, this is speculation.

I cannot fill in more details since little is known about the very early origins of agriculture. However, we can say for sure that the participation of women in agriculture is a culturally diverse paradigm. While the subordination of women is near to universal, the dominance of men in tilling the soil is far from universal.

In conclusion, I will soon discuss the work that women did in an agricultural economy, but I will not contest the cultural pattern found in the Bible, that men tilled the soil. However, I do contest the notion that there is any sense of universality in this pattern. We are unlikely to persuade the world today that women should not be full participants in all areas of agriculture.

Women's orientation to work: part 1

2011-08-28T13:14:00.000-07:00

The Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood links to a curriculum designed to teach children and teens the essence of being male and female along these lines,

While God created men to be generally oriented toward work, God created women to be generally oriented towards relationships of helpfulness and companionship.

This is often taught in conjunction with the notion that women stay home and nurture the children and create an environment that is supportive to the husband's career. The major tasks of women would be to bear and raise children, to cook and clean the house, and see that the family is well supplied with clothes and other goods. These clothes and goods are bought with money earned by the husband, who is the "provider." The main teaching role of women in this model is to teach younger women to fulfill these tasks.

The following verses are often used in this connection, Gen. 2:15, 18 and Gen. 3:16-19,

^2:15And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
¹⁸And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
^3:16Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
¹⁷And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
¹⁸Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
¹⁹In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

While it is true that women bear children, there has been no civilization in which men's participation in agriculture was dominant over women's participation in agriculture. Women worked the soil in ancient Israel and they continue to be participate in farming and agriculture today. In many countries women participate in agricultural work at a far higher rate than men.

So I want to look at alternate interpretation for Gen. 3:16. The consequences of the fall for the woman relate to childbearing and her relationship to her husband. The consequence of the fall for the man relates to the soil. The most obvious interpretation is that just as woman was taken out of man, so the fall returns her to man. And in the same way, as man was taken out of the soil, so he is returned to the soil. We need to consider that the story of Adam and Eve has internal plot coherency that is not necessarily related to universal truths about men and women.

Women work the soil and we can't get around that. Women share the physiological makeup of men, and die and decay in the same manner as men. Eve returns to the soil, just as much as Adam does. But the story is not about that. The story contains the plot line that man came from the soil and returned, just as woman came from man and is returned to him.

However, the woman also suffers in childbearing. Children are the main asset of women. Women wanted to produce children in order to establish their value to the family. The chief asset of a man was land. Just as Rachel schemed to bear children, and Rebekkah manipulated Isaac in Jacob's interest, so men schemed over land.

This does not mean that men bear an intrinsic relationship to the land that women do not share. Far from it. But it does mean that, in the creation narrative of Gen. 2 and 3, the male bears a relationship to the land that the woman does not. This reflects the legal and political situation in ancient societies where women were not typically landowners.

We are left now with the fact that women exclusively do bear children, but men do not exclusively own land or work the soil. Perhaps I need to qualify this last sentence. Women have a very specific but time-limited exclusive role in raising a child. Just as women are connected to the land, fathers have a close relationships to their children. A father as well as a mother suffers when a child dies. Fathers are equally invested in their children and children are the asset of both parents as is land.

We can safely say that both men and women are oriented to relationships, and both men and women are oriented to work. This may look different according to the sexes, there is some truth to the varying availablity of women to work, but this is slight when we consider that women globally partipate in physical labour full time in addition to bearing children.

I hope to blog about women's orientation to work and how this plays out in the Bible and in undertanding women's leadership in the epistles of Paul. I feel that it is important to respond to the teaching that men are to provide, protect, work and initiate, and that this is what makes men leaders, and women the receivers and affirmers of male leadership. My focus will be on certain areas of women's work in the biblical narrative.

Rachel Held Evans

2011-08-23T08:58:00.000-07:00

Rachel is taking her place as a prominent female Christian blogger, and I am delighted. It is refreshing to see a woman take the lead in so many areas of blogging. I just want to express my appreciation for her blog. Here is today's post. She approaches the issue of women in the church with civility and persistence.

The Help, implausible and preposterous -

2011-08-18T19:32:00.000-07:00

but I enjoyed it! The plot was implausible - would black maids really have told their story in this way? It seems way too dangerous, truly frightening. And second, the subplot was preposterous. Suspend disbelief, tolerate some hokey and enjoy it anyway.

In my view, the main character, Aibileen held centre stage with little challenge from Skeeter. She expressed the tragedy, danger and enduring pain of the maids' social situation. Aibileen was the only well-rounded character, although Celia came in a close second. Skeeter was a little too good to be true, but she drove the plot - that was her role. She is how the story came to be written.

Here are two reviews that I found worth reading, Natasha Robinson and April Scissors. I chose this image because I feel that this is the pose that should have been used to publicize the movie. Aibileen is in her own home, wearing her own clothes, writing her own story. If I have any criticism it is this - that the publicity should have focused on this image of Aibileen. (This is how I would like to be portrayed.) In my mind, Aibileen is real, and Skeeter is a construct. We need to see Aibileen writing her own story, a painful one with no happy ending.

Equality Effect

2011-08-18T16:20:00.000-07:00

For a long time, I have been reading and researching groups which are attempting to meet the needs of women worldwide - that is, both here and elsewhere. Today, I read an article about Equality Effect in the latest Chatelaine Magazine. Unfortunately, I can't find the article online so the Equality Effect website will have to speak for itself. The story was almost too sad to repeat, but it involves providing legal representation for little girls raped by fathers, grandfathers and other older men seeking a stylish engagement or a cure for AIDS.

I also listened to Xue Xinran being interviewed on the radio. I had read The Good Women of China a few years ago, and it was extremely helpful to me to read of other women also discovering how to respond to abusive circumstances. Xinran was being interviewed this week on Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother: Stories of Loss and Love. Here is one of the stories from her book,

Visiting a peasant family in Shandong, she sees a newborn baby girl snatched from her mother and dumped headfirst in the chamber pot: the head of the family demands a son and, because of the one-child policy, will not let the daughter live. Two years later, the young couple pays Xinran a visit. They, along with the rest of the young people, have left their village to look for work in cities. The mother says she had two more daughters but her father-in-law gave them away to foreigners for adoption. “Have you seen any foreigners?” she asks Xinran, fearfully. “Do you think the foreigners know how to hold my baby?”
At the tiny restaurant where Xinran eats lunch, the waitress tries to kill herself twice, each time after a little girl’s birthday party. The woman is tortured by the happy faces because, thinking it her duty to produce a male heir, she had smothered her baby daughters. She survives because, as well as the bottle of agricultural fertiliser she swallowed, she drank one of washing-up liquid, thinking that any chemical in a bottle was poison. The detergent diluted the fertiliser’s fatal dose.

Cycling to work one winter’s day, Xinran has a flat tyre. The woman who repairs her bicycle turns out to have been a midwife. Under the author’s patient questioning, she reveals the pricing system of her trade: three times the normal price for a first-born son; six times more if the father is first-born, too; yet more if a daughter is “done”. The trick is to strangle the baby with the umbilical cord as it emerges, and call it stillborn.
Most of Xinran’s mothers submit stoically to the cruelties of “son preference” and the one-child policy. But a few go to extraordinary lengths to have more than one child. On a train journey she meets one of China’s so-called “extra-birth guerrilla troops”—families with daughters who leave home and move secretly from city to city, hoping to escape the birth-control regulators long enough to produce a son. The father rocks his daughter tenderly to sleep, as he explains the dangers of their life. At the next stop, Xinran sees the young girl talking to a food seller on the platform and waves goodbye, assuming the family has got off. But later she meets the father on the train: he has abandoned his beloved daughter to strangers because his wife is expecting another child and the family cannot hide more than one. She was the fourth daughter they had given up.

My life is full of strong Chinese women. Are we providing any kind of model for women in our western world with a presidential candidate who claims to be a submissive wife? I think not. But I have benefitted from watching and learning from the financial intiative and solidarity of Chinese women.

Mercifully, here we are not in the same situation with regard to our babies. But let us raise our sons and daughters to have mutual respect, and to have equal value to their families.

Removing mighty men from the NIV

2011-08-14T13:13:00.001-07:00

Complementarianism has surely gone to the very top of the public consciousness by now. Those women friends of mine who claimed that it would never impact on the larger society are now beginning to scratch their heads in dismay. That is not because they are not conversant with the Bible. It is because they are.

For example, Denny Burk writes against the NIV 2011 pointing out various changes from the NIV 1984, which he claims are "inaccuracies,"

12. Removing "man" when the original Hebrew means "a male
human being" ('ish, gibbor, zaqar, bahur, and also 'adam [but only
when 'adam refers to a specific male person]) (247 inaccuracies)

a. The Hebrew nouns gibbor and gibborim when previously
translated "mighty man/men" (21 inaccuracies)

But in the Genesius Lexicon, 1846, (click on the image to enlarge) "mighty warrior" which is what the NIV 2011 uses, is indeed found among the usages of gibbor. In fact, we can see that gibbor does not actually mean "man" at all, since it is used of a lion. Why should one translation be called inaccurate just because the choice among the several possible ways to render a Hebrew or Greek word in English varies from one translation to another?

I have to say that I feel Dr. Burk is misleading his readers in accusing the NIV 2011 of inaccuracies. It is sad to see so many comparisons between the NIV 1984 and the NIV 2011. We were once raised to think of 1984 as the dystopian future, but according to Dr. Burk, it may be thought of represented as the gold standard of Bible translation.

Michele Bachman's Submission

2011-08-14T00:02:00.000-07:00

Conservative columnist Byron York put this question to Michele Bachmann in last Thursday’s Presidential debate,

In 2006, when you were running for Congress, you described a moment in your life when your husband said you should study for a degree in tax law. You said you hated the idea. And then you explained, “But the Lord said, ‘Be submissive. Wives, you are to be submissive to your husbands.’”

As president, would you be submissive to your husband?

Bachmann responded,

Marcus and I will be married for 33 years this September 10th. I’m in love with him. I’m so proud of him. And both he and I — what submission means to us, if that’s what your question is, it means respect. I respect my husband. He’s a wonderful, godly man, and a great father. And he respects me as his wife.

There has been a lot written on this topic, and I can't begin to discuss it all. Here are the posts that I have read so far by Denny Burk, Kurk and Wayne.

My view on this is fairly simple. I don't think anyone who has made a vow of obedience to someone else should be elected to public office. I don't think anyone who has made a vow of obedience to someone else should be allowed to vote. We need to make it clear that vows of obedience cannot coexist with democracy.

So, yes, I think Bachmann gave a reasonable answer. Mutual submission is fine, unilateral submission of the wife is wrong, and a vow to obey should be outlawed.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams

2011-08-13T19:49:00.000-07:00

This movie is a must see. Absolutely. Think what you like about it, but you should see it. It really takes you out of this world, this reality that we call history. All scholars of biblical studies should see this movie for historic context.

Whether these cave paintings are 20,000 years old or 32,000 years old, hardly matters. Viewing this art will reorganize your view of the history of civilization, or perhaps one's view of the human brain. How sophisticated does one need to be in order to produce this art?

I will suggest some alternate thinking not mentioned in the movie. In the absence of activity in one sense, another will grow out of proportion. Stress also produces chemical change that heightens sensitivity. I have seen one website that suggests that the art is primitive and resembles the art of an autistic child. I also see similarities to the art of a young hearing impaired child that I knew. Was this artist simply expressing prehistoric artistic sense, or was he or she deaf, or isolated, perhaps stranded from the rest of the group, and experiencing psycholgical trauma of some kind, perhaps a sort of hypergraphia? Or is this a product of sophistication and training? In any case, it stretches one's view of the human race.

On other movies, I also loved Midnight in Paris, for the sheer silly fun of it. Besides a tourist's view of Paris, there is also the maxim that if we go back in time to experience our "golden age" we will find others in that epoch who want to go back in time to their own "golden age."

And Kurk has written about The Help here and here. As it happened, I saw Cave of Forgotten Dreams instead of The Help, and now I am not sure about whether to see it or not. Lots of other good stuff on Kurk's blog as well. I can't possibly respond to all of it, but great writing. Thanks, Kurk!

Deleting the story

2011-08-11T23:18:00.000-07:00

In an almost unpredented move, Don Miller has deleted two posts and issued an apology for what he wrote about men and women. I am impressed. Today he wrote,

If anything I said personally offended you, will you accept my deepest and most sincere apology?

This is the sequence from my viewpoint. Don Miller wrote two posts on how to live a good love story, part one for girls and part two for guys. The gist of his posts, still available in cache, are that guys initiate, write the story, make it happen, and are responsible. Girls have a story happen to them.

Rachel Held Evans responded here and here. Then Don deleted his posts and wrote and explanation with apology.

The dicussion on Rachel's blog is about how to have a disagreement in an appropriate way. The message that I am getting is that sexism is such an integral part of the way people interact that those who say and write these things are not intending to hurt women, but they are simply not aware of the affect of what they are writing.

I am truly pleased that Don Miller took down his posts. I have no idea what he will write in the future about men and women. It is truly wrong to talk about men as those who make things happen and women as those to whom things happen. That is not Christianity, and we need to make people aware of how wrong it is to talk this way.

But we need to learn not to demonize those who do talk this way. They are mislead by the overwhelming sexist atmosphere in the Christian community which devalues the intitiative and responsibility that women take every day of their lives.

Thanks to Don Miller for deleting his posts. Thanks to Rachel Held Evans for her honest portrayal of women as actors and agents.

Another Rachel responds to Miller's post with these words,

Interestingly, I have always dated “good Christian men.” I’ve kept myself above board in all aspects in my relationships with them. But if I’m honest, I have never been treated worse than I have in those relationships. For some reason, whether it be expectations, pressure or nerves, it seems like I leave each relationship feeling ugly, worthless and stupid. One relationship in particular left me feeling like a whore. And I don’t use that term lightly. For more than a year after it ended, I felt like a whore. And would you believe I didn’t even kiss that guy? In the three months we were together, we never even kissed. He believed it was important to wait a year before going down that road. But his words cut me deep, and it took years to repair that wound.

I write this only because Mr. Miller’s blog stirred up some of the same physiological reactions I had in that three month relationship. No matter how “pure” I was…it wasn’t enough. I needed to tone down my personality. I needed to change my humor. I, who doesn’t wear revealing clothing because I don’t want imaginations to run wild, needed to cover up even more. But ladies…please hear this…that isn’t love. That isn’t grace. That isn’t mercy. That isn’t God.

So, I ask that you throw that blog out the window. Sure, chase after the good things, the righteous things, the holy things. And when it comes to love, look for a man who forgives. Who extends grace when it seems like there is none to be offered. Who gives mercy when you’re certain you’re unworthy. And hold yourself to the same standard. Look for opportunities to offer forgiveness, grace, mercy and understanding. THAT is God. THAT is good. And THAT, my sweet friends, is what a great love story is.

Jesus is my helpmeet

2011-08-11T01:43:00.000-07:00

In a follow-up to my last post Kurk writes,

Just as the woman is designed to be the helpmeet of the man, so Jesus is naturally born according to the writer of Hebrews to be the helpmeet of the offspring of Abraham, the people, those who are tempted. Here it is:

¹⁶For surely it is not angels that he helps, but hehelps the offspring of Abraham. ¹⁷Therefore he hadto be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. ¹⁸For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help [βοηθῆσαι] those who are being tempted. (Hebrews 2, ESV)

And that is how Clement understood it also, that Jesus is our help βοηθος, as Phoebe was a helper πρστατις to Paul. These two words βοηθος and πρστατης are used as titles for Christ alongside "saviour" and "high priest." Here is how the words were used in 1 Clement 36:1.

Αυτη η οδος, αγαπητοι, εν η ευρομεν το σωτεριον ημων, Ιησουν Χρστον, τον αρχιερεα των προσφορων ημων, τον προστατην και βοηθον της ασθενειας ημων.
This is the way, beloved, in which we found our salvation; even Jesus Christ, the high priest of our oblations, the champion and defender of our weakness. tr. Charles Hoole 1885
This is the way, dearly beloved, wherein we found our salvation, even Jesus Christ the High priest of our offerings, the Guardian and Helper of our weakness.tr. J. B. Lightfoot.

If we feel that the scriptures are turning hierarchy upside down, let us follow suit.

The Help

2011-08-09T23:27:00.000-07:00

I certainly enjoyed reading The Help. It treats a solemn subject with some lightness and humour and I will be attending the movie soon, maybe tomorrow.

There is no doubt that the word "help" here refers to a separate and subordinate class of people. And we regard this today as an injustice.

This sentence is the way one talks now about women. "The woman is to be the helper." It refers to a different and subordinate class of people. Some call it oppression and others deny this.

Vicky Beeching shared this on her facebook page,

“Anyone thinking the ‘women in ministry’ battle is over & done, we still have a long way to go. Complementarianism, even when delivered with trendy clothes & a cool haircut, is still merely the oppression of women. My heart aches to see younger women grow up free from this teaching, so they don’t have to doubt their leadership gifting, their equality in the Body of Christ, or their equality within marriage.”

She then blogged

So what I’m wanting here is BIBLICALLY BACKED UP, theologically well explained comments!

Denny Burk replied,

Helping speaks to difference. The text says that God created her to be a “helper”–a role that involves aiding and supporting the leadership of her husband. God did not assign this role to the man. He assigned it only to the woman. Thus before there is any sin in the world, God creates man and woman to be equal with respect to their humanity (being created in the image of God) but to be different with respect to their roles. The woman is to be the helper.

As we all know, in the Bible, God is our help.

Hide not thy face far from me; put not thy servant away in anger: thou hast been my help; leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation. Psalm 27:9

In this verse, the human is the servant and God is the help. But in his Systematic Theology, Wayne Grudem writes,

Whenever someone helps someone else the person who is helping is occupying a subordinate or inferior position with regard to the person being helped.

That is not what the Bible says. The Bible both supports hierarchy and turns it upside down.

On women

2011-08-08T22:56:00.000-07:00

There has been a lot of chatter in the biblioblogosphere on women once more. Amanda has been blogging about female theologians, as well as sharing other thoughtful reflections in her Girly Girl Week. Yeah Amanda! Her blog experiment is quite informative.

In response to her writing on theologians who happen to be female, let me mention some women, most of them Canadian, whose writing has influenced me - Maxine Hancock, Edith Humphrey, Linda Belleville, Renita Weems, Berenice Gerard. Some of the female Bible bloggers that I read regularly are Shirley Taylor, Waneta Dawn, Carolyn McCulley, Rachel, Shawna, Hannah, Mara and Wendy. Charis is closing her blog which makes me sad and happy for her at the same time. There are many others that I read occasionally, or hope to read in the future.

Some of the male bloggers who have been especially supportive are chronologically Wayne, Peter, Theo, Kurk and Jeff. Overall, I find most male bibliobloggers to be highly supportive of women as equals both on the blogs and in all domains of life. There is no question that most of the bibliobloggers I have encountered have an ethic of treating women as equals.

So why is there such an ongoing inequity in participation? I can only relate what I see going on. Amanda has expressed her views here, and Tonya here. Whatever I say here is only how I perceive it.

First, women have already experienced bias and negativity regarding what it means to be a Christian and a woman long before coming to the internet. This is a given. Here is an example.

I have a PhD in ministry. I studied under Wayne Grudem, and did so well that Wayne Grudem urged me to get a PhD. I asked him what I could do with a PhD? He said “Teach children in Sunday school.” I told him that I don’t need a PhD to teach children. Finally Wayne Grudem could only come up with this: I could write books under the authority of some man.

I attended John Piper’s church. I told John Piper of my calling into full time preaching/teaching. John Piper said, “You are just like the homosexual, right desire, wrong gender.”

Another example - I googled 1 Corinthians 14:34-36 and ended up reading the "G-word" again. Even Tim Challies finds women do not like his interpretation of submission.

I have often been challenged with the subject of submission and how it relates to the role of women in a marriage relationship. In particular, I have been challenged to understand and then prove that the submission prescribed by Scripture is inherent in God’s created order. In other words, the fact that women are to submit to their husbands is not merely the product of the Fall of the human race into sin, but is a product of God’s creation. Even if sin had never entered the world, a wife would still be expected to submit to her husband. Having studied this issue I believe that is a fair statement and wrote this brief article in an attempt to prove my understanding.
I have discussed this topic with several women and have been a little bit surprised by their reactions. It seems to me that women would be glad to know that the idea of submission precedes the fall. This shows us that the headship of the husband is not rooted in a punishment, and perhaps even an unfair punishment where woman was given the harsher penalty of having to submit, but is rooted in the very purpose and creation of mankind. Yet women have told me that they prefer to think that submission is a product of the Fall. Perhaps this shows just what a poor job the church has done in teaching this subject and what a poor job husbands have done in making submission joyful. Or maybe this is simply society echoing even in the church.

Wendy disagrees with the way a woman's desire is turned against her

Conservative, complementarian evangelicals (of which I am one) regularly interpret the next to last line to mean that her desire will be to rule over her husband. But that simply is not what Scripture says.

Women, whether egalitarian or complementarian, experience much of theology relating to women as negative.

We can also read some of the horrifying efforts to indoctrinate children with the notion of female submission and male leadership here and here. Men are characterized by work and initiative, and women by submission and helpfulness.

Just reading these views about women is deeply hurtful. And if male bibliobloggers, who may themselves treat women as equals, then turn around and express approval and acceptance of those who speak of the submission of women in these terms, the consequence is that women are left out. Women have no acceptable way to express how truly awful it is to be talked about as a sexual subordinate in public.

I truly believe that the tolerance many show to those who speak of women in this way is neither conscious nor deliberate but it is deeply ingrained and very unpleasant. Here is series of posts which exemplify this. First, the original post, where the obedience of the wife is mentioned in the first comment by someone else but I myself am not supposed to discuss gender in any way, and then Kurk's representation of this conversation with some of the deleted comments still in place. HT Theophrastus.

I honestly think that when a gender issue is mentioned by a man among other men, no bells go off. But when a woman responds and mentions gender, it's as if the fire alarm was pulled. She is breaking the peace, that peace which is preserved when men talk about gender among men - peace because that thing that is being discussed - subordination - is the subordination of women - it is not about them, it is thank goodness not about their subordination, but only about the subordination of a woman. And would that woman please not talk about it. Such bad manners.

John Stott

2011-08-02T04:18:00.001-07:00

Like many others in the bibliosphere, I too heard Stott preach and read his books and mourn his passing. I always looked up to him and felt more than anything that he spoke with dignity of others, and presented a dignified image of evangelicalism. Here is a post which discusses his views on the ordination of women.

As an evangelical John Stott was also surprisingly progressive. Famously he incurred the ire of some evangelicals by coming out in support of the annihilationist view of hell as opposed to the classic conservative eternal-conscious-torment view. He was also reasonably progressive in supporting the ordination of women deacons and ‘presbyters’ (essentially local ministers), while not believing that they should be in a position of full headship over men.

Another great post on Stott has been that of Nicholas Kristof. He writes,

Mr. Stott didn’t preach fire and brimstone on a Christian television network. He was a humble scholar whose 50-odd books counseled Christians to emulate the life of Jesus — especially his concern for the poor and oppressed — and confront social ills like racial oppression and environmental pollution.
“Good Samaritans will always be needed to succor those who are assaulted and robbed; yet it would be even better to rid the Jerusalem-Jericho road of brigands,” Mr. Stott wrote in his book “The Cross of Christ.” “Just so Christian philanthropy in terms of relief and aid is necessary, but long-term development is better, and we cannot evade our political responsibility to share in changing the structures that inhibit development. Christians cannot regard with equanimity the injustices that spoil God’s world and demean his creatures.”
Mr. Stott then gave examples of the injustices that Christians should confront: “the traumas of poverty and unemployment,” “the oppression of women,” and in education “the denial of equal opportunity for all.”

I know that there are those who say that evangelical Christianity has lost its integrity. But it is not that simple. Christianity has been a vehicle of oppression for many, but it has also been a vehicle for the expression of empathy, for sharing one's worldly goods, and for loving one's fellow human being as oneself. Empathy, as part of our basic human nature, is found to a lesser or greater degree in everyone, animals included, but Christian teaching and example can serve to foster empathy and exend it.

Rod Decker's review of the NIV 2011

2011-07-30T00:52:00.000-07:00

Update: I said that I would comment on the treatment of Romans 16:7 in Decker's review. Above all, I felt that it lacked clarity. What he does not state clearly is that while early manuscripts lack accents, there is no manuscript with masculine accents for Junia and many with the feminine. All references to Junia in Greek from the early church to present day are feminine. Junia was a common Latin name for a woman, and Junius for a man. There is no instance of a masculine name Junias in Latin or Greek. The one exception is in a text attributed to Epiphanius, who also turned Prisca into Priscas. This is routinely discounted.

Decker also cites the NET Bible note on 'well-known to' without a critical assessment of this note. Since the note does not treat the citation from Pss. Sol. 2:6 consistent with its context, this note is invalid. Decker does not discuss this. He gives the impression that there is a reasonable chance that Junia was not a female apostle, but, in my opinion, the review does not offer adequate support for this. I appreciate that it is difficult to treat such a complex issue in a comprehensive review.

Rod Decker has just posted his review of the NIV 2011. Overall it is a favourable review. I notice that he has cited Calvin with regard to "assume authority" in 1 Tim. 2:12. The Committee on Bible Translation also cited Calvin on this point in their response to the CBMW on June 9, 2011. I have some reason to believe that it was my mention of Calvin's translation of 1 Tim. 2:12 that enabled this point to become widely known.

I have written about this here, here, here, here and here. I am not sure how it happened but somehow, by this June, Douglas Moo had become aware of Calvin's translation auctoritatem sumere and was able to encorporate this into his response.

Decker also comments on Romans 16:7. However, I am having some difficulty understanding his discussion of Junia, so I will work on it tomorrow.

Dan Wallace on 1 Tim. 2:12

2011-07-29T17:33:00.000-07:00

Dan Wallace has finished his four part review of the NIV 2011. Overall it has been a positive review of the NIV 2011, giving the NIV as a tradition top marks for readability and 8 out of 10 for accuracy. My major disagreement with his review is the remarkable fact that he assigns a 10 out of 10 for accuracy to the NET Bible, when it contains certain interpretations of verses referring to women that do not have scholarly consensus.

The question of accuracy is crucial here. Is accuracy something attained by a revelation from the Holy Spirit to an individual translator? Is accuracy a hypothesis put forward in the hopes that other scholars will recognize it? Or is accuracy the consensus of scholars in the international biblical studies community?

I would appreciate any contributions on this especially if possible also from those in the scholarly community.

Accuracy in Bible translation seems like a modernist notion that is in reality unattainable. I can say that both tradition and scholarly consensus lead us to believe that several choices made in the NET Bible, either in the text or in the notes, were not made according to either tradition or consensus. How, in this case, does Dan Wallace measure the accuracy of a Bible?

If you notice the thread on this post, you will see that Dr. Wallace declines to discuss 1 Tim. 2:12. This was a passage that I attempted to debate with him on his blog. But that is not allowed according to the rules of his blog. I was blocked not long after that.

I wonder if Dan Wallace is aware that the word in 1 Tim. 2:12 is best translated as either "dominate" or "usurp/assume authority" but for some reason, he has decided not to share this on his blog.

However, that is conjecture. I wish I knew what was really happening. I think you can see that some people feel that the phrase "assume authority" instead of "exercise authority" is reason enough to reject the NIV 2011. I wonder if that means that the same people will also reject Luther, Calvin and the King James Bible, which use "be the lord of" "assume authority" and "usurp authority" in that order.

Night Train to Lisbon

2011-07-29T13:39:00.000-07:00

This Swiss novel by Pascal Mercier is proving to be my reading highlight of the summer. The main character, a professor in a gymnasium, (a university prepratory high school) is experiencing middle age existential angst. He is a professor (or teacher, as we would say in English) of Hebrew, Latin and Greek. Of course, one question is why he never became a university professor.

But the central theme revolves around our connectedness to others, and our freedom to think for ourselves, to express ideas which stand in tension with those around us. It is written by a man, about a man, who is researching the life of a man. Yet the message is about the human soul, and whether such a thing exists.

Gregorius is a middle-aged divorcé, who through a series of happenstances, encounters a book written in Portuguese by Amadeu de Prado, a Portuguese physician who lived in Lisbon during the dictatorship of Salazar. He leaves his home and his job by night train to Lisbon to pursue the life and times of Prado. In order to do so, he must use his skills as a linguist, as one who reads Hebrew, Greek and Latin, and who speaks German, French, English and Spanish - in order to learn Portuguese.

In this book the Biblia Hebraica features as a central point around which much of the action takes place. Imagine Gregorius in the headmaster's office in the abandonned lycée which Prado had attended years before. He finds the Hebrew Bible in a desk drawer and wraps it in a sweater against the damp. With the light from a single round window and a camp stove, he sits and reads the papers of Amadeu de Prado.

Imagine this scene then, and the main character, Gregorius, reading the words of Amadeu de Prado's valedictorian speech as a 17 year old. Here are excerpts from the opening,

I would not like to live in a world without cathedrals. I need their beauty and grandeur. I need them against the vulgarity of the world. I want to look up at the illuminated church windows and let myself be blinded by the unearthly colors. I need their luster. I need it against the dirty colors of the uniforms. I want to let myself be wrapped in the austere coolness of the churches. ... I want to read the powerful words of the Bible. I need the unreal force of their poetry. I need it against the dilapidation of the langauge and the dictatorship of the slogans. A world without these things would be a world I would not like to live in. ...

But there is also another world that I don't want to live in: the world where the body and independent thought are disparaged, and the best things we can experience are denounced as sins. The world that demands love of tyrants, slave masters, and cutthroats, whether their brutal boot steps reverberate through the streets with a deafening echo or they slink with feline silence like cowardly shadows through the streets and pierce their victims in the heart from behind with flashing steel. What is most absurd is that people are exhorted from the pupit to forgive such creatures and even to love them. Even if some really could do it: it would meand an unparalleled dishonety and merciless self-denial whose cost would be total deformity.

And the closing paragraph,

I would not like to live in a world without cathedrals. I need the luster of their windows, their cool stillness, their imperious silence. I need the deluge of the organ and the sacred devotion of praying people. I need the holiness of words, the grandeur of great poetry. All that I need. But just as much I need the freedom and hostility against everything cruel. For the one is nothing without the other. And no one may force me to choose.

Junia, the apostle: Index

2011-07-26T23:08:00.001-07:00

I note that I remain the "go to" person for Junia, an apostle. Here is the index to my posts on the Better Bibles Blog. Here are some follow up posts on this blog. Somebody told me that I have written at least 37 posts on Junia altogether so searching both the BBB and here might produce more results.

In brief, Greek literature from the church fathers, to modern Greek Bibles, all reflect that Junia is an apostle. Information in the NET Bible note is inaccurate. Here is the short version,

When, however, an elative notion is found, ἐν (en) plus a personal plural dative is not uncommon (cf. Pss. Sol. 2:6).

In Pss. Sol. 2:6, the word episemos does not seem to mean "well-known to" but rather "with a mark." Here is the Greek with a literal translation,

οἱ υἱοὶ καὶ αἱ θυγατέρες ἐν αἰχμαλωσίᾳ πονηρᾷ, ἐν σφραγῖδι ὁ τράχηλος αὐτῶν, ἐν ἐπισήμῳ ἐν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν

Psalm of Solomon 6:

NETS

I am aware that there is a suggestion that this can be translated as "in a prominent [place]" among the Gentiles, but the result is the same - the suggested "place" is still among the Gentiles.

Although ἐν plus a personal dative does not indicate agency, in collocation with words of perception, (ἐν plus) dative personal nouns are often used to show the recipients.

There also does not seem to be any word of perception in the Greek. It would help if the word of perception could be pointed out.

The Net Bible notes - full of unpleasant little surprises

2011-07-26T21:37:00.000-07:00

I feel that somehow the clickability of the NET Bible makes it very attractive to some people. I have to admit that it is a lot of fun.

But I don't like it. I find that there is significant bias, and the notes do not give equal space to egalitarian views, but are tilted strongly in the direction of complementarianism. Here are some examples.

The note on Romans 16:7 on Junia contains a significant amount of completely inaccurate material. I just don't understand how it remains up there. I refuse to discuss it today.

In Eph. 4:8, we read "he gave gifts to men." I actually expected the note to mention that the word translated "men" is, in fact, in the Greek, the gender inclusive word for "people." But no, that information is not there.

In Gen. 3:16, the woman will "desire to control" her husband and he will "dominate" her. Not only is "desire to control" a dubious translation, but the note for "dominate" (mashal) leads the reader to believe that it has a negative and sinful connotation and "is part of the baser human nature." Not so! Here is an example of a purely innocent use of the word, "And Abraham said unto his eldest servant of his house, that ruled (mashal) over all that he had," Gen. 24:2. The fact that a man rules his wife, in any way at all, is wrong, and occurs here as part of the consequences of the fall.

I refuse to continue with this. How can I communicate that this is insulting and degrading to women? The NET Bible notes are full of unpleasant little surprises. I don't like reading them.

Homosexual orientation is "deeply sinful" CBMW

2011-07-26T11:02:00.000-07:00

The Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood has upped the ante. No longer is homosexuality a pathology to be cured, but rather homosexual orientation itself is now "deeply sinful."

The New Testament reveals that a homosexual sexual orientation, whatever its shape or causation, is essentially wrong, contrary to the Creator's purpose, and deeply sinful.

Please read the entire article. As one who works with children, I am primarily concerned for children with an innapropriate sense of their own entitlement. Children who consider their needs to be important enough to cause harm to others. These children flail out, hit and cry, bully and intimidate. My concern for the boy who dons a dress to play in the toy kitchen is that he not be bullied.

In case you ask why the views of CBMW are so important, I will explain. I had never heard the name of the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood mentioned in my church. I did not think of it as having a significant influence. But when I challenged the view of the clergy on the subordination of the wife in the home, the minister cited from Wayne Grudem verbatim. I later learned of his connection to Bruce Ware. The CBMW and those associated with it have a broad influence. Mark Driscoll also credits these two men with influencing him. Unfortunately it all happened in my own home town.

Dan Wallace compares the NRSV and the ESV

2011-07-25T02:35:00.000-07:00

I am not too sure what to make of this. In part 3 of his series on the NIV 2011, Dr. Wallace compares a list of translations with respect to elegance, accuracy and readability. He suggests that elegance and readability exist in tension with each other. He writes,

By choosing clarity and readability above the other objectives (even though accuracy is listed as its first priority), the NIV stumbles over elegance. One can’t have everything in a translation, but it is possible to have two of the three major features. The NIV is strong on readability and somewhat strong on accuracy, while the ESV is strong on elegance and somewhat strong on accuracy and, less so, on readability. The NET is strong on accuracy, somewhat strong on elegance (though this is patchy), and semi-strong on readability. Perhaps a chart of major English translations with these objectives in mind would help the reader.

The following is an excerpt from his chart showing only the rating out of 10 for the NRSV and the ESV. I am surprised to find that the NRSV is considered to be both less elegant and less readable than the ESV, although equally accurate. I will explain the reason for my surprise.

Elegance

Accuracy

Readability

NRSV	6	8	6
ESV	8	8	8

A few years back, the difference between the NIV and TNIV was discussed and researched. Two charts were produced which indicated that the ESV and NRSV are considerably more similar to each other than the NIV and TNIV. Here are the two charts thanks to Mike at ΕΝ ΕΦΕΣΩ.

I am not sure if I am imagining things, but I sometimes get the impression that somewhat unfavourable things are said about the NRSV simply because it is not an "evangelical Bible" or perhaps because it was the trail blazer for gender inclusive translations. What do you think?

These charts only measure similarity to each other. They do not measure any specific features, if I understand correctly. Look at how similar the NRSV and ESV really are.

Two posts on gender

2011-07-21T16:52:00.000-07:00

Tonya and Kurk have written fantastic posts about gender and blogging.

Gobsmacked at Dan Wallace

2011-07-21T15:36:00.000-07:00

I have not yet finished reading this post. HT BBB. (Thank you, Peter, for your own response to this post.) But so far, I am astonished!

Dr. Wallace rightly critiques a choice of wording in the NRSV. He writes,

In Matt 18.15, the NRSV is an ugly translation. This is due to an overriding principle of making the translation gender inclusive, even if the English ends up being terrible. Who speaks like this: “If the member listens to you, you have regained that one”? In this respect, the NRSV has gone retro, mimicking the homeliness of the old RV, but without its accuracy. Ironically, the NRSV committee’s attempt at avoiding sexual connotations by replacing ‘brother’ with ‘member’ results in creating sexual connotations of another sort! (One of the major tasks of Bible translators these days is to get rid of what one scholar calls the ‘snicker factor’—those places where bathroom humor or sexual innuendo need to be changed, making the translation junior-high-boy foolproof. The NRSV succeeded on several fronts, changing what the RSV had—e.g., Ps 50.9 [“I will not accept a bull from your house” vs. “I will accept no bull from your house”]. But not all: see, for example, Matt 8.20.) Further, by stretching the limits of gender inclusiveness to the breaking point, the NRSV distorts the text here: ‘brother’ is a familial term, and in the context of church discipline has connotations of warmth and commitment to each other that ‘member’ lacks. What is left is a cold harshness in the context of discipline, far removed from what the Matthean saying originally intended to convey.

All very well and logical. A little funny even. But I didn't laugh. Am I a humourless feminist? Some days I am. Here is why.

Early on, I had read some of what Dr. Wallace had written. I came accross this essay called "Biblical Gynecology". I do read Greek, it wasn't that. So far in my life, I have never used the word without spreading my legs. I think of the gynecological theologians as "spread leg" theologians. That is, they spread the legs of women, they measure women by their womb, or by extension, by their submission to the man. Here is the note for 1 Tim. 2:15 in the NET Bible. "The idea of childbearing, then, is a metonymy of part for the whole that encompasses the woman’s submission again to the leadership of the man." It evokes a certain view of sexuality that I cannot bear to read.

I am writing about how it feels for this woman to read the words of a "respected" theologian.

Let me be clear here. There are few enough women who have not had an unknown male grope, grab or pinch their private parts in a public place. And I don't mean the cheeks. No, I mean intrusive sexual grabbing of the private parts. How many men have been groped and had their "member" grabbed in public by an unknown female? But I am a woman, and I know all about being grabbed in public while wearing modest clothes. Men need to be sensitive to the fact that women are subject to the crude violence of males in their every day life. And it isn't funny.

I appealed to Dr. Wallace to change the title of his essay and he did not. Some time later, in response to a male biblioblogger, Dr. Wallace did change the title. But the question is why did Dr. Wallace not respond to a request from a female.

And my next point is that being called a "brother" evokes absolutely zero "warmth." It reminds me that some believe that the Bible is written for men, and women exist in harsh subordination. I have suffered enough outrageous deprivation of my own self, body and soul from subordination. I cannot bear to know that some people have no idea how painful this kind of writing is.

I can't interact with Dr. Wallace's post because I have been blocked for not backing down on points of accuracy in Latin and Greek, or something like that. But there is no way on earth that reading "brother" and "he" gives me the feeling of a family or recalls in any way at all, my own family, which was an old-fashioned, Brethren family of "brothers and sisters."

There is a need for women to wake up and say that they are not "brothers" and what is more important is that nobody treats us like brothers. In fact, most places where men predominate, women are not treated as one of the men. There is a family with all the females left out. That does not make me feel very good.

It breaks my heart. We are "sisters" expunged from the text, or we are "brothers" but not treated as brothers, or we are wombs and child-bearers, in the gynecological position.

In conclusion, I acknowledge that Dr. Wallace writes fairly and favourably about the TNIV and NIV 2011. He writes,

Finally, the TNIV (2005) and NIV 2011 should be mentioned. These are gender-inclusive translations or perhaps gender neutral, but not nearly to the extent as the NRSV. And on the translation committee—indeed, the chairman of the Committee on Bible Translation, Douglas Moo—are those who would be styled ‘complementarians.’ That is, these translators (by no means all, but a good portion of them no doubt) generally believe in male leadership in the home and church. The opposing group is known as egalitarians, those who believe essentially that men do not have the sole rights as leaders in the home or church. The remarkable thing about these two newer translations is that such scholars could work together to produce them. And all of them are evangelicals. This speaks very highly for the TNIV and NIV 2011 and serves as an implicit endorsement of the translation by both groups. Although ‘over 100 scholars’ seems like overkill for a good translation (a much smaller group could do as good a job if not better), the NIV’s multinational and multidenominational workforce removes it from any charges of sectarian bias. This really has to go for the gender issue, too, because of both complementarians and egalitarians on the translation committees.

All this does is break my heart all over again. How could he write such sensible words, when he is the one responsible for removing Junia from her position as apostle, on a misreading of the Greek? I just don't get it.

Scriptio Continua

2011-07-20T11:09:00.000-07:00

Early Greek manuscripts were written without word breaks or spaces between the words. This is consistent with writing in many different languages today. Word spaces are not a universal feature of writing or advanced literacy in society. Neither are word breaks a feature which emerged with the printing press.

The evolution of features of writing and writing systems are not unidirectional as Tim Bulkely comments,

The changes in chunking and in extra textual cues have not at all been unidirectional, and are fascinating to track.

In order to provide some context for Tim's remark, I offer these two images. The first is the Cuthbert Gospel, more information here, a 7th century Latin text in the style of the Lindisfarne Gospels. In this Latin text, there are word spaces as well as line spacing which reflects phrasing in the text.

The second is the Khitrovo Gospel, 14th century. In this text, there are no word breaks although there are punctuation marks and other diacritics. It is evident, however, that the lack of word spacing does not reflect a need to conserve paper. It is difficult to draw conclusions about the function of literacy in a society by the presence or absence of word spacing. However, it is safe to assume that as a particular style developed, it became an identifying feature of writing for that culture or subculture.

Note. I had orginally found this image of the Khitrovo Gospel on this site. However, it is no longer there, but I have retained a copy of this image since 2005.

Early Christian Literacy

2011-07-19T23:18:00.001-07:00

I attended a lecture by Larry Hurtado at Regent College last night, and enjoyed hearing a lot about early Christian literacy. I only wish I had access to the images he used for his presentation. However, I have found a couple of examples of what he was talking about. On a post of his dating back to last August he writes,

There is a constellation of features that mark off early Christian manuscripts in the book-culture of the time. I have proposed that these comprise our earliest evidence of an emerging early Christian “visual and material culture”. Some of these manuscripts are dated as early as the late second century CE, making them perhaps the earliest (and certainly among the earliest) physical artifacts of early Christianity.

The early Christian preference for the codex, the curious scribal devices known as “nomina sacra”, the various features that comprise what appear to be “readers’ aids” (e.g., early forms of punctuation, wide line-spacing, use of spaces to mark off sense-units) all are noteworthy features of early Christian book-production.

The only example I can provide at the moment is this image from the first page of the Gospel of John in P66 about 200 CE. Here we can see wide line spacing, and several high dots, the first in line 2 after ὁ λόγος and the second is in line 3 before the καὶ. There is also a blank space in line 7 marking off a sense unit between verse 5 and verse 6 beginning Ἐγένετο ἄνθρωπος. There is a diaresis over the "I" at the beginning of John's name, Ἰωάννης, in line 9 ad in line 2 there is a nomen sacrum for God, a theta and sigma with a line above.

PS Click on the image to enlarge it. Right click to open it in its own window.

Junia with a moustache

2011-07-15T16:29:00.000-07:00

Kurk has always made blogging so much fun. He writes again about Junia, giving her a moustache, and links to many of my far too long and detailed posts on the topic. Not to bore you any longer, I just wanted to supply the actual photo and not some mock up girl with a fake moustache. Why not have the real McCoy, Kurk?

Ah yes - the point. The point is that male bias is a reality of life in Bible translation. It always has been and perhaps it always will be. What a pain!

top biblioblogger

2011-07-15T09:42:00.000-07:00

The Top 10 Biblioblogs reports that I have been voted number 1! (No artwork, though.) I don't know how to interpret this, since I have no idea how many people vote. But let me say that I sincerely appreciate the response.

I take this two ways. First, I personally should keep on blogging. In spite of my single issue blogging, some people still want to read it. Second, I choose to read into the results that the biblioblogosphere wants to affirm the participation of women. I don't think I am far off there.

There are still few women biblioblogging, and there certainly is a lack of women with an academic background blogging in biblical studies. No doubt. I can't fill that slot, and I won't try. I can only be myself. I have many other things on my plate, that have no relation to biblical studies, so I can't expand much in that direction.

I truly feel that there is a great deal of friendship and empathy expressed for women in the biblioblogosphere. Thanks to James for this comment,

Congratulations to Suzanne McCarthy of Suzanne’s Bookshelf for being Number 1 on the June 2011 Top 10 Biblioblogs. Certain conservative Christians have moderated her out of their blogs, or have shed crocodile tears over her spiritual condition. It is for both of these reasons that I root for her success as a blogger! Anyone who draws gasps from right-wing Christians cannot be that bad!

So, lots of friendly interaction and I appreciate that. But the question remains, why would anyone blog about my spiritual condition? Women, effeminates, and atheists routinely draw fire in some very unpleasant ways. There are nasty things said about our status and right to exist and function alongside the "real men" all the time. Although only a very small proportion of bibliobloggers are mean, this has some dampening effect. Most of the negative comments are said by those who are not actually bibliobloggers, but these more outspoken authors are often affirmed by bibliobloggers.

On the up side, here are some positive things being said. Bob Cargill wrote,

The use of religion to suppress women is wrong regardless of the religion used to do so. This – THIS! – is precisely why non-Christians hate ~~fundamentalist~~ Christians: because they use scripture to keep women down, when all Jesus ever wanted to do was lift them up.

Steve Caruso wrote about the qualifications to be a biblioblogger,

3) Civility – It must — barring traditional sarcasm or banter — keep proper decorum, free of disrespect for other bloggers. Direct personal attacks against other bloggers will result in disqualification.

On the other hand, Mark Driscoll is now going to redouble his efforts to get across his views. He writes,

So, we are working on a new website where I can speak to these real issues in a fuller context. Lord willing, sometime in September, after my trip to Europe with my family and a lot of other people, and then some recovery time, we will launch a new website.

Luther and my dog

2011-07-14T00:23:00.000-07:00

reflections on my dog dying. In the second chapter of Genesis, the human and the animal are both called nephesh chayah, living beings. In the Greek Septuagint, in the Latin Vulgate, in Pagnini, and in Wycliff, man and beast, or human and animal, are called by the same name - nephesh chayah.

So who was it that first called the animals "animals" and the human a living "soul?" The only culprit that comes to mind is Luther. He translated lebendige Seele for the human, and lebendige Tiere for animals.

I suppose that if you believe in scripture alone, sola scriptura, you might want to make sure that the Bible translation reflected the doctrine that you already hold. I suppose you would not want readers to be lead astray. Even if you are lead astray yourself.

Here is a story about Martin Luther. I don't know if it is true or not. But it probably is. He had a daughter Magdalena who died at the age of 14. Here is the story,

Martin Luther's young daughter asked her father, as she lay dying, 'Will there be horses in heaven?' To which Luther replied, 'If you need for there to be horses in heaven to be happy, then there will be horses in heaven'.

The lesson to be learned is that sometimes there is no lesson to be learned. Sometimes you take away the x-ray machine and the stethascope and you lay your cheek down on the furry beast and listen to him breathe. Give up exegesis, my dear friend. Give up the dead law, and listen to the breath of life.

Nephesh

2011-07-13T23:15:00.001-07:00

Bible translation is messy. Life is messy. My dog died. So did Kurk's.

Here is Genesis 2:7 and 17.

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

You know by now that the "man" is the earthling, the human being, a creature of the dust. But did you know that the "living soul" and the "living creature" are exactly the same phrase in Hebrew? Identical. נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה nephesh chayah.

The human, and the animal, are described by exactly the same term. Who will make a doctrine out of this? Not me. I don't make doctrine out of dust. We are Janus - on the one hand, we can lie down and hug the earth, belong to the dirt. But also we lie stretched out to the sun, or angels in the snow. We need to remember what we are created out of. Enough of the word, the text, the argument - breath and dust is all I know today.

The Sibling Gods

2011-07-11T02:59:00.001-07:00

In this image, we can see clearly that Ptolemy II and Arsinöe II were called 'Siblings.' The Greek word for "siblings" is adelphoi - ΑΔΕΛΦΟΙ. This article about the incestuous marriages of the Ptolemies reads,

"On the reverse of coins dedicated to their parents as gods, they put their conjoined portraits with the added word 'siblings' (Adelphoi) -- just in case you missed the point. In fact, both king and queen took the title Philadelphos, 'Sibling-lover' -- used thereafter on documents and coins -- which deliberately highlights their incestuous union."

For some reason, there are those who claim that adelphoi means "brothers." But this is an image of a man and a woman.

Several couples in history and mythology were called Theoi Adelphoi - siblings gods - Cleopatra and Ptolemy, Zeus and Hera, Isis and Osiris, and Ptolemy II and Arsinöe II.

Female beauty matters ...

2011-07-10T22:37:00.000-07:00

This was such an important discussion last month. As if this is what biblical women should really care about. However, I believe my natural beauty shines through, so here are a few fun facts. You can consider them "Suzanne's fashion tips."

I go to the hairdresser three times a year, whether I need it or not.

I last used lipstick to mark the point where the drill needed to go into the doorframe. Here is what you do - rub lipstick on the end of the bolt, push the blot against the frame and the lipstick leaves a mark in the right place.

I haven't bought a new pair of jeans, shorts, etc. in a year. It takes way too much time. Get a couple of decent pairs of jeans and accessorize.

I sometimes go around with a little garden dirt under my nails.

I actually do know how to sew - I made a full set of slipcovers for a couch recently, but I would never sew clothes these days. It would cost too much.

I consider it a very dangerous move to own more than one purse. I would lose my keys for good.

I enjoy wearing polka dots. Clothes, when you think about them, should be fun.

I am a totally involved mother but I made a commitment not to discuss my family on the blog. That is not a fashion tip, but it relates to sharing clothes with my kids.

I am watching Nyles and Daphne profess their love to each other.

I have two cashmere sweaters, one is in decent shape for wearing out, the other has a whole in it, so I wear it for comfort, when doing chores, reading in bed with the window open and a wind blowing. It goes in the wash. Everyone should have a cashmere sweater that can be tossed in the wash.

Thank you for voting for me. I am touched - I have read some of the comments - once again thank you all.

He stayed and worked with them ...

2011-07-10T21:32:00.000-07:00

I feel that his kind of teaching, deprives women of basic human dignity,

"Likewise, men and women have different responsibilities as equal image-bearers of the Triune God. Men are made to be cultivators—creators and stewards of family and culture (cf. Gen. 1:26,28, 2:19-20; 3:8-20). Men are commanded by God to provide for their families (1 Tim. 5:8 ...

God the Father is the Cultivator, creating all that exists and will exist (Gen. 1:1-2:3). God is the Provider, ....

Women are made to be helpers of men. Today, if you say that a woman is a helper, a listener is liable to think you’re saying that women should be barefoot and pregnant, never go to college (or learn to read for that matter) and not have opinions. And that is pure nonsense. When you read “women are to be helpers,” please don’t fall prey to the notion that that means women are to be subjugated. The subjugation of women is an affront to God. Rather, please see it for what it truly is: That women are to embrace their role that is modeled by the Holy Spirit, who is called the Helper (John 14:16,26; 15:26; 16:7).

By being a helper, women follow the guidance of their husbands (or fathers) ...."

Women I know, including myself, spend so much time and effort putting family first, providing for our families both financially and caring for them in many other ways. I feel sick when I see this kind of teaching. Even though the Bible has patriarchal passages, it would be greatly helped if one could read a Bible for what it does say, and realize that the Bible presents both the hierarchy of its own cultural context, and the recognition that both men and women have basic human dignity.

Women as well as men worked in the scripture. Paul worked with both Priscilla and Aquila, or did Priscilla only sit by and thread Aquila's needle?

After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. ² There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, ³ and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them. Acts 18:3.

There is a kind of Christianity which denies that women are providers, creators and cultivators. This demeans and insults women over and over again. Those who promote this teaching are diminishing the basic human dignity of women. I don't think there is anything wrong with either a man or a woman staying home to care for children. But when women work, in order to provide financially for their families, then it is mud in their face to deny it.

A gender accurate translation would make it clear that 1 Tim. 5:8 does not teach that men only are providers, but rather all of us are to care for each other.

The death of the masculine generic

2011-07-05T12:38:00.000-07:00

I would have thought that "fellow" was a gender neutral term, a word that might have been used for males, but has come to be a masculine generic, a masculine term which could refer to women also. And as such, I would not complain. I have no specific problem with the use of masculine generics, as long as they are intended as such and used as such. I am not concerned with the use of masculine terms in the original languages.

However, the masculine generic is being suffocated, eradicated, slowly and surely. Michael Patton, in comments on his post, writes,

Yes, that is right Nate. The fellow could be egalitarian. I would certainly not have a problem with this.

But, again, there are certain things that the stand must be taken one way or the other when the rubber meets the road in establishing something like this. If we allowed to have women, for better or worse, we would be percieved as taking an egalitarian stand. If we don’t allow for women, then we are percieved as taking a complementarian stand. Either way, the perception of a stand is there no matter what. Therefore, since I am a complementarian (as are most of the board members), this is the side we have to fall on.

So, I understand that a "fellow" can be egalitarian, but a "fellow" can not be a woman. This means that there is a brotherhood between men, both complementarian and egalitarian, that does not extend to women. This is very hurtful and is displayed in the abysmal participation of women in the biblioblogosphere.

Later in the comments, Michael goes on to explain that a "fellow" is a fella, and a "monk" is a gal. That's fine, but how is a reader supposed to know this? This is a specialist language, known to only a few. Does Michael hand out a dictionary with his posts?

There is one rule for decoding this language that I could suggest. If the term refers to a position which entails authority, it is for men only and if it refers to being a support worker, then women can fill it. This is similar to the way that Bible translation decisions are made in some versions.

Michael then links back to his post on head pastors, where he wrote,

Now, let me give my short and sweet answer as to why Paul did not allow women to teach:
Paul did not let women teach due to the often aggressive and combative nature that teaching must entail concerning the confrontation of false doctrine. Men must be the teachers when combating false teaching. However, because the role of a teacher in the church is so often to combat false doctrine, and because false doctrine is always a problem, generally speaking, the principles are always applicable. The “exercising of authority” is inherently tied to teaching and its necessary condemnation of false doctrine.
The combative nature of teaching is particularly relevant to a broader understanding of the characteristics of men and women.

If you read the rest of Michael's post you will appreciate what I have to say here. Women my age do NOT dress in a Cinderella costume. Many to NOT have a man to turn to if they am burgled in the night. Some have been considered to be sufficiently aggressive and combative to combat false teaching.

I daresay that Michael might explain that he moderated me from his blog for being "aggressive and combative." I don't want to put words in his mouth, so I apologize to him if this is not the case. But, often enough women are told NOT to be agressive and combative, but here, Michael says that women cannot be head pastors because they do not have the characteristic of being aggressive and combative.

Broadly Evangelical?

2011-07-04T22:33:00.000-07:00

On the one hand, I feel some empathy for this ministry and those leading it. On the other hand, I feel sad about this. First, I am convinced that complementarians are pushing language change and causing us to lose more masculine generic langauge than we otherwise might. In this case, "fellow" ought to function as a generic, a word that may have been masculine but now refers to both men and women. But on the keyboard of Michael Patton, a fellow is male only. He writes,

The Credo House “Fellow” is the concept we have come up with to describe the ministry leaders of future Credo Houses. Each Credo House will be run by 1) a “Fellow” and 2) a coffee house/book store manager called the Credo House “Monk” (since monks invented coffee!). In a sense, the Fellow is like the pastor of the Credo House carrying many the unique giftedness of which such a job would demand. But the Credo House is not a church so we have to be careful with this.

While one might think that certain gifts that are unique to men would be listed as qualifications, in fact, none are. The qualifications are simply to be well-educated, peaceful, a caring leader, and so on. Nothing that women are not known to be.

When language is used in this way, who can be surprised that those who read the Bible assume that any and all uses of the generic masculine pronoun, really do refer to males.

Michael begins his description of the ideal "fellow",

1. Evangelical in confession: contrary to what some may believe, this will not be an issue of Reformed/Arminian, Dispensational/Covenant, Cessationist/Continuationist, Young Earth/Old Earth, etc. In fact, the more diversity we can get in these areas, the more I feel that we will represent our evangelistic mission of majoring in the majors. The person and work of Jesus Christ, salvation by faith alone, and the final authority of the Scriptures will be the non-negotiables.

And then in the comments he counters this open-mindedness with this rebuttal,

Yes, while we seek to be broadly Evangelical, there are certain commitments such as our complementarian stand that will necessarily be evidenced in the planting of Credo Houses. We don’t seek to make a dividing statement by this and understand that there are many good evangelicals who are egalitarians, but the choice has to be made. If we were to be “open” to having women as Credo House Fellows, that would be taking a definite stand in the other direction. Therefore, you can’t really be neutral in this area, if you know what I mean.

I admire the work of Credo House, but I hope that complementarianism will not be accepted as "broadly evangelical."

Kate and William and Anne of Green Gables

2011-07-03T21:50:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow Kate and William will visit PEI, the home of Anne of Green Gables.

Beguiling royalty is entirely in keeping with Anne’s range of influence. Anne of Green Gables has been translated into more than 36 languages, and Anne’s idiosyncrasies have proved endlessly adaptable. Swedish readers “responded to her abilities to see through sham,” says Mary Rubio of Guelph University. In Poland, her loyalty to homespun family values won her a devoted following. Young women in Japan, where Anne of Green Gables first appeared in a 1952 translation, welcomed the wise girl who defied authority – behaviour considered unwomanly in postwar Japanese culture.
A malleable character who can be all things to all people clearly has value as a lure for visitors. Margaret Atwood, a long-time fan, listed 32 reasons why Anne attracts Japanese readers in an article for Britain’s Guardian newspaper. They include: her passion for cherry blossoms, her exotic red hair, her willingness to work hard (while still being able to dream), her respect for elders, her appreciation of poetry and her talent for escaping the Japanese taboo that tempers must be held in check.
This, in the end, is the most universal of Anne’s good qualities, says Ms. Epperly. “Anne personifies all the things we think, but dare not utter. She’s this vibrant spark that you hope can change the rigidity and insularity around her rather than be dampened by it

.”

My prophecy on Peter Kirk's blog came true ...

2011-07-02T20:44:00.000-07:00

I am sure that Peter will be gratified to realize that the prophecy I made on his blog has come true. Sometimes I may appear to be cynical, but I would rather be prepared if disappointment is inevitable. Kurk Gayle has reminded me that I commented on Peter's blog,

I predict that complementarians will completely reject the new NIV because of 1 Tim. 2:12, 1 Cor. 11:10, the paragraphing of Eph. 5:21-22, and Romans 16:7. John Piper has already spoken vociferously against the NIV 1984, perhaps to pave the way for a full rejetion of the NIV 2011.

Peter had said in his post,

I have been encouraged to see no strident general rejection of the NIV update on the blogosphere.

Enough time had not passed. The steam was building. The negative responses came and keep on coming. I was especially disappointed to find the Biblical Studies Carnival link favourably to a negative post on the NIV 2011. Notably that post included this passage,

In Roman Catholic and Southern Baptist contexts – the largest church polities in the US – a reaction against gender-sensitive translation has set in. Both faith traditions seek to retain a degree of independence from prevailing cultural trends. This is no doubt salutary.

I believe that it needs to be said, that not all women find the ways in which the RC and SBC counter cultural trends to be salutory. In the past, it was slavery, now it is the rights of women to be treated as equals. What is salutory about that?

I feel that a woman should not read the Biblical Studies Carnival. I try to withdraw from time to time, to protect myself from the awareness of what others think. I don't want to know how many bloggers in the bibliosphere, who, in spite of knowing that adelphoi was listed as "brothers and sisters" in the lexicons of the 19th century, who, in spite of knowing that "brethren" includes women and "brothers" does not, - how many of those bloggers still resent the fact that women want to be addressed according to the best lexicons, as "and sisters."

So, whoever you are, whatever you think - I am not some new age, liberal, radical whatever comes into your mind. I am a person, who, as a teenager, many years ago, was taught that adelphoi meant "brothers and sisters" since the beginning of time.

I want to have in my Bible, the same verses that I had growing up. I want 1 Tim. 5:8 and 2 Tim. 2:2 as they now appear in the NIV 2011, as they were understood up until the recent past. This is what they meant when I was young, and this is what they mean to me now.

Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.

So, don't offer women a Bible shot full of holes. Offer her a complete Bible. That is the kind of Bible men want. Why shouldn't women get a complete Bible also? I realize that some bloggers promote gender accurate Bibles, although they may wish to question some details in the NIV2011. I believe it is time to promote gender accuracy in the bibliosphere.

The most contested verse in the NIV 2011

2011-07-02T20:20:00.000-07:00

This was my guess from the beginning, and I think it needs to be known. There is one verse which is determining the acceptance or non-acceptance of the NIV 2011. This one verse is the most important contested verse in the translation. Here is what Denny Burk has said about 1 Tim. 2:12 in the NIV.

One other item worthy of note on this rendering. By their own admission, “assume authority” is neutral where the previous rendering “have authority” was not. In other words, the 1984 NIV favored an interpretation that supported a complementarian point of view. The 2011 NIV now has a rendering that can be used to support an egalitarian view. If we accept the translators’ argument that “assume authority” is neutral (which I don’t), the translators have nevertheless acknowledged that the egalitarian view is no longer excluded by the NIV’s rendering of 1 Timothy 2:12. This is a tremendous reversal on the most contested verse in the gender debate.

If Dr. Burk speaks as a representative of CBMW and SBC, which it appears he does, then he is expressing their view that they do not want a Bible that is without complementarian doctrinal input. The egalitarian viewpoint is no longer excluded by the NIV. They cannot live with that ambiguity.

It is important to realize that the word which he wants translated as "to have authority" has a varied history. Here are the relevant variants,

Jerome - dominari
Erasmus - autoritatem usurpare
Calvin - auctoritatem sumere (translated in 1855 as "assume authority")
Luther - Herr sei

Dr. Burk traces the history of the translation of 1 Tim. 2:12 from the NIV 1984 to the present day. When I was young, 1984 was in the dystopian future, but now it is considered by some as the beginning of time.

Old spice guy and me

2011-07-02T16:27:00.000-07:00

Now for a bit of fun, a commercial break so to speak. Isaiah Mustafa was in Toronto recently and that reminded me of how much we have in common. I happened to catch the segment last year when Isaiah Mustafa talked about his diet on the Jay Leno show. We are on exactly the same diet. Remarkably, this has not made me look like him, even though I like the way he looks.

So, here is his diet. No alcohol, no coffee, no sugar, no gluten, no meat. I understand that this was a time limited enterprise for him - he is not a career vegan. Neither am I. At least, I am not philosophically vegan at the moment. Perhaps it will come to that.

But it works! Like old spice guy, I now am now the ideal size for my height and age - and sex. I don't count calories, I eat voraciously, I enjoy desert when tempted by others, and it all feels too good. I just wanted to put that out there, because a lot of us struggle with health and weight issues. I am swearing by this one. Quinoa, parsley, green vegetables, root vegetables, legumes, avocados, squashes, nuts, seeds and fruit - and ummmmm - yup, and coffee. On and off.

Ancient Hebrew Poetry Pt 6

2011-07-02T15:55:00.000-07:00

Although this series is almost entirely about Pagnini's Latin translation of the Hebrew Bible, the title does not indicate that. Here is a little rationale. First, Pagnini appears in Google also as Pagninus, and Pagnino. Second, Pagnini's name is about the last thing that anyone would ever put into Google anyway. More than one Hebrew expert has remarked that they have never heard of Pagnini apart from this blog. Third, I intend to return to certain features of Hebrew Poetry when I need a break from Pagnini. I hope that this series will be somewhat broader than Pagnini.

In any case, I first became acquainted with the Pagnini translation when I was reading a Hebrew-Latin Psalter that had been left to me by my mother. It had been in her family for many generations, and had originally been printed in Lyon, France in the 1600's. This is at least a century after Pagnini published his entire Latin translation of the Bible, so it may very well have some revisions in it.

Subsequently I have learned a fair amount about the time in which Pagnini lived and wrote. I have become acquainted with the incredible influence that the study of Hebrew had on the Reformation and Reformation Bibles. However, there is a significant lack of detailed study of this translation. Apart from the fact that every Bible translator in Europe referenced almost every translation that preceded the one that they were working on, I don't have much specific data about the particular ways that Pagnini's translation influenced following translations.

In addition to Pagnini's translation, there are several other Latin translations that were made subequent to his. Another one is by Tremellius and Junius, and the book of Genesis can be viewed here. The unique and important factor regarding Pagnini's translation is that it was the only Latin translation other than the Vulgate to have been used by Coverdale, who produced the first translation of the entire Bible into English. As such, the history of the Bible in English must reference the Vulgate, Pagnini, Luther (who also used Pagnini) and the Zuercher Bible.

This is a rough timeline for translations of the Hebrew Bible available at the time.

Vulgate 4th century
Pagnini - 1527
Zuercher Bible - 1531
Luther - 1534
Coverdale - 1535

I do not have information as to how much these translators shared among themselves before their translations were printed as complete Bible. Coverdale and Luther both refer to Pagnini's translation so we do know that they used it as a source.

Ancient Hebrew Poetry Pt 5

2011-07-01T16:56:00.000-07:00

Here is Psalm 77: 4-6 in Pagnini's translation and Jerome's translation from the Hebrew.

Recordabar Dei, & tumultuabar: loquebar, & angustiis afficiebatur spiritus meus. Selah.	recordans Dei conturbabar loquebar in memet ipso et deficiebat spiritus meus.	אֶזְכְּרָה אֱלֹהִים וְאֶהֱמָיָה; אָשִׂיחָה, וְתִתְעַטֵּף רוּחִי סֶלָה.
Tenuisti vigilias oculorum meorum: contritus sum, nec loqui potui.	prohibebam suspectum oculorum meorum stupebam et non loquebar	אָחַזְתָּ, שְׁמֻרוֹת עֵינָי; נִפְעַמְתִּי, וְלֹא אֲדַבֵּר.
Tunc supputavi dies qui fuerunt a principio, annos seculorum.	recogitabam dies antiquos annos pristinos	חִשַּׁבְתִּי יָמִים מִקֶּדֶם-- שְׁנוֹת, עוֹלָמִים.

Here is this passage in the King James Version,

3I remembered God, and was troubled:
I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed. Selah.⁴Thou holdest mine eyes waking:
I am so troubled that I cannot speak.⁵I have considered the days of old,
the years of ancient times.

In comparison to Jerome's translation, Pagnini has retained more of the parataxis, that is the use of "and" or "&" rather than using subordinate clauses. Pagnini also kept the "selah" and stays closer to the Hebrew for holding the eyes awake, or "on watch."

In verse 5, he struggles with Hebrew expressions which he interprets as "from the beginning" and "of eternity."

Darrell Bock on the NIV 2011

2011-06-30T22:34:00.000-07:00

Darrell Bock has blogged in defense of the NIV 2011. Denny Burk countered his arguments, and Dr. Bock responded in the comments as follows,

Here is my core problem. When a text says anyone and then the next Greek term individualizes (but does so with “anyone” as the initial antecedent gloss), then it is clear we have multiple people who fulfill the text when they respond. Thus a rendering of them versus a singular is perfectly accurate linguistically and actually shows the scope of the text more clearly. I find cases like these to be one where either rendering can and does work in communicating meaning. Yet texts like these are what some (not you) have used as basis for rejecting the NIV 2011 and then say to add to the debate that this violates inspiration. I am crying foul on that one (especially the additional concern. It is linguistically incorrect).

Where I do have a real problem, with your critique is to call a rendering feminist. That charge would only be the case IF it came with a denial of limits on the role of women by those translating and that has not taken place. So it injects a criticism that is not fair on the very issue you claim to be standing up for.

One more thing. I am pleased the tone this time around is better. I just think the critique is not justified and have said so.

I would think that 1 Tim. 5:8 is the best example of a real misunderstanding in English. This verse has no masculine pronoun in Greek. It does not refer to male headship, but many theologians seem to think that it does. A gender accurate translation would clear that up.

But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for(A) members of his household, he has(B) denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

This refers to men and women both. A translation which does not use gender inclusive language is misleading women about their God-given responsibilities.

Ancient Hebrew Poetry Pt 4

2011-06-28T22:33:00.000-07:00

The Pagnini Latin Bible was listed as a source text for not only the Coverdale Bible, but also the Bishop's Bible, the Reina-Valera Bible and the Olivétan Bible. It stands firmly at the centre of the Reformation translation tradition. Not only was it impossible for a translator at the time of the Reformation to view the Greek New Testament without also viewing Erasmus' Latin translation, but it was also unlikely that any translator did not also use an interlinear Hebrew-Pagnini Latin text.

This spring, I visited the Erasmus collection in Toronto and held a copy each of the first few editions of his New Testament. There was no way to access the Greek without reading also the Latin translation and notes of Erasmus. Then a short walk took me to the Thomas Fischer Library to read Pagnini's Latin Bible.

Pagnini also shaped the Bible for further generations by being the first to use verse annotations, and by placing the apocryphal books between the Old and New Testament.

The study of Pagnini's Bible has revised my impression of the Reformation as a time when the Bible was translated by a select group of brilliant individuals from the original Hebrew and Greek into the vernaculars of Reformation Europe. Rather two movements were afoot. On the one hand, the Greek and Hebrew originals were retranslated into Latin, the lingua franca of Europe, by scholars who were steeped in classical Greek and rabbinical Hebrew. And on the other hand, those who had some knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, but were not recognized as international scholars of these languages, men such as Luther, Tyndale, de Reyna, and Olivétan, translated the Bible into the vernacular languages of Europe.

More on the SBC, NIV, Denny Burk ...

2011-06-27T22:11:00.000-07:00

The Committe on Bible Translation has responded to attacks on the NIV 2011. Denny Burk responds to them and I respond to his list. More info in the list at the bottom of this post.

Here is what I wrote on his blog, in response to his post - I hope that he will allow this comment. I appreciate the fact that he has allowed many of my comments to be posted lately. I feel somehow that he is a person who is interested in honesty.

Denny,

Please let me engage further – I cry for the translators I know, both egalitarian and complementarian. I know them and I know that they are on both sides of this divide.

1. The data only recounts changes from the NIV 1984 to the NIV 2011. None of the data is actually based on whether or not the Greek original has a masculine pronoun or not. In my opinion, this data does not relate to translation at all, but to a shift from an earlier style of English and what is understood today. I can’t interact with the data either because I cannot ascertain what the data is trying to show with regard to translation.

2. I have demonstrated that many preachers for CBMW do not understand that 1 Tim. 5:8 is a generic masculine in English, and as such, does not reflect a masculine pronoun in Greek. The passage is entirely gender neutral in Greek and should not be used by theologians and preachers to support male headship and yet it is.

Please explain to me how this is. The only explanation I can see is that these men did not understand the generic use of “he.”

http://powerscourt.blogspot.com/2009/12/cbmworg-exegetes-1-tim-58.html

3. “Assume authority” is derived from Calvin. Any discussion of this verse should start there.

4. You say that context is king, but the preface to the ESV claims that it desires to respect concordance. You can’t have both. Changing 2 Tim. 2:2 is a devastating setback for young women in high school and university, for women on the mission field, for Christian women everywhere. When they were young they memorized that verse, and then as adults in church, they have the verse removed.

5. I don’t know if there is a study of how many times most Bibles insert a masculine pronoun where there is no pronoun in Greek. And the ESV adds the word “men” in English where there is no word at all for men.

I could understand if someone just said “This is Christianity, women have to be silent.” I have heard that before. But this – this movement against the (T)NIV – this brought me to the internet. It is breaking my heart.

Ancient Hebrew Poetry Pt 3

2011-06-27T19:37:00.000-07:00

While some scholars and translators may not feel that they owe much to the Pagnini translation of the Bible, none are without the influence of Pagnini's Thesaurus Linguae Sanctae. Daniel Shute, writing about the influences on Peter Martyr, explains,

Massive and meticulously documented, it can double as a fairly complete concordance. Some of its entries, which run on for pages, can be profitably studied by the Latin-Hebrew reader even today. The dictionaries of Reuchlin and Münster are so brief as to render it impossible to trace their influence in Martyr's exposition. Pagnini's lexicon, on the other hand, has word studies so detailed that its influence is traceable.

Keil and Delitzsch (original here) express the following opinion of Pagnini's importance,

Justinianus, Pagninus, and Felix were the three highest authorities on the original text at the commencement of the Reformation. The first two had gained their knowledge of the original from Jewish sources and Felix Pratensis, whose Psalterium ex hebreo diligentissime ad verbum fere translatum, 1522, appeared under Leo X, was a proselyte.

Ancient Hebrew Poetry (my series on Pagnini) Pt 1, Pt 2

shameless

2011-06-27T15:18:00.001-07:00

If you are interested in Pagnini, or the NIV, or women, or whatever, I am going to be shameless and ask you to vote for me at bibliobloggerstop10 ( a ) yahoo.com. This should keep me on track for another month.

PS What happened to TC? Please, TC, we miss you.

Ancient Hebrew Poetry Pt 2

2011-06-27T14:26:00.000-07:00

In my previous post I suggested that Pagnini's (Pagninus/Pagnino) translation is the missing link between ancient Hebrew poetry and the language of the King James Bible. The first thing to establish then is that the early translators of the Bible had access to Pagnini's translation and that his translation was distinctive.

Pagnini, an Italian Domican scholar, translated the entire Bible into Latin and published it in 1528. This makes it the first major translation of the Hebrew Bible into Latin since the Latin Vulgate. He also published a Hebrew Latin lexicon. Pagnini's translation was commissioned by Pope Leo X and the printing was licensed by Pope Clement VII. It never replaced the Latin Vulgate as the authoritative text of the Roman church, due to the literal nature of the translation.

Pagnini also preached against Lutherism and Waldenianism as heresies, so his translation would not become "popular" with Protestants. Luther felt that his translation displayed too much influence from the rabbincial tradition. While Pagnini's translation was used by Hebrew scholars for centuries, neither Catholics nor Protestants, place his text in the mainstream of their tradition.

And yet, according to Saebo,

Pagninus's edition of the Bible and the Thesaurus were frequently reprinted, and they were widely used by scholars of all Christian persuasions...

Norton also writes,

After the publication of Pagninus’s translation, 1528, few, perhaps none of the translators would have found themselves working from the original languages alone, aided by nothing more than grammars and dictionaries, and never would they have found themselves working without an already vast knowledge of the text in their heads: most knew the Vulgate intimately.

Pagnini's Latin translation was frequently printed as the Latin text in a Hebrew-Latin Bible, sometimes as the interlinear Latin text to aid in the study of the original Hebrew. While the Complutensian polyglot has the Latin Vulgage between the Hebrew and the Greek of the Old Testament, the Antwerp polyglot also provides Pagnini's Latin as an interlinear text above the Hebrew.

Coverdale cites this translation as one of his source texts, and it would have been known to the translators of the Bishop's Bible, and King James Bible. According to this record,

The Trinitarian Bible Society in their April - June 1979 Quarterly Record cites this volume as being at the disposal of the translators for the KING JAMES BIBLE. The Book: Pagninus, "Thesaurus Linguæ Sanctæ", Lugduni, 1575. ... Pagninus was perhaps the greatest of Christian Lexicographers and whose work was fundamental as an aid to 16th-century scriptural translators

In fact, translators have always referred to all previous transations and commentaries, as well as the original languages. The Greek New Testament, was first printed as a bilingual edition alongside Erasmus' Latin translation, and the Hebrew was printed typically along with either the Vulgate, or Pagnini, or both.

Factors which may have caused Pagnini's translation to fall into the background, are its association with some heresies. Michael Servetus, burned in Geneva as a heretic, was editor for an edition of Pagnini's Bible. Pagnini's translation was also the first to use the name "Jehovah" for יהוה, instead of "Dominus." Luther felt that Pagnini's translation followed the rabbis too much, as did Katherine Bushnell, who was unhappy with the fact that Pagnini introduced the word "desire" into Gen. 3:16.

But there is no reason for Pagnini's translation to be relatively unknown among Bible scholars today. I would argue that his is the single most important translation of the Bible in the Reformation period. We know for certain that both the translation and the lexical work of Pagnini was known to the translators in the King James tradition. I will continue soon with the distinctive nature of Pagnini's translation.

A few links

2011-06-26T23:15:00.001-07:00

Chris Brady is writing a paper on the book of Ruth. He has some interesting speculations about Naomi. Age in the Book of Ruth and a proxy marriage, Are Men Marginalized in Ruth?, One or Two Articles on Boaz?

Claude Mariottini has written about Gen. 3:15, here, here and here. Kurk has a post on Pearl Buck. Tim has written a series on Grudem on Adam and Eve, here, here and here.

I hope you enjoy. There is some really great stuff being written consistently by men about women. Thank you. I do wish that there were more women writing in the bibliosphere, but these posts are top notch.

Rumana Monzur

2011-06-26T20:29:00.000-07:00

Rumana Monzur, a grad student at UBC, was blinded by her husband who gouged her eyes and mutilated her nose. Apparently he thought she had done something to displease him,

Ms. Monzur’s commitment to her studies is said to have been a factor in the attack, UBC president Stephen Toope said.

“This tragic occasion is a poignant marker of the need to work to protect the fundamental human right of all women to pursue education,” he said in a statement.

Bangladeshi media reports say Ms. Monzur’s husband also suspected her of having an affair with a fellow graduate student.

With her eyes swollen and nose bandaged, an emotional Ms. Monzur spoke to reporters from her hospital bed to describe what happened and defend herself. Much of the coverage in the Bangladeshi media has focused on her rebuttals of the allegations – as if infidelity would have justified the beating.

Brethren and the tattoo

2011-06-24T23:35:00.001-07:00

It turns out that "brethren" is, in fact, a gender-neutral term in English today. Niles turned to Daphne, on a rerun of Frasier tonight, and said "you and your tattooed, mumu-wearing brethren!" However, he could not have said with the same meaning, "you and your tattoed, mumu-wearing brothers!" It seems that "brethren" is gender neutral and "brothers" is not.

On the other hand, perhaps Niles meant that men wear mumus. Hmm. I don't think so. This is why I find the KJV quite acceptable, and then the NRSV and NIV 2011. "Brethren" is gender inclusive, and "brothers and sisters" is gender inclusive. "Brothers" is not.

It happens that in Hebrew as well, the word often translated "brothers" also meant all the brothers and sisters in a biological family. We see that use in Joshua 6:23. When it says that the "brothers" of Rahab were saved, it means "all the brothers and sisters" as we can see in chapter 2. That is the simple usage of the word, the meaning, one might say.

NIV 2011, SBC and brothers and sisters

2011-06-24T22:13:00.000-07:00

For those who believe that a gender inclusive translation is a post modern endeavor that veils the original languages, please consider the following.

At the time that the King James Bible was printed, there were two terms "brethren," which referred to groups of people who had a common humanity, and may or may not be male; and "brothers," who were the male children in the same biological family. "Brethren" was the common way to address men and women together in the family of God. In the 1940's, "brethren" was changed to "brothers" in the Revised Version, and for the first time, the translation gave the impression that the scriptures in the original languages may have actually addressed men only.

However, since the very first Greek-English lexicons were published in the 1800's, the plural of the Greek word adelphos, which was translated as "brothers" in the RSV, was said to mean "brothers and sisters." This is because adelphoi (plural of adelphos) was a term which was commonly used in Greek to refer to the brothers and sisters in a family. It was the normal term for "brothers and sisters." In English "brothers" is not the normal way to refer to the brothers and sisters in a family. "Brothers" in English is not a term which has the same usage as adelphoi in Greek.

The simple fact is that "brothers" was never an adequate translation for the Greek word adelphoi. In the 1980's the New Revised Standard Version made the correction, and adelphoi was translated as "brothers and sisters." Not long after that other translations followed suite - the NLT, NET, CEV, TNIV and now the NIV 2011.

But rather than rejoicing in the accurate inclusion of sisters in the common address of the authors of the epistles, many today have rejected the phrasing "and sisters."

I honestly do not understand why there has not been a community wide acceptance of accuracy on this point. There should have been a seamless transition from "brethren" to "brothers" (briefly) and then to the more accurate "brothers and sisters." This is what one would expect, and for many this has been the case. But I ask myself why so many, men and women that I know, reject this simple truth.

Ancient Hebrew Poetry

2011-06-24T00:04:00.000-07:00

I was reminded recently by a fellow blogger of the fun that we had blogging about Psalm 68 some time ago. I love poetry and so much of the Hebrew scriptures, whether poetry or prose, are full of poetic elements like alliteration, assonance, rhyme and onomatopoeia. These are the elements which relate to the sound of the poetry, and are enough to begin with. The other elements, formed by an arrangement according to meaning, such as parallelism and punning, will have to wait.

But I would say that the first poetic elements, which are usually regarded as relating to the sound of the words, are in fact best perceived, or rather felt in the mouth. The first person to experience alliteration in a poem, is not the passive listener, but the one who writes. And just as the sound of a kiss, is not the same as the kiss itself, so the sound of alliteration, is not the same as the feel of alliteration in one's own mouth and mind.

To write, to speak, to sound out alliteration, one engages the lips and tongue, the words become the placement of the points of articulation, and not the sounds in the ear. And that is the power of alliteration. Don't let the textbooks tell you anything else.

So I dipped into my Pagnini Psalms again, that missing link in the history of translation, and found a few lines where the Dominican (Pagnini that is) showed that he had a sense of the feel of the words. Not surprising, since I suspect that he too loved the alphabet, that out of which the world was created, (if you have read the Book of Formation, Sefer Yetsira, the ur-text of the Kabbalah.)

Here is Psalm 122:6-7 in various translations. I am not going to offer you the Hebrew tonight, but only compare the Latin and English.

6 Rogate quæ ad pacem sunt Jerusalem,
et abundantia diligentibus te.
7 Fiat pax in virtute tua,
et abundantia in turribus tuis. Vulgate

Postulate pacem Jerusalem:
prospere agant diligentes te
Sit pax in antemurali tuo:
prosperitas in palatiis tuis Pagnini

⁶Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
they shall prosper that love thee.
⁷Peace be within thy walls,
and prosperity within thy palaces. KJV

6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!
"May they be secure who love you!
⁷Peace be within your walls
and security within your towers!" ESV

6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
“May those who love you be secure.
7 May there be peace within your walls
and security within your citadels.” NIV

I argue that you can't really understand the history of the translation of the Bible without Pagnini, or without understanding the constraints that poetic elements put on both the original writer, and on the translator. In fact, I would argue that given the presence of poetic elements, there can never be a definitive translation of the Hebrew. Each translation is a new piece of literature.

Ancient Hebrew Poetry Pt 2, Pt 3

NIV 2011 and the SBC resolution

2011-06-22T23:52:00.001-07:00

More Links

Rev. Mark Stevens
Quadrilateral Thoughts
Aristotle's Feminist Subject
Bridget Jack Jeffries

A few links,

Apprentice to Jesus
συνεσταύρωμαι: living the crucified life
Claude Mariottini
A 'Goula Blogger
Unsettled Christianity
The Wartburg Watch

More tomorrow. Here is something that puzzles me. The SBC rejects the wording of 1 Tim. 2:12, "to assume authority" in the NIV 2011. Since that is only a moderate version of what is in the KJV, "to usurp authority" does that mean that the SBC would not accept the KJV? Does this leave us without any common Bible, not even the KJV? That is what I am trying to figure out.

NIV 2011 and 1 Tim. 2:12

2011-06-22T23:21:00.000-07:00

In the debate about the NIV there is no question that adelphoi means "brothers and sisters" as a primary meaning of the word. It was the word to describe Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy. There is no question that the Greek pronoun tis is gender neutral.

But the reason why the NIV 2011 has a resolution against it is as follows,

One cannot underestimate the importance of 1 Timothy 2:12 in the intra-evangelical debate over gender roles and women in ministry. There is a reason why countless articles and even an entire book have been written on the interpretation of this single verse. In many ways, this verse is the most disputed text in the debate.

The verse in question in the NIV 2011 is -

I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man;^[a] she must be quiet.

Here it is in the KJV -

But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

And here it is in the Calvin Bible.

But I suffer not the woman to teach, nor to assume authority over the man, but to be silent.

So it turns out that the NIV 2011 has a resolution against it because of the way in which it is similar to the King James Bible and the Calvin Bible.

SBC on the NIV2011

2011-06-20T17:48:00.000-07:00

Catch the whole thing on Dr. Burk's blog. Dr. Moore contributes and yet I think he would have understood the scripture better if he had had a gender neutral translation. He once wrote,

"The headship of men in the church and home is rooted everywhere in Scripture in protection and provision. This is why the apostle Paul calls the man who will not provide for his family "worse than an unbeliever" (1 Tim 5:8 ESV)."

I am conservative in my views on translation, and support the KJV, as the one Bible which we have commonly available, for being the closest to the Greek. However, today, readers are no longer able to undestand that the English pronoun "he" is generic and often occurs in English where there is no pronoun at all in Greek.

I am acquainted with Dr. Bruce Waltke also, a translator of the NIV, and you have no idea how not a feminist that man is! But I like him. He just isn't a feminist. Oh brother. The evangelical world is coming apart at the seams. This is not a split between the liberals and the conservatives. This is an ingroup rift between the conservative evangelicals and the more conservative evangelicals. And it is over women. Women are caught in the middle.

2011-06-18T23:51:00.000-07:00

Here is a particularly tricky passage. What does skeuos mean in this verse? Vessel, body, wife, private parts? Hmm.

εἰδέναι ἕκαστον ὑμῶν τὸ ἑαυτοῦ σκεῦος κτᾶσθαι ἐν ἁγιασμῷ καὶ τιμῇ, 1 Thess. 4:4

Skeuos means equipment, inanimate thing, body vs soul, or subordinate being. Here are the two most likely options.

1. Skeuos could mean "wife." Each person, that is each man, should acquire his own wife. Ktaomai usually means "acquire" so it is likely that this does not refer to one's own body. However, skeuos had not been used to refer to a wife prior to this text.

2. Skeuos means "one's own body." This is consistent with the use of the word elsewhere in the Greek scriptures. Ktaomai could mean "to become the master of."

I tend to think that skeuos refers to one's own body, since Paul does not indicate that he is talking only to men in this passage. He does not say, "You men, .... "

On the other hand, perhaps the author of 1 Thessalonians really is calling a wife a skeuos. We cringe because it sounds sexist. What do we do if we believe the scriptures are sexist? How do we respond to this?

Some feel that Paul really did refer to a wife here, and that he was sexist, althought this is not a criticism of Paul, but just simple acceptance that we have moved beyond this ethic, that we don't have to adhere to everything Paul says, but only abide in the instructions for holiness and love.

Others feel that Paul, who was a friend and co-worker of many women, would not call a wife a skeuos.

So, I commend to you the King James Version,

That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour;

Michael Marlowe

2011-06-18T23:21:00.000-07:00

There are reasons why I think that Marlowe's theology needs to be made clear. He writes about the application of 1 Cor. 11 to men,

First there are the implications of the uncovered head. Paul states that the reason for this bareheadedness is that the Christian man must exhibit the "image-glory of God," which we have understood in the sense that he must identify with and imitate God, as ruler of the creation. This is no small responsibility for men. We are all familiar with the biblical teaching that men must obey and serve God. The Bible in many places calls God's people His servants, and the word usually translated "servants" really means slaves.

But even so, where Christian men are concerned, the biblical concept of our relationship to God is more perfectly expressed as one of sonship. And a son is not a slave; he both obeys and imitates his Father. The incongruity of this metaphor in relation to women is obvious enough. A woman should not be asked to think of herself as a son who must imitate the Father. But this is what Christian men are called to do. A manly soul is not content to obey, he goes beyond that and makes his royal Father's interests his own. He inherits the dominion.

There is therefore a certain emulation of God proper for men which is not characteristic of female piety. This stance, symbolized by the uncovered head, is going to have consequences for the way in which a man worships God and lives out his faith.

I just think that we need to undertand the theological underpinnings of this kind of Christianity.

the same virtue

2011-06-18T23:06:00.000-07:00

So, what I have been trying to say is that far from being complementary, men and women have the same virtue, they are not identical but the nature and excellence of men and women is, to a large degree, overlapping. It is the overlapping characteristics of men and women which we call "human" traits. Here is a post by Chris Heard,

Ever heard somebody claim that Christianity is largely to blame for sexism, or at least has done nothing to oppose it? While many Christians and institutional churches have certainly engaged in more than their share of sexist behavior, a strong tradition of Christian egalitarianism runs deep. Consider Clement of Alexandria:

Let us understand that the same virtue pertains to men and women. For if there is one God for both, there is also one Pedagogue for both. One church, one self-restraint, one modesty, a common food, a common marriage bond, breath, sight, hearing, knowledge, hope, obedience, love, all are alike. Those who have life in common, grace in common, and indeed salvation in common also have virtue and a way of life in common. … Therefore also the name “human” is common to men and women.

— Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies 6.100.2–3, trans. Roberts and Donaldson, quoted from Nonna Verna Harrison, God’s Many-Splendored Image (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2010)

Clement was not, of course, an egalitarian in the modern sense—he probably would have opposed the idea of a female bishop, for example—but theological understandings like his laid the foundations that would eventually lead to modern gender egalitarianism.

To CBMW Re: NIV 2011

2011-06-18T11:48:00.000-07:00

Here is an email that I wrote to CBMW last week. I have not heard back from them.

Hi Chris,

About four years ago, I wrote to discuss some details on your website and you agreed at that time to link to an article I wrote demonstrating that aner had as established usage that was gender inclusive in ancient Greek. I have noticed that this link no longer remains. I have renewed the discussion here.

http://powerscourt.blogspot.com/2009/09/aner-either-male-or-female.html

I remember that Dr. Grudem has said that he would be eager to acknowledge this evidence if it was presented to him, so I hope that you will make this information known to your readers, as I am sure it is the wish of all involved to be aware of the best evidence.

I noticed recently that Denny Burk has written an article on the NIV2011 in which he cites Dr. Grudem on 1 Tim. 2:12, and says,

In 1 Timothy 2:12 the TNIV adopts a highly suspect and novel translation that gives the egalitarian side everything they have wanted for years in a Bible translation. It reads, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man”....

I feel certain that you would like to add to this information that the King James Version had "to usurp authority" much stronger than "to assume authority." However, I think it is even more important to let your readers know that the origin of "to assume authority" is from John Calvin's Latin translation, which was translated into English in the 19th century and contained the English phrase "to assume authority."

In fact, the NIV2011 has remained close to the King James Version for both 1 Tim. 2:12, and Romans 16:7. Dr. Kostenberger's syntactic argument for the meaning of authenteo, is not supported by evidence, since didasko has a negative sense in Titus 1. There is little support for the claim made by CBMW on the meaning of authenteo, and the NIV2011 follows a much more conservative path choosing "assume" as a halfway point between "usurp" and "exercise." I would like to see the CBMW site make a formal acknowledgement of the conservative and mediating position of the NIV2011.

Regarding the use of the generic masculine pronoun, I am very concerned that many preachers cited on your website, are not able to understand the generic masculine. I noticed in particular this citation from Russel Moore.

Male headship is strictly defined in Scripture as the opposite of a grasp for power. The headship of men in the church and home is rooted everywhere in Scripture in protection and provision. This is why the apostle Paul calls the man who will not provide for his family "worse than an unbeliever" (1 Tim 5:8 ESV).

In 1 Tim. 5:8, the English masculine pronoun "he" is generic and refers equally to men and women. The Greek lacks a pronoun entirely and is written equally to men and women. No word for "man" appears in this passage. It appears that Dr. Moore did not refer to the Greek for this verse, and misunderstood the generic masculine pronoun in the English.

While you may personally support the continued use of the generic masculine pronoun, among complementarian preachers, it is frequently misunderstood.

http://powerscourt.blogspot.com/2009/12/cbmworg-exegetes-1-tim-58.html

I hope you will understand that I would like most of all to see an acknowledgement of the truth that is in God's word, especially as it pertains to the NIV2011

Warm regards,

Suzanne McCarthy

because I am a girl ....

2011-06-13T19:25:00.000-07:00

Because I am a girl is a campaign to raise money to nourish and educate girls worldwide. Here is one astounding statistic.

Fact: Young women put back 90% of their income into their household, but men only give back 30-40%. By directing the money they earn back into the household, girls can help their families to stay healthy, secure and educated.

I don't know the source for this, but certainly passages in Half the Sky back this up. If you want to fight hunger and poverty, you have no choice but to promote at least an equal decision-making role for women. Any desire and movement to keep women from equal decision-making, is a movement to keep children hungry and uneducated and empoverish households. Choose equality for women, and you are choosing life. That is why Adam called his wife ~~the mother of all living.~~ Chava - "Life".

She comes sailing on the wind

2011-06-12T18:56:00.000-07:00

SHE COMES SAILING ON THE WIND

She comes sailing on the wind, her wings flashing in the sun,
On a journey just begun, she flies on.
And in the passage of her flight, her song rings out through the night,
Full of laughter, full of light, she flies on.

Silent waters rocking on the morning of our birth,
Like an empty cradle waiting to be filled,
And from the heart of God the Spirit moved upon the earth,
Like a mother breathing life into her child.

Many were the dreamers whose eyes were given sight
When the Spirit filled their dreams with life and form.
Deserts turned to gardens, broken hearts found new delight,
And then down the ages still she flew on.

To a gentle girl in Galilee a gentle breeze she came,
a whisper softly calling in the dark,
The promise of a child of peace whose reign would never end,
Mary sang the Spirit song within her heart.

Flying to the river, she waited circling high
Above the child now grown so full of grace.
As he rose up from the water, she swept down from the sky,
And she carried him away in her embrace.

Long after the deep darkness that fell upon the world,
After dawn returned in flame of rising sun,
The Spirit touched the earth again, again her wings unfurled,
bringing life in wind and fire as she flew on.

COMMON PRAISE 656
Text and melody: Gordon Light; arr. Andrew Donaldson.©
Text and melody © 1987 Common Cup Company.
Used with permission.

This is for Shawna, if she is not already familiar with this hymn.

a radical feminist?

2011-06-12T02:37:00.000-07:00

When I want to make someone who knows me in the concrete world of the flesh laugh, I tell them that I have been called a "radical feminist." That's just funny, because I learned all the domestic skills, I have a job in an area that is almost entirely female, and I don't promote the line that women have to have "careers." I have among my friends, many who have stayed at home with the kids, some who have worked part time, and some who were so blessed that they have been able to share the parenting with their spouse in ways that are roughly equal over time.

Life is about compromise. There is no ideal role for either men or women. Men who want to go as missionaries, have to make many very tough decisions, and face conflicting demands. It is simply very difficult. It is the same way for women. All women. We all of us, in varying degress, have the nature to create, design, produce, innovate, initiate, and lead. We are born with ambition to succeed and to contribute to society in any way that our skills enable us to. It can be overwhelming.

For some people, both men and women, ambition is muted. But others are driven. Men and women have this ambition. But most women are made aware early on of the need to balance conflicting demands and compromise. Some women don't. I regret that.

The strength of feminism is that it recognizes the equal nature of women. It makes me feel like a real human being - something that was missing for me for many years. I lived in psychological isolation and despair for many years.

Now, I am free of that. But, guess what. My life is made up of the need to compromise, and balance conflicting demands. That is just another part of being human. Men face this too, but perhaps a little later than earlier. Perhaps the weakness of feminism was that it was not always honest about how much of being human is about balancing conflicting demands. But feminism is right about getting women the vote, equal pay, equal right to work, equal right to not be beaten and raped.

Just think of women in the Bible - Lydia, a merchant of the expensive purple cloth, Phoebe, Chloe, Junia and so on. I think also of Miriam, Deborah, Huldah, and many other women of the Hebrew Bible who are not known to have children. But then there was Hannah, who would not compromise, and there were Bathsheba and Tamar who did compromise. And they are all honoured, the idealists and the compromisers alike.

This makes me free to be both the kind of woman who is driven, and the kind of woman who makes outrageous sacrifices for my children. That's just what it means to be human. I don't exclude men from this dilemma. I think of men as being human also.

Complementary vs overlapping distribution

2011-06-09T23:27:00.000-07:00

In linguistics complementary and overlapping distribution contrast. Phonemes are found in either complementary or overlapping distribution, but not both. Men and women are complementary in their reproductive organs, but that's about it. The height of men and women has overlapping distribution, and there participation in the workforce likewise. Men and women are not identical, but they have widely overlapping characteristics.

So all my writing about what men and women in the Bible do is simply to note that they have overlapping skills and roles. Men and women both participate in subsistence farming, in skilled artisanship, and in managerial roles. Since this has always been true, to varying extents, it seems that women are by nature geared towards productive work, skilled craft, and leadership positions, as are men. It is only for a brief few years, from about the 1920's to the 1970's that most women were out of the work force.

When women are ambitious for work, it is not because they are rebellious against God, sinful, disrespectful of their husband, and so on. It is because this is the nature of being human. We all have a drive to create, design and produce. Some women don't have the opportunity for this kind of women until their 40's and 50's. Its a tricky thing. But it is best to realize that when women want to get out and work, it is because this is caused by our basic human ambition to work. We could not survive without this.

Biblical manhood and womanhood

2011-06-08T23:00:00.000-07:00

^{From Exodus 35,}

³⁰^(AG) Then Moses said to the people of Israel, "See, the LORD has called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah; ³¹and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with^(AH) skill, with intelligence, with knowledge, and with all craftsmanship, ³²to devise artistic designs, to work in gold and silver and bronze, ³³in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, for work in every skilled craft. ³⁴And he has inspired him to teach, both him and Oholiab the son of Ahisamach of the tribe of Dan. ³⁵He has^(AI) filled them with skill to do every sort of work done by an engraver or by a designer or by an embroiderer in blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen, or by a weaver—by any sort of workman or skilled designer. ESV

³⁰ Then Moses said to the Israelites, “See, the LORD has chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, ³¹ and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills— ³² to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, ³³ to cut and set stones, to work in wood and to engage in all kinds of artistic crafts. ³⁴ And he has given both him and Oholiab son of Ahisamak, of the tribe of Dan, the ability to teach others. ³⁵ He has filled them with skill to do all kinds of work as engravers, designers, embroiderers in blue, purple and scarlet yarn and fine linen, and weavers—all of them skilled workers and designers. NIV2011

I thought after reading the ESV that men were doing the embroidery. But after reading the NIV2011, I came to think that both men and women are "skilled workers and designers," and the women were doing the embroidery. I am not quite sure. Any ideas?

Women did have a role producing trade goods and artefacts. They were not restricted to reproduction only. Even though I do know how to spin, weave and embroider, (not terribly well, but I have tried them all) - these activites take a significant commitment of time, space and funds that I don't actually have. I don't recommend them now in lieu of a "job." Boring, I know, but that's my experience.

It is important to understand that there was never a time in the Bible when men were considered to be created to work and produce goods, and women were not. Women were always producers and designers, as well as mothers. That is just the way it was. No matter how hard you try, a woman who stays home with her children, is on the periphery of the economy, a consumer and not a producer. That is not biblical. I understand why women are at home with their children, and I am not critizing it - I just don't know how to reconcile it with the model of womanhood in the Bible, where women were driven to create and produce goods, as well as children.

Note: In the interest of full disclosure, I still have my first piece of embroidery that I did at the age of four. It is a small petit point pattern of a box full of kittens. Hence my affinity with the curmudgeonly Roger Moore in this film.

Women's work or men's work

2011-06-07T23:35:00.000-07:00

I had been thinking about what women did in the Bible, and now I can't figure out whether weaving and embroidery were women's work or men's work. Two relevant passages are Exodus 35 and 36, and 2 Chronicles 2. I am getting a little worried that the hours I spent embroidering in the past, was practicing men's work. On the other hand, women spun and dyed, especially purple, producing important trade goods that were often lumped in scripture with gold and silver.

There was likely no time in a biblical woman's life that she did not produce income earning goods, even if only in barter. The urge to work is God-given and not a product of femininst ideology. I am not sure about embroidery, however.

Denny Burk on the NIV2011

2011-06-06T23:56:00.000-07:00

Denny Burk has become the voice of the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood on translation. Here is his latest critique.

I find it fascinating that he writes,

The new NIV adopts feminist translations of key verses

He then proceeds to cite 1 Tim. 2:12 and Romans 16:7. And yet the NIV 2011 follows in the tradition of Calvin's commentary and the King James version in these two verses. Here is Calvin,

Salutate Andronicum et Juniam, cognatos meos et cocaptivos meos, qui sunt insignes inter Apostolos, qui etiam ante me fuerunt in Christo. Romans 16:7

Docere autem muliere non permitto, neque auctoritatem sibi sumere in virum, sed quietam esse. 1 Tim. 2:12

To tell you the truth, I am not sure why Denny Burk does not compare the wording of the NIV 2011 with the King James Bible, Luther's Bible and Calvin's Latin translation. He would see that Luther did not hesitate to translate the word used for "human being" in Greek with a word used for "human being" in German. I see no reason why such instances in English find themselves in Wayne Grudem's list of "inaccuracies."

Denny also claims that the generic "he" pronoun is understood today. That may be so, but here I have listed those preachers who did not understand that the masculine pronoun in English does not translate a semantically masculine pronoun in Greek, notably Russell Moore, who wrote,

Male headship is strictly defined in Scripture as the opposite of a grasp for power. The headship of men in the church and home is rooted everywhere in Scripture in protection and provision. This is why the apostle Paul calls the man who will not provide for his family "worse than an unbeliever" (1 Tim 5:8 ESV).

In fact, this passage contains no reference to a "man" or to an implied "he" at all. I have been thinking that this verse has been reinterpreted to fill a felt need. Certain complementarians may have felt that there ought to be a verse in the Bible which states that the man is the provider, and so this verse has been brought in the fill the gap.

I don't want to be unkind to Denny's review, but I do wish that the CBMW would be open to review.

Is the Bible sufficient?

2011-06-05T21:32:00.000-07:00

I want to thank those who vote me into the top 10 biblioblogs. I heretofore promise that, to the best of my ability, I will attempt to keep the Bible and women, sometimes separately and sometimes together, as the recurring theme of this blog.

Tonight, I want to write about the National Geographic article on child brides. It will make you cry, whoever you are. Here is the part which relates to my view of the Bible,

"If there were any danger in early marriage, Allah would have forbidden it," a Yemeni member of parliament named Mohammed Al-Hamzi told me in the capital city of Sanaa one day. "Something that Allah himself did not forbid, we cannot forbid." Al-Hamzi, a religious conservative, is vigorously opposed to the legislative efforts in Yemen to prohibit marriage for girls below a certain age (17, in a recent version), and so far those efforts have met with failure.

Islam does not permit marital relations before a girl is physically ready, he said, but the Holy Koran contains no specific age restrictions and so these matters are properly the province of family and religious guidance, not national law. Besides, there is the matter of the Prophet Muhammad's beloved Ayesha—nine years old, according to the conventional account, when the marriage was consummated.

Just because something is not in the scriptures, does that mean that it is okay? Is it right and proper to allow girls under 18 to marry? But Jesus did not rail against this, nor Paul either. Isn't it right and proper to grant a divorce to a woman who has been beaten by her husband, even if such an allowance is not in the Bible?

Sure, we here in the west would say that the Koran is not sufficient, but is the Bible sufficient? Perhaps what I mean is, is the Bible explicit enough? I don't think so.

On the other hand, the Bible clearly articulates the ethos that we should love the one next to us as ourselves. We should love our fellow human being as ourselves. We should treat our husband or wife in such a way as to give them the happiness they desire, at the same time respecting our own dignity and integrity. We should care for those who lack food, education and health care, at the same time guarding our own power and ability to be helpful, to provide.

These are the big questions, the ones I am struggling with. The Bible is not sufficient, we need to interpret the Bible through the prism of the command of Christ. Ironically, this command is also found clearly articulated in all the great religions.

The Inverse Danvers Statement

2011-06-05T21:17:00.000-07:00

I find this to be very cleverly done. I know it may seem to be ridiculing this belief, but I hope that it is not seen as cruel, but just as an alternative look at how scripture could be selected and prioritized. No sin in that, surely.

However, I am not sure if one very important verse is used to advantage. 1 Tim. 5:14, says, in the most literal translation possible,

"I am minded, therefore, that the younger ones marry, bear children, be head of the house, - giving no single occasion, unto the opposer, as a cause of reviling;" (adapted from Rotherham)

Here is the inverse Danvers Statement, and here is the original Danvers Statement.

Origen on Phoebe

2011-06-03T23:57:00.001-07:00

Daniel Kirk has blogged briefly about Origen's commentary on Romans 16:1-2,

Romans 16:1-2 reads:

“I commend to you our sister Phoebe, who is also a minister of the church at Cenchreae: that you receive her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints and that you help her in whatever matter in which she may have need of you. For she has been a helper of many, including myself.”

Upon which Origen commented as follows:

This passage teaches with apostolic authority that women are likewise appointed to the ministry of the church. (Origen, Comm. Rom. 10.17.2)

I responded with this comment,

I think it is likely that prostatis refers back to ezer in Genesis, although that is translated as beothos.

What is really interesting is that Christ was addressed as prostates and boethos in Clement. These two words βοηθος and πρστατης are used as titles for Christ alongside “saviour” and “high priest.” Here is how the words were used in 1 Clement 36:1.

Αυτη η οδος, αγαπητοι, εν η ευρομεν το σωτεριον ημων, Ιησουν Χρστον, τον αρχιερεα των προσφορων ημων, τον προστατην και βοηθον της ασθενειας ημων.

This is the way, beloved, in which we found our salvation; even Jesus Christ, the high priest of our oblations, the champion and defender of our weakness. tr. Charles Hoole 1885
This is the way, dearly beloved, wherein we found our salvation, even Jesus Christ the High priest of our offerings, the Guardian and Helper of our weakness.tr. J. B. Lightfoot.

Along with examples of women as an apostle and prophet, I fail to find that the scriptures place women beneath men in the church.

Here is an article I wrote a couple of years ago on this topic.

Banker to the Poor

2011-06-02T18:44:00.001-07:00

This book is on my "to read" list. I mention it today, because I want to recognize the essential role of those men who champion women's empowerment and access to equal resources. Even though I strongly believe that women are to help other women, in a man's world, women do experience validation through the support of men. In fact, it is probably impossible for women to take on an expanded role in many domains without the acquiesence and encouragement of at least some men.

Mitt Romney

2011-06-02T17:59:00.000-07:00

A provocative article,

To many voters, Romney and Huntsman therefore raise a thorny question: is it wrong to oppose candidates because you dislike or fundamentally disagree with their faith? Some would call that bigotry; others a matter of personal judgment. Either way, when voters explore LDS theology, a good portion seems to decide that the basic premise of the faith is so stupendously unlikely that the judgment of anyone who buys into it is fundamentally flawed.

Latter-day Saints believe that in 1827, Smith, a farmer's son from upstate New York, experienced a revelation in which Moroni (the angel from Salt Lake City's temple) appeared and told him to dig a hole in a local hillside. He apparently discovered a book made from golden plates inscribed with illegible hieroglyphics. By using some diamond-encrusted spectacles and occasionally peering into a hat that had a brown rock in the bottom of it, he mysteriously found himself able translate these elaborate symbols. The result, when the golden plates were fully transcribed, was a new scripture: The Book of Mormon.

Mormons study this text in tandem with the Old and New Testaments, as a sort of third holy book. While the Bible is set largely in the Middle East, Smith's creation tells a history of the Americas from 600BC to roughly AD400. It posits that, after his resurrection, Jesus visited the continent for a period of weeks or months. The fundamentals of how their church is organised and the moral code by which members are expected to live are outlined in the Doctrine and Covenants.

When first written, a good portion of the Doctrine and Covenants was devoted to an endorsement of polygamy, which Mormons practiced energetically during the first 60 years of their church's existence. Other bits railed against tea, coffee and alcohol. But in time, the polygamous lifestyle began to attract criticism. Fortunately, Latter-day Saints believe that the covenants can be amended whenever the church's serving president announces that God has instructed him to make an alteration.

Such an event occurred in the 1890s, when Utah wanted to join the US but was prevented from doing so because of hostility towards polygamy. Essentially, the church announced that God decided suddenly to declare the practice immoral (the roughly 30,000 surviving polygamists in Utah are members of fundamentalist sects). It occurred again in the 1970s, when society became uneasy about a Mormon doctrine that banned people of colour from the priesthood; again, God authorised a change that opened it up to "all worthy males".

On a spiritual front, Mormons are encouraged to follow a moral code akin to evangelical Christians, who believe abortion, swearing and sex outside of marriage is bad news. The faith is focused around family life and three-hour church services each Sunday are presided over by a lay ministry of male patriarchs. Provided members pray regularly and follow the church's moral code, they expect, after death, to spend eternity in a multi-tiered Heaven, alongside their extended families.

Do Romney and Huntsman buy into this? We must accept that they do. Is that a big deal? Some theologians believe so. A religion which still accepts the possibility of divine inspiration can present conflicts of interest for a head of state. "If you're a mainstream Christian, you can say that you simply believe in the New Testament, God has said all he's going to say. In the LDS, that isn't the case," Kathleen Flake, a professor of US Religious History at Vanderbilt University, said. "They believe the leader of the church today still literally speaks to God."

What would happen, therefore, if a church leader instructed a Mormon president to nuke Iran? In theory, the president would have to push the red button. What might occur if a Mormon president conducted foreign policy according to instincts derived from his faith? On paper, given the church's belief that Jesus visited the Americas, he would set great store by the concept of American exceptionalism. Most pressingly, can a man who belives in the fundamental truth of a Victorian story that revolves around gold-detecting angels and buried treasure do the most important job in the world? In 18 months, we may find out.

Fighting Poverty

2011-06-02T03:35:00.000-07:00

If we were half serious about fighting poverty, we would make women the major decision-makers for the family. This is what the research says. I cringe when I read it, but I don't dare contradict it. This does not mean that those who want to keep men in the role of major decision-maker for the family wish to promote poor nutrition, illiteracy and poverty. They are rather promoting the notion that it is more godly to try and change the way men make decisions, than to shift decision-making over to women.

However, microfinance is a powerful tool to shift resources and decision-making for those resources over to women. It can be done. Christianity sometimes changes the way men make decisions, and sometimes it doesn't. It is an iffy proposition.

Here are Kristof and WuDunn on this topic,

WHY DO MICROFINANCE organizations usually focus their assistance on women? And why does everyone benefit when women enter the work force and bring home regular pay checks? One reason involves the dirty little secret of global poverty: some of the most wretched suffering is caused not just by low incomes but also by unwise spending by the poor — especially by men. Surprisingly frequently, we’ve come across a mother mourning a child who has just died of malaria for want of a $5 mosquito bed net; the mother says that the family couldn’t afford a bed net and she means it, but then we find the father at a nearby bar. He goes three evenings a week to the bar, spending $5 each week.
Our interviews and perusal of the data available suggest that the poorest families in the world spend approximately 10 times as much (20 percent of their incomes on average) on a combination of alcohol, prostitution, candy, sugary drinks and lavish feasts as they do on educating their children (2 percent). If poor families spent only as much on educating their children as they do on beer and prostitutes, there would be a breakthrough in the prospects of poor countries. Girls, since they are the ones kept home from school now, would be the biggest beneficiaries. Moreover, one way to reallocate family expenditures in this way is to put more money in the hands of women. A series of studies has found that when women hold assets or gain incomes, family money is more likely to be spent on nutrition, medicine and housing, and consequently children are healthier.
In Ivory Coast, one research project examined the different crops that men and women grow for their private kitties: men grow coffee, cocoa and pineapple, and women grow plantains, bananas, coconuts and vegetables. Some years the “men’s crops” have good harvests and the men are flush with cash, and other years it is the women who prosper. Money is to some extent shared. But even so, the economist Esther Duflo of M.I.T. found that when the men’s crops flourish, the household spends more money on alcohol and tobacco. When the women have a good crop, the households spend more money on food. “When women command greater power, child health and nutrition improves,” Duflo says.

And here is a contrasting message from True Woman,

God never intended for us to have to run it all, ladies. His intent was for us to follow our husband’s lead in willing submission. To be sure, any wise husband will want to utilize his wife’s gifts and strengths for the good of the family, but the role of final decision maker and leader for the family rests with the husband.

Some cultures are more matriarchal; and in these cases wives must work hard to resist that natural inclination to take the ball and run with it. We need to empower our men to lead by encouraging them where we see sparks of leadership potential. And we must work hard not to criticize when their efforts at leading fall short. This can be especially difficult if your husband has never accepted the mantle of leadership before.

One thing I felt strongly from the stories in Kristof and WuDunn's book is that as the women gained power and earned money, their husbands treated them better and gained self-respect at the same time - that is everyone benefitted from empowering women.

It is important that the money be given as a loan requiring investment and control. If the money had simply been donated, the husband could co-opt it.

Biblical Womanhood

2011-06-01T19:14:00.000-07:00

I enjoy reading posts from Carolyn, Rachel, and Mary, with their diverse insights into biblical womanhood. It got me thinking about it in more concrete and down to earth terms. What do I think biblical womanhood is?

First and foremost, I think it is caring for others, fulfilling one's God-given and natural responsibility to protect and provide. But first one has to care for oneself, one's own health and well-being in order to do that. So the best part of the past four years has been about getting back on my feet. It's still a struggle some days, but it's okay.

But I blog about that theme quite a bit. Its the overriding theme of this blog. Being a woman means that, like men, we take care of others. And that's another theme - to have more feeling with men rather than in contrast to men.

However, today I was thinking in more concrete terms. What kind of physical activities belong with historic biblical womanhood. And here is a great site to give us insight. It opens,

Work, especially food production, was necessary for survival. No one was exempt. Most of the population worked in their village or on the land around it - even children worked beside their parents in the fields and in the home.

When the grain had been winnowed, it had to be ground to separate the hard outer shell from the flour. In earlier times, and in many small communities, this work was done by women. They ground the grain into a course flour using a pestle and mortar, before preparing the dough and baking it.

For Proverbs 31, it adds,

keeping herself physically and mentally strong and fit
giving religious instruction to her children: she was their first teacher
gathering food and assembling a varied and healthy diet for the members of the household
administering the finances of the family and overseeing the family business
buying investment property wisely
supervising investments then re-investing the profits
performing charitable work and caring for the poor
organizing and supervising the tasks of all servants
overseeing the emotional and physical well-being of all the members of the household
being available at all times to anyone who needed her.
Women were largely responsible for production of clothing in all stages of manufacture. They
* shared responsibility for tending the animals in the flock
* sorted and carded the wood after the goats and sheep had been shorn
* spun the wool into lengths of fabric
* grew and harvested flax for linen
* dried the flax
* carded and spun the flax into either fine or coarse linen strips (linen produced by the Egyptians could be woven finer than the fabric in a modern handkerchief).
* prepared dyes of various colors. in the flock
* sorted and carded the wood after the goats and sheep had been shorn
* spun the wool into lengths of fabric
* grew and harvested flax for linen
* dried the flax
* carded and spun the flax into either fine or coarse linen strips (linen produced by the Egyptians could be woven finer than the fabric in a modern handkerchief).
* prepared dyes of various colors.

I confess - I was intensely interested in some of these crafts at one time. I was raised to sew all my own clothes, knit, embroider and bake bread, etc. so that was nothing new. But as a young adult, I learned to card wool, spin it, dye it with beautiful lichen-based dyes, knit and weave. I don't have the leisure time for this right now, but I know their appeal.

However, the biblical woman worked in the field, cared for animals, spun, wove and sewed, made tents, pitched tents, folded tents, fed the family and produced goods for trading. Whew.

Co-providers

2011-05-31T20:11:00.000-07:00

Here is a comment I recently made on Denny Burk's blog. Of course, I think it is supremely silly to try to raise a child without others knowing its sex, but I can't think that that will last very long! But Denny wrote,

God’s design for us as sexual beings has implications for how we rear our children. For instance, I have a little boy, and it falls to me to teach him how to be a man—how to lead, to provide, and to protect. It is my responsibility as a parent to guide and shape his character as best I can so that he will be a protector of women, not an abuser of them. I am to model for him that sometimes being a man means going without so as to provide for others. I am to teach him that working and earning a living is a part of what it means to be the provider God has called him to be.

And that's great! Amen to that. But women have to earn a living also. Women in the Bible all worked to provide for their families. Much of the time they needed a man, because only men could own property. Not always, but most of the time this was so. However, women always worked. They were shepherds and farmers, spinners and weavers, potters and prophets - women worked to provide for their family.

Anywaaaaay .... I wrote,

I really want to speak to some realities that women my age were not well prepared for. More than half of women my age are the major providers for their own family, both children and parents. This is due to divorce, death, injury, unemployment, illness, financially risky behaviour and many other real life factors.

At the same time, we women, unsupported financially by men, must invest for our own pension, provide major funding for our children’s university education, provide housing for aging parents, create trust funds for severely disabled children, care for spouses and siblings where necessary.

Being able to provide is a major issue, the most important thing we do. We are all on a crash course, back to work, learning to invest wisely, creating the kind of profile that enables us to provide for those we need to care for.

Many recently published books demonstrate that this is an international tendency – women provide.

On the one hand, it is a very necessary message that men need to provide and protect … I applaud that!

On the other hand, the reality is that women also provide and protect in very real ways, they devote every waking hour to providing for their family in the same way that men to, by providing financially and with guidance and leadership for children, parents, etc.

We, women who are primary providers, want men to show an understanding of our common humanity, men recognizing women as fellow providers, as fellow human beings,fully responsible leaders in the family, this is what women want – they just want recognition for what they are already committed to doing.

So, yes, men and women are different. However, we were both created with equal ability to protect, provide and lead.

May we be friends, us men and women. Can't we accept each other as friends and colleagues, as those who share the same worries and concerns, the same burdens for family, for our neighbours, for others around the world. Ideally, yes, there would be a couple, a man and a woman, but if we are not so blessed, let us be content to be friends, not ever excluding each other from intimacy and burden-sharing.

Beautiful for her husband?

2011-05-29T02:05:00.000-07:00

Rachel Held Evans, also here, Tim Challies and Mary Kassian have been blogging about whether a biblical woman needs to keep herself outwardly beautiful for her husband. I don't see any reason why we cannot discuss matters of grooming and hygiene on the internet, but I think they are best treated in a more segregated forum. It has the feel of a woman's magazine, and I can hardly think of any way to associate this kind of thing with the Bible.

Rather, a Christian woman thinks of her home and children, and she cares for those less fortunate than herself. If she thinks also of pleasing her husband, that is only a wordly distraction from filling the day with those things that please God.

Kassian writes,

Human sexuality is a parable —a testimony to the character of God and to His spectacular plan of redemption through Jesus. This spiritual truth is so magnificent that God chose to put it on display permanently. Everywhere. Men were created to reflect the strength, love and self-sacrifice of Christ. Women were created to reflect the grace and beauty of the Bride He redeemed.

We need to be clear about this. This kind of theology has no origin in the Bible. In the Bible men and women are both "beautiful." Among those called beautiful are Sarah, Rachel, Joseph, David, Abigail, Abishag, Absalom and his daughter Tamar, and Esther. Also the king of Tyre. Ezekiel 28. The lovers in Song of Solomon call each other beautiful.

In the Bible, men and women are both called strong and mighty. Ruth and the woman of Proverbs 31 are both chayil, that is "mighty." In Proverbs 31 the woman also has strong arms.

But Mary Kassian writes,

I believe that men are “wired” to be attracted to beauty in women because our Heavenly Bridegroom desires the beauty of His Bride.

But the scripture says,

Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised. Proverbs 31:30.

However, there is a spiritual beauty, the beauty of holiness and compassion. This is what makes us desire God.

One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple. Ps. 27:4.

A proper view of Christian sexuality does not require men to be the lords and redeemers of women, and women to reflect sinful lost souls. On the other hand, a healthy sexuality is one where each partner nurtures the other, and shelters them with their love.

Half the Sky

2011-05-29T01:08:00.000-07:00

Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn should be required reading for anyone writing about the role of women. Kristof and WuDunn write about sex slavery, gender violence and injury and death due to child-bearing.

While the authors commend the presence and dedication of those conservative Christians who provide assistance of various kinds to women on an international level, they speak unequivocally for true gender equality. They write,

"Empowerment" is a cliché in the aid community, but it is truly what is needed. The first step toward greater justice is to transform that culture of female docility and subservience, so that women themselves become more assertive and demanding. As we said earlier, that is, of course, easy for outsiders like us to say: We're not the ones who run horrible risks for speaking up. But when a woman does stand up, it is imperative that outsiders champion her, we also must nurture institutions to protect such people. Sometimes we may even need to provide asylum for those whose lives are in danger. More broadly, the single most important way to encourage women and girls to stand up for their rights is education, and we can do far more to promote universal education in poor countries.

Ultimately, women like those in Kasturba Nagar need to join the human rights revolution themselves. They constitute part of the answer to the problem: There will be less trafficking and less rape if more women stop turning the other cheek and begin slapping back. (page 53)

If you don't think that standing up for your own rights is modeled by the apostles in the scripture, then you may have forgotten Acts 22.

The chief captain commanded him to be brought into the castle, and bade that he should be examined by scourging; that he might know wherefore they cried so against him.
²⁵And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said unto the centurion that stood by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned?
²⁶When the centurion heard that, he went and told the chief captain, saying, Take heed what thou doest: for this man is a Roman.
²⁷Then the chief captain came, and said unto him, Tell me, art thou a Roman? He said, Yea.
²⁸And the chief captain answered, With a great sum obtained I this freedom. And Paul said, But I was free born.
²⁹Then straightway they departed from him which should have examined him: and the chief captain also was afraid, after he knew that he was a Roman, and because he had bound him.
³⁰On the morrow, because he would have known the certainty wherefore he was accused of the Jews, he loosed him from his bands, and commanded the chief priests and all their council to appear, and brought Paul down, and set him before them.

The Bible is full of women who demanded their rights, women who petitioned judges and kings, women who pleaded with God for a child, who deceived and seduced in order to bear a child. Unfortunately, there are few tales of women resisting violence. There is no story in the Bible of a woman simply refusing to live a life of violence. Or have I missed that?

Women were created to imitate who?

2011-05-05T22:18:00.000-07:00

On the CBMW blog Mary Kassian writes,

Human sexuality is a parable -a testimony to the character of God and to His spectacular plan of redemption through Jesus. This spiritual truth is so magnificent that God chose to put it on display permanently. Everywhere. Men were created to reflect the strength, love and self-sacrifice of Christ. Women were created to reflect the grace and beauty of the Bride He redeemed.

We need to understand that men and women are both in equal measure created to reflect strength, love and self-sacrifice. Anyone who does not understand this has misunderstood the most fundamental reality of being human, as well as the significance of believing in humans as created in the image of God. Nothing is more fundamental to human nature than having the strength to care for those we love. This is what it means to be created in the image of God.

While I believe that a sense of grace and beauty, an aesthetic awareness and desire to create beauty is given in equal measure to men and women, I do not believe that the basic daily function of men is impaired if they are not encouraged in this direction. However, women who are taught that they do not have the same potential for strength, love and self-sacrifice, are being mislead in a basic way.

I am so sorry to read these things. I am so sorry that young women are being taught such doctrines. My heart goes out to readers of this teaching. The Bible does not attribute strength or the ability to provide to men over women. This is not to be found in the Bible. On the contrary, in Proverbs 31 we read of the eshet chayil, which literally translated is the "mighty woman." I don't think a literal Bible translation actually exists. It is too bad.

Order of Service for the Royal wedding

2011-04-29T23:57:00.000-07:00

Here is the order of service for the Royal wedding. Today, in front of 2 billion people, the natural heir of the King James Bible was read aloud. James Middleton, brother of Kate Middleton, read from Romans 12 in the New Revised Standard Version. From today on the standard has been established that the scriptures addressed brothers and sisters equally. From today on, those who read the word of God, those who hear the word of God, will expect to hear "sisters" along with "brothers."

Perhaps the most beautiful thing about this wedding was the sense of equality and friendship between brothers, between brothers and sisters, between bride and groom. There is perhaps no other phrase which is so evocative of Christian love between members of the opposite sex, as the phrase "brothers and sisters."

But did the Greek scriptures contain that phrase? Yes, they did. The Greek word adelphoi, had already been used to refer to another couple, a couple not blessed with happiness, but a couple who were both brother and sister from birth, and husband and wife (although there is no evidence that this union was consumated.) Cleopatra and Ptolemy were called adelphoi, that is brother and sister.

When the apostle Paul used this word adelphoi, he was using a word that that had the accepted usage of "brothers and sisters." From Saint Paul to the Royal wedding, from adelphoi to "brethren" to "brothers and sisters", the tradition is unbroken.

The Liddell, Scott Lexicon is widely accepted by Bible scholars as the most authoritative lexicon of ancient Greek, including New Testament Greek, and it has recorded the meaning of adelphoi as "brothers and sisters" at least back to 1871. (Previous lexicons were from Greek into Latin.)

a promise to obey the Holy Virgin

2011-04-10T23:42:00.000-07:00

Don't take this as some kind of endorsement, but I do think that there was a loss of metaphorical female authority in the Reformation. Martin Luther's vows are described as follows,

"I, brother Martin, profess and promise to obey the Almighty God and the Holy Virgin, and you, brother Winand, prior of this monastery, in the name of the vicar-general of order ... and to live without property and in chastity according to the rule of St. Augustin ... unto death."

From page 136 in Young Man Luther.

David Norton on Pagninus

2011-04-09T12:02:00.000-07:00

I have contended for some time, that no translation in the Reformation was "from the original languages." Over the last few years, I have been surprised that so little attention is paid to the two most influential translations which precede the first translation into English not made from the Vulgate. They are Erasmus' Latin translation of the New Testament, and Pagninus' Latin translation of the Hebrew Bible. Most printed Bibles in Greek and Hebrew had a Latin translation as either an interlinear or as a parallel column. Translators into English usually worked from a text which had a Latin translation, usually derived from or influenced by these two translations, Erasmus and Pagninus.

David Nortion who has written The King James Bible: A Short History from Tyndale to Today wrote,

The Hebrew and Greek were often printed with other versions, notably Latin versions. These were of great use for translators, for Latin was the international vernacular of scholarship. The polyglots, the Complutensian and Plantin’s Antwerp polyglot (1569–72), included other ancient versions with sometimes interlinear Latin translations. Erasmus’s NT had his Latin translation, the Novum Instrumentum, in a parallel column.

Sanctes Pagninus’s extremely literal Latin translation, Veteris et Novi Testamenti nova translatio (1528), was highly influential, not just its literal Latin translation of the OT (other versions superseded its NT), but also because of its extensive use of rabbinic sources. Translators in several languages found their teacher in Pagninus. Coverdale was one such; the Bishops’ Bible translators were instructed to follow Pagninus and Münster ‘for the verity of the Hebrew’, and the KJB drew on Pagninus for some readings.6 Sebastian Münster had published an annotated Latin version of the OT, printed alongside the Hebrew in 1535 which also drew extensively on rabbinic sources. Though his translation did not have the enduring success of Pagninus’s, his annotations were long valued.

The Zurich Latin Bible of 1543 included a new translation of the Apocrypha, and a revised version of Erasmus’s Latin NT. The latest of these influential, annotated, Jewish-influenced Latin OTs was the work of Immanuel Tremellius and his son-in-law Franciscus Junius. It included translations of the OT, the Peshitta NT and the Apocrypha. The main new Latin version of the NT after Erasmus’s was Beza’s (1557); both included annotations and were frequently reprinted.

Presentation often enhanced the value of these versions, for they were usually presented as cribs. Ways of highlighting the connections between the Latin and the original languages were developed. The Complutensian Polyglot tied the words of the NT to the Vulgate by using superscript letters: the reader had only to glance from the Greek in the left column to the Latin in the right to see which word represented which.7 Interlinear texts were even easier to use. After the publication of Pagninus’s translation, 1528, few, perhaps none of the translators would have found themselves working from the original languages alone, aided by nothing more than grammars and dictionaries, and never would they have found themselves working without an already vast knowledge of the text in their heads: most knew the Vulgate intimately.
From the unknown first Hebrew writer to Beza, all these men contributed, directly or indirectly, to the KJB. Many more, especially continental vernacular translators such as Martin Luther and the makers of dictionaries, grammars and concordances, should be added, but this is sufficient to give a sense of the books the English translators worked from.

What Jimmy Carter said

2011-04-08T21:07:00.000-07:00

I was in a rush this morning so I did not cite Carter, but here is what he said. It is worth reading the full article. I have not seen an actual transcription of his speech or interview, but this gives a good idea. Here are a few paragraphs. First, he does explicitly mention Christians, not just religion, any religion. He centres out the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention. He said,

“In Christian communities, as well, there is gross discrimination against women. Our people at the Carter Center believe that women should be treated equally in the eyes of God and that includes Islam and also Christianity and other religions. But, as you know, [in] the Catholic Church, they practically worship the Virgin Mary, but won’t let a woman be a priest,” he added. ...
“The discrimination against women on a global basis is almost attributable to the declaration by religious leaders in Christianity, Islam and other religions that women are inferior in the eyes of God, and this gives men a right to abuse women, whether it’s the husband beating up his wife or depriving a woman of her basic rights,” he added.

Meanwhile, in his keynote address Carter said his own Southern Baptist Convention leaders ordained, in recent years, that women must be “subservient” to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors, chaplains in the military service, or teachers of men.

He said they based this on a few carefully selected quotations from St. Paul and also the book of Genesis claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin. Carter said this was in conflict with his belief that we are all equal in the eyes of God.

The former president said this view that God considers women to be inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or tradition. Its influence does not stop at the walls of the church, mosque, synagogue, or temple. Women, he stated, are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths creating an environment in which violations against women are justified.

It is worth pointing out that Carter is explicitly saying that it is the selection of passages which discrminates against women. There are only two verses usually cited to restrict women from ministry. And yet there are many examples of women who are clearly leaders in ministry. There are many verses about treating others as you want to be treated, about esteeming others greater than oneself, about submitting one to another.

This is the point. It is not the Bible per se, or relgion itself, but it is the way the Bible is used. It is the choice that people make to focus on two verses at the expense of other verses, verses which state that both men and women will prophecy, that say both men and women proclaim the good news.

The two verses, 2 Tim. 2:12, and 1 Cor. 14;35 both pose difficulties of interpretation. In the case of the former, the translation has been altered. It used to say that a women may not be the lord of the man, or usurp authority, but now in many recent translations, it says that a woman may not "exercise authority." Who selected this text and changed the translation? That is what Jimmy Carter is talking about.

Jimmy Carter blasts religion

2011-04-08T07:41:00.000-07:00

I hereby confess that I read about this on Kurk's blog, and did not link back to him, since I was rushing out to work.

Jimmy Carter has spoken out again. In case some don't understand how he attributes wife abuse to religious leaders, let me cite Bruce Ware on this topic,

in a sermon at the Denton Bible Church, June 22, 2008. According to Ware, men ought to assert their leadership, and women ought not to challenge this. Otherwise who knows what may happen. Since Ware and others claim women are designed for submission under men, I do think one can say that this implies that women are designed for the inferior position. It has something to do with carrying weight on our hips. But what about women who don't carry weight on their hips? What about men who do?

brothers and sisters

2011-04-07T19:26:00.000-07:00

This is from the Liddell Scott Lexicon printed to be used in schools in 1879 in the United States for those preparing to go to university. How is it that so few people actually believe that the first and most literal meaning of adelphoi truly is "brothers and sisters?"

On Women

2011-04-06T22:18:00.000-07:00

There have been a myriad of posts about women in the bibliosphere over the last week or so. I have also just finished reading Nomad by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and it has lead me to think a lot about what we should be doing in the west in order to foster better circumstances for women in other countries. I found one answer in Daniel Kirk's thoughtful review here and here of Half the Church by Carolyn Custis James.

I had been thinking that perhaps women have it so well in the west that we should just be grateful for what we do have, and concentrate on how one can contribute to improving things for women in other parts of the world. I was thinking that perhaps continuing to fight for equality in the context of the North American church was trivial in comparison to what is going on elsewhere. Perhaps even counter productive. However, Daniel Kirk writes,

As James’ own stories show, failure to ordain women, failure to treat women as equal, is not good news to women. The church in North America will fail to be the champion of justice for women as long as it continues to teach, preach, and embody the very patriarchal system that creates the injustices she has denounced around the world. This book is about the unimpeachable, biblical importance of women–but, I fear, only for the 2/3 world “out there”, not the 1/3 or the 1% who are subjected to the power of patriarchal systems here at home.

So perhaps, on the other hand, it is important to continue to champion equality in the church for women here in North America, as an important factor which can influence equality for women elsewhere. Perhaps, if the church in the west recognizes women as truly equal, rather than uniquely destined for submission, we can rise above Islam in a significant way. I don't want some man in another country saying to his wife "see, even in America, women have to submit."

Craig is offering a giveaway copy of Half the Church. Go here for the rules. I know most of them are impossible for me but have a try.

In the same week, TC has also blogged about women preachers, and Jennifer mentioned her own post on this topic. If you are a woman in ministry, or hoping to be so, this post is for you. I hope that Shirley and Jennifer read each others blogs. No one brings more passion to this topic than Shirley.

At the same time, the issue of female bibliobloggers has come up again. Kurk has blogged about it here, here, here and here. Rod of Alexandria starts a campaign for more women bibliobloggers. I also shake my head in bewilderment as I see my name among the top ten bibliobloggers by vote again. Thank you so much. You know who you.

Why not choose the ESV for your church

2011-04-04T20:54:00.000-07:00

If someone were to ask me which translation to use in an evangelical church today, I would suggest either the NRSV or the NIV 2011. I am guessing that the latter version would have more appeal, as the NIV has been for some time a popular choice among evangelicals. However, recently there has been an upswing of interest in the ESV as the more accurate translation. In my view, this is not the case.

The way I see it is that the ESV, like the RSV and the NRSV, has maintained the general style of the King James Bible which is still familiar to and respected by many. Although the ESV has the style of the KJB, it does not communicate gender in an accurate manner. If someone truly wants a Bible in that tradition, I would heartily recommend the NRSV.

However, I am aware that many people would rather have a Bible that is more closely associated with the evangelical community than the NRSV, and the NIV certainly is. So the NIV 2011 is really a perfect choice at this time.

Here are some passages where there is a significant difference in the way gender is treated in the ESV and the NIV2011.

1 Tim. 2:12

I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. ESV

I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. NIV 2011

There are three different ways that this verse has been translated. First, it occurs as the Latin equivalent of "to be the lord of" in the Vulgate, then "usurp authority" in the KJV and now "exercise authority" in the ESV. There is no reason to think that the word had the positive connotation of "to exercise authority" and so the NIV 2011 is closer to the KJV and to the original meaning than the ESV. Women need to have whatever authority is commensurate with their responsibilities in exactly the same way that men do. Neither men nor women should use authority in a negative way, or domineer over the other.

2 Tim. 2:2

and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. ESV

And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others. NIV 2011

The Greek word in this verse translated as "men" is actually anthropos, which means, quite simply, "people" or "human beings." There is no justification at all for the ESV to use the word "men" in English here. This kind of pattern is repeated throughout the ESV, where a word that means "people" is translated as "men." The ESV hides from the reader that the word in Greek means "people."

1 Tim. 5:8

But if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for members of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. ESV

Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. NIV 2011

The Greek word which is translated as "anyone" means what it says - anyone. It does not refer to a male only and in the Greek of this passage, there are no masculine pronouns or masculine indicators of any kind. This verse does not refer to men as the providers in the home, but assigns equal responsibility to both men and women. The NIV2011 avoids the misunderstanding often caused by the masculine pronouns of the ESV.

In addition to this, the Greek word adelphoi was translated in the King James Bible as "brethren." However, in Greek this word applied to the brothers and sisters in one family. In reality the word always has meant "brothers and sisters." This is a more accurate translation of the Greek.

Romans 16:7

Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners. They are well known to the apostles, and they were in Christ before me. ESV

Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was. NIV 2011

There is no evidence to suggest that Junia was not an apostle. It is better to stick with the historic understanding in both the Latin Vulgate and in the King James Bible, that Junia was an apostle.

May I commend to you the NIV 2011 or the NRSV, and gender inclusive Bibles in general, which do, in fact, reflect the Greek of the original in a better fashion than our traditional Bibles do.

Blogging heaven and hell: 8

2011-03-29T19:51:00.000-07:00

Mike blogged about Robin Parry's book The Evangelical Universalist and mentioned a couple of his main points. However, I feel that a few more could be touched on. Parry makes several claims. One is that scripture passages disagree - we have scriptures on both sides of this debate. It is simply a matter of which verses one decides to give priority too. Parry argues that four key texts teach universal salvation.

Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. Rom 5:18

For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. 1 Cor. 15:22

and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Col. 1:20

and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Phil. 2:11

Parry goes on to argue that these texts do not disagree with the teaching of the Bible on judgement and hell, if we understand that hell does not last for ever. Judgement is corrective and restorative, rather than eternal and destructive. Parry acknowledges that it is retributive, but comments that it is both retributive and restorative at the same time. One example of this would be in 1 Tim. 1,

Timothy, my son, I am giving you this command in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by recalling them you may fight the battle well, holding on to faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and so have suffered shipwreck with regard to the faith. Among them are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme.

Justice is both being handed over to Satan and it is corrective. A similar but clearer statement is made in 1 Cor. 5:5,

hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord.

Second, Parry argues that God's justice must accord with our sense of justice. Here I divert from Parry and explain in my own words what I think he is saying.

We must think of God as a moral and ethical being. If we saw someone doing something that would lead to their death, we would forcibly prevent them from doing this action. We would forcibly prevent someone from committing suicide if we could. How much more then should God forcibly prevent us from doing something that would send us to an eternity of torment.

We would not stand by and watch our own children commit suicide and simply say that they had chosen it. If we cannot pattern our most loving and ethical relations after our sense of who God is, then of what value is our understanding of God.

So for Parry, universal salvation along with a consuming and corrective judgement for sin, best suits the scriptures and best meets what we understand the Bible to be telling us who God is.

The last point for Parry is that universal salvation best fits the metanarrative of the Bible. He sees the Bible as being composed of three central narratives. The first is the fall of humanity from immortality, the second is the exile of Israel, third is the death of Christ. Christ rises from the dead, Israel is restored o the land and humanity is saved from eternal death.

I would add to this that a strong argument for universal salvation is that in the Hebrew Bible there is no direct teaching of eternal conscious torment. If in fact, Old Testament sinners were punished with eternal conscious torment, it would have been without being warned of their fate. It appears that they were simply told that they would be destroyed.

So my question is whether Christ came to bring salvation to the few and eternal conscious torment to the many, or if he came in order that all may be saved.

I have a strong concern that this is a matter of exegetical stalemate, and I regret to see evangelicals presented with the notion that only one side of this debate is valid and tenable. I am personally agnostic on this issue, but I was impressed by the passages that Parry presented and the coherence of his argument.

Blogging heaven and hell: 7

2011-03-21T04:08:00.000-07:00

Although it seems that this topic will tear us apart, will cause one half of us to excommunicate the other half, it is not so. There is also a drawing together, a communal recognition of what it means to be human.

As humans, we do not know what happens after death, and as humans we have pity for those whose life on earth is utterly devoid of comfort. We are constrained on the one hand by our own ignorance, and and on the other hand by pity for those in misery, for victims of the tsunami, victims of poverty and disease.

Dave Ker writes,

Making confident assertions about the afterlife is the ignorant declaiming on the unknowable. We might hope things are a certain way, or fear they’re another but at the end of the day we stand on the wrong side of the wall trying to describe the scenery on the other side based on what we can see around us.
That’s why we need to think seldom, and speak even less, on the subject of hell. Or Sheol. Or Gehenna. Or Abraham’s bosom. Or Paradise. Or Makarios.

Later he paints this picture, evoking both our compassion and ignorance,

A woman sits on a filthy grass mat in a dark and smoky hut. She is wailing because her child has died. Ants swarm beneath the mat and she keeps brushing them off the rag that she has wrapped around her. The husband is gone. He comes back only often enough to take any money she might have earned and beat her. He infects her with AIDS during the visit. Soon she will die too. Her body will probably be wrapped in that same tattered and filthy mat and carried to the burial grounds. From the time she was a child to her death in misery she has carried wood, carried water, squatted by a stinking fire, been sexually assaulted as a child, never touched a pillow, or a bar of scented soap. She’s haunted by fears of the night. Or witchdoctors. Of evil spirits. Of curses and wild animals. My question is this: could hell be worse? When she died and found herself in a place of torment would it be that much different from her short life of misery? She has not called on the name of the Lord. She has not said the sinner’s prayer. She has not believed on the one whom she has not heard. She’s doomed. And she is not alone. This planet groans with billions like her.

Bob writes,

I do think there is everlasting fire. The hope is a marvel. But the fire is one as God is one. There is not a fire of wrath in hot red darkness and a second fire of love too bright to look upon, but a single consuming fire and non-consuming fire that is one love. How that love works out in our lives is a complex and inexplicable thing that perhaps can only be known, like the white stone, by the one to whom it is given. This is a gift of a name worth having.

So we should preach heaven and hell but not in a trivial linear
fashion. There is a place where they meet - in the death of Jesus. The fire is a consuming fire and also a fire of recreation too bright to see at once but inviting a face to face engagement. A human's mind should be better than 'its own place that makes a hell of heaven and a heaven of hell'. A single self presented as a living offering will find it becomes proven, informed, inflamed,
by the prayer of the Spirit who gives life to a mortal body. This is prayer worth being known in.

Kurk and Rod blog about the famous sermon by Jonathon Edwards, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" --

Blogging heaven and hell: 6

2011-03-20T01:59:00.000-07:00

There have been a series of posts on Rob Bell on Denny's blog, on Jesus Creed and on many other blogs. I have also read with fascination Tim Keller's views on hell. And Kurk responds here.

But I want to add that in a coercive church atmosphere, the men suffer much more than the women, concerning beliefs and doctrines. A woman is silent, and sheltered in many ways. If her husband allows her to be queen to his king, in the home, then she is safe. But the husband has to have a doctrinal position in the church. He is subject to spiritual abuse. I have to admit that I find hell an equal opportunity weapon, and men suffer from it just the same as women. But the exegesis is different. I know how exegesis sends women to hell. I know how exegetes send women to hell. I am not so sure about the men.

It has been fascinating to watch how grown men, who should have other things to do on a Saturday night, stick handle women into hell, with a few clever passes. But some of us got the slap shot. Then there some players who were caught for high sticking. And the pious referees, were happy to hand out penalties but they never ever took a puck and said to that puck, you are a human also, you deserve to be a player.

But it seem to me that it is by a different and more varied process, that many men are also stick handled into hell. They don't play by the rules, that's it. Woe to them also. They start out as potential players, which women never are, they are the pucks. But the men, they start out as players, and them some of them find they can't stomach the rules, and they are demoted.

So, I won't claim that women are unique in their suffering.

Blogging heaven and hell: 5

2011-03-16T22:19:00.000-07:00

I used to hear when I was young that it couldn't hurt to preach hell. This is how it went. You tell someone that the consequence of doing something wrong, is spending eternity in hell. You tell people that if they accept Christ as Saviour and believe the Bible is the word of God, they will not go to hell. So now, how can that hurt. You have won someone to Christ and it doesn't really matter if hell exists or not. They are better off as a Christian in this life anyway.

So that was the theory. But I don't actually know anyone other than us kids, that is I don't know any adults, who became Christians because they were afraid of hell.

But I do know that hell had an enormous effect on my life nonetheless. And here is how. I remember being told on more than one occasion, "If you don't believe that a wife has to obey her husband, then you don't believe in the Bible, and you will go to hell."

On the one hand, I had a normal brain, and should have been able to shrug this one off. On the other hand, the belief in hell is very powerful, ingrained into us as young children, it is a significant weapon of coercion. We can see already by the comments that the concept of hell has an enormous hold over people.

And for me, the fear of hell, had a power for wrong in my life. So finally, I just decided that I had to be strong enough to brave hell. I had to stand up to hell and face it, and deny the coercion of hell. Hell, get thee behind me, and all that.

Suppose that someone is told they must do something or they will go to hell, and that something that they feel they must do destroys all chances of them having a normal healthy life on earth. Then suppose there is no hell. They have been cheated out of a normal life and have gained absolutely nothing.

On the other hand, there are many priests and pastors, going happily to heaven, who are pedophiles and rapists. So why would anyone else want to be in heaven anyway? We have enough of that here.

But you say, a univeralist believes that rapists and pedophiles will be in heaven anyway. Well, to tell you the truth, I don't know how heaven will be organized. I do know that even if there were a hell, it is not my business to decide who goes there. Or who goes to heaven. But judging from the thoelogians I know, I really don't want a part of their heaven.

So, simply put, there is very little that I have been told about heaven or hell, that makes any kind of sense to me. I am happy not to have a doctrinal position on this, as long as nobody is coerced into doing something inherently unhealthy out of fear of hell.

My only point is that I suspect very much that there is an exegetical stalemate about whether hell is a real place or a metaphorical state. That would be my best guess, and if that is true then a wide range of beliefs on hell should be welcome within evangelicalism.

Blogging heaven and hell: 4

2011-03-15T21:18:00.000-07:00

In the tail of the comet of blogposts on Rob Bell, Mike has recommended what he considers to be a better read. I can't be the judge of that, but this one is available to me in the local library. The Evangelical Universalist was written by Robin Parry, but he published it under the name of Gregory Macdonald.

The issue at stake is not actually whether universalism rather than traditional theology is true, but rather, whether universalism can be brought under the umbrella of evangelicalism. Can this be treated as an intramural debate or not?

I contend that it can. At first, I had some doubts, but I am convinced that there is an exegetical case to be made for universalism. It can be derived from the text. For starters, the Hebrew Bible lends itself to the interpretation that there is no afterlife. The Christian scriptures introduce the notion of the resurrection, although this was already present in writings from the preceding two or three centuries. The question, then, is whether Christ not only offers eternal life for his own, but if he also threatens hell, a fate which was unknown in the Hebrew Bible, for those who reject him, or who have never heard of him.

I am sure that we could argue this forever, and it is not something that I expect to resolve. However, I would like to share with you this quote by Robin Parry, page 35,

If a traditional interpretation of a passage and a universalist one reach hermeneutical stalemate, then reason would lead us to prefer the universalist interpretation.

I could also offer this parallel statement,

If a traditional intepretation of a passage and an abilitionist one reach hermeneutical stalemant, then pity would compel us to prefer the abolitionist one.

But I can hear you answer back, not at all. In the case of the abolition of slavery, we live with the results. However, in the case of universalism, we don't know if we are condemning some to hell because we have failed to preach hell.

On the other hand, I argue back, the threat of hell keeps many people in painful and unhappy circemstance that they might otherwise escape. Whether hell exists or not, the threat of hell can cause a lot of suffering in this life.

I was raised to believe that the unversalist was the same as an atheist, but I argue now that it is not.

around the bibliosphere on women

2011-03-14T22:37:00.000-07:00

There have been quite a few posts on women in ministry lately. Michael Kruse offers this great video on Junia.

Out of Ur had a series recently and Daniel Kirk blogged about it here. Joel wrote about women and the scriptures and Kurk picked that up and expanded on it - but I can't find that post. Kurk is back to prolific blogging. I need to head off and read his latest.

Blogging heaven and hell: 3

2011-03-13T23:02:00.000-07:00

There have been some great contributions to this discussion - my thanks to commenters, etc. Here goes. Bob McDonald has blogged on Psalm 21. This passage provides a counterpoint to my blogging about the watery "deeps,"

When you appear for battle,
you will burn them up as in a blazing furnace.
The LORD will swallow them up in his wrath,
and his fire will consume them.

Read Bob's translation and post on this passage here. To me, it appears that both floodwaters and fire are metaphors for destruction, in the same way that living water and flames of fire are metaphors for life.

Kurk comments,

For a (Jewish) translator of the Greek New Testament such as Willis Barnstone, the changes in meaning are significant. Barnstone, for example, translates Matthew 16:18 as follows:

And I tell you that you are Kefa the rock
And upon this rock I will build my church,*
And the gates of Gei Hinnom will not overpower it.

*Here's Barnstone's footnote:

The Greek words ἐκκλησία (ekklesia) and συναγωγή (synagogue) mean an “assembly,” “gathering,” or “congregation,” and both words can refer to “synagogue.” However, ekklesia (except in the Septuagint Greek version of the Hebrew Bible) is normally translated church, while synagogue is the common word for “synagogue.” Here, in Yeshua’s prophecy, the intentional futurity of “I will build my church” is contrasted with the old Jewish tradition represented by Gei Hinnom, [in this context] the Hebrew word for “hell.” Yeshua’s dramatic message is that he will build on a rock the new church that will overcome the old synagogue, and that Christian heaven will overcome Jewish hell. In his lifetime there was no Christian church, and Yeshua preached in the synagogues. For the observant Jew to say that he would “build a church” is an anachronism, revealing not his voice but that of churchmen many decades later when a Christian church as a building and institution did exist. The superimposition of later terminology, theology, and history on the figures of Yeshua and his followers remains the essential dilemma of the New Testament.

Mike makes an excellent recommendation of the book The Evangelical Universalist. I have been reading through The History of Hell on google books. The section on univeralism starts around page 233. Eric recommended The Formation of Hell: Death and Retribution in the Ancient and Early Christian Worlds, by Alan E. Bernstein. There is a video from Out of Ur, and a very meticulous series by Randy Olds on Hell.

Blogging heaven and hell: 2

2011-03-12T16:43:00.000-08:00

I can tell already that this could be my longest blog series ever, and one I may never get to the bottom of. I invite other bloggers to enter into the spirit of this series. I want to supplement the theological discussion of heaven and hell with some old fashioned references to the text, word studies, one might say, but organized loosely around the theme of death in the Hebrew Bible.

I hope that anyone who is interested would join in. This is not a doctrinal study and if we don't come up with a payoff or a doctrinal product at the end of this, I can live with that. But I have noticed that Peter and Kurk are back blogging, so I hope they will join in, and put their formidable language skills to work on this.

I have become convinced reading through the Psalms and other passages in the last few days, that the afterlife was far from fiery for the ancient Hebrews, but was rather dark and watery. While "springs" of water are life-giving, the "depths" are death and destruction.

מְצוּלָה

Deliver me out of the mire,
and let me not sink;
let me be delivered from them that hate me,
and out of the deep waters.

Let not the waterflood overwhelm me,
neither let the deep swallow me up;
and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me.
Psalm 69:15-16

For Thou didst cast me into the depth,
in the heart of the seas,
and the flood was round about me;
all Thy waves and Thy billows passed over me.
Jonah 2:3

מְצֹלוֹת

Thou hast laid me in the nethermost pit,
in dark places, in the deeps
Psalm 88:6

He will again have compassion upon us;
He will subdue our iniquities;
and Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.
Micah 7:19

Blogging heaven and hell

2011-03-10T22:41:00.000-08:00

I can think of no better topic than the one that is on the tip of everyone's fingers. Is there a hell, a place of eternal, conscious torment? Or can we say with Rob Bell that "Love Wins?" And I am not suggesting that there are not a dozen ways to nuance the question. Probably the best place to follow the standard evangelical response is on Justin Tayor's blog.

I don't imagine entertaining the debate here, but I was curious about the biblical basis for the belief in a traditional hell. Three posts on Mike's blog seem like as good a place as any to look for heaven and hell in the Hebrew Bible. I hope to look at the Septuagint and Christian scriptures later.

Mike introduces the topic here, and discusses first the possibility of an eternal paradise for the righteous, and a fiery afterlif e for the wicked. I found Mike's posts very informative overall and I would like to return to them. But for now I wanted to see if there was only a fiery hell or also a watery hell. Here are his thoughts on hellfire in the Hebrew Bible,

What about the element of fiery punishment? Well, if the above holds true, that wouldn’t be viewed as any sort of reward. There is also fire in Sheol according to Prov. 30:16. Job 31:12 *may* suggest there is fire in Sheol (cf. Abaddon in Job 26:6). (See also Psalm 140:8-10). Granted, we do not have descriptions of sinners being burned in torment, but the essential elements are there. I think it is fair to say that the kernel elements of the fiery hell of the NT and Second Temple Judaism are present in the OT.

I started this post before the tsunami, but I was already thinking of the waters of death. Water, just as much as fire, is hell on earth. If some verses suggest a fiery afterlife, then others refer to a wave or flood.

For my soul is full of troubles,
and my life draws near to Sheol.
I am counted among those who go down to the Pit;
I am like those who have no help,
like those forsaken among the dead,
like the slain that lie in the grave,
like those whom you remember no more
for they are cut off from your hand.
You have put me in the depths of the Pit,
in the regions dark and deep.
Your wrath lies heavy upon me,
and you overwhelm me with all your waves.
Selah

Your wrath has swept over me;
your dread assaults destroy me.
They surround me like a flood all day long;
from all sides they close in on me.
Psalm 88

Therefore snares are around you,
and sudden terror overwhelms you,
or darkness so that you cannot see;
a flood of water covers you.
Job 22

Those who were my enemies without cause
have hunted me like a bird;
they flung me alive into a pit
and hurled stones on me;
⁵⁴ water closed over my head;
I said, ‘I am lost.’
Lamentation 3

Why worry about "hell" when death is with us, death brought by water and flood, as well as by fire.

No women Bible scholars?

2011-03-10T21:45:00.000-08:00

Apparently, according to the ESV Study Bible, there are no women qualified to write commentary on the Bible. This came up in a comment on my post a couple of days ago. Marg has taken up this point in her own post. I also found her story of moving towards biblical equality to be very compelling - and amusing. Thank you, Marg.