Myths about abuse by Lundy Bancroft

In complegalitarian the conversation has turned to spousal violence. It is a place where many commenters like to be anonymous, although maintaining a name of some kind. I support anonymity in this context and I am disappointed that real names have been introduced into published comments in this context, betraying the confidentiality of at least one commenter. Let me repeat, I support anonymity in this context and I would like to promote it.

For this reason and others, I am a conscientious objector to the complegalitarian blog. However, I feel the need to comment on this most recent post. First, the author, Marilyn asks some good questions.

One commenter responds,

Yes, symptoms become causes in their own right, but the root causes are nonetheless other.

A person’s personality type (here, OCEAN, the big five personality traits, is more helpful perhaps than Myers-Briggs: watch out for neuroticism and disagreeableness), upbringing, history of being abused by others, family of origin’s history of mental illness and personal history of mental illness, personal choices in terms of substance abuse, self-medication, and patterns of addiction - these things are the root causes of abuse.

Now, let me introduce you to Lundy Bancroft, who I believe is a recognized author in this area. In fact, I believe he is the best.

The Myths about Abusers page 23 - 24

1. He was abused as a child.
2.His previous partner abused him.
3.He abuses those he loves the most.
4. He holds in his feelings too much.
5. He has an aggressive personality.
6. He loses control.
7. He is too angry.
8.He is mentally ill.
9. He hates women.
10. He is afraid of intimacy and abandonment.
11. He has low-self-esteem.
12.His boss mistreats him.
13.He has poor skills in communication and conflict resolution.
14. There are as many abusive women as abusive men.
15.His abusiveness is as bad for him as for his partner.
16.He is a victim of racism.
17. He abuses alcohol or drugs.

Bancroft meticulously supports his claims that it is a myth that these things cause someone to become an abuser.

Thank you, Lundy Bancroft. I will blog soon about some of the causes of abuse.

Bancroft, Lundy. Why Does He Do That? I recommend this as the best book on the topic. It takes no position on any religious viewpoint. It is refreshingly devoid of that kind of comment. Every pastor should own this book.

Internet Anonymity

Anonymity is a common feature on the internet. On this post at my last count, 87 out of 135 commenters were simply "Anonymous." It appeared that the blog owner may have been commenting anonymously also.


The topic? Complementarianism and egalitarianism. The tempers run high. A few people still use their full names there. Others link to their own blogs. This is a serious place and in my opinion, it is the premiere spot on the internet for debating this topic.

The mix of commenters is fascinating. It ranges from totally unknown and outrageously scrappy surivors of abuse, to ministers and authors of published books. (Versus those of us whose books are neither written nor published.:-)

On another note, in the last month 4 or 5 complementarian blogs have either posted about me, or invited me to comment at length or invited me to post, all with my real name. It's interesting because sometimes an egalitarian will say to me that I approach exegesis like a complementarian. I don't know about that, but I do read complementarian books.

Here is lonely old me, having abandoned the brotherhood of man, and now I am working on the siblinghood of humanity. What next? I read a comment recently using "Babel" as a symbol of the disunity between comps and egals. Perhaps introducing a new babble can lead to some bridge building.

Equal participation in decision-making for women

From a paper by World Vision,

• Create programmes and raise awareness among men and women to acknowledge and alleviate the burdens of women’s triple role in their home, workplace, and community, and promote women’s equal participation in decision-making.
• Enhance the social support system to enable women to work outside of the home by providing free/subsidised and good quality day-care centres for infants and elders.
• Governmental and international agencies, NGOs, employers, and trade unions must ensure equal rights and equal pay for all women.
  Women in leadership must be encouraged to build their capacity, confidence, assertiveness, and leadership skills while increasing the number of female staff who serve as role models. At the same time, men must be made aware of the shared benefits of gender equality, enabling them to relate to and work positively with empowered women.
• Furthermore, World Vision suggests partnership with social institutions such as churches, council of elders, community leaders and other sources of influence to remove barriers that prevent women from full participation.
• Educate men and women on shared gender roles that allow familial and social equity leading to households and societies where both genders have equal opportunities and access to resources and decision making.

You might read this paper and be glad that you don't live under the conditions described within. Yes, but considering the comparative prosperity of North America, women still suffer from a shocking amount of violence and discrimination. Since this is the same within the Christian community as outside it, it is time for the church as a whole to make a stand against the denial of equal decision-making power to women around the world and at home.

Let's pull together on this and better the lives of women and children here and around the world.

And here are some thoughts from Carolyn McCulley on this.

Ish as "participant"

I need to do a lot of organizational stuff on this blog and add a recent comments widget among other things.

I want to thank David E Stein for an extended comment on Babel 3. This is regarding the gender connotations of ish.

kephale: head of the Roman army?

A commenter recently posted this comment,

If “kephale” is in fact used to refer to generals of armies, the Roman Emperor, and the leaders of tribes (which Sue confirmed for us), then is this even really remotely debatable anymore?

I confirmed that kephale was used as tribal leader, uniquely for Jephthah. This passage is so problematic that this use of kephale is sometimes not cited as proof that God is (supposedly) the authority over Christ, or the husband is (supposedly) an authority over the wife.

But what about the "general of the army. "

Here is a passage from Grudem's study and his rebuttal to Richard Cervin,

The next example Cervin rejects as ambiguous is:

(23) Plutarch, Pelopidas 2.1.3: In an army, The light-armed troops are like the hands, the cavalry like the feet, the line of men-at-arms itself like chest and breastplate, and the general is like the head.

Here Cervin says, Plutarch is using the human body as a simile for the army. This is obvious in context, which Grudem again fails to provide{20} . " . . Plutarch does not call the general the 'head of the army'; he is merely employing a simile. This example is ambiguous at best, and may thus be dispensed with" (p. 101).

In response, Cervin is correct to point out that this is not a metaphorical use of head in which the general is called the head of the army but is indeed a simile in which Plutarch says, The general is like the head. It is indeed a helpful distinction to point out these similes and put them in a separate category, for, while they may be helpful in clarifying the use of a related metaphor, they are not precisely parallel. (my emphasis)

But I would not agree that the example therefore may be dispensed with, as Cervin says, for it is of some value in understanding the metaphor, but precision of analysis would be better served by putting it in a distinct category. I appreciate Mr. Cervin's suggestion at this point.

Here is more of the context,

For if, as Iphicrates analyzed the matter, the light-armed troops are like the hands, the cavalry like the feet, the line of men-at‑arms itself like chest and breastplate, and the general like the head, then he, in taking undue risks and being over bold, would seem to neglect not himself, but all, inasmuch as their safety depends on him, and their destruction too.

First, it is significant that the text says, "as Iphicrates analyzed the matter" indicating that "head" was not the normal way to refer to the general. This is an image used uniquely in this one place. It has to be explained that the general was "like" the head.

Next, Plutarch was born between 45 and 50 AD. Here he is writing about the general of a Roman army. In Latin the word caput had a more extended range than kephale had in Greek.

In Greek, the word kephale had a technical use in military terms, the right-hand half of a phalanx in Arrian's Tactica 8.3, which is a late first/early 2nd century treatise on Roman military practice, in Aelianus' Taktike 7.3 written about the Greek army, and the word is used for a band of men in Job 1:17 LXX. If kephale has a technical military use as something else, it is not easily pressed into use for the "general."

Last, but not least, the general in an army is one person over many. There is no indication that this is useful in 1 Cor. 11 for either the trinity or for marriage. This metaphor is not particulary useful for wedding sermons either.

The purpose of this post is not a further exploration of this topic, but just an opportunity to make available some of what has ;aready been written on this topic.

ESV Study Bible on authentein

Here is a selection from the ESV Study Bible on 1 Tim. 2:12. HT Evangelical Village. I have bolded one particular sentence.

1 Tim. 2:12 I do not permit. Paul self-consciously writes with the authority of an apostle (e.g., 1 Thess. 4:1; 2 Thess. 3:6), rather than simply offering an opinion. This statement is given in the context of Paul’s apostolic instructions to the church for the ordering of church practice when the church is assembled together. In that context, two things are prohibited: (1) Women are not permitted to publicly teach Scripture and/or Christian doctrine to men in church (the context implies these topics), and (2) women are not permitted to exercise authority over men in church. (The reference for both “teaching” and “exercise authority” here is within the context of the assembled church.)

Women teaching other women, and women teaching children, are not in view here, and both are encouraged elsewhere (on women teaching women, cf. Titus 2:4; on women teaching children, cf. 2 Tim. 1:5). Nor does this passage have in view the role of women in leadership situations outside the church (e.g., business or government).

The presence of the word or (Gk. oude) between “to teach” and “to exercise authority” indicates that two different activities are in view, not a single activity of “authoritative teaching.” “Exercise authority” represents Greekauthenteō, found only here in the NT. Over 80 examples of this word exist outside the NT, however, clearly establishing that the meaning is “exercise authority” (not “usurp authority” or “abuse authority,” etc., as sometimes has been argued).

Since the role of pastor/elder/overseer is rooted in the task of teaching and exercising authority over the church, this verse would also exclude women from serving in this office (cf. 1 Tim. 3:2). Thus when Paul calls for the women to be quiet, he means “quiet” with respect to the teaching responsibility that is limited in the assembled church. Paul elsewhere indicates that women do speak in other ways in the church assembly (see 1 Cor. 11:5). See also note on 1 Cor. 14:34–35.

Now I would like to cite the well known complementarian scholar Dr. Kostengerger on the lexical evidence for the meaning of authentein. On Between Two Worlds he responded to a series of questions on 1 Tim. 2:12. Once again, I have bolded the relevant sentences.

Second, H. S. Baldwin takes up the matter of the likely meaning of authentein. The KJV translates this word “usurp authority,” and more recently many feminists, such as I. H. Marshall, have argued that the word has a negative connotation. If so, they say, Paul prohibited only women’s negative exercise of authority in the church, as well as women’s false teaching, not their exercise of these functions, properly conceived. Baldwin’s study shows that authentein was an exceedingly rare word in NT times that occurs in the NT only in 1 Tim 2:12 and elsewhere only once or twice prior to the writing of 1 Timothy.

3. So, then, in the case of 1 Tim 2:12, is the word study method by itself inconclusive?

Yes, I believe that’s right. The fact that lexical study in this case, owing to the limited data, of necessity remains inconclusive leads naturally to the next chapter in the book,

I am concerned at the impression of near certainty that the ESV Study Bible communicates to its readers. There is no evidence that warrants this. When dealing with the word of God, used as law in the lives of many people, it is a serious issue when information which is vague and indecisive is presented as solid and trustworthy. I wish to let people know that the ESV Study Bible does not always reflect the consensus of scholarship.

Rick Warren says no to divorce

There are about a dozen things that are extremely disturbing in this post.

Rick Warren: Abuse is no excuse for women to seek divorce

Bruce Ware and the Westminister Confession

Thanks to Peter's comments on the preceding post, I have found that the ETS doctrinal statement is based on an answer to a question in the Westminster catechism. This, in turn, is based on the Westminister Confession.

In the unity of the Godhead head there be three persons, of one substance, power, and eternity: God the Father, God Son, and God the Holy Ghost.1

In Deitatis unitate personæ tres sunt unius ejusdemque essentiæ, potential ac æternitatis; Deus Pater, Deus Filius, ac Deus Spiritus Sanctus.

Potentia

Potentia is the liturgical Latin equivalent for potestas, meaning authority. The meaning of potentia in Lewis and Short includes the following -

• might, force, power.
• ability, faculty, capacity
• political power, authority, sway, influence
• the rule of an individual, monarchical power,
• supreme dominion, sovereignty,

I do not believe that the Son can be equal to the Father in power and under him in authority. This is consistent with what we know about the word kephale. It has no meaning of "authority over" in the Liddell Scott lexicon. There is not one occurrence prior to the New Testament of kephale meaning to have "authority over" one's own people. That is why it is not in the lexicon.

I was not aware that for many years, in sitting under the leadership of Dave Short and Jim Packer, that I was being taught by those who would nuance the fundamental creeds of historic Christianity. I am very disappointed at my own naivete.

My difficulty with Kevin Giles is that he attempts to demonstrate that power and authority mean the same thing in English. Whether they do or not is completely irrelevant. The fact is that "power" or potestas in the Vulgate and the creeds represents exousia in Greek, and this is now translated into English as "authority." In English it is possible for "power" and "authority" to have distinctive meanings. In classical and liturgical Latin it is not. (Potestas translates exousia and is translated into English as "power.") And this is what the creeds were written in.

When I left David Short's church, he pressed me to read Grudem's kephale study. I was unimpressed. I was unaware of exactly how divergent the Christianity of that church had become.

In my opinion few members of the congregation are aware of this controversy. However, last spring Bruce Ware spoke at a local pastors' conference with Dave Short. A younger pastor preached the doctrine best formulated by Ware in our church last summer. I do know that a couple of people walked out publicly. I have no first hand knowledge of further reaction, but I would not be surprised if some resistance emerges.

Bruce Ware and historic Christianity

I have been concerned that some might believe that Bruce Ware had said that Christ was not equal to God. However, he strongly affirms that the Son is equal to the Father in essence. Yet he clearly states that the Son has a distinct role.

To confirm some of what Dr. Ware has said, I looked at Father, Son and Holy Spirit where he wrote,

Yet notice one more detail. Paul begins his prayer bowing his knees neither to the Son nor to the Spirit but to the Father, "from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named." The Father then is the Sovereign Ruler over heaven and earth, controlling even the very names that every creature is given. From this position of sovereign supremacy, it is the Father who has the authority to grant this prayer's fulfillment, and so ultimately all glory and thanksgiving must go to him.

Because of this, Paul prays to the Father that the Spirit will enlarge the likeness and experience of Christ in those who believe. As Paul's prayer so clearly indicates, then, the Spirit works in our sanctification to bring honour and glory to the Son, to the ultimate glory of the Father.

From this it appears to me that Ware affirms:

1 The Father has sovereign supremacy above Christ.
2 The Father is supreme in authority over Christ.
3 The Father uniquely has authority to grant answers to prayer.
4. All thanks and glory go to the Father.

I note that the doctrinal statement of the Evangelical Theological Society is this.

God is a Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each an uncreated person, one in essence, equal in power and glory.

The Athanasian Creed says,

But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one, the Glory equal, the Majesty co-eternal.

Sed Patris, et Fili, et Spiritus Sancti una est divinitas, aequalis gloria, coeterna maiestas.

Augustine writes,

For he was not sent in virtue of some disparity of power or substance or anything in him that was not equal to the Father, but in virtue of the Son being from the Father, not the Father being from the Son.”*

non secundum imparem potestatem uel substantiam uel aliquid quod in eo patri non sit aequale missus est, sed secundum id quod filius a patre est, non pater a filio.

Here are extracts from the Lewis and Short Latin dictionary.

Maiestas

• greatness, grandeur, dignity, majesty


• sovereign power


• the paternal authority

Potestas

• Political power, dominion, rule, empire, sovereignty


• Magisterial power, authority, office, magistracy
  
• have lawful authority and jurisdiction

In addition to this the Latin word potestas uniquely translates the Greek word exousia in the Vulgate and must be presumed to mean "authority. " I do not see how it can be shown that Augustine did not say that the Son was not unequal to the Father in "authority."

I suggest that majesty and power are synonyms of sovereignty and authority. A study of Latin will demonstrate that potestas did indeed mean authority, and maiestas meant sovereignty. Christ is equal to the Father in authority and sovereignty according to historic Christianity.

I believe that historic Christianity taught that Christ was equal to his Father in authority, power, sovereignty, dominion and rule.

babble from Babel 6

Here is the second half of Gen. 11:3 in several different forms.

נִלְבְּנָה לְבֵנִים‏
niləbənâ ləḇēnîm ‏‏
let us make bricks,

‎ ‏‏ וְנִשְׂרְפָה לִשְׂרֵפָה
wəniśərəfâ liśərēfâ
and burn them thoroughly

הַלְּבֵנָה לְאָבֶן
halləḇēnâ lə’āḇen
brick for stone

וְהַחֵמָר לַחֹמֶר
wəhaḥēmār laḥōmer:
and slime for mortar

In these four lines the second proposition repeats the sounds of the first one. The first two times this is achieved by using a cognate word, a related word, really a different form of the first word. In the third line, the two words are not related semantically but are still similar in sound. In the fourth line, the words are once again related.

Four lines each having a repeated set of sounds, creates the "babel" or "babble" of the people talking, the meaninglessness of the yammering, the repetitive nature of this talk, whose goal was to promote the building of a city and a tower. No wonder God broke it up and dispersed these people.

Let's try this. (linking words are omitted with the readers indulgence.

bake ourselves bricks
fire them with fire
brick for block
bitumen for bond

Now you get the some rhythm, some babble. Let's see how the translators dealt with this.

πλινθεύσωμεν πλίνθους
ὀπτήσωμεν αὐτὰς πυρί
ἡ πλίνθος εἰς λίθον
ἄσφαλτος ὁ πηλός

In the Septuagint there was clearly an attempt to maintain the alliterative aspect of this speech.

faciamus lateres,
coquamus eos igni.
lateres pro saxis
bitumen pro cæmento Vulgate

faciamus lateres,
igni coquamus
lateres vice lapidum
bitumen vice cæmento Pagnini

Pagnini makes only one revision from the Vulgate replacing saxis with lapidum. However he does this in order to create an additional alliteration. It appears to be deliberate.

Gen. 11:3 is one of the most evocative verses of the Bible.

They spoke,
person to the one next,
let us
bake ourselves bricks
fire them with fire
brick for block
and bitumen for bond

Here we have one of the most important propositions of the bible, that each of us is in reciprocal relations with our next one. Here we also have one of the most alliterative utterances of the bible, brick for block.

What a perfect presentation of precept and pleasure..... But what happens next?

babble from Babel 5

Note: The discussion of vocabulary for circumcision in this post reflects issues which would have affected the translators of the scriptures into Greek. It does not reflect the language for circumcision in Hebrew.

This is not exactly from Babel but it has to be part of this series. First, you must read Kurk's post here and the last section on how circumcision was translated into Greek.

Here is a funny thing. In Hebrew there was the akrobustia (1) which was peritemno, or cut around, we now say, circumcised; but also the word of your mouth, logos, which if you remember well is called the "lip" in Hebrew, ought to be likewise circumcised, but in the case of Moses was, in fact, un-cut-around - he stammered.

And this does not sound so bad in Hebrew, since the heart Lev 26:41; Jer 9:26 can also be un-cut-around and the ears too Jer 6:10. So, in Hebrew, this is just an expression.

But the Greeks would have none of that. The translators of the Septuagint could not write that Moses was of "uncircumcised lips." They clearly found this kind of formal equivalence to be impossible and refused to accept such a foreign notion in this case. In Greek the ears could literally be "uncircumcised" and the heart, as well. This leads me to believe that the Greek translators did, indeed, associate the "lips" with the female pudenda, and deliberately rejected the possibility that "lips" could be circumcised.

Here we see the stammering dynamic equivalence of the Greek translation. But first, the Hebrew is

וַאֲנִי עֲרַל שְׂפָתָיִם

and literally means "I am of uncircumcised lips" KJV

The Greek translators, however, tried out both ἄλογός and ἰσχνόφωνός, an indication of their inhibitions on this topic.

ἐγὼ δὲ ἄλογός εἰμι Ex. 6:12

I am un wordy (wild and irrational)

ἐγὼ ἰσχνόφωνός εἰμι Ex. 6:30
I am weakvoiced (stammering)

cum incircumcisus sim labiis? Jerome (I lack Pagnini's Exodus)

with uncircumcised lips

The Greeks, of course, knew that the ancient Egyptians practiced female circumcision, and perhaps the Hebrews did not want that phrase found in their scriptures. The earliest written record of female circumcision dates back to Herodotus.

It has not been possible to determine when or where female circumcision originated. Theories and supposition date it as far back as the 5th century, BC. Herodotus stated that the Egyptians, Phoenicians, Hittites, and Ethiopians practiced female genital excision 500 years before the birth of Christ. Although it is commonly believed that female circumcision originated in Egypt at the time of the pharaohs, there is no evidence of infibulation in the Egyptian mummies.

The practice has been documented in pre-Islamic Arabia, ancient Rome, and tsarist Russia.l As late as 1870, British surgeons performed female circumcision to treat psychological disorders. In the United States, as late as 1954, clitoridectomy was practiced for the treatment of melancholia and had been recommended for nymphomania, hysteria, epilepsy, kleptomania, and even truancy.2

Today, female circumcision is common in 30 African countries, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Yemen.3

But traveling back from Ex. 6 to Ex. 1, we find another story of bricks and mortar. This time the Hebrews, both men and women, were making bricks as slaves. Pharoah wanted to eliminate the baby boys but he could not,

And the midwives said unto Pharaoh: 'Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwife come unto them.'

The Hebrew women were lively or חָיוֹת and did not have trouble giving birth. I want to know if this means that the Hebrew women were "lively" or like "livestock," either one would work well here. Were the Hebrew women uncircumcised and able to give birth with greater ease than the Egyptian women? And why are we still debating this topic, or rather being silent on this topic still today? Has the world progressed in several thousand years?

These are my questions and not my answers. But we do know for sure that the translators of the Septuagint chose to use dynamic equivalence in translation instead of a foreignizing oddness when they felt they needed to. No sign of a circumcision of the lips here.

Thanks to Carolyn McCulley for posting on this topic recently.

Notes:

(1)LSJ 1. akro-bustia , hê,
A. foreskin, LXX Ge.17.11, al., Ph.Fr.49 H., Act.Ap.11.3.
II. state of having the foreskin, uncircumcision, Ep.Rom.2.25, etc.
2. collect., the uncircumcised, ib.2.26, 3.30, etc. (Prob. from akros and a Semitic root, cf. Bab. buśtu 'pudenda', Heb. bōsheth 'shame': wrongly derived from akros, buô by EM53.48.)

Liddell and Scott 1871 (only for use in schools) says this:

akrobustia - uncircumcision

(No doubt teenage boys should not be reading about pudenda!)

babble from Babel 4

It happens that I live at a point in the city that gets a fair bit of snow. It is still snowing almost three weeks from when it began. I can't drive anywhere and walking is difficult too. Some streets are plowed but our neighbourhood is a mess.

In this exercise I am working for transparency and not a finished translation.

Once again, here are the first few words of Gen. 11:3.

Dixitque alter ad proximum suum Jerome

And he said other to his next one

Dixeruntque alter ad alterum Pagnini

And they said other to other

καὶ εἶπεν ἄνθρωπος τῷ πλησίον

And he/she said person to the one next

וַיֹּאמְרוּ אִישׁ אֶל-רֵעֵהוּ

And they said ish to his/her fellow

Some of the questions are about reciprocity. Is there a plural verb because the ish says something to the next one who then reciprocates. In English as well, they spoke one to another. Clearly they both/all spoke. This is reciprocity. Not that some spoke to others. At least that is not what Pagnini says, but other to other.

And then there is the question of whether ish is a man, or a person. There is no indication here either way. I am not aware of any translations which use a word for a male adult human, such as man, in this case. The literal Greek clearly translates ish as anthropos, a person.

The last interesting feature here is the use of the Hebrew word reicha, usually translated into English as "neighbour." In English this has the connotation of next door neighbour, but in Hebrew it is anyone from your "companion" to a "fellow human." This is much debated. In Greek, it is the "one who is next." The question of who is one's next one, and how one loves one's next one, is a daunting moral question, but of paramount importance.

Here is the mitzvah of V’Ahavta L’Reicha Kamocha (love your neighbor as you love yourself.)

This mitzva is one of the most popularly quoted and least understood mitzvot. How can you command someone to love? What is the definition of your neighbor? How can you love someone like yourself? Ramban asks these questions and bases his interpretation of the mitzva on the explanation of Hillel who restates the pasuk in the following way (as per the story of teaching the whole Torah standing on one foot):


"What is hateful to you do not do unto your neighbor. This is the entire Torah, all the rest is commentary" (Shabbat 31a)

Rest in peace.

Calvin 3

I edited this post because John has since explained to me that he intended to use a mixture of dynamic equivalence and formal equivalence to compare the Latin and the French of the first few passages of Calvin's Intutitutes. When the dynamic equivalent passages were compared, and an additional factor of dropped words, and added metaphors were added in, the comparison between the two was lost in the English, at least to my eyes. I simply did not recognize how he was revealing differences in the original structures.

On the other hand, when I am comparing the Latin of Jerome and Pagnini, I take a completely opposite approach and begin with an extremely literal word for word translation in order to reveal the differences and demonstrate the contrasting vocabulary. Words are less likely to be dropped in this case, as I compare each word in turn. This creates an awkard working translation which is what I am aiming at.

It happens that John had an entirely different and equally valid goal in mind. Sometimes two different people approach a task in contrasting ways.

babble from Babel 3

This series on Babel, in Gen. 11, has been on my mind for a very long time. This is one of my favourite stories in Genesis, full of rhythm and alliteration. It was not chosen to highlight any gender aspects of the language, but that has become a unifying theme for this study. It is important for readers to keep in mind that I am writing commentary, not theology, and this should be read for the fun of it.

I am looking mainly at the differences between Jerome's Latin and Pagnini's Latin. Pagnini's translation from the Hebrew, in the early 1500's, became one of the four or five reference texts for Coverdale and subsequent Bible translation into English.

I pass now from the disconcerting opening, here and here, from the finding that the people were of one lip - and no tongue - to the third verse.

Here we read that "they spoke" or is it "he spoke" one to another. This raises many questions for each lexical item. Here are the contrasting texts,

Dixitque alter ad proximum suum Jerome

Dixeruntque alter ad alterum Pagnini

καὶ εἶπεν ἄνθρωπος τῷ πλησίον

וַיֹּאמְרוּ אִישׁ אֶל-רֵעֵהוּ

There we have it - some sort of singular "they or rather a plural "one." The verb in Hebrew "to speak" is plural and the subject ish (man or person) is singular. Of course, it is not singular at all because this phrase represents reciprocal action - reciprocity in grammatical construction. Each person spoke to another person, who spoke back in return, and they said to each other, let us bake bricks and burn them black and build ....

(but I get ahead of myself and slide into the alliterative future of the ba ba ba the babble of Babel before its time.)

I stop and ask myself, for the sake of this verb, if women also make bricks. Can wayyomaru ish mean that men and women spoke to each other and said "Let us make bricks."

We don't know who spoke in this line, but we do know that women made bricks. Brickmaking was the task of slaves and the lowest people in the group. But here it seems that they all took it on, they made the bricks voluntarily because it says, "Let us ..." and they spoke to their neighbours, their peers, let us make bricks.

Now here is a story of a woman and her bricks - and her baby.

"Come, let us build us a city and a tower." Many, many years were spent building the tower. It reached so great a height that it took a year to mount to the top. A brick was, therefore, more precious in the sight of the builders than a human being. If a man fell down and met his death, none took notice of it; but if a brick dropped, they wept, because it would take a year to replace it. So intent were they upon accomplishing their purpose that they would not permit a woman to interrupt her work of brickmaking when the hour of travail came upon her. Moulding bricks, she gave birth to her child, and tying it round her body in a sheet, she went on moulding bricks.
-- Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews

It's not that women want to make bricks, but don't let anyone tell you that women did not labour side by side with men. They did, and they do.

So wayyomaru ish, which one could argue is literally "the man spoke," seems more suitably translated in a gender neutral way - perhaps "and they said to one another" would do just as well. It turns out that even the most conservative and literal of Bible translations, check yours out, the translations of great transparency, do not translate this word ish with man, but translate it as "they said to one another."

Looking back to the Septuagint, it supplied anthropos for ish, the gender neutral human being for ish, which some say is "man" only. But "man" disappears in the Latin and we read alter, or "other." So, "other said to other" or "they spoke other to other." Let's stop this post now and each of us find our other.

I invite you, if you want to understand that ish may be anyone, man or woman, who puts a hand to a brick, to read the articles on this page by David Stein.

Calvin 2

In John's original post he wrote,

The Latin lacks an explicit note to the effect that the two sides of the epistemological coin “form a unity with one another.” On the other hand, the Latin uses a precise expression – “give birth from itself” (“from itself” is in all English translations to date) – that is lacking in the French

Then I wrote to John offering this translation from the French,

“As to the rest, inasmuch as they are united, one another, by many links, it is not always easy to discern which one goes ahead and produces the other.”

And this one from the Latin,

As to the rest, inasmuch as they are interconnected by many links, it isnot always easy to discern which of the two goes before and produces from itself,

They are very close to my mind. He responds,

That is more literal, but also more stilted, than the translation I offer. “Go ahead (of)” I take in the sense of “prepare.” She notes that in the parallel Latin text, the verb pario (from which we get the expression “postpartum”) probably has a washed-out sense of “produce” in this context. I concur. It’s just that the translation “give birth” also has a washed-out sense of “produce” in context. Hence my retention of vehicle and tenor.

My point is that I sent John a literal translation because he has deliberately created two divergent translations from the Latin and the French. It is not a matter of "vehicle and tenor" but that he has used the flowery metaphor "give birth" in one translation and the utilitarian "produce" in the other to create a divergent effect when the French and Latin simply do not warrant this.

He created the phrase "form a unity" but I am not sure how he did that. Once again it creates the appearance of divergence which does not exist in the original Latin and French.

I do admit that the Latin has "from itself" in it and this is indeed a divergence between the Latin and French. I think that there is a fair bit of work to be done at the ground level on these translations. Calvin is really not an interest of mine, but I do look him up if someone cites him and I question it for some reason. I was trained in a Swiss Bible school and still have my Instituts in French from when they were handed out to me on entry into the school

Calvin

John has written a post on Calvin and I can't interact on his blog by posting comments in the usual way, so I must record them here. This is what I wrote to John, more or less,

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This is a fascinating study. I will give you my English version of the French and then see how it compares to the Latin.

Au reste, combien qu'elles soyent unies l'une l'autre par beaucoup de liens, si n'est-il pas toutesfois aisé discerner laquelle vadevant et produit l'autre.

For the rest, insofar as they form a unity with one another through a host of links, it is not always easy to discern which prepares for and produces the other. (John)

( The French does not say “form a unity with one another.” And pario means pario, to *bear*, bring forth, produce/ create, make, get")

As to the rest, inasmuch as they are united, one another, by many links, it is not always easy to discern which one goes ahead and produces the other, (Mine)

Caeterum, quum multis inter se vinculis connexae sitit, utra tamen alterampraecedat, et ex se pariat, non facile est discernere.

To be sure, because they are interconnected by multiple links, it is noteasy to discern which of the two precedes the other, and gives birth fromitself. (John)

As to the rest, inasmuch as they are interconnected by many links, it isnot always easy to discern which of the two goes before and produces from itself. (Mine)

I admit that there are some interesting differences and it is a fascinating study. But you obscure the significant differences by creating differences that are not there in the original. You have sometimes exaggerated the differences between the original Latin and the French in your translation.

Notes and corrections -

- soyent unies means "are united"
- pario I think this is just "produce" but the ex se part is interesting
- you missed translating guttatim (drop by drop)
- bonorum is pl and not sing. the good things>
- "tant mieux" not quite right.
- lost a comma in the original.after Pareillement, so that whole section is off and should be redone from scratch like this.

Pareillement de ceste petite et maigro portion, l'infinité de tous biens qui reside en Dieu apparoist tant mieux:

Compared to this tiny, meager portion, the infinity of all the benefits which reside in God appears that much more clearly: (John)

Equally, by this small and meager portion, the infiinity of goods which reside in God become more apparent. (mine)

- "biens" should be translated the same way every time tomaintain the connection
- "host of" for "beaucoup" is not really possible


These are rough notes which should more rightly be posted in the comment section of John's blog, but this is not possible. This is all I have time for right now.

Update: I would like to add a little commentary. It is one thing to talk about a foreignizing translation and another to create one that is not really justified.

I also think it is useful to work with an English text of Calvin unless one reads French better than the translators themselves do. Calvin wrote the Institutes first in Latin and then translated them into French. His written Latin was fluent, he used it all through high school. He was trained as a lawyer. I think it is adequate to read Calvin's Latin translated into English, with notes, because his French translation was intended to reflect the Latin.

However, I will add that for those who wish to critique some theological issues, it is vital to understand the sequence of Calvin's thought. It is worth knowing that he read the Latin Vulgate first, and composed much of his theology in Latin, then wrote in French.

It is my suggestion that we owe to Calvin's Latin the word "propitiation." This does not appear as an English word or a French word, as far as I know before Calvin. It does not appear in the first few major English translations of the Bible. Calvin composed theology in Latin, translated it into French and then it was translated into English. It is worth knowing sometimes how words entered the English language. It worries me when a theologian attributes the word "propitiation" to Tyndale. We need to understand that it was a Latin word and Tyndale was more for using English words and creating them if he had to.

So, in sum, if you want to work with original works of theology, then you should really learn to read Latin, French and German fluently. But who has the time?

babble from Babel 2

This is an extension of part 1. The upshot of part 1 is that there were two words for language in Hebrew, sefat, the lip; and lashon, the tongue. And in Genesis 11 the word used is sefat. However, in the Septuagint the word cheila is used at first and then the word glossa, for tongue.


This devolution turns up in the Latin Vulgate as well, first labium and then lingua. Pagnini tries to retrap the original Hebrew, that was his game, but in the English it all became "language," which comes from lingua.

Since sefat and lashon are both used in Hebrew, and we see sefat here, then the word with a feminine connotation has been chosen. However, once the story came into Greek, Latin and the other European languages, the word "tongue" or "language" was used. There is no way to avoid this that I know.

Of course, this was not a deliberate obscuring of the feminine and perhaps has no real significance, but it is a demonstration of the fact that original feminine imagery is sometimes lost. We might say that in this case, Greek and Latin have contributed to a subtle masculinization of the text.

The point of this story of Babel? Alter says that it is a "polemic against urbanization and the overweening confidance of humanity in the feats of technology."

Alter, Robert. The Five Books of Moses page 38

babble from Babel 1

Kurk has inspired me to set off on a new track for a bit. As I mentioned earlier Martin and some others have been commited to a way of translating which reveals the intertextual connections, the puns and wordplays, and opens up the underlying source text in new ways. While this is in some ways "literal" it really involves much more than that.

It involves understanding that choices were made between words, on whether to use transliteration or another mode, whether to retain the grammatical features, and so on.

Kurk brings many of his points back to gender and sexuality and I will to, but more for the fun of it: some of this is not theological. Whatever that means.

Kurk is writing on the first few chapters of Genesis, as is Martin. I hope there can be some cross semination of ideas. I am going to weigh in with a little Latin for a bit.

Here are some thoughts from the story of the tower of Babel in Gen. 11. Read Kurk's analysis here.

The first striking thing is that in Hebrew there are two words for language, sefat, or lip, and lashon or tongue. Here is the first verse.

Erat autem terra labii unius, et sermonum eorumdem. Vulgate

Erat autem universa terra labii unius, et verborum eorumdem
Pagnini

And the whole earth was of one lip, and of one sermon/word.

But in verse 7 working from the Greek OT, the Vulgate surrenders the "lip" and writes,

et confundamus ibi linguam eorum, ut non audiat unusquisque vocem proximi sui. Vulgate

and confound there their tongue, that they may not hear each one the voice of their next one.

(If that isn't just like marriage!)

And Pagnini translates,

et confundamus ibi labium eorum ut non exaudiunt singuli labium proximi sui.

and confound there their lip, that they may not hear each one the lip of their next one.

And so we begin to establish Pagnini's transparency to the Hebrew. The Vulgate broke down and refered finally to "tongue" in fidelity to the Septuagint in this case, Pagnini stayed with the "lip" the foreignizing element.

Both sefat and lashon are common ways to refer to language in Hebrew. However, in the Sefer Yetsira, a Hebrew text of the early centuries AD, we see that lashon had a masculine connotation. Likely "lip" did not.

The Ten Sefirot of Nothingness: The number of the ten fingers, five opposite five, with a single covenent precisely in the middle, like the circumcision of the tongue and the circumcision of the membrum.

But in Genesis 11, we see that the voice of the people was expressed as the "lip," a normal way to say "language." Nothing remarkable in this, but note that the Septuagint and the Vulgate have to interject with the normal Greek and Latin usage, that this lip is really the tongue. Pagnini does not. So many layers of translation before we get to the English.

Perhaps the choice of words in the Vulgate for verse 7 is because one cannot traditionally "hear" the lip of another person, when speaking Greek, or Latin, or English, but you can hear the tongue or voice of another person. The tongue provides the imagery of masculine agency and the lip, the latent feminine and receptive quality. But in Hebrew "lip" and "tongue" equally represent the active spoken language on par. They stand side by side as synonymous terms.

There will be much more babble from Babel. (In search of "transparent translation.")

The deceit of formal equivalence

The translation debate continues. There are good arguments for a very exacting formal equivalent translation. Martin (HT John) mentions possible intertextual links, linguistic parallels, or formal features of the original text. He then goes on to cite Venuti who says,

By producing the illusion of transparency, a fluent translation masquerades as true semantic equivalence when it in fact inscribes the foreign text with a partial interpretation, partial to English-language values, reducing if not simply excluding the very difference that translation is called on to convey.1

So, not only can intertextual links, associations and connotations be lost, but the naturalness of an English translation can seduce us into forgetting how foreign the worldview of the text really was.

In the meantime let me remind you of a very simple case where a formal translation has difficulty resolving a problem posed to English by the Greek.

In Greek the words adelphos and adelphe (pronounced atherfos and atherfee in some dialects of modern Greek) mean "brother" and "sister." The plural of adelphos is adelphoi and means either "brothers" or "siblings." It refers to all siblings in a family inclusive of females if they are not otherwise qualified.

Two famous sister-brother pairs were called adelphoi. These are Cleopatra and Ptolemy, and Electra and Orestes. Adelphoi also refers to one's tribal connection or people, or one's peers, in a gender inclusive sense. The Greek did not have an easy way to distinguish between a group who were all brothers and a group made up of brothers and sisters.

The problem is whether a formal equivalent translation is being faithful to the original if it translates adelphoi as "brothers." There really is no easy way to do this. If one wanted to bring attention to the foreigness of the text I suppose that "brethren" might do, but it also has male associations in some contexts. This is just one example of the problem of formal equivalence.

On the other hand, formal equivalence, if used carefully, can introduce the readers to new aspects of the original text. I look forward to Martin's next post on this topic, presenting a third way.

1. Lawrence Venuti, The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation (London: Routledge, 1995) 21.

The WOMBman's Bible

I have almost almost given up writing about translation because there has been little to stimulate new thoughts and approaches. Mostly rehashing the same old thing.

But here is a new blog called The WOMBman's Bible. In this post, there are several very striking observations about worldplay in the Greek translation of the first few chapters of Genesis.

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Even more interesting to me are the perhaps unintended Hebrew-now-Hellene interplays between A) Γένεσις and B) τὴν γῆν and C) τῷ ποταμῷ τῷ δευτέρῳ Γηων and D) γινώσκειν καλὸν καὶ πονηρόν and E) γυναῖκα / γυνή. Here, in Greek (not Hebrew) there are rhymes --puns made between A) the title of the book "Birthings" and B) the "birthing ground" which the god made and C) the second River transliterated (in contrast to the first river transliterated to sound like the Greek word for snake) and D) the "birthing knowledge of good form and evil (see Aristotle's notes above).....and E) the womb-man for birthing. (Homer and the lovers of his epics played with words in this way--which is something Plato and Aristotle even more despised and disparaged).

It's also fascinating that Adam is transliterated while "Eve" is translated, at first: καὶ ἐκάλεσεν Αδαμ τὸ ὄνομα τῆς γυναικὸς αὐτοῦ Ζωή, ὅτι αὕτη μήτηρ πάντων τῶν ζώντων (Genesis 3:20). It's not until some point later in the text that Adam's wombman, his woman, his wife is called by the Hebrew sounding name meaning "life" or "Ζωή": Αδαμ δὲ ἔγνω Ευαν τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ (Genesis 4:1) -- which might be understood in Greek as "and Adam committed birthing knowledge on Eve, his birthing woman" -- but I'm getting a bit ahead of myself into the traditional chapter 4.

To sum up, the Jewish translators made Greek choices, knowing the various traditions of the Hellenes. They seem defiant and rebellious in working against Aristotelianism and perhaps Platonism. The prefer the wordplays, the puns, the creativity, the novelties in sound tradition, the pluralities within which to re-cast their mono-theism. These are the things of Homer, Hesiod, Euripides, even of Sappho, and especially of mother Helen (μήτηρ πάντων τῶν ζώντων of pan-Hellenism).

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There is more new stuff in this than I have learned in a long time. Really great. Enjoy.