Sansblogue

I won’t link to their site, but if you are interested you know the URL. Love it or hate it BAR is a significant commercial enterprise interested in the archaeology of the Ancient Near East, and in the days before Flickr I benefited from their photo sets for teaching. But when someone identified as:

Author : Sara Murphy (IP: 216.156.120.90 , 216.156.120.90.ptr.us.xo.net)
E-mail : smurphy@bib-arch.org

posts a lengthy advertising piece with two links to their site on my “About” page (Do I even have an about page? Let alone one that mentions “Biblical” archaeology?) I see red! This is spam, and I’ve labeled it as such. If you use WordPress and they spam you please mark it as Spam, that way the innocent may be protected by Akismet from giving nearly free advertising to BAR.

PS: I have also written to Ms Murphy suggesting that her employer may not appreciate being labeled as a spammer. I will post any reply here.

Over the years, and I began being Internet active with the Amos commentary material in 1995 (so it is 15 years), I have had several contacts by email in which I have “pastored” for a while people I have never met or seen. They are only words on a screen.  Yet I call these fragile and somewhat tenuous relationships pastoring. Why?

Usually these correspondences start with an email that asks a question. Often the question may seem factual, but usually suggests some possibility that it is “really” about something deeper. Then gradually, or sometimes swiftly, the person I am “talking” with comes to trust me, and the talk goes deeper. Obviously the anonymity of the medium, the fact that we do not meet face to face, share friends, and live in different countries is part of what enables these conversations to take place.

Perhaps therefore, it is because of the severe limitations of the medium that these conversations can take place at all. Maybe email pastoring reaches places physical pastors cannot reach…

I wonder though how many such relationships I have refused, without knowing it, by a swift hard response to a “trivial” question from a unknown reader of my websites and blogs…

Kenton Sparks, (Biblical Studies, Eastern University) has a good (if somewhat polemic) short post, part 2 of a series After Inerrancy: Evangelicals and the Bible in a Postmodern Age in which he sets up nicely the inner-biblical problem of genocide in texts like Deut 7:2. I hope that it is more than merely a stick to beat the fundies with.

I was glad he pointed out that concern over such issues is far from new, citing Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335-395CE) one of the most respected patristic authors. Gregory was disturbed by the murder of Egyptian children ascribed to God in the Exodus narrative:

The Egyptian [Pharaoh] is unjust, and instead of him, his punishment falls upon his newborn child, who on account of his infant age is unable to discern what is good and what is not good … If such a one now pays the penalty of his father’s evil, where is justice? Where is piety? Where is holiness? Where is Ezekiel, who cries … “The son should not suffer for the sin of the father?” How can history so contradict reason?

As Sparks points out, Gregory’s solution, which fails to take the text literally although there are no (or at least very few possible) signs that it was intended as picture language, will not work for us. But he is evidence for this issue not being only a modern one.

[The previous post was about a week earlier, so I'm hoping for some good reading next week.]

You’ll see the point of my title if you read John Dyer’s fine and thought provoking post Are Chapter and Verse Numbers Making Us Stupid? John begins from Nicholas Carr’s provocative discussion of hypertext and what links do to our reading: The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains (at least the leaks and hints have been provoked much discussion already ;)

Then he asks the really interesting follow-up question, if hyperlinks and other interruptions in the flow of text make processing more difficult what about all the extra divisions in our Bibles? He discusses particularly chapters and verses, but the conversation in the comments begins to go wider. So in this context I’ll repost here a post from my old Blogger blog:

What should a Bible Translation look like?

First was David’s mild-mannered complaint about the “Section Headings” that translators, or their publishers, add on to the Bible text, sometimes misinterpreting the meaning; then my response and Henry Neufeld‘s post basically agreed, but perhaps expressed more stronhgly revulsion for section headings as possibly misleading additions to the text of Scripture (some of the comments to David’s post were in the same tone). For a more thorough and balanced account of this iniquitously arrogant practice see David’s second post Dissection Headings and especially the comments there.

Then Wayne asked about translation gaps meaning places where a straightforward (rather than lengthily explanatory) translation leaves a naive reader lost to much of the meaning. He gives as example Romans 11:16:
Here is how the passage reads in the TEV (Good News Translation) which our children grew up on:

If the first piece of bread is given to God, then the whole loaf is his also; and if the roots of a tree are offered to God, the branches are his also.

The TEV is one of the most idiomatic translations ever produced in English. Its English is natural. Yet someone without background knowledge of Jewish religious customs would not understand Rom. 11:16 in the TEV or any other translation, for that matter. And we really can’t make an encyclopedia out of our translations, filling in all such large translation gaps.

In the comments there I suggested that this was where a good (simple) set of cross references that points to possible allusions to other passages of the canon, or references to practices etc. was an essential part of a good Bible translation.

So… all this got me wondering, what should be included in a good simple Bible translation for beginners, and what is unwarranted tinkering with the sacred words of Scripture?

Here is my first attempt to think through the question:

Organising the Text
Section headings were added so as to break up the text, make the Bible seem more like other books, and make it easier for users to find things – though as David points out headings in the header at the top of the page would achieve this.

Paragraphing (rather than the older practice of printing each verse as a separate paragraph) was also begun to make the Bible “look like” other books none of which (except poetry which is broken into lines) are printed as a series of consecutive “verses”.

What makes paragraphs acceptable and headings anathema?

Firstly, almost all “normal” books in our culture have the prose printed in paragraphs, but section headings are optional. Second, although bad paragraphing misleads a reader, it misleads them much less than a badly placed or worded section heading. (That’s why I am glad to see the layout of many modern Bibles indicate when the old [but not "biblical"] chapter breaks fall in the “wrong” place.) So, paragraphs do more good and less harm. Indeed they are part of the translation process for printed books in our culture are not merely worded in English, they have paragraphs for prose and lines for poetry. Thus in translating ancient Hebrew or Greek into modern English this adaptation of form is legitimate.

Chapters and verses are a similar case. They too are added to the Bible and NOT part of the text. Yet, they are very convenient, how else – if we wanted to check the cotext – would we know which precise part of Romans Wayne meant (above) unless we knew the whole book nearly by heart? But, since they are additions added to the text, make the indications small and as unobtrusive as is convenient.

Notes are potentially very useful and informative. Textual and translational issues can be signalled by the translators, so that a reader can understand that a choice has been made, and perhaps even the sorts of reasoning that prompted the choice.

Cross References can suggest passages with similar wording, or that treat a similar topic or theme, or which might serve as background to the passage to which they are appended. These are extremely useful, and even (see above) can be considered part of the translation process, if the readership is deemed to include users who are new to the biblical world. Such references can become dangerous, especially when they are combined with words that suggest their meaning (rather than simply the Bible references). So, that is a practice to be avoided ;)

Explanatory information is added by the publisher (since this sort of note is often not composed by the translation team – though perhaps they should be, see my comment on Wayne’s post) may add notes explaining customs, historical details or other information that helps a reader understand the what text might have been intended to mean. This sort of note is potentially more “dangerous” as they might be used (and often are in “Study Bibles”) to push a particular line of interpretation, but they are very useful especially for beginning readers.

What would you add? Where do you think I have gone wrong? The aim is a translation that:

• is faithful to the biblical text
• is useful to a contemporary English-speaking (or other modern language) reader
• avoids unnecessary additions and interpretations of the text.

Note that you might like to consider (as I have done above) a beginner in reading the Bible as well as a biblically literate reader.

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It is probably no accident that the Bible I describe above is very like the French La Traduction Oecumenique de la Bible except that my copy has the iniquitous headings added :( but its cross reference apparatus is brilliant, and every Bible publisher should try to licence it and copy it as soon as possible ;)

I am nearing the end of the literature review section of my article on the Structure of Amos. There is nothing like such an exercise to encourage one to examine the nature and worth of scholarly publication.

As an undergraduate student, newly converted to a quasi-literary or historical discipline (Biblical Studies) from the rather different disciplines of Psychology, I eagerly explored the arcane works to be found in the Theology Library (then just across the road in Pusey House), sometimes when unusually excited by an idea I even supplemented them with the wonders available in the Bodleian (a little further away but still a pleasant stroll).

[One of the major delights of study at Oxbridge, in addition to the marvelous erudition of one's fellow students, and entertaining excentricity of one's teachers, and even sometimes the reverse, is the freedom from the lecture courses that lesser institutions inflict on unwary students. This freedom allows the exploration in depth of ideas that catch one's interest :)]

Regularly in such exploratory missions, endeavouring to map this new (to me) terrain of biblical studies, I wondered at the capacity of any collection of renowned scholars whose books and articles I pulled from the shelves to fail to agree about anything, much.

This capacity had ceased to amaze me, but still amused me, when I wrote a brief review article comparing Hayes little:

and Andersen and Freedman’s huge :

Amos commentaries. [Incidentally now the relative prices amaze but do not at all amuse me. How can a 250 page paperback cost more than a 1000 page hardback?] Both claimed to present clear evidence allowing the reader to reconstruct, following the tram lines laid down by the omniscient authors, the details of the ministry activity of the prophet Amos some seventeen hundred years earlier. The confidence with which the author of the short book could assert that Amos had enjoyed a very brief but powerful ministry, while the authors of the 1000 page tome assured us that his ministry was long and complex, was dazzling ;)

In those days my own “publications record” had no effect whatever on my employer’s income, and little on anything else. Since then the NZ government has introduced a clever scheme to get more accountability for all the pennies they rather stintingly dole out for higher education: the successive Performance Based Research Funding exercises. Since this generosity extends to private as well as public institutions, provided only they can demonstrate that they conform to the goals the government sets, have good retention and pass rates, get most of their graduates into employment etc… I get “assessed” by these exercises. We do not know the marking schedule, have no idea of the details of the criteria by which each of us will be judged and found wanting, but we are fairly sure articles in International Journals count quite a bit. Wouldn’t you find something with which you could plausibly disagree given such motivation?

But wouldn’t it be so much better for the world if scholarship (at least in the humanities, where research does not mean killing animals or smashing atoms, or anything else that is quantifiable, or will lead to a clear and evident improvement in human economies) were measured and rewarded by some more meaningful criteria?

Otagosh posted a brief extract from a book with an interesting title:

Basically in the quote the author compares her experience in a weird sect (the one founded and run by the Armstrong dynasty Herbert and Garner Ted) and an extremely evangelical denomination, the two experiences were alike in frightening ways, not least the desire in both places to believe that your group alone knows all the truth.

How odd, Jesus said: “But when the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth.” Truth in the Spirit is a journey, one which evidently does not end in this life, because no one here and now knows “all truth”. Yet humans so love to feel superior that they keep demeaning themselves by following plausible and implausible leaders who claim to offer it!

For years now I’ve been getting more and more fed up with the way weird sects, and Christians who have become nearly as weird, get away with making the Bible mean whatever they like.  It is no wonder that less and less Christians (in the West) bother to read the Bible, if it means half the things that people have told me with a straight face that it says, then it is not worth reading.

So, many readers make the Bible out to teach oppression of one sort or another, women subservient to men, children to adults,  anyone who enjoys life to the killjoys and their dumb rules… And it is not just the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the raving loony fundamentalists,   or the nutty Neo-Athiests, sadly there are loads of people in ordinary churches who love the Bible, yet abuse it terribly.

Then I taught a course at Carey “Understanding and Interpreting the Bible”, which I mentioned in a post on the old blog. Nothing fancy, a beginner’s class, using a slim paperback as its textbook : Duvall, J Scott, and J Daniel Hays Journey into God’s word : your guide to understanding and applying the Bible. Grand Rapids Mich.: Zondervan, 2008. Yet several times during the semester students said things like “Why don’t they teach us this in church?”.

So I’m trying. A series of sermons at Blockhouse Bay that finbished a few weeks ago, and now a seminar at Easter camp. A screencast using the audio from that seminar is below, and below that a link to the audio of some of the question and answer session (sadly my recorder ran out before the end :(

Question Time from the Bible Abuse Session at Easter camp (MP3 file)

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PS: I should note that this project began before I heard about Manfred Brauch’s book, and though I now have a copy I have not yet read it. For more on that book see  Karyn’s Using and Abusing Scripture and the post of the same title on Jesus Creed from the end of last year.

Conrad Gempf had a great post a few years back “Three Things ‘Gentile’ Christians May ‘Never’ Understand“. I’ve used this with several classes over the years. It’s fine, it’s well written, and it’s SO true! (Especially if you hear his comment that

These are three things that ordinary western evangelicals without a Jewish mindset will find very difficult to feel comfortable with.

Number one: God talks like a Jew

For someone with what I’m calling a Gentile mindset, “you may never understand” has to do with time and duration. The way I mean it is a very non-western way of saying it. “You may never understand” has little to do with time and everything to do with depth of feeling. Here’s a Gentile: “In a million years, the tectonic plates that define the continental shelf will have shifted to the new positions shown in figure A.” Here’s a Jew: “Never in a million years will I speak to her again.”

He’s right, God (indeed all Bible characters and authors – and most people today in real life, unless we are giving a lecture or instructions on how to cook or build something) do speak relationally rather than “factually”. This failure to understand wrecks many Bible texts – just think of the ugliness of “Creation Science” compared to the beauty of Genesis chapter one!

Number two: Meticulous obedience is not legalism

When we’re reading the Old Testament, we cheer for the Jews who meticulously observe Torah. Suddenly these same people wake up one day in the New Testament and they’re the bad guys?

This one is important for understanding what Jesus is on about in the Gospels, and because it leads to…
Last and most important: Habits of Holiness

Gentile Christians tend to dismiss Jewish practices out of hand as things that “obviously” no longer apply…

Such practices are “habits of holiness“, patterns of a life directed at honouring God.

He uses thankfulness as an example

A typical non-Messianic Jew thinks he or she needs to make themselves feel thankful and only then give thanks. I want to give thanks and allow that to help me to feel thankful.

Amen!

[But please READ THE ARTICLE!]

Well, I’m busy with this week’s sermon, after the helpful comments on my post last week Helicopter gunships in Joel – a plea for help :) though none critiquing what I actually preached :( I am tempted to make this post too a plea for assistance ;)

Instead, I’ll just note that my theme is that “The Bible is Perspicuous” and I plan to illustrate the theme and turn what risked being a lecture back into a sermon by looking at Jehovah’s Witnesses, Scripture and Salvation…

I’m attaching the slides again, and any comments or suggestions would be welcome :)

I’ll also say, that despite the fervour with which guys (but not often women – I wonder why, are most women too sensible?) from the US of A debate the details of “inerrancy” I really find that concept – even when qualified into safety by someone as skillful and provocative as John Hobbins – quite cold and uninspiring – when wielded by a mouth-foaming hearty muscular Evangelical (usually with a very big E) it is just terrifying! By contrast “perspicuity” is a peacemaker, patient, kind and gentle, though with a heart of steel. Just think of Menno Simons saying:

The Word is plain and needs no interpretation: namely, thou shalt love the  Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and  thy neighbor as thyself. Mt. 22:37, 39. Again, you shall give bread to the  hungry and entertain the needy. Is. 58:7

Who can claim to have mastered such a Scripture?

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Image (poster at top of post) details:
Title: Strong in the strength of the Lord. We who fight in the people’s cause will never stop until that cause is won
Artist: Martin, David Stone
Issuing Agency: United States. Office of War Information
Publisher: U. S. Government Printing Office
Date: 1942
Genre: War posters
Extent: 1 print (poster) : color
Description: Three muscular arms, one holding a gun, the others holding tools reach upward together.
Notes: U.S. Government Printing Office : 1942–O-488341; OWI Poster No. 8
Period: World War, 1939-1945
Subjects: Christianity; Patriotism; Propaganda
BPL Department: Print Department
Rights: Public Domain

So, how did I preach about “Helicopter gunships in Joel“?

As I said, this was part of a series on “How to Read the Bible” and though the sermon was on Joel 2:5-8 the title was “The Bible is NOT a code book… the Bible means what it says“.

I’m uploading my presentation and an audio recording of the sermon (as whole “slides” rather than with some bullet points and images appearing sequentially to save bandwidth as I am using a borrowed connection this week, for the same rerason the audio is AMR rather than MP3) so you can get a feel for the sermon:

Basically I suggested:

1. that there are three dominant pictures in Joel of a disaster: Locust plague, drought and invading army, and that these images shift from one to another through the book (even perhaps within a verse). This provides fertile ground for the “code-breakers”, but if the Bible “means what it says”, then it should not be impossibly difficult to understand without esoteric knowledge.
2. that looking at the cotext (a previous sermon pointed out the importance of lookin g at the text around the passage) provides all the clues we need
   1. so, the opening of the chapter tells us these pictures concern the “day of the Lord” – a time when God would intervene to put right what was wrong
   2. and those that follow (Joel 2:12-14) tell Joel’s hearers that they are part of the problem and must truely repent – mere words or ritual actions are not enough
   3. if they/we do then we may discover the God who “gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relents from punishing”.

The Bible is not a code book, but clear, it means what it says, and contains good news!