Sansblogue

Photo by iandeth

Link now working, sorry :(

I am still gradually expanding the open book Not Only a Father. I have added a section concerning “The Gender of Yahweh” to chapter five which (as a whole) is about “Theology of God as both Father and Mother“.

This growing book is an experiment in publishing as discussion, not merely a blog, but a coherent book-length exploration of a topic, but not merely a book online, since each thought and idea can be questioned, commented, challenged or expanded by the readers. The trouble is that unless it gets people visiting the material it does not get discussed, and unless YOU, or others like you who find the topic of using motherly language and pictures interesting, link to the material no one will find it, and the experiment will fail :(

God’s Word in Human Words

Kenton L. Sparks. Baker Academic 2008, Paperback, 416 pages, $19.07

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.]

I’ve been podcasting my way through the E100 (100 “essential” Bible readings designed to give a good overview introduction to the Bible). Today we got to Exodus 12: E100-19: Exodus12: A great festival, but a huge theological problem. I faced a dillemma, the podcasts are billed as 5 minute Bible, so I can’t go much over 5:30 for even a difficult passage. This chapter tells the story of Passover, vital stuff, not least (for Christian readers) as the NT takes it up as picture language to speak of what God does for us in Christ. But of course, in telling that it also (inevitably) tells of the killing of the first-born of every Egyptian household, even the animal ones (shades of the Ninevites in Jonah?). So how do I deal with that? How do you talk about God the cold-blooded killer in less than 5 minutes? Or at all?

At least, when many of your listeners are conservative Christians, who believe that the Bible is Word of God, and who do not understand that phrase as “liberally” as you do?

Photo by maaco

Mothers’ day yesterday was a double disappointment. It was not that the children forgot to celebrate Barbara, they remembered :) It was not that the service failed to include women who are not mothers, it did include them. But I still had two frustrations.

One was personal, but shared with huge numbers of others in this modern rich world, where so many people live so long. On Fathers’ Day, since my Dad is dead, I can remember his life and celebrate the person he was. But on Mothers’ Day, my Mum is still alive, except she has no memories, of me or of her own life, she is not my mum, and she thinks of me when I visit the UK as a nice man who comes (each day anew) to see her. That pseudo-life can’t be celebrated, yet it seems wrong to remember her as if she were dead…

The other is general, but shared (it seems) by very few. Surely, at the very least on this day of the year, beyond all others, we could talk in church a little (in our prayers and Bible readings if not in our sermon) of the motherly God we meet in Scripture and in the traditions of the Christian church. But no, it seemed that the intention to exclude all feminine language about God is held to equally rigorously even on Mothers’ Day :(

I wish, I really wish, more people would read Not only a Father, and if they disagree comment – or if they agree then make more use in public of the resources Scripture and tradition have provided us!

Aristotle’s Feminist Subject has a post in which various translationsof Psalm 90 are compared. As always I’m astounded by the way most treat verse 2:

בְּטֶרֶם׀  הָרִים  יֻלָּדוּ
וַתְּחֹולֵל  אֶרֶץ  וְתֵבֵל וּמֵעֹולָם
עַד־עֹולָם  אַתָּה  אֵל׃

Before the mountains were born
or you gave birth to the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

It seems quite clear to me. I cannot see how else to render the words!

The nearest to this explicitly (I think) maternal imagery for the creation of our world (among the translations in front of me here) comes from the NASB:

Before the mountains were born
Or You gave birth to the earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting,
You are God.

though the NIV comes close:

Before the mountains were born
or you brought forth the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

But the rest fudge it. Why? (There is a fuller, though still aimed at non specialist readers version of my take on it in chapter two of my Not Only a Father. Since the format of that work invites, needs, discussion, please go there and discuss either this or one of the other things I say!)

Yesterday I was reading bits of theses I am supervising (catching up after an Easter holiday), both were complex material, one because she is writing about Bakhtin (stimulating and likeable but not easy), the other because he’s dealing with two of the more difficult passages, basically dealing with the question of God’s commands to Israel in to commit the Canaanites etc. to the ban.

A basic question in dealing with this is: What do the passages actually say? For Dt 7:2 the English versions are pretty unanimous and clear (this is therefore just a small sample):

New Revised Standard
and when the LORD your God gives them over to you and you defeat them, then you must utterly destroy them. Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy.
New International Version
and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy.
English Standard Version
and when the LORD your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them.

It is not just the translations that follow the AV slavishly either, the CEV and New Living are as bad or worse.

So, to adopt (though hopefully with other motives) the snake’s question (Gen 3:1): Is this really what God says?
וּנְתָנָם  יְהוָה  אֱלֹהֶיךָ  לְפָנֶיךָ  וְהִכִּיתָם
הַחֲרֵם  תַּחֲרִים  אֹתָם
לֹא־תִכְרֹת  לָהֶם  בְּרִית  וְלֹא  תְחָנֵּם׃

The key phrases are in the second and third lines (above, this phrasing is based on the Masoretic accentuation).

הַחֲרֵם  תַּחֲרִים  אֹתָם is something like “you will certainly ban them” using a superlative construction that repeats the verb. The only major question about its meaning is what exactly the verb חרם means. Whatever it is they are most definitely to do it to the seven nations mentioned in the previous verse.

The last line is easier, they are not to make a covenant with them, nor show them “mercy”. Mercy here represents חנן “grace, mercy favour”.

The first clue that the English translations are wrong, if they mean – as I understand them to – that the Israelites are to wipe these seven nations out, is that they are commanded to make no covenant with them. One cannot make covenants with the dead. Secondly they are to show them no favour, this is not the same as showing no mercy!

Thus the traditional reading depends entirely on understanding of the ban חרם if this means “kill” then the rest of the interpretation is possible, but if it means something else then the rest is misleading (to put it mildly).

The Greek already had this understanding rendering הַחֲרֵם  תַּחֲרִים  אֹתָם  as ἀφανισμῷ ἀφανιεῖς αὐτούς.

So, does this ban mean “kill” or even “kill as a sacrifice to a god”. Not exactly, it seems rather to mean “exclude from human use, devote to a god exclusively (sometimes by sacrificing or killing).

So, does Dt 7:2 mean: “Exterminate them!” ? Sadly I think the answer is “yes and no”. As a command from God it clearly does not, one cannot make a covenant with someone one has killed! The command is rather to have nothing whatever to do with them. However, as an instruction in time of war to the Israelite forces in Joshua’s day, it does mean “Take no prisoners.”

I think a better translation would render the verse something like:

“and when the LORD your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them,
then you must completely cut yourselves off from them,
you shall make no covenant with them and nor offer them grace.”

Hmm…

Repost first posted in Sept 2004

Maggi Dawn in her “Three Must-Reads in blogville” drew my attention to John Sloas’ post in Crooked Line titled “motherly spirituality for a dad“. I started to post these thoughts as a comment there, but they grew…

My “kids” are now thoroughly grown and have left the nest. I still love sitting with them, but now it’s more often in the spa than over building blocks. I have no small kids to “parent” except when we borrow some from friends at church.

Holding a baby by rumpleteaser

There is something really special about looking after a small one that is different, and lovely. Holding a baby or toddler always helps one get in tune with God. Perhaps that’s why parenting (both mother and father) is such a strong biblical picture of what God is like. (On God as mother see my becoming-book: Not Only a Father.)

It is a great shame that so many Western fathers have missed out over the years. And now, keen as we are to provide equal deprivation for all, many mothers miss out as well. Yet these experiences are times when we are open to those rumors of another world. They should not be missed.

Nuts

Tash has a really stimulating, really short post “Theology For Our Times. Stu exegetes the post in a comment ;)

All I’ll add here (so you have to go read the post and think for yourself) is that “church leaders” must be nuts if they really think “salvation, end times, church leadership…” are theological issues that really matter in the 21st century!