I once had a conversation with the wife of an elder at our family-integrated church. She was defending the idea of patriarchy with the account in Genesis of the sun and moon “ruling” the sky. I couldn’t believe she’d use an obviously poetic reference as a literal thing to defend her beliefs about husbands being the boss.

dee wrote:

Did you pause at the end to see where those other folks ended up!

Now I did. “Under constant surveillance.” Classic.

HoppyTheToad wrote:

She was defending the idea of patriarchy with the account in Genesis of the sun and moon “ruling” the sky. I couldn’t believe she’d use an obviously poetic reference as a literal thing to defend her beliefs about husbands being the boss.

What would she do in a German-speaking country, where the sun is female (“die Sonne”), and the moon is male (“der Mond”)?

I’ve got an earworm for the Neurotology video since I’ve watched it several times this week. Word spread last Saturday night that Saturday Night Live had done an absolutely superb parody of Scientology’s 1990 video “We Stand Tall”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyNh1j3dsp8

The only thing “off” in the SNL video was that the leader of Neurotology was tall. David Miscavige is rather short, probably about 5 feet, 5 inches. (You can see him in the center of the “We Stand Tall” video in the center of the front row at 2:50. He’s wearing an ugly–and very expensive–Hermes shirt.) Otherwise, it was a funny, scarily accurate parody with lots of Easter eggs. And if you look at the production values, it’s apparent that SNL spent some money and time on this. It wasn’t something dreamed up at the Monday morning writer’s conference.

Now, to keep this on topic, is anyone aware of churches that have done braggy videos like this promoting their brand?

Corbin wrote:

dee wrote:
Did you pause at the end to see where those other folks ended up!
Now I did. “Under constant surveillance.” Classic.

Wednesday night the LA Times ran with a story, backed up by police documents, about how David Miscavige, the leader of Scientology, had his father Ron Miscavige Sr. under surveillance. Ron and his wife Brenda (David’s stepmother) had escaped from “Gold Base” near Hemet, California, sometime around 2012. (The escape has been described as done with military precision.) They moved to West Allis, Wisconsin, where they were tailed by two private investigators being paid $10,000/week to keep an eye on them. In late July 2013, one of them was seen skulking around a neighborhood and a resident called the cops. The PIs’ SUV was tossed and a homemade silencer found, along with (among other things) nearly a dozen guns, a few thousand rounds of ammo, a wagon wheel, a brown whip and seven different license plates.

Tony Ortega has been all over this: http://tonyortega.org/2015/04/08/let-him-die-scientology-leader-david-miscavige-had-private-eyes-watching-his-father-say-police/ << That's the link to the first story, there are two more, one with comments from Jenna Miscavige Hill about her uncle and grandfather and another with the arrest documents which are eye-opening.

Anyway, there's one thing in the LA Times story worth quoting because it gives you some idea of the dynamic here:

Once, while tailing Miscavige on a shopping trip, Powell and his partner watched him grasp his chest and slump over while loading his car. After his arrest, Powell told police he’d thought Miscavige was having a heart attack and might die. He said he phoned his intermediary for instructions.

Two minutes later a man who identified himself as David Miscavige called him back, according to records.

“David told him that if it was Ron’s time to die, to let him die and not intervene in any way,” the records state, noting that the apparent emergency passed “and nothing further happened.”

It turns out that Ron Sr. was fumbling with his cell phone and not having a heart attack. But the idea that the PIs should not break cover to render medical aid. While legally justifiable, it’s morally repugnant. But David Miscavige is really that kind of guy.

@ Megan:

Great comment. We talk about ‘the words’ sometimes here at TWW. I think that everything you have said makes so much sense. I am not a linguist but I am an observer of people so let me throw this out there. Maybe indeed (well certainly I guess) a literal understanding of let’s say the Genesis origin stories could lead one to patriarchy, especially with a little Paul thrown in, but I am thinking it might work the other way around. Perhaps people may want patriarchy for reasons that have nothing to do with the Genesis stories and therefore they read the stories literally because it gives them a way to ‘prove’ something they want proved for other than objective religious reasons. And it lets them hide from themselves and other people that there may be other motives, and they can pass it all off as righteousnesses of some sort. I am just not too overwhelmingly impressed with how often people take to heart something in scripture that they actually do not like.

I am trying to say, which causes which, and of course what on earth can be done about it.

Corbin wrote:

mirele wrote:

But David Miscavige is really that kind of guy.

Sheesh. He should go into the cult leader hall of fame.

Every picture of Miscavige I have ever seen, the guy looks like there’s this “veil of darkness” over his face. It’s the “Look Fair but Feel FOUL” effect all those Christianese End Times movies try for in their Antichrist. My roomie described it as “It’s the eyes. Stone Cold Psychopath — the type of guy who’d have people burned alive as torches to illuminate his dinner party.”

@ Nancy:
I think that’s a *huge* part of the problem. None of us comes to a text without biases and pre-conceived notions, and part of being a responsible reader is, at a minimum, admitting that.

I think it’s certainly likely that in many cases people read patriarchy into the text because that’s what they want to see, and I think that’s a problem. I don’t think it’s only people who want to see patriarchy there who do that; it’s something we’re all prone to do.

For a large constituency of the church, though, I think that people see things like patriarchy in the text because they truly believe it is the ‘plain reading’ of the text. Without some education and training on how to handle texts, people naturally read their assumptions into the text. To a 21st Century American, ‘Wives, submit to your husbands’ seems to be clearly teaching that…wives should submit to their husbands. People need to understand cultural differences, context, and the 1st Century church to arrive at a different reading for this text. On a popular level, taking into account things like cultural context and ‘metaphorical language’ seems to be calling into question the authority of the Word of God, and that makes one persona non grata in certain circles. It doesn’t need to be this way, but pastors intentionally or unintentionally communicate this.

One other aspect of this that is often overlooked is that texts are read in communities, and that people are socialized into their culture’s implicit expectations about how texts work and how writers write. Frankly, most people don’t understand the extent to which these expectations contribute to how we approach texts. 21st Century Americans tend to think that for the Bible to be ‘authoritative’ it also has to be ‘factually accurate’, but we don’t realize that our definitions of these terms are culturally laden, and that they wouldn’t necessarily translate into other 21st Century cultures, much less the world of the Bible. The Bible was not written by 21st Century Americans, and when we bring our understanding of ‘accuracy’ to the text, we run the risk of over-interpreting.

In other words, I think that part of the problem stems from is people looking to the Bible and justifying their prejudices from it. But I also think the problem is bigger–we don’t understand how culturally laden our hermeneutics are, and so most pastors and people never stop to question their assumptions.

To a certain extent, I think this is a problem without an easy solution. I know of no way to completely set aside cultural biases, but I do think being aware of them and approaching the text humbly is a good first step. I also think better education and less fear will help.

Sorry for comments that are short essays! Apparently this is a topic about which I have a lot to say.

oldJohnJ wrote:

Megan wrote:
Sorry for comments that are short essays! Apparently this is a topic about which I have a lot to say.
and I’m glad you have come forward and said some of it.

Thanks to both you and Dee! I won’t apologize again. 🙂

Thank You for this, I was just trying to listen to John Macarthur on his creationist YEC pov which is fine but it was the lying that went on about what science and others actually teach. I cant stand that guy at all. Thanks for this wonderful post.

Well this could be written for me:) As you all know if you’ve been here some time, as I mention it with monotonous regularity, issues with biblical language & the epistemology of language are at the heart of my current estrangement from faith. OldJohnJ, if only I could get you, Brad & now Megan round a table to help me understand why I keep getting stuck, & a way forward…. sigh.

Megan wrote:

To a certain extent, I think this is a problem without an easy solution.

I, for one, intend to pick your brain as long as I can, because I suffer from some ‘condition’ that does not make it easy for me to solve this. Only I come at it from a different angle. And I note that there are a lot of people out there like me. I had serious trouble in college in the only required lit class I ever took when the prof kept want us to say ‘what the author really meant/’said’ instead of reading what the author actually said. I do not battle with the text-I throw out the text. My educational background is in a scientific field, but I have a smattering of introductory level reading ability in a three languages in addition to english and I know that translation per se is difficult. Far too complex for me to ever say “the greek word is..” I leave that to others At the same time I had one course only in linguistics in school and a little cultural anthropology (I was a missions major at Carver school for several summer sessions only) so I understand what you are saying when you say it, and I realize that you ‘get it’ but I don’t ‘get it’ myself.

I look at scripture in some things, and then look at the available evidence in those certain things, and I come to the conclusion that (if the people who believe in the inspiration of scripture are correct) then God said one thing and did another. So I believe the evidence and conclude that the writers of scripture did the best they could but that they were mistaken about some things (creation, the flood and such.) In addition I absolutely cannot see how calling something a metaphor or even an allegory changes its meaning. Poetry? How does that change meaning merely by using different technique of saying something. Parable? Same thing, same meaning, just a different style of telling the idea. But you all seem to see a different meaning in different communication styles. I run smack into a brain glitch with this.

Here is where I plop down on the ‘wives submit’ issue and scripture. Tell me why this is wrong. Sure that is what the bible says, because that was consistent with the culture of the day and one of the scriptural issues is that believers are not contentious trouble makers unless it is unavoidably necessary for the good of the kingdom, and also some ‘submitting’ may have been a survival mechanism in some culture that could force submission anyhow. Hence some good advice was given, that this was not a battle that they needed to take on and that in fact the whole thing could be ‘redeemed’ by turning it into a religious virtue. But that was then and this is now and we live in a different culture with different cultural expectations and hence different adjustive behaviors.

Now we have people saying, if I understand, that if we just understand how language was used in that particular passage of scripture, not forgetting the cultural context of course, then that is not what the bible said at all. I may try to wrap my mind around that idea but I just don’t see it.

Any and all that you can say on this issue will be appreciated.

@ K.D.:

So why do we let ourselves grind to a halt about something Paul said, as your prof said -in a specific circumstance. Why do we ignore the big picture, and why did the guy think he had to say it ‘off the record’ and why do we practically worship Paul when Paul himself said don’t do that, as in some say “I am of Paul…” and he himself said don’t go there.

Maybe some people don’t ‘venerate’ Mary but do ‘venerate’ Paul?

Nancy wrote:
Here is where I plop down on the ‘wives submit’ issue and scripture. Tell me why this is wrong. Sure that is what the bible says, because that was consistent with the culture of the day and one of the scriptural issues is that believers are not contentious trouble makers unless it is unavoidably necessary for the good of the kingdom, and also some ‘submitting’ may have been a survival mechanism in some culture that could force submission anyhow. Hence some good advice was given, that this was not a battle that they needed to take on and that in fact the whole thing could be ‘redeemed’ by turning it into a religious virtue. But that was then and this is now and we live in a different culture with different cultural expectations and hence different adjustive behaviors.
Now we have people saying, if I understand, that if we just understand how language was used in that particular passage of scripture, not forgetting the cultural context of course, then that is not what the bible said at all. I may try to wrap my mind around that idea but I just don’t see it.
Any and all that you can say on this issue will be appreciated.

I think there are a couple of issues here, and they work together. First, people like to talk about what the Bible says in shorthand ways, under the assumption that that that proves something. Two examples from conversations I’ve had with people:
First, I once heard someone argue that Paul changed his mind on baptism, and later in his ministry, he didn’t baptize people. He made this argument based in 1 Corinthians 1:17, in which Paul does indeed say “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.” The problem with that interpretation–and what I tried to argue–is that the larger context of the text doesn’t allow you to draw that conclusion. Paul may have changed his mind on baptism, but that’s not a conclusion that can be drawn from this passage because Paul is dealing with divisions in the Corinthian church, and he appeals to their baptism in Christ as the basis of their unity. The problem here is tribalism, and Paul is addressing tribalism.
Second, a former student of mine who is Saudi and therefore Muslim, once asked me if it’s true that the Bible says that “God is not a man”. It is true in the sense that those words are in the Bible in that order. But, again, that’s not what the text means. That is a fragment of Numbers 23:19, which says “God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill it?” (Incidentally, Muslim apologists like to do this to the Bible–rip verses out of context to argue something that can’t be proved from the verse in context).
So one implication is that whatever interpretive conclusions we come to have to make sense with the text as a whole. So, yes, I don’t think that the solution is to make the text say something it doesn’t say.
I do think, however, that we need to be more comfortable bringing the original cultural context into our interpretive discussions. In the case of ‘Wives, submit to your husbands’, this means two things: One, paying attention to how the command is given in the context of the text. Complementarians often ignore the fact that the first verse of that section says ‘submit to one another’, and I think that does a disservice to the text. The second aspect of this, though, is understanding the cultural context–theirs and ours–and why the command was given in the first place. A complicating factor, though is that the meaning of words isn’t stable over time. This is not a reason to panic; language changes. It does mean, though, that connotation matters. If something has a positive connotation in the original, but the translation equivalent has a negative connotation, then the translation equivalent probably doesn’t do a great job of capturing the original meaning of the text.

Frankly, I think one one of the biggest drivers of this is a pathological need to hold on to an authoritative Bible and an allergy to scholarship. In many cases, I think this is fear-driven. There sometimes seems to be this attitude that we have to defend the Bible as authoritative and as applicable to our lives, and this means that we draw conclusions that are overly literalistic. (See, for instance, young earth creationists). In any event, my point here is that language is a lot more flexible than we give it credit for, and that meaning is more complicated than we would like.

Peter Enns’ work has been helpful for me in diagnosing some of these problems. He has a particularly helpful discussion in (I think) Inspiration and Incarnation about challenging the assumptions we bring to the text. I think that unless we examine our assumptions and our cultural practices around the Bible, we’ll continue to be stuck.

Nancy wrote:

Maybe some people don’t ‘venerate’ Mary but do ‘venerate’ Paul?

Bingo

Megan wrote:

The other aspect of this problem, though, is a laity that implicitly or explicitly believes that the only accurate translation is a word-for-word translation, and that taking cultural context (ours or the original context) into account in interpretation somehow undermines the authority of the Bible.

Word-for-word may be appropriate to computer programming lanquages, but it clearly is not for natural languages. The problem with literalism in early Genesis is far more blatant than with translation. Unfortunately YEC concepts seem sufficiently resistant to correction that our witness to those outside of the faith is severely damaged.

Thanks again for significantly deepening this discussion.

@ oldJohnJ:
This is very well-written. I have enough trouble with my only language of (obviously) English. Add to that the well-meaning but off-target KJV-only friends and family that I have and this subject makes my head spin (poetically, not literally).

I finally decided to do something about it. I have started learning Koine Greek (New Testament Greek). I’m 46 years old, so it was a bit daunting. But with the many online teachers, flash card apps, and even TED talks about how to best learn a second language, I am finding that it is quite doable.

But I mentioned to a KJV-only person that I am learning the original language and got a confused stare. Could they REALLY believe that the 1611 English was the original?!

At any rate, I would like to encourage everyone to try to learn at least a little of the biblical languages. I only know a few words in Koine but it has already changed the way I read and comprehend the Bible. And one more bit of encouragement is that I’ve heard it said that one must know 5000 words in a language to be fluent or conversational. The New Testament only has over 3000 different words (the precise number leaves me). Very doable in time….

Eric S wrote:

@ oldJohnJ:

But I mentioned to a KJV-only person that I am learning the original language and got a confused stare. Could they REALLY believe that the 1611 English was the original?!

You’d be surprised. I had a friend who was a missionary to Brazil ( Left the mission field, politics like you would not believe now.)
Anyway, he was asked by his pastor if he was teaching from the KJV by his pastor, to which he replied, the Portugese Bible worked quite well in Brazil….and the pastor didn’t understand why?

Eric S wrote:

I have begun the task of learning Koine (as I stated above) because of this very problem that I see in the church. Many preachers (and I listen to many online) will share the meaning of an original Greek or Hebrew word from a bible dictionary, reading the entire definition. Isn’t this a bit dangerous?

Yes, it’s very dangerous. It makes people sound like they know what they’re talking about, but it often ignores or obfuscates the original meaning. Your example about the word ‘car’ is a good one; we instinctively know these differences in our native language, but somehow this rationality and sensitivity to context goes out the window when we deal with the Biblical languages and Biblical interpretation.

dee wrote:

Beakerj wrote:
OldJohnJ, if only I could get you, Brad & now Megan round a table to help me understand why I keep getting stuck, & a way forward…. sigh.
If you send me your questions, I could email them to each of the folks you mentioned.

Beakerj – if the questions aren’t too personal you might try posting them on in this post. Likely others will have similar questions.

dee wrote:

I am of the opinion that if God really meant for something to be clear, he would have made it crystal clear.For some things, that is true. The Creator kicking off creation, sin, redemption, life eternal, etc.

Agreed.

These issues of interpretation and translation were actually a bit of a crisis point for me a couple of years ago. I’m about to defend my dissertation proposal, and will finish next year, so by now I’ve had some time to wrestle with these issues. However, after about a year of graduate school, I could no longer ignore the growing disconnect between my academic training and understanding of linguistics and translation, and the way the Bible was approached, used, and discussed in the corners of the church I was familiar with. It took a couple of years, some soul-searching, and some time away from the church for me to come to a position I was comfortable with. It has meant, though, that there are a lot of popular pastors I can’t listen to for very long because I think the assumptions with which they approach the text are wrong. It has also made finding a church I’m comfortable with now difficult.

Megan wrote:

It took a couple of years, some soul-searching, and some time away from the church for me to come to a position I was comfortable with. It has meant, though, that there are a lot of popular pastors I can’t listen to for very long because I think the assumptions with which they approach the text are wrong. It has also made finding a church I’m comfortable with now difficult

Join

Megan wrote:

It took a couple of years, some soul-searching, and some time away from the church for me to come to a position I was comfortable with. It has meant, though, that there are a lot of popular pastors I can’t listen to for very long because I think the assumptions with which they approach the text are wrong. It has also made finding a church I’m comfortable with now difficult

Join the club. I have found myself more drawn to scholars who have really wrestled with all we are discussing here. Not because I believe or agree with every word but because they make me think. ( I used to read a bible translation blog and one of the things I learned there is taht linquists usually make better translators than theologians. I say that in a totally general way)

And thereis a great irony about that. I am not just talking about well known scholars but lesser knowns who have wrestled with this stuff for years without fame or accolades.

My cousin invited me to her very small country church months back. I was astonished at the “talk” given by a retired professor who focused on ancient cultures in the OT he had been studying for 30 years. It was one of the most thought provoking talks I have heard in a church since I was a kid.

A country church(Baptist!)that is not afraid to go that route? I have not heard anything like that in the typical large evangelical church. It was a blessing. BTW: This guy had been forced out by Mohler many years prior and had gone somewhere else to do his research. I only know this because I picked his brain after the service.

@ Megan:
A lot of xtians do the exact same thing with the Qur’an. I’ve seen enough of both sides of this (some prominent Muslim “debaters” and their American xtian counterparts) to realize (and feel frustrated by) the tendency toward uninformed, vehement discourse that happens there is a human thing, and happens everywhere, with *some* people, regardless of their beliefs.

Equally,i know Muslims who have great respect for the beliefs of xtians and Jews, but they tend to be better-educated (and from a different time, not so long ago) than many of the fieriest apologists for a certain kind of Sunni Islam.

Megan wrote:

translation is an art, and not a science

That made me think of something funny. The author of the article had a career in computer science. I always joked that computer science is an oxymoron. Computer science is one of the black arts.

@ Megan:
And those who rip Qur’anic verses out of context tend not to know anything much about Islam, its history and msny schools of though, let alone the reams of scholarly commentary that exists, in English ad well as Arabic and many, many other languages. Neither can they read classical Arabic, which is the language of the Qur’aan (not the same as modetn Arabic).

@ Jeremy:

“I find it is even pretty bleak in seminary language classes. Some schools will give you an MDiv with only 6 hours of Greek and 6 of Hebrew and no linguistics really at all. That hardly seems sufficient to use the Greek text in a meaningful and accurate way in ministry.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

6 hours…

i’m light years away from higher education in time and mindset (making school lunches, folding laundry….). So, I can’t remember for sure — speaking of ‘literal translation’, do you mean a literal 6 hours (360 minutes total of class instruction)?

if so, that is absolutely pathetic.

I pride myself on a BA in religious studies (because it was so tough). I took 4 semesters of greek. I translated Hebrews 11 and at the time considered it quite an achievement. But I relied on the lexicon entirely. 2 years didn’t even scratch the surface of delving into the meaning of the words culturally/historically/etc.

Even this large investment of time, money, and effort was a very humble beginning into knowledge and understanding.

@ oldJohnJ:

Well, it has its uses certainly, but one of the uses-electronic medical records-is causing a huge problem right now. Nothing that the developers of the science did, but I resent it that I now have a routine appointment with some computer program instead of some doctor, which is how I see it and apparently how he sees it. So sometimes I lie to the computer to psych the system, and the computer, being a machine, is none the wiser. Heh. Heh. Heh. Power to the people.

mirele wrote:

Now, to keep this on topic, is anyone aware of churches that have done braggy videos like this promoting their brand?

I don’t know about promoting a brand… but there’s this cheesy one singing the praises of CBMW darling Wayne Grudem. Disclaimer: I am not responsible for anyone who becomes nauseous or laughs himself into a coma as a result of watching this video. 😉

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAmzaAtvhvw

P.S. I haven’t read the whole article yet, but I hope to soon. I’m sure OldJohnJ has done a great job, as usual. And I’m looking forward to how he connects it to computer science. That was my major!

@ Nancy:

Not only that but now my state government has access to all medical records of any state/gov employees which is tied to their healthcare plan. When did we decide that was a good thing?

@ numo:
For the record, I think it’s just as much of a problem when Christians do this other religions, Islam included. I’m just not as equipped to understand and identify when it happens in the opposite direction because I don’t know enough about Islam; what I know comes largely from dialogue with Muslim friends.

@ K.D.:
K.D.

I can appreciate that problem. My last Sunday attending an Evangelical Free Church was an Easter where as a choir member, I had to sit through the same sermon twice. It was on the sign of Jonah. (I remember thinking that it would have been a good Lenten sermon, but I didn’t realize what Lent truly was at the time.)

K.D. wrote:

Eric S wrote:
@ oldJohnJ:
But I mentioned to a KJV-only person that I am learning the original language and got a confused stare. Could they REALLY believe that the 1611 English was the original?!
You’d be surprised. I had a friend who was a missionary to Brazil ( Left the mission field, politics like you would not believe now.)
Anyway, he was asked by his pastor if he was teaching from the KJV by his pastor, to which he replied, the Portugese Bible worked quite well in Brazil….and the pastor didn’t understand why?

I once went through a series of KJV-only classes at my former church. When I asked him about the fact that KJV was English and what should they use in other languages (thinking that I had found a weakness in his theory) he passionately replied, “you see, the KJV has been translated into a lot of other languages!”

Hmm, how many generations of translations would that be? Ever heard of the telephone game where the words get passed along secretly and they never return again as they were first spoken?

dee wrote:

We all think we are pretty smart now but we do the exactly same thing with YEC, complementarianism, etc. And everyone is so gosh darn sure they are right

I used to be pretty set in my mind as to what is the right way to view the world until I realized how much I wanted to argue for things that I couldn’t prove, nor could they be proven to me. It actually took more faith for me to say, “young earth/old earth? I don’t know, I wasn’t around at the time….” than to try to prove my point. I felt myself change into someone who is more interested in facts (truth) than just choosing a side and winning debates.

@ Megan:
No worries, and I understand – I used to have Muslim ESL students myself. But they were mostly women who were either not that religious and/or happy to discuss religion, but had no interest in trying to convert anyone (or, at least, me).

It bugs me like crazy to see xtians diss other faiths – not just Islam. The unfortunate tendency in many circles (not just evangelical, either) is to demonize both the beliefs *and* the adherents, by default, pretty much.

I once mentioned to a KJ-only-person that it was good enough for Paul and Silas. She game me a very confused look.

Serving Kids In Japan wrote:

Arrgh! I still can’t watch that video! Stupid licensing restrictions.
(mope)
mirele wrote:
The only thing “off” in the SNL video was that the leader of Neurotology was tall. David Miscavige is rather short, probably about 5 feet, 5 inches.
Nope, even shorter. He’s officially 5′ 1”. Tony Ortega found out by talking to Miscavige’s former tailor.
(hee hee hee)

Well, I’ve actually stood across the street (picketing, with a sign, in front of the Shrine Auditorium in LA) from Miscavige and I thought he was about my height. He could have been wearing lifts in his shoes.

Megan wrote:

And, if we don’t have an inerrant Bible, then, it seems, the whole faith crumbles.

That’s like saying because what’s his name didn’t convert on third and long, team ‘x’ lost the Superbowl when in fact they did win with a field goal in over time.

@ numo:
One of my former students was Saudi, and she and I used to have long discussions about Islam and Christianity. She gave me a lot of apologetic material, which I read, and large parts of it were like that.

@ mirele:
I checked that link out. Very interesting. I am also told that the KJV contained the apocrypha. Not something my Fundy Baptist KJV only teacher ever admitted or probably even believed.

I posit that if Fringe fans watch Eureka, they will discover that the concept behind Fringe is an expanded version of one episode of Eureka. (I’m pretty sure Eureka came out first.) Likewise, the last Indiana Jones movie was a ripoff of a Stargate SG-1 episode.

We were watching an episode of something a few weeks ago (either the US version of “Being Human” or “The Tomorrow People” when I exclaimed to Mr. Hoppy that the characters needed Walter Bishop’s help. I don’t remember why, though.

dee wrote:

You might be interested in reading this story. Northwest Nazarene University just sacked Professor Oord who believes in evolution.

You know me dee, a perennial rogue who doesn’t fit into any one category, so I gotta ask. If the tables were turned and it was an eminent Prof. at a progressive institution who came out of the closet saying he (or she) rejects the evolutionary paradigm, how long would he (or she) last?

The article began with:

I believe the best way to approach these stories is as parables, stories that are intended to be interpreted in any culture and language to convey important truths about God and His intentions for us, not as commentary on current science and technology or as history.

Amen and amen.

Whenever I have tried to suggest the above to conservatives, I’ve been shot down in flames. Thanks to TWW for letting me know that others share my view. There is hope in the church.

Thanks for all of your great comments, Megan. I’m enjoying them very much.

Megan wrote:

Intermediate-mid language proficiency means that one can handle daily communicative tasks, and can talk about things like themselves, daily activities, and concrete events. Language learners at this level can usually respond to things, but they tend not to operate proactively unless they have to.

This is roughly where I’m at after 15 years living and working in Japan. My Japanese might be more proficient than this, but beyond daily conversation I haven’t tested it lately.

And pastors call themselves experts in Greek after only 6 hours… (shakes head sadly)

My experience with this language has convinced me that a perfectly literal translation of the Bible is impossible, just as OldJohnJ said above. There are plenty of Japanese words, phrases and greetings that are very, very hard even to explain in English, let alone translate. Many foreign loan words lose something of their nuance when used by people here, and some change their meanings entirely. With all this complexity between English and Japanese in modern times, I can only imagine how challenging ancient Greek and Hebrew must be.

@ Megan:
Good comment indeed.

It’s amazing what happens when folks want to take things literal without applying common sense. Passages that could very easily be interpreted poetically are dogmatically assumed to be literal because it says what we want them to say in light of church history. Lets not forget that some of these ideas aren’t things recently thought up – there’s centuries of church history behind them (like in church doctrine about women and marriage and church leadership) and leaders today want to defend these ideas not only because they like them but because they’re perceived to be the faithful interpretations of Scripture over the course of church history. In one fell swoop they can both staunchly defend the Bible and church history (as they see it), and also cater to their own desires.

Isn’t that perfect?

Muff Potter wrote:

You know me dee, a perennial rogue who doesn’t fit into any one category, so I gotta ask. If the tables were turned and it was an eminent Prof. at a progressive institution who came out of the closet saying he (or she) rejects the evolutionary paradigm, how long would he (or she) last?

Muff, I’ll take the bait. There are two plausible answers as I see it. If the rejection of evolution was strictly on ideological grounds I suspect, even with tenure, his/her academic future would be short. However, the road to fame and fortune in science requires upsetting an occasional apple cart. If the prof in question can point to some legitimate evidence for his conclusion (s)he should be able to get a get out of jail free card. The state of evolution theory currently is such that this latter possibility seems very unlikely.

elastigirl wrote:

@ K.D.:
“I just laughed and laughed at your post.”
++++++++++++
really? I intended no humor… but I suppose i’m glad to entertain. hmmmmmmm
2 years in a modern language is nothing, much less an ancient language. If you have difficulty speaking the language while there you can always speak a bit louder with an affected accent (I’ve noticed when I’ve travelled with others in foreign countries that we all tended to do that — as if Indonesians would understand English better spoken loudly with a French accent).

The funny part is me trying to speak German. I try with the wife’s bunch and they just look and smile…..plus, I have a horrible Southern accent.( East Texas, sounds very much like rural Mississippi or Alabama ) but here, I sound like everyone else.

@ dee:
I’m glad you liked it, I’m now on my second watch through & loving it even more than the first time. The names always make me laugh & I just love Walter & Walternate.

I haven’t even heard of Dig…will go & look that up 🙂

oldJohnJ wrote:

I’d like a word that says take this account spiritually, not literally.

I can’t think of a word that might fit the occasion. However, while we are brain storming, if Genesis 1 were an entire book then the way it is written now could be chapter headings/introductions. The idea that things occurred progressively is good. The idea that at each step with life forms there is some sort of similar process ( in genesis 1 that would be that god said) is good. The sequential listing of kinds of life forms is good. There is a sort of proto-taxonomy in groupings in g1. I will have to leave the ‘universe’ stuff to you, but I think I see something in the life forms verses/statements.

So using the idea of g1 as an outline and calling the verses chapter headings one could say in that man has accumulated a lot of information at each level and has amassed an enormous amount of knowledge to fill in the blanks and to flesh out the ideas and turn the outline into a book (body of knowledge.) I am inclined to say that they wrote what they thought they knew at the time and the details are for humanity to figure out.

Nancy wrote:

oldJohnJ wrote:
I’d like a word that says take this account spiritually, not literally.

This isn’t adequate. Besides spiritual truths there are inferences about the physical world that are correct. I think the critical idea is looking at the deeper meanings of these early Genesis accounts, not trivializing them with a forced literal interpretation. Maybe some of the more literate folks lurking here could suggest or perhaps invent an appropriate term.

Nancy wrote:

Maybe if you would say what it is you see there that is spiritual?

I see that He has created the universe, created our species alone in His image as moral creatures with free will and interacted with us in many ways. These are the types of things I feel are glossed over or not recognized with the literalism approach to interpretation.

In response (before I hit the hay, it being 11 pm in Blighty) to several comments on what word to describe Genesis 1…

I’d call it a song.

Serving Kids In Japan wrote:

My experience with this language has convinced me that a perfectly literal translation of the Bible is impossible, just as OldJohnJ said above. There are plenty of Japanese words, phrases and greetings that are very, very hard even to explain in English, let alone translate. Many foreign loan words lose something of their nuance when used by people here, and some change their meanings entirely. With all this complexity between English and Japanese in modern times, I can only imagine how challenging ancient Greek and Hebrew must be.

I used to live and work in Japan, and at one point, I would have said my Japanese proficiency was fairly advanced. I think the Japanese/English differences are really instructive, and instructive in a way that European languages (or at least French, because that’s the only one I’m familiar with) aren’t. Lots of really basic things just don’t translate, and the longer you’re there, and the better your Japanese gets, the more you realize that there are other ways of saying things. But this does make you realize that direct translation is really difficulty.

Nancy wrote:

You are better than I am. I also had some german in college, but there was no emphasis on the spoken language, just reading.

I had a wonderful Prof. who taught us to ‘think’ in German and how to bypass (as much as possible) the internal ‘translation’ phase from ‘Americanese’ to German. For example, you don’t want to ask somebody ‘what’ their name is but rather how are you called?. In another instance, you don’t tell someone that you’re hungry, but to convey the state you’d say I have hunger. She also taught us how important the gender of nouns is in interaction with the rest of German language structure. Her success rate with students was high and she garnered several awards over the years.

A completely accurate translation between two natural languages is not possible in principle

Now there’s a fascinating sentence! I’ll have to beg to differ with you on this one. I do think it is possible to reproduce the meaning of one language in another with great accuracy.

This is not always achieved by being ‘literal’ – after all you are yellow with envy in German, but green with envy in English, so saying ‘he was yellow with envy’ loses the meaning. It is also true you have to take cultural differences into account, where again you could lose meaning by being literal. This is where dynamic equivalence can be an advantage over literal versions, albeit with the attendant danger of interpreting the source text in the target language rather than ‘just’ translating it.

As far as the bible is concerned, I go for as literal as possible. If there are ambiguities in the original, if possible reproduce them in English and let the reader mull over the interpretation. If this is not possible, put a note in the margin explaining alternative nuances. The amplified bible is good for this, and also a combination of dynamic equivalence such as the GNB and a more literal version such as the NASB can be helpful. So I would keep greet one another with a holy kiss, but would not object to greet one another warmly as a renditioning of the meaning geared towards modern culture. (And to avoid ‘pastors and elders prefer blonds … :-))

If you said an absolute reproduction of the original in a target language is not always possible, I would have to agree there, but what I object to is the notion that because we have the bible in translation (and far too many of them imo) we cannot be sure we have the word of God and cannot know the revealed will of God.

It takes years of study to master Hebrew and Greek, and most people don’t have the time or inclination to put in the effort required, but this is not a requirement of Christian discipleship. Modern versions by committee have gone to enormous lengths to try to ensure that doctrinal or denominational bias do not creep into a translation, and can usually be relied upon, supplemented by commentaries written by those with genuine expertise in the relevant languages.

I am going to say one more thing on this subject and then get on with the day.

About literal vs non-literal in scripture. This has so many ramifications. Yesterday, just before I embarrassed myself in church by standing when we were supposed to kneel (oops) I had listened to a homily about the sacrament of reconciliation, it being mercy sunday and all. And after a bit we recited the nicene creed which includes the statement about ‘baptism for the remission of sins.’ And not much later we received holy communion believing it to be a sacrament. The whole idea of sacraments includes the idea of the literalness of certain biblical statements. This is not how the christian tradition into which I was born understands these things. The whole literal vs symbolic is a big dividing issue in christianity. This is not limited to the issue of origins at all.

At this point I have remembered what one young seminary grad told us one morning in formation (sunday school) a few weeks back. He was teaching on the biblical book of revelation and noting that some things were too obscure to grasp in any sense right now since they are symbolic, but here are the most popular theories, etc. And then having talked about symbolism in revelation he talked about what to take literally in general (not limited to revelation) and what not to. And he said that for himself since he was going to stand before Christ at some point and have to explain himself about his behavior/conclusions about something in scripture he chooses the literal when possible. He plans to say “Look, I don’t know, but it was in scripture and I did not think it was metaphorical.” He said he thought that was a better approach (child like simplicity) than the opposite–“I did not believe this or do that or teach the other because I thought it was metaphorical.” In other words, when we are wrong/mistaken which is the better way to be mistaken.

I think this is a decision we all have to make, and probably we make it for complicated reasons we ourselves do not understand. And yes, explaining ourselves time will come. I do not think that God is just waiting to stomp any of us whatever we decide, but I do think that for me I come down on the side of a more literal approach to a number of things. Literal does not mean complete information or understanding-just a higher level of possibly even credulity. This does not preclude consideration of cultural context or literary genre or linguistic nuances or historical evidence, and it certainly does not preclude the evidence of the findings of scientific research of course, but it does make room for a god who is not himself limited by those things in his dealings with mankind.

Have a good day. I am off for one more appointment with some medical computer where I will tell it that my insurance carrier will no longer pay for my present meds and the following changes will have to be made. Hey, if we have insurance companies and medical records computers what else do we need? Perhaps a robot in a white coat? Don’t laugh, such a proposal has been made re the possible use of robots with AI in the future.

Ken wrote:

K.D. wrote:
most speak English, our trouble might be with our little trip into Austria
I don’t think you will have trouble communicating anywhere in Germany or Austria using English. It’s a myth that everyone speaks it, but it is universally taught often to a high standard in schools. Those without English will tend to be older, and off the beaten track.
In fact you might find English easier than the very odd dialects that are spoken in the southern German-speaking area. Even some Germans hardly understand a word!

Dieter said we would have trouble with German in Bavaria. He said he has a hard time understand down there, and he grew up in Hamburg.

Muff Potter wrote:

For example, you don’t want to ask somebody ‘what’ their name is but rather how are you called?. In another instance, you don’t tell someone that you’re hungry, but to convey the state you’d say I have hunger.

I am encountering something similar in a writing project — a hard-edged space-opera whose future English shows heavy Chinese influence. Basically I’m attempting to coin something similar to Joss Whedon’s “Verse-speak” except you can’t just drop in Chinese words and phrases when you’re writing text stories. (The current Romanization of Chinese — pinyin — is NOT intuitive for an English-speaker and you DON’T want to interrupt a narrative flow with pronunciation-guide footnotes.) Instead, I’m researching Mandarin slang and using Mandarin idioms translated into English instead of current American English idioms. The effect is similar to the two German idioms cited above.

oldJohnJ wrote:

I see that He has created the universe, created our species alone in His image as moral creatures with free will and interacted with us in many ways.

“Our species alone in His image”?

Actually, that should be “Of the species we know of…”

Eric S wrote:

To oversimplify what I mean: I could say “car” in English. My word could mean automobile, toy car, train car– but it probably wouldn’t mean all of those things.

Or (100 years ago) a poetic word for “chariot”.

@ Ken:

I agree with you, but when I was talking about literal I was talking about literal vs figurative speech, not about specific words in translation. But speaking of how things are said (words and sentence structure) let me say this about what may happen to meaning in the process.

When I retired from clinical practice and worked for the comp and pension division of VA my primary job was explaining what was being said in some medical records when it got just too complicated. In other words ‘translating’ of sorts from the english/medicalese ‘language’ of western medicine in the US into understandable speech at various levels of understanding. This required fluency in the trade vocabulary and style of speech/writing, but also a knowledge of the ‘culture’ of health care and knowledge of what is usually said in such and the other circumstance and how and does it make a difference that no mention was made of…or no notation of …

Now, there are various ways to say the same thing/ communicate the same meaning. Some ways are appropriate for the records, some ways more effective for the employees to get a better grasp of it, some ways better for the veteran to understand, and some ways better for trying to explain it to the lawyers on the board of veterans’ appeals (good luck with the latter.) But the meaning stayed the same. It is understandable but it is not simple.

In english/medicalese the record might say Colles’ fracture or it might say fracture of the distal radius with dorsal displacement and dorsal angulation and radial tilt with no involvement of the ulna. But the word Colles’ for a fracture is popular and is not as specific in all aspects as it used to be (is the ulna involved?), so if you want to be tremendously specific, say on a radiology report you might not say Colles but rather use a lot more words while the orthopedist might use Colles in his notes since more specific information would already be in the records. Or not. This is the ‘culture’ of medicine impacting the use of words. But they would all be talking about the same fracture. But the veteran is not going to understand that in all probability. So you might say in a report to the veteran a broken bone in the lower end of the forearm with the fracture somewhat out of place. It is all the same thing to the extent that it contains the information necessary for the situation (translation/paraphrase) but it is not identical.

What I want from bible translations is the meaning as accurately as possible in ways I can understand including translator’s notes if necessary. That is not to say identical but rather accurate. I am not yellow with envy.

Personally I think that unless people are fluent in english/medicalese they are better to leave it alone. And I think that unless somebody really is a greek or hebrew scholar they better be extremely careful in forming opinions.

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

“Our species alone in His image”?
Actually, that should be “Of the species we know of…”

I don’t apologize for assuming “what we presently know about the universe”. We are almost certainly alone in our solar system. The rest of the universe is unknown in this regard. The Fermi Paradox suggests we may be alone even if there are other pockets of intelligent life out there. I most likely will not see a definitive answer to this question.

Ken wrote:

. But without actually learning the language, this kind of limited knowledge can be very dangerous in the sense of possible false insights into the original text.

I can’t see how that’s possible, Ken. After all, Vine’s isn’t the only resource available. We have a myriad of resources comprised of scholars who are advanced in the knowledge of OT history, AME history and culture as well as Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic languages.

Consulting commentaries, dictionaries, and various versions of the Bible can only be considered exemplary in Berean-type studies rather than dangerous. Perhaps I misunderstood your comment?

@ Muff Potter:
What about those left to die at the VA administrator decision to save money? Gov run health care?

@ Ken:

People listen to lectures, take courses including at the seminary level, consult commentaries, ploy through catechisms, compare bible translations and sometimes paraphrases, make lists of possible meanings of words, take a stab at reading about the culture of the day, all good things, but they still can and do arrive at different conclusions. It is easy enough to pick your final conclusion depending on which ‘expert’ you decide to believe on some subject. And whole battles can be fought as to which of several meanings of the same word is the real meaning of that word. That is why I think there are some pot holes in the process.

Nancy wrote:

Now we have people saying, if I understand, that if we just understand how language was used in that particular passage of scripture, not forgetting the cultural context of course, then that is not what the bible said at all. I may try to wrap my mind around that idea but I just don’t see it.
Any and all that you can say on this issue will be appreciated.

Thanks for your post! I have a little different background – both a liberal arts degree with lots of language, and a lot of “science”, mostly in the fields of mathematical modeling and physics. I think your perspective is the default Christian perspective. The “inerrancy” crowd generally refers to those who hold to CSBI, which is an epistemological document, rather than a theological one. And they are a very, very small minority in world Christianity. The idea that advice or commands given to first century folks has some kind of absolute binding law upon modern believers is not only ridiculous, it messes with the entire structure of Paul’s NT arguments. If the NT is a new law to keep, then why get rid of the old one?

Now, I am also fluent in Koine and have most of an MDiv under my belt, and I can tell you that the people who see a different meaning in some of these passages have some good points. The problem is that most of the church throughout most of history has held the same meaning as most of our English translation. The Armenian Kerapar, Coptic, and Vulgate all have the same understanding – and they were much closer to the original audience and text. Without getting into more detail, or Crossan’s theory of subversion, I will just say that it seems likely to me that Paul was talking about women submitting. I just can’t see this as an ethical mandate for today, for many of the reasons you mentioned.

Dr. Fundystan, Proctologist wrote:

I think your perspective is the default Christian perspective.

That is comforting. Usually I am the wart on the nose of some idea.

@ lydia:

FERS health insurance is not a single thing but is a system of choice between companies and between levels of benefits. Some more comprehensive than others.

Muff Potter wrote:

The only point I attempted to make is that the other side of the aisle is not without its own array of inquisitors who would be more than happy to make an example of him or her.

In spite of my weak attempt at humor I think we are in agreement. Dr. Prof will have a short career in academia unless (s)he has some strong evidence to back up her/his anti-evolution claims. Given the way biology has developed in the last few decades this appears very unlikely.

@ K.D.:
There are lots of different German dialects. You should take a gander at what/how they speak in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. I have native-born German friends who cannot understand a word of it, and that’s saying a lot. (Because they know more than one dialect anyway.)

__

dee wrote:

I would like to see Mary mentioned a bit more in Protestant churches. After all, she bore Him under difficult circumstances and faithfully raised him for years. She spent more time with Him than the disciples. Yet-we ignore her. ~ Dee

  __

  Jesus’ Mother Mary, although very significant for physically bringing the Son of God into the world, – is included in the New Testament writings aparrently only when something she does throws light on the person of Jesus. That Jesus provides for His Mother’s well being from the cross is none the less a significant detail.

—

@ oldJohnJ:

Very much agreed oldJohnJ and thanks for your kind reply!

dee wrote:

@ Bridget:
I would like to see Mary mentioned a bit more in Protestant churches. After all, she bore Him under difficult circumstances and faithfully raised him for years. She spent more time with Him than the disciples. Yet-we ignore her.

I completely agree. A lot of people act like being Jesus’ mother was easy….but it was the disciples who fled from the Romans. The women–including Mary–were at the very foot of the Cross.
And it is recorded that Mary STOOD at the foot of the Cross. She didn’t weep & wail & collapse; she stood there, for every agonizing minute. (I need to remind myslef of this whenever I find myslef switching channels to escape pictures of abused animals).

Victorious wrote:

Consulting commentaries, dictionaries, and various versions of the Bible can only be considered exemplary in Berean-type studies rather than dangerous. Perhaps I misunderstood your comment?

I’m in favour of all these things – the effort put in is usually more than rewarded by greater understanding.

The point I am getting at is using the internet to look up the Greek having not learnt the language. I’m not saying this cannot be profitable, but it is dangerous in that it can lead to a false sense of knowing ‘what the original says’ rather than the translation, and forgetting that most bible translators have spent years learning the language to a high level of competence, and therefore are in a better position to know the nuances rather than someone who could harldy be considered a beginner.

Having learnt German, then some Dutch (Dutch is German spoken with a sore throat) and a smattering of Turkish (interesting language but does your brain in) it takes a lot of effort to really get to grips with a different language, and genuine bilingualism is rare. (My middle one qualifies I think, but the eldest and youngest are a tad better at German than English.)

I remember underlining in green in my bible when the Greek tense was an aorist, a completed action in past time, but I am aware that Greek grammar is a bit more complicated than that, and should be wary of making too much out of this construct. When is an aorist inceptive and what’s the difference? A note in the margin when a tense is continuous can be useful, but the only real way to appreciate the meaning of the Greek is to learn it, which I never have.

oldJohnJ wrote:

I think the critical idea is looking at the deeper meanings of these early Genesis accounts, not trivializing them with a forced literal interpretation.

I’m afraid an amber warning light goes on if Genesis is described as a parable, as Jesus told parables to illustrate a point, but they were fiction and not intended to be taken as true events even if they were often taken from everyday life.

I take Genesis to be talking about actual events, history. It is clearly anachronistic to read science into it though. Since it is not a scientific text, science neither proves it nor disproves it.

I’m not sure everyone takes Genesis ‘literally’ – the usual dispute is whether the ‘days’ are literal 24 hour periods as we know today or a longer period of time. As far as I am concerned, I currently think we are dealing with literal events, but cast in symbolic language. The serpent of chapter 3 is an example of this combination. I’m not sure the length of the days is that important, but I do think an absolute insistence that they are literal in a text with a clearly symbolic element in it is to be unnecessarily dogmatic.

Maybe Revelation at the end of the bible illustrates this kind of text. There, symbolism is more the mode of communication, often with allusions to the OT, but nevertheless the events that are to occur will be literal. The beginning of Genesis has a similar combination, though the symbolic nature of the text is much less than in Revelation. But I’m sure you would agree that Revelation is more than just a parable illustrating Christian truth.

oldJohnJ wrote:

I’m still open to a more appropriate term for these accounts.

myths

A former co-worker got upset on the job because one of his kids came home from college saying that the religion professor called them myths.

@ oldJohnJ:
The term “history” is extremely problematic in. re. the stories of the patriarchs. It is not history in the sense that we think of it now – names, dates, concrete facts (this happened on that date, so and so was born in 19xx and died in 19xx). The ideas we have about the term “history” are of pretty recent genesis (sorry, couldn’t resist!)

I mean, Herodotus’ book is “history,” but definitely not in the sense that we use that term. A *lot* of it is hearsay, legend, myth and rumor. It just isn’t a straightforward account of events that happened in X places at X times.

The OT is no different in that respect, although there are many things that are recorded (fall of Jerusalem to Babylon, life in the Persian empire, etc.) that are referring to factual events, as well as to the lived experience of, say, the exiles.

Still, there is nothing in the Bible – in either the OT or NT – that is history *in the modern/contemporary sense.* My mind just kind of boggles now when I read things that I used to believe were literal statements of fact. They are not, and the books in question were *not* written with that purpose in mind. The Bible isn’t the Washington Post or the New York Times, and nobody back then had modern journalism in mind, either.

There is an art to learning to read the *literary genres* in both the OT and NT. I think if that was taught along with some good history of the books and background information, there would be far less arguments over Genesis 1-2 and whatnot. But a lot of folks get scared whenever the word “literature” is mentioned, and that stops things dead.

I am willing to bet that nobody who lived in the ancient world was a “literalist” in the way that many are today – and that the whole attitude would confound them. It’s very ironic.

@ numo:
I have to say this (as someone whose professional training is, partly, in history): like many, many other endeavors, there is a lot of interpretation in history and writing about history. We cannot help superimposing our own POV on the past, even the very recent past.

The names and dates and places might not be elusive, but absent time machines, there is simply no way that we can avoid seeing things through our own personal and cultural lenses, and even if time machines were real, we’d still be grappling with that aspect of things.

Same with the Bible.

@ Nancy:
Well, i have never taught a confirmation class, so… are you familiar with what C.S. Lewis called “ttrue myth”? The idea can be found in Surprised by Joy and, iirc, some of his other work.

Legendary history seems closest, from a literary standpoint. Everyone needs origin stories; what’s in Genesis is a collection of them. I can’t think of other reading for you offhand, but can only say that i believe the book of Genesis is inspired, but not necessarily “literal” in the way many people understand thst word today. It contains many truths, but I’m not sure that it can be read and understood clearly (mmore or less) without some background in literary genres used as well as in the reason these things were recorded. For example, HUG often mentions how ssome scholars (RC, maybe) view the 1st chapter or so of Genesis as a riposte to the Babylonian creation/origin stories contained in the Enumah Elish – things there are both chaotic and violent, but the creation stories in Genesis give a very different picture of things.

I think the earliest monotheists were, jn part, anyway, trying to make sense of their wotld as well as explain why YHWH was the one true God, and worth following

@ numo:
True myths made me think of a favorite quote.

“All stories are lies. But good stories are lies made from light and fire. And they lift our hearts out of the dust, and out of the grave.”

  __

‘Grace N’ Salvation Delivered 33 Years Or Less?

hmmm…

Nancy wrote:

@ Sopwith:
  “You may have missed some things in the NT associated with Mary…”

…there is more to the Mary story in the NT than just…

hmmm…

She believed God and said yes to His plan revealed to her by God’s angel.

Yep!

That has got ta count for something!

Pass da new wine, please…

“…His name will be called Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins…”

And that is the way it was…

believe on Him today…

(you’ll be glad you did!)

ATB

Sopy

—

As to those who think that protestants have gone too far in the opposite direction about Mary, which is what I think, and to those who wonder why protestants don’t say more about Mary–well, listen to this conversation between Sopwith and me and you will perhaps see why. There is some very strong anti-Mary opinion/feeling in protestantism (which I think is not really about Mary so much as it is about the RCC) and it is very unpleasant whenever the subject comes up.

@ Nancy:
Either way, there is no solution for that time of life and its many questions. There is no easy fix – i know that you know this, but just saying.

I don’t know how to help, but wishmi could. Kids at that age want concrete answers – i know that i did. It’s how i ended up being sucked in by discipleship movement groups. Which was not exactly a good thing overall.

I can remember feeling hugely frustrated with the people who taught my confirmation class because they did not have concrete, specific answers to some big questions. But i was too young to know that there are no such “answers” for many things in this life. Which is what set me up to fall when people who claimed to have all the answers came along.

I don’t know if this comment is helpful. Nor do i quite get why this centers on Genesis, apart from the whole creationism thing. But i wish i could help. I also wonder if those kids might not appreciate being trusted to make up their own minds about things?

@ Nancy:
I think you’re right, and it certainly came up on the OD page a few months back. I don’t like it any more than you do.

Following up a prior topic about my insurance company changing my meds. I just went to the pharmacy to pick up the new batch, and the machine at the pharmacy would not take my credit card. So I called the company and somebody in India told me they refused to pay Walgreens because they thought it was fraud. Fraud! They apparently know it when they see it at the credit card company. It’s not fraud but it is highway robbery.

Nancy wrote:

There is some very strong anti-Mary opinion/feeling in protestantism (which I think is not really about Mary so much as it is about the RCC) and it is very unpleasant whenever the subject comes up.

“Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room;
Christian dreadeth Christ who hath a newer face of doom;
Christian hateth Mary whom God kissed in Galilee…”
— G.K.Chesterton, “Lepanto”

Ken wrote:

Joseph was a just and honest man as well, and gets almost no recognition from anyone.

Preach it Ken. I’m glad you brought this out. Years ago I heard a Jesuit say that if men who marry women with children not their own would emulate the heart of St. Joseph, we could have a society with far less hatred and violence.

@ Muff Potter:
thanks for that link! there is so much that we don’t know.

@ Muff Potter:
i love that, and can certainly understand how/why a Catholic was the one to say it, and not a Protestant.

@ Headless Unicorn Guy:
yes. i think the 1st creation account is poetic, and based in an ancient NE understanding of the cosmos – which is where all the waters above and below come into play.

still and all, the article Muff linked to is fascinating, and published in a reputable paper.

Headless Unicorn Guy wrote:

When did “Realistic” come to mean darker than Warhammer 40K?

for many people, post-9/11, although I think it’s interesting that Ron D. Moore’s reboot of BSG was already up and running at that time. Talk about inadvertently prophetic!

@ numo:
From Mike Carey in his follow up series to Neil Gaiman’s Sandman.

Nancy wrote:

There is some very strong anti-Mary opinion/feeling in protestantism (which I think is not really about Mary so much as it is about the RCC) and it is very unpleasant whenever the subject comes up.

Preach it sister! I haven’t heard a fundagelical preacher yet who doesn’t find some way to minimize God’s Mom and then try and back it up with some clobber verse or two or three. And yes, I also agree that it’s primarily driven by contempt for the Roman Catholic Faith.

@ Albuquerque Blue:
I didn’t know that a follow-up had been published – thanks!

oldJohnJ wrote:

Of the early Genesis parables (no, I don’t think there is a more appropriate word) Noah, the flood, ark and rainbow are the least understandable to me as conveying spiritual truths.

There were, of course, other flood stories in antiquity just as there were other creation stories. I rather think the fellow that postulated that these stories were written during captivity to give the Israelites a claimed written history back to pre-Abrahamic days (and to demonstrate that the god of the israelites went back that far) and to show that the god of the Israelites was a different kind of god than the gods of other nations including gods of their captors.

Some takeaway ideas from the biblical story of the flood might be the long suffering of God in giving humanity lots of time to repent, the wrath of God when repentance did not come, the choice of even very fallible people to preserve God’s ultimate purposes for the earth and humanity, God’s concern for the entire creation (the animals), and with the after flood story of Noah’s boys and that little episode the continuance of evil in the world and the fact that God did not overlook it including after the flood.

Dee,
Thanks again for running this. I feel there has been a lot of good comments made. One thing I didn’t see was push back by the literalist crowd. Perhaps they are only concerned with the age of the earth.

Christy wrote:

The idea that we should be able to read Genesis and get what it is talking about based on the “plain meaning” of a translated text is pure silliness in light of everything we know about linguistics and cognitive psychology.

and science which is simply a consistent evidence based description of the world God created.

Thanks for adding a helpful comment.

Christy wrote:

The idea that we should be able to read Genesis and get what it is talking about based on the “plain meaning” of a translated text is pure silliness in light of everything we know about linguistics and cognitive psychology.

And when “plain meanings of SCRIPTURE” have included “put on the new man” as “divorce your husband and marry this new hunk” and the demon-locust plague of Revelation as helicopter gunships armed with chemical weapons and piloted by long-haired bearded hippies, you can only conclude that “plain meaning” does not mean what it means on the outside.

An old joke that seems relevant to this post:
“An ancient Greek walks into his tailor’s shop with a torn toga.
‘Euripedis?’ asks the tailor.
‘Yeah, Eumenides?’ replies the man.”